Useful 3rd party tools to complement TC

[majkinetor !]

You are wrong Squire
2 GHz computer and some NVidia GPU (at price level about 50E). This is not so intensive comparing to modern games.
Switching from software GUI to hardware GUI will also release CPU resources and give job to the GPU which, while you are working in the shell today, stay unused (wich is shame, if you take into account that moderen GPUs are mini computers themselves)

So, entire configuration recommended for this system is obsolete even in poor countires.

The best of all system can be installed, and it works, as I already heard that some guys here are driving its Suse machines with this shell. This shell is perfectly practical if anybody care for my opinion. I always hated Virtual Desktops becasue you don't have good preview of inactive desktops, but here, you can watch 3 at the same time...

2 X

XGL might stand for, X - X Windows, GL - OpenGl..... but maybe Iam wrong.

[SanskritFritz]

The whole thing is already working on the PowerMac. I've seen it alive, amazing. All windows are actually bitmaps stretched onto a cube surface in OpenGL. Takes quite some memory tho...

[SQUIRE]

Switching from software GUI to hardware GUI will also release CPU resources and give job to the GPU

I'm still a bit puzzled here, majki. Please explain further how it works. Are you saying that the XGL code is somehow embedded in the graphics sub-system so that the GPU executes it like firmware? Wouldn't you need a special graphics card that supports XGL then, i.e. existing cards wouldn't work?

2 XPEHOPE3KA:
I think XGL = eXtended Graphics Language

[majkinetor !]

There is a live CD with XGL, anybody wants to try ? )

Kororaa XGL LiveCD
http://kororaa.org/static.php?page=static060318-181203#download

* Minimum recommended configuration is system with 384MB RAM, Pentium3 with nVidia Geforce video card.


I am downloading.. I can't wait.. .I am so excited... cmooon

[majkinetor !]

2 Squire
I understood that it usees hardware accelerated Open Gl.

That is something microsoft talk about Vista and DirectX, that whole GUI stuff is redesigned to take video card into account, since today all GUI is in software, so, no matter how strong GPU you have on your system you don't have any real benefits while in desktop only in games or specialized apps like WindowsFX.

XGL is built on top OpenGL so the better GPU with OpenGL the better perfomance... just the same as most of the hi-end games.

Take Psyhonauts for example. This is state of the art game, one of the best I know, where you have things like moving on rotating cube with everything something on its planes (like XGL shell) and it works excellent on even lower systems.. On this screenshot you can run in all directions on the brain, and brain rotates. Later in the game you have battle trainning with cube that is almost exactly the same as XGL just more fancy and with more stuff going on there. I recall that game runs smoothly on 2 GHZ with NVidia 5200 GPU (currently you can buy one for about 20E)

So, GPU is optimised for OpenGL, XGL is built via OpenGL functions, so you can dump all kind of math related to drawing and 3D to GPU and leave processor alone. To see difference between software and hardware accelerated graphics use PCMark xxxx and turn software acceleration on, then switch to hardware acceleartion - what was once few frames per second, now becomes more then 100... because GPU is taking the thing into its hands and it is designed so to be very fast with common drawing routines and those related to games/real world models (alpha blending, antialiasing, motion bloor, particle fields, pixel shading, etc...)

[SQUIRE]

OK, I think I get the picture: XGL is just an enhanced OGL API and there's no change to the CPU and GPU instruction sets, correct? I guess the enhancements allow GUI designers to off-load more complex rendering to the graphics sub-system which they could have done before, but not easily? (You can tell I'm no graphics guru)!

Well, I can meet 2 of the 3 minimum requirements to try the demo but sadly not the video card as I use an embedded mobo chip. Can't buy a new Nvidia because I spent my last 20 Euros on lipstick and eye-shadow to improve my personal GUI. I'll just have to save up or get a loan from the man who owns half a Swiss canton.

[Lev]

Fidolook - Outlook Express enhancer http://www.fidolook.org/

[majkinetor !]

I guess the enhancements allow GUI designers to off-load more complex rendering to the graphics sub-system which they could have done before, but not easily?

Of course... you have seeen on the video that guy is running and programming 3d models from console, and do most of the later things in console. I bet those objects rotating there and doing things can act like a shortcuts or anything you like in a "normal" system. But the most important part is that it gives the new look to your current applications. Some of the things XGL does with the windows can be achieved by Stardock's WindowFX (it can also be screepted) but that is just a make up... not a shell.

[SanskritFritz]

Files Compare Tool
Excellent compare tool, I hope it will merge the features of WinMerge and Beyond Compare. Still testing it, but impressed. ActiveX based macroing supported with a full featured IDE (even GUI forms!).

[majkinetor !]

Does anybody knows for some Windows utility that can be used as Linux utility conky

This system monitor can be programed to display anything, it can even display and refresh output from console applications.

It is very important.

[Sheepdog]

[mod]One post moved from
http://ghisler.ch/board/viewtopic.php?t=10750

sheepdog (Moderator)[/mod]

[kulmegil]

http://www.totalcmd.net/plugring/ntfslinks.html - excellent tool (written for TC in mind, but it's not a plug, and can work standalone) for NTFS hardlinks and junctions creation.
Unless this is not thread for tools already posted on totalcmd.net

[majkinetor !]

unless

[icfu]

I found a great complement for NTFS Links, it's called Notepad, part of every Windows installation.

Soccer, anyone? Ah well, unless2.

Icfu

[Lefteous]

2icfu
What you write sounds like a togowabohu