Talk:Graphics Device Interface

Windows & GDI
Does Windows use GDI to draw its widgets? - Sikon 11:02, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes. Frames, buttons, scroll bars, icons, etc. are drawn using GDI (maybe GDI+ in WinXP?). --Pinzo 19:55, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Three core components of Windows?
Sooo, I look up GDI and I read "one of the three core components or 'subsystems' of Microsoft Windows". I read the whole article and look at the references, and nowhere I find out which the other two subsystems are. This article should mention them! abelson 12:32, 17 May 2006 (UTC)


 * This probably means GDI, kernel and user. I have some doubts whether this categorisation from 1990's is still valid today. Pavel 17:23, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
 * The system provides three categories of objects: user, graphics device interface (GDI), and kernel. 2001:B011:FE04:5B34:BD6B:AEDC:893C:BA9B (talk) 12:18, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Removal of GDI+ vulnerability
On May 28 User:AlistairMcMillan removed the GDI+ vulnerability section. See. The JPEG article still links to this information here, which no longer exists. Personally I think the GDI+ vulnerability section should be included. It was a pretty important bug in Windows. Oskar Liljeblad 07:17, 3 October 2004 (UTC)

Link to "Object"?
Considering the importance of the word "object" in this context (no pun intended), linking it to a terse definition would be most helpful. Unfree (talk) 00:36, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Hardware Acceleration
how does GDI access the graphics hardware directly? via DirectX, OpenGL? or which interface would one have to access to be able to reimplement it's own GDI-like library? -- 193.170.124.194 (talk) 09:56, 10 January 2008 (UTC)


 * It doesn't access the hardware directly, it uses the video driver. That's what drivers are for. GDI predates DirectX (by a long time). (FunkyMonkey)

Technical details section
The Technical details section is very brief, abrupt and vague. Someone with knowledge on GDI please expand or clarify it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 221.128.147.192 (talk) 11:47, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

GDI and GDI+ applications in Windows Vista
"The GDI render path is redirected through DWM and GDI is no longer hardware-accelerated.[3][4]" AFAIK this statement is an incorrect conclusion / misquotation. The cited blog only responds to a 3rd party question, with the statement "DWM does not accelerate GDI rendering." That does not mean GDI was previously hardware accelerated. AFAIK GDI has never been hardware-accelerated. Basys (talk) 16:25, 25 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Yeah, GDI was totally hardware-accelerated up through XP. Of course, it's more about the hardware vendor than it is about Microsoft: if the vendor's chip has a blitter engine and they write and expose the callbacks for DrvBitBlt, etc. then GDI will use them. Russtafari (talk) 16:10, 1 May 2008 (UTC)


 * GDI is an abstraction layer, it makes calls to the video driver. For example, GDI would be used whether I used a non accelerated VGA, of something like a Cirrus Logic which had hardware blit support.  It is the video driver that would provide the hardware acceleration if supported by the hardware.  (FunkyMonkey)

Is GDI+ slower than GDI?
I (Tcotco (talk) 03:00, 24 September 2008 (UTC)) added a brief section on the performance comparison between GDI and GDI+. I will probably get flamed for not having more authoritative quantitative comparisons, but my hope is that someone will remove my text and replace it with links to proper benchmarking studies. I find it disappointing that Microsoft replace a technology with a slower technology, and I now resent the effort I put into porting our software to GDI+.

does it mean?
after reading whole article i was curious if i get the right idea about gdi? the idea is that it works as some sort of state machine, with one state (object you have selected) ... 84.16.123.194 (talk) 00:32, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
 * actually there are more object "types" which you can select (Bitmap, Brush, Font, Pen, Region) ... and from winapi "The SelectObject function selects an object into the specified device context. The new object replaces the previous object of the same type." 84.16.123.194 (talk) 00:36, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

"google for more info?"
There is a section of the page that suggests the user "(google for "desktop heap" to understand the details)". Shouldn't they just link to an appropriate wikipedia article? That's the whole idea of wikipedia, isn't it? I didn't find a page with that exact title, but if one is needed, it seems like somebody should make one.Facegarden (talk) 20:01, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

GDI printers — ambiguity
I think, such a misconception is not suitable for encyclopedia, especially in the specific article about GDI itself:

"A GDI printer or a Winprinter is a print processor that uses software to do all the print processing instead of requiring the printer hardware to do it. It works by rendering an image to a bitmap on the host computer and then sending the bitmap to the printer. Usually, such printers do not natively support a page description language such as PostScript or XPS. In general, usually, the lowest-cost printers are GDI devices. Most manufacturers also produce more flexible models that add PCL compatibility, or PostScript, or both. In most cases it is only the very lowest-cost models in any given manufacturer's range that are GDI-only."

Every printer which is accessed from application by means of GDI printing path should be considered a “GDI printer” — no matter whether the printer itself can render vector/text, or understand PCL/PS, or be otherwise self-sufficient. I. e. any PCL- or PS-printer, when used by a GDI application, is actually a GDI printer: the difference exists only at low-level data format sent from driver to printer (and, in the case of client-server setups, where the renderer is physically located). By printing to a PCL/PS printer through GDI print path, an application doesn't gain any ability to use internal advantages of specific PDL: i. e. if GDI doesn't allow to use CMYK color, you can't use it even with PS printer, provided that it's accessed with GDI.

Another phrase is especially controversial:

"A Winprinter uses GDI to prepare the output, which is then passed to the printer driver (usually supplied by the manufacturer) for further processing and only afterwards to the printer itself."

In fact, a GDI driver can process any metafile, be it a raster image or vector/text drawing (with inclusion of rasters, perhaps). Thus, even entry-level printers with “pure software rasterization” could benefit from processing each type of objects — raster, vector, text — with different settings: screen frequency, color rendering intent (“perceptual” for raster, “saturation” for vector/text), print all text as black, etc.

Yes, I clearly understand that the term “GDI printer” is widely used as synonym to “host-based printer” (“Winprinter”), but it is technically incorrect to put the equality sign between them, at least in Wikipedia. 213.234.235.82 (talk) 17:17, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Deprecated
Is GDI really deprecated? I can find it nowhere in the references, and GDI+ seems to be more an addition to, then a replacement of GDI. 88.159.72.252 (talk) 12:58, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

History
I know GDI,at least from Windows 3.0, probably sooner. There was GDI in Windows 3.0, 3.1 3.11, WFW 3.11, Windows 95, 98, ME, Windows NT 3.5, NT 3.51, NT 4.0 and there is not any mention of this. This article starts with Windows XP and goes directly to GDI+, without talking effectively about GDI. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.136.151.217 (talk) 06:16, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Graphics Device Interface. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20070914141358/http://www.linuxprinting.org:80/show_printer.cgi?recnum=Generic-GDI_Printer to http://www.linuxprinting.org/show_printer.cgi?recnum=Generic-GDI_Printer

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers. —cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 21:08, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

GDI+
A search for GDI+ redirects here. This is right but something different There is a relation between GDI and GDI+ but GDI+ is not a substitute or revision of GDI, it is an additional layer.98.21.215.86 (talk) 21:58, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Situation on Windows 10
I'm missing information if GDI is hardware accelerated on Windows 10 MissMercy (talk) 19:24, 5 November 2019 (UTC)