WPF and alternatives
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When Microsoft first announced Avalon (now WPF) I thought they are replacing the raster based GDI with a vector based windowing system, like Apple did with Quartz and Mac OS X. Paired with the idea to create the UI from markup WPF sounded very promising. But everything I've seen so far hasn't impressed me at all. I've installed the CTPs and Orcas for VS2005 and the initial experience was pretty poor, the designer frequently created invalid markup, no new controls, VS2005 requires another 100 MB of RAM and a simple WPF app also a plenty of memory. I've then tested Microsoft Max[^], and it was unuseable. I've never seen an application that is such unresponsive, I couldn't even scroll the textbox on the main window in real time. Otherwise I have only seen sluggish space games or stupid examples like the KevinButton[^]. Do you expect the RTM of WPF to perform way better than the CTPs? Does it perform better on the proper hardware? I know that a GeForce FX 5200 isn't a high end graphic card, but most office computers have low end graphic cards. Do you intend to integrate WPF into your app in the foreseeable future? For which purpose, UI elements, vector graphics, 3D? I thought about writing a gauge control with WPF, but dropped that idea because I need at least 10 frames per second, better 40. In the Healthcare demo it seemed like real time controls (chart) are possible, but then again it was just a demo. I've also looked at some alternatives to WPF. - Cairo[^]which is now used by Firefox to render SVG and in 3.0 the whole document is pretty slow on Windows. Also with all the dependencies, no VS projects and all kind of different licenses it's a PITA. - Anti Grain[^] is pretty fast and the sources can be easily added to the C++ project, but no SVG support, no code comments, no documentation and was dropped by Mozilla in favor or Cairo. - If you maximize the Amanith[^]
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When Microsoft first announced Avalon (now WPF) I thought they are replacing the raster based GDI with a vector based windowing system, like Apple did with Quartz and Mac OS X. Paired with the idea to create the UI from markup WPF sounded very promising. But everything I've seen so far hasn't impressed me at all. I've installed the CTPs and Orcas for VS2005 and the initial experience was pretty poor, the designer frequently created invalid markup, no new controls, VS2005 requires another 100 MB of RAM and a simple WPF app also a plenty of memory. I've then tested Microsoft Max[^], and it was unuseable. I've never seen an application that is such unresponsive, I couldn't even scroll the textbox on the main window in real time. Otherwise I have only seen sluggish space games or stupid examples like the KevinButton[^]. Do you expect the RTM of WPF to perform way better than the CTPs? Does it perform better on the proper hardware? I know that a GeForce FX 5200 isn't a high end graphic card, but most office computers have low end graphic cards. Do you intend to integrate WPF into your app in the foreseeable future? For which purpose, UI elements, vector graphics, 3D? I thought about writing a gauge control with WPF, but dropped that idea because I need at least 10 frames per second, better 40. In the Healthcare demo it seemed like real time controls (chart) are possible, but then again it was just a demo. I've also looked at some alternatives to WPF. - Cairo[^]which is now used by Firefox to render SVG and in 3.0 the whole document is pretty slow on Windows. Also with all the dependencies, no VS projects and all kind of different licenses it's a PITA. - Anti Grain[^] is pretty fast and the sources can be easily added to the C++ project, but no SVG support, no code comments, no documentation and was dropped by Mozilla in favor or Cairo. - If you maximize the Amanith[^]
ABuenger wrote:
Anti Grain[^] is pretty fast and the sources can be easily added to the C++ project, but no SVG support, no code comments, no documentation
There is documentation, but it's a bit sparse, I agree. It does support SVG though - there are a few samples that in the distribution that show how to render SVG.
Ryan
"Punctuality is only a virtue for those who aren't smart enough to think of good excuses for being late" John Nichol "Point Of Impact"
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When Microsoft first announced Avalon (now WPF) I thought they are replacing the raster based GDI with a vector based windowing system, like Apple did with Quartz and Mac OS X. Paired with the idea to create the UI from markup WPF sounded very promising. But everything I've seen so far hasn't impressed me at all. I've installed the CTPs and Orcas for VS2005 and the initial experience was pretty poor, the designer frequently created invalid markup, no new controls, VS2005 requires another 100 MB of RAM and a simple WPF app also a plenty of memory. I've then tested Microsoft Max[^], and it was unuseable. I've never seen an application that is such unresponsive, I couldn't even scroll the textbox on the main window in real time. Otherwise I have only seen sluggish space games or stupid examples like the KevinButton[^]. Do you expect the RTM of WPF to perform way better than the CTPs? Does it perform better on the proper hardware? I know that a GeForce FX 5200 isn't a high end graphic card, but most office computers have low end graphic cards. Do you intend to integrate WPF into your app in the foreseeable future? For which purpose, UI elements, vector graphics, 3D? I thought about writing a gauge control with WPF, but dropped that idea because I need at least 10 frames per second, better 40. In the Healthcare demo it seemed like real time controls (chart) are possible, but then again it was just a demo. I've also looked at some alternatives to WPF. - Cairo[^]which is now used by Firefox to render SVG and in 3.0 the whole document is pretty slow on Windows. Also with all the dependencies, no VS projects and all kind of different licenses it's a PITA. - Anti Grain[^] is pretty fast and the sources can be easily added to the C++ project, but no SVG support, no code comments, no documentation and was dropped by Mozilla in favor or Cairo. - If you maximize the Amanith[^]
Dude, you need to check out the VCF. The VCF saves time, save lives, indeed, the very fabric of the space-time continuum is assuaged by making use of this utterly fantastic framework, the likes of which may never be seen again in our lifetime. Think of development efforts sped up by a factor of 1000, faster performance, with gains of over 200 fold often seen, better technology, smoother handling, and a bevy of new features that Queen Cleopatra herself is said to have exclaimed, "Holy Shit Marc Antony, check this out, yo!" Yes the VCF is really what you want. Why even Microsoft itself is rumored to be considering using it exclusively for all internal development. In fact, the VCF is so good, even if it's not what you want, or you foolishly think that you don't want to use it, it's still the framework for you. Why you ask? Because it just is.
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF!
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Dude, you need to check out the VCF. The VCF saves time, save lives, indeed, the very fabric of the space-time continuum is assuaged by making use of this utterly fantastic framework, the likes of which may never be seen again in our lifetime. Think of development efforts sped up by a factor of 1000, faster performance, with gains of over 200 fold often seen, better technology, smoother handling, and a bevy of new features that Queen Cleopatra herself is said to have exclaimed, "Holy Shit Marc Antony, check this out, yo!" Yes the VCF is really what you want. Why even Microsoft itself is rumored to be considering using it exclusively for all internal development. In fact, the VCF is so good, even if it's not what you want, or you foolishly think that you don't want to use it, it's still the framework for you. Why you ask? Because it just is.
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF!
Yeah, I heard even Chuck Norris uses the VCF. :rolleyes:
Jeremy Falcon A multithreaded, OpenGL-enabled application.[^]
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ABuenger wrote:
Anti Grain[^] is pretty fast and the sources can be easily added to the C++ project, but no SVG support, no code comments, no documentation
There is documentation, but it's a bit sparse, I agree. It does support SVG though - there are a few samples that in the distribution that show how to render SVG.
Ryan
"Punctuality is only a virtue for those who aren't smart enough to think of good excuses for being late" John Nichol "Point Of Impact"
Ryan Binns wrote:
It does support SVG though - there are a few samples that in the distribution that show how to render SVG.
"The viewer supports absolute minimum of the SVG specification", and fails to load most SVG files. I would like to use Inkscape or another app to create the SVG, but Inkscape is based on Cairo which has the mentioned drawbacks. Firefox has used AGG (Anti Grain) to render SVG files, so there must be a complete SVG implementation somewhere in the Mozilla repository. They also mention a GDI+ SVG implementation and problems with Cairo on Win9x on the Mozilla SVG page[^].
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Yeah, I heard even Chuck Norris uses the VCF. :rolleyes:
Jeremy Falcon A multithreaded, OpenGL-enabled application.[^]
He *only* uses the VCF - exclusive sponsor. Just remember: "The VCF and Chuck Norris: Kicking Ass Together with C++"
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF!
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When Microsoft first announced Avalon (now WPF) I thought they are replacing the raster based GDI with a vector based windowing system, like Apple did with Quartz and Mac OS X. Paired with the idea to create the UI from markup WPF sounded very promising. But everything I've seen so far hasn't impressed me at all. I've installed the CTPs and Orcas for VS2005 and the initial experience was pretty poor, the designer frequently created invalid markup, no new controls, VS2005 requires another 100 MB of RAM and a simple WPF app also a plenty of memory. I've then tested Microsoft Max[^], and it was unuseable. I've never seen an application that is such unresponsive, I couldn't even scroll the textbox on the main window in real time. Otherwise I have only seen sluggish space games or stupid examples like the KevinButton[^]. Do you expect the RTM of WPF to perform way better than the CTPs? Does it perform better on the proper hardware? I know that a GeForce FX 5200 isn't a high end graphic card, but most office computers have low end graphic cards. Do you intend to integrate WPF into your app in the foreseeable future? For which purpose, UI elements, vector graphics, 3D? I thought about writing a gauge control with WPF, but dropped that idea because I need at least 10 frames per second, better 40. In the Healthcare demo it seemed like real time controls (chart) are possible, but then again it was just a demo. I've also looked at some alternatives to WPF. - Cairo[^]which is now used by Firefox to render SVG and in 3.0 the whole document is pretty slow on Windows. Also with all the dependencies, no VS projects and all kind of different licenses it's a PITA. - Anti Grain[^] is pretty fast and the sources can be easily added to the C++ project, but no SVG support, no code comments, no documentation and was dropped by Mozilla in favor or Cairo. - If you maximize the Amanith[^]
When I first looked at WPF's design, and then later when I looked at the code in Reflector, I feared that it would have abysmal perf and especially memory usage, and everything I've seen since then has confirmed that. I use VG.net[^], and plan to stick with it. I highly recommend it as *the* vector graphics system to use on the Windows platform - even now that WPF is here. Whatever flashy features WPF may have, VG.net beats it in the areas that count most - the most important of those being perf and memory usage. It has highly its drawing/animation/compositing system is from all I can tell the most highly optimized that exists for .NET. The object model is written from the ground up with scalability and low memory footprint in mind. Frank has 20 years of experience in the vector graphics world and it shows in VG.net. It can create over 550,000 vector graphics elements per second, and modify over 1,000,000 objects per second on my 1.67 GHZ machine. It can handle visual trees containing hundreds of thousands of elements in memory at once without falling over. Frank has a Gauge control sample[^] (scroll down in that topic) that both looks cool and performs well. He has a number of other cool demos on his site as well - check his blog and articles section. I am currently writing a VG.net-based control framework that will have advanced layout, themeing, data binding, and other functionality. It will have highly-customizeable data controls, object-oriented rich document services, and fast UI development support. I am confident that it will blow WPF's control and document support totally away. But that is in the future. In the mean time, forget WPF - VG.net gives you a powerful and performant vector graphics library with which to write custom vector-based controls.
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When Microsoft first announced Avalon (now WPF) I thought they are replacing the raster based GDI with a vector based windowing system, like Apple did with Quartz and Mac OS X. Paired with the idea to create the UI from markup WPF sounded very promising. But everything I've seen so far hasn't impressed me at all. I've installed the CTPs and Orcas for VS2005 and the initial experience was pretty poor, the designer frequently created invalid markup, no new controls, VS2005 requires another 100 MB of RAM and a simple WPF app also a plenty of memory. I've then tested Microsoft Max[^], and it was unuseable. I've never seen an application that is such unresponsive, I couldn't even scroll the textbox on the main window in real time. Otherwise I have only seen sluggish space games or stupid examples like the KevinButton[^]. Do you expect the RTM of WPF to perform way better than the CTPs? Does it perform better on the proper hardware? I know that a GeForce FX 5200 isn't a high end graphic card, but most office computers have low end graphic cards. Do you intend to integrate WPF into your app in the foreseeable future? For which purpose, UI elements, vector graphics, 3D? I thought about writing a gauge control with WPF, but dropped that idea because I need at least 10 frames per second, better 40. In the Healthcare demo it seemed like real time controls (chart) are possible, but then again it was just a demo. I've also looked at some alternatives to WPF. - Cairo[^]which is now used by Firefox to render SVG and in 3.0 the whole document is pretty slow on Windows. Also with all the dependencies, no VS projects and all kind of different licenses it's a PITA. - Anti Grain[^] is pretty fast and the sources can be easily added to the C++ project, but no SVG support, no code comments, no documentation and was dropped by Mozilla in favor or Cairo. - If you maximize the Amanith[^]
ABuenger wrote:
Anti Grain is pretty fast and the sources can be easily added to the C++ project, but no SVG support, no code comments, no documentation and was dropped by Mozilla in favor or Cairo.
It has supports for SVG. We all expected the leader to use Doxygen, but he came out with his documentation style which makes the library difficult to use for the simplest work. Best regards, Paul.
Jesus Christ is LOVE! Please tell somebody.
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When Microsoft first announced Avalon (now WPF) I thought they are replacing the raster based GDI with a vector based windowing system, like Apple did with Quartz and Mac OS X. Paired with the idea to create the UI from markup WPF sounded very promising. But everything I've seen so far hasn't impressed me at all. I've installed the CTPs and Orcas for VS2005 and the initial experience was pretty poor, the designer frequently created invalid markup, no new controls, VS2005 requires another 100 MB of RAM and a simple WPF app also a plenty of memory. I've then tested Microsoft Max[^], and it was unuseable. I've never seen an application that is such unresponsive, I couldn't even scroll the textbox on the main window in real time. Otherwise I have only seen sluggish space games or stupid examples like the KevinButton[^]. Do you expect the RTM of WPF to perform way better than the CTPs? Does it perform better on the proper hardware? I know that a GeForce FX 5200 isn't a high end graphic card, but most office computers have low end graphic cards. Do you intend to integrate WPF into your app in the foreseeable future? For which purpose, UI elements, vector graphics, 3D? I thought about writing a gauge control with WPF, but dropped that idea because I need at least 10 frames per second, better 40. In the Healthcare demo it seemed like real time controls (chart) are possible, but then again it was just a demo. I've also looked at some alternatives to WPF. - Cairo[^]which is now used by Firefox to render SVG and in 3.0 the whole document is pretty slow on Windows. Also with all the dependencies, no VS projects and all kind of different licenses it's a PITA. - Anti Grain[^] is pretty fast and the sources can be easily added to the C++ project, but no SVG support, no code comments, no documentation and was dropped by Mozilla in favor or Cairo. - If you maximize the Amanith[^]
Raster is not going to be replaced with Vector drawing anytime soon. First of all it is not rendered to a vector peripheral the monitor is a raster peripheral and always will be. Vector drawing has its problems the biggest of which is that it looks terrible and if you do it incorrectly e.g. make your fonts size too small. Anti-aliasing helps but that is an expensive operation that demands that you draw all your elements in the correct back to front order. In 3D drawing you ALWAYS have to create mipmaps - i.e. level of detail scaled raster maps to properly scale textures on 3D objects and the same scaling problems occur in 2D vector drawing. If there were some kind of migration towards that sort of decision would have to be made by some kind of GPU standardization committee, because a hardware design is most likely be linked to it through the directX standard.
A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.
-H.L. Mencken -
Raster is not going to be replaced with Vector drawing anytime soon. First of all it is not rendered to a vector peripheral the monitor is a raster peripheral and always will be. Vector drawing has its problems the biggest of which is that it looks terrible and if you do it incorrectly e.g. make your fonts size too small. Anti-aliasing helps but that is an expensive operation that demands that you draw all your elements in the correct back to front order. In 3D drawing you ALWAYS have to create mipmaps - i.e. level of detail scaled raster maps to properly scale textures on 3D objects and the same scaling problems occur in 2D vector drawing. If there were some kind of migration towards that sort of decision would have to be made by some kind of GPU standardization committee, because a hardware design is most likely be linked to it through the directX standard.
A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.
-H.L. MenckenJWood wrote:
Vector drawing has its problems the biggest of which is that it looks terrible and if you do it incorrectly e.g. make your fonts size too small. Anti-aliasing helps but that is an expensive operation
Antialiasing not only helps, but if done right, makes vector graphics look very spiffy. But as you say, it is an expensive operation CPU-wise.
JWood wrote:
that demands that you draw all your elements in the correct back to front order.
As does translucency - bitmap-based or raster-based. The best solution is to have a vector-graphics engine that has aggressive optimizations to limit the number of elements that need re-drawing and the parts of those elements that are redrawn, etc, judicious use of buffers for visual elements and composites, and a compact and scalable way of declaring the vector elements. If you can take advantage of specialized GPU support for the expensive parts of the drawing code as well, then that is even better.
JWood wrote:
If there were some kind of migration towards that sort of decision would have to be made by some kind of GPU standardization committee, because a hardware design is most likely be linked to it through the directX standard.
WPF uses a new hardware-based vector graphics system, but Microsoft has shafted us by not making the low-level API available. Instead, they provided us with a bloated and unscalable layer on top of it, that is unusable in a lot of cases.
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When Microsoft first announced Avalon (now WPF) I thought they are replacing the raster based GDI with a vector based windowing system, like Apple did with Quartz and Mac OS X. Paired with the idea to create the UI from markup WPF sounded very promising. But everything I've seen so far hasn't impressed me at all. I've installed the CTPs and Orcas for VS2005 and the initial experience was pretty poor, the designer frequently created invalid markup, no new controls, VS2005 requires another 100 MB of RAM and a simple WPF app also a plenty of memory. I've then tested Microsoft Max[^], and it was unuseable. I've never seen an application that is such unresponsive, I couldn't even scroll the textbox on the main window in real time. Otherwise I have only seen sluggish space games or stupid examples like the KevinButton[^]. Do you expect the RTM of WPF to perform way better than the CTPs? Does it perform better on the proper hardware? I know that a GeForce FX 5200 isn't a high end graphic card, but most office computers have low end graphic cards. Do you intend to integrate WPF into your app in the foreseeable future? For which purpose, UI elements, vector graphics, 3D? I thought about writing a gauge control with WPF, but dropped that idea because I need at least 10 frames per second, better 40. In the Healthcare demo it seemed like real time controls (chart) are possible, but then again it was just a demo. I've also looked at some alternatives to WPF. - Cairo[^]which is now used by Firefox to render SVG and in 3.0 the whole document is pretty slow on Windows. Also with all the dependencies, no VS projects and all kind of different licenses it's a PITA. - Anti Grain[^] is pretty fast and the sources can be easily added to the C++ project, but no SVG support, no code comments, no documentation and was dropped by Mozilla in favor or Cairo. - If you maximize the Amanith[^]
ABuenger wrote:
Do you expect the RTM of WPF to perform way better than the CTPs?
Yeah, I've seen some improvements over the past few CTPs of WPF. Keep in mind, it's release date is still way off in the distance. I think they've been taking the right approach: first make it work right, then make it work fast. According to MS, these days their WPF devs are mostly focusing on upping perf and lowering footprint. The grapevine told me that the RTM bits should be much better, in both of those aspects. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
ABuenger wrote:
Does it perform better on the proper hardware? I know that a GeForce FX 5200 isn't a high end graphic card, but most office computers have low end graphic cards.
Definitely. The hardware you use has a big impact on how well WPF runs. Keep in mind that it's really designed to work on (what we currently consider to be) high end hardware. NVidia 5200 isn't in that category. The office computer hardware issue is a tough one. I don't know how that's going to work out...
ABuenger wrote:
I thought about writing a gauge control with WPF, but dropped that idea because I need at least 10 frames per second, better 40. In the Healthcare demo it seemed like real time controls (chart) are possible, but then again it was just a demo.
I wouldn't be so quick to assume that WPF can't handle it. If you go below the high-level framework stuff in WPF, you have the visual layer. I've read posts from people who are doing some pretty impressive stuff, perf-wise, at that level. The visual layer doesn't include all the fancy-shmancy stuff that'll slow you down; like databinding, styles, animations, etc.
ABuenger wrote:
Or just use WPF because it will replace all other vector graphic libraries anyway?
Since WPF is a fundamental part of Vista, I see it as being "here to stay." Of course, I could be wrong, but there would have to be something seriously wrong with WPF for MS to replace it. I've been investing a lot of my time/energy into learning WPF because I think it will be around for a long time. Hopefully I'm not wasting my time learning a dud... :-D
:josh: My WPF Blog[
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When Microsoft first announced Avalon (now WPF) I thought they are replacing the raster based GDI with a vector based windowing system, like Apple did with Quartz and Mac OS X. Paired with the idea to create the UI from markup WPF sounded very promising. But everything I've seen so far hasn't impressed me at all. I've installed the CTPs and Orcas for VS2005 and the initial experience was pretty poor, the designer frequently created invalid markup, no new controls, VS2005 requires another 100 MB of RAM and a simple WPF app also a plenty of memory. I've then tested Microsoft Max[^], and it was unuseable. I've never seen an application that is such unresponsive, I couldn't even scroll the textbox on the main window in real time. Otherwise I have only seen sluggish space games or stupid examples like the KevinButton[^]. Do you expect the RTM of WPF to perform way better than the CTPs? Does it perform better on the proper hardware? I know that a GeForce FX 5200 isn't a high end graphic card, but most office computers have low end graphic cards. Do you intend to integrate WPF into your app in the foreseeable future? For which purpose, UI elements, vector graphics, 3D? I thought about writing a gauge control with WPF, but dropped that idea because I need at least 10 frames per second, better 40. In the Healthcare demo it seemed like real time controls (chart) are possible, but then again it was just a demo. I've also looked at some alternatives to WPF. - Cairo[^]which is now used by Firefox to render SVG and in 3.0 the whole document is pretty slow on Windows. Also with all the dependencies, no VS projects and all kind of different licenses it's a PITA. - Anti Grain[^] is pretty fast and the sources can be easily added to the C++ project, but no SVG support, no code comments, no documentation and was dropped by Mozilla in favor or Cairo. - If you maximize the Amanith[^]
WPF is a library for client code. You should then not forget that deployment is part of client code. If you can write a great WPF app, but can't deploy it, why even bother? Well, you can still make the application available for free, and delegate deployment problems to non-paying customers, but not everybody wants to work for free or just a passion. It is virtually impossible to deploy a .NET application reliably on the client. I would not even try to install not just .NET, but what's needed for WTF to work there. Besides this, the WPF runtime won't install on pre-XP SP2 operating systems, and it's Windows-only. Which outrageously limits your potential customer base. Because WPF will be installed by default on Windows Vista, this makes Vista the preferred environment for WPF development. Unfortunately, this thing has not shipped yet, and it will be long before you can assume hundreds of millions users are working with it. I'd instead open up choices by wrapping a drawing layer that can target Flash, WPF, VG.NET, and any other alternatives. I don't know if that wrapper already exists, but that's definitely a thing to look for.
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When Microsoft first announced Avalon (now WPF) I thought they are replacing the raster based GDI with a vector based windowing system, like Apple did with Quartz and Mac OS X. Paired with the idea to create the UI from markup WPF sounded very promising. But everything I've seen so far hasn't impressed me at all. I've installed the CTPs and Orcas for VS2005 and the initial experience was pretty poor, the designer frequently created invalid markup, no new controls, VS2005 requires another 100 MB of RAM and a simple WPF app also a plenty of memory. I've then tested Microsoft Max[^], and it was unuseable. I've never seen an application that is such unresponsive, I couldn't even scroll the textbox on the main window in real time. Otherwise I have only seen sluggish space games or stupid examples like the KevinButton[^]. Do you expect the RTM of WPF to perform way better than the CTPs? Does it perform better on the proper hardware? I know that a GeForce FX 5200 isn't a high end graphic card, but most office computers have low end graphic cards. Do you intend to integrate WPF into your app in the foreseeable future? For which purpose, UI elements, vector graphics, 3D? I thought about writing a gauge control with WPF, but dropped that idea because I need at least 10 frames per second, better 40. In the Healthcare demo it seemed like real time controls (chart) are possible, but then again it was just a demo. I've also looked at some alternatives to WPF. - Cairo[^]which is now used by Firefox to render SVG and in 3.0 the whole document is pretty slow on Windows. Also with all the dependencies, no VS projects and all kind of different licenses it's a PITA. - Anti Grain[^] is pretty fast and the sources can be easily added to the C++ project, but no SVG support, no code comments, no documentation and was dropped by Mozilla in favor or Cairo. - If you maximize the Amanith[^]
" - If you maximize the Amanith[^] clock demo the clock gets out of sync and you can move your mouse cursor every 3 seconds. " The AmanithVG clock examples is a sort of stress-test and not a good real application; it redraw every frame (note the milliseconds cursor) all paths filled with radial and linear gradients. Anyway the same example linked against sw commercial OpenVG implementations (eg: Rasteroid) performs only 1/10 of fps. In a real vector graphics clock application you just need to draw a frame every second; besides you can render the clock-background on an vgImage (once that the window is resized) and use a really fast vgDrawImage() at runtime ...and then render the cursors on top. Another good point for AmanithVG is that it's a full OpenVG API implementation, OpenVG is the industrial standard for the 2D vector graphic (it's the OpenGL of the 2D). To learn more: www.khronos.org/openvg/ The advantage to use a such API is that you can easy port your application on the next generation mobiles and handhelds (and other OpenVG native) devices. AmanithVG is the first OpenVG implementation that uses OpenGL (or OpenGL|ES) HW acceleration. Michele F. - AmanithVG Team