Win 7, Snow Leopard could give graphics chip a spark

From InfoWorld: Graphics chip shipments fell during the first quarter this year, but could stabilize later this year as people look to upgrade PCs with new operating systems, a research firm said in a study released on Tuesday.

Operating systems like Apple's Snow Leopard and Microsoft's Windows 7, which may be released later this quarter, could enhance the multimedia experience for users and provide a compelling reason to buy new PCs, said Jon Peddie, president of Jon Peddie Research, in a research report released on Tuesday.

Both operating systems have specific features that use graphics processing units (GPUs) to boost the performance of multimedia applications, Peddie said. The operating systems will have features to unload specific multimedia tasks -- like video editing -- directly to graphics chips, while keeping CPUs free to execute generic computing tasks like word processing.

These features are already available in existing operating systems like Microsoft's Vista and Apple's Mac OS X, but aren't completely integrated in the OS, Peddie said. The offloading capabilities will be more robust in Windows 7 and Snow Leopard, he said.

Graphics chip makers like Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices, which sells graphics chips under the ATI brand, are already delivering Windows 7 drivers to accelerate multimedia applications on the OS.

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