Dev-Picayune

I am about to install Longhorn Beta 1 on my laptop from work (that I am buying). Then, just out of curiousity, I thought to check around about compatibility and such. The laptop has the slow but reliable GeForce4 MX440 in it for video. But if you read the Microsoft requirements for seeing the new Aero Glass effects then you’ll realize that you have to have a graphics card that supports DirectX9 through hardware. This implies that you must have a GeForce 5xxx or newer card or an ATI 9xxx series card or later. This is a real shame since the GeForce 4 series (especially the Ti based chipset cards) were so good. So it looks like I won’t be getting to see the extra special cool Aero Glass stuff. That really stinks considering how long Apple’s Quartz stuff has been around now. One thing is for sure, computer manufacturers and video card makers should be happy. The release of Longhorn’s (Vista) final version should spur folks on to video card upgrades (if not whole machines).