What’s New in Graphics for 4.0 Beta 1

.NET 4.0 Beta 1 was released a few weeks ago and there’s a lot to it that you can read about elsewhere so I thought I would just stick to what’s changed for WPF graphics. These are the biggest things of note:

• RenderOptions.ClearTypeHint: If WPF renders text into a potentially transparent surface (e.g. a layered window like a menu or popup) we use grayscale anti-aliasing instead of ClearType because if the transparent surface is blended with another transparent surface, the ClearType will get messed up. Now with ClearTypeHint you can tell us to use ClearType and we’ll trust you that things aren’t transparent.
• The BitmapEffect classes are now no-ops. They are still there so your apps will compile but don’t expect them to do anything.
• The default RenderOptions.BitmapScalingMode (Unspecified) is now Linear instead of Fant. If you still want Fant, you can re-enable it.
• Pixel Shader 2.0 is now required for hardware acceleration. Yes, if your card was Tier 1 but did not have PS 2.0 it is now Tier 0.
• The memory leak that was easy to hit with software 3D has been fixed. I already mentioned this.
• A common VisualBrush.Visual disconnect crash has been fixed. It’s in the same KB article as the memory leak.

That’s not much but that’s because we’ve been saving things for Beta 2. Stay tuned!

-- Jordan

Comments

• Anonymous
  June 24, 2009
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  June 24, 2009
  What about adding WARP10 software based pixel shaders?  Then you could have pixel shaders run in partial trust xbaps.

• Anonymous
  June 25, 2009
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  June 25, 2009
  We don't use WARP because we're still D3D9 based and WARP/D3D10 does not support XP, of course.

• Anonymous
  June 25, 2009
  So, you have disabled a feature without actually providing a replacement that people can use. Saying "make your own" is a cop-out and presumably any custom shader won't work in an xbap. You've dropped the ball.

• Anonymous
  June 28, 2009
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  June 29, 2009
  It doesn't run on XP because WARP10 is a D3D10 driver implementation thus you need the D3D10 runtime to use it. Now one could implement a good chunk on D3D9 on top of it, but that's a lot of work and WARP probably uses some Vista+ APIs internally.

• Anonymous
  June 29, 2009
  Correct, if you need XBAP support shaders won't work. I was trying to explain your options rather than copping out :) Removing BitmapEffects wasn't something we did lightly. We investigated to make sure it wouldn't impact many customers but that doesn't mean that no one is affected, of course. In the end, we had to do what was best for the product.

• Anonymous
  June 30, 2009
  And you could have minimized the impact by having some intern write an OuterGlowEffect so that vendors can make the switch. It's the control vendors you should worry about; they use your platform to create another platform on which applications are created. Though they don't tend to publish applications themselves, their work is published in thousands.

• Anonymous
  August 06, 2009
  The upcoming pixel shader 3.0 support needs to run in partial trust xbaps.  Otherwise, I'm afraid I will be forced the use O3D instead for my upcoming "killer app" :)