Discontent with Intel graphics goes back a few years. But the unsealing of 3-year-old e-mail exchanges between Intel and Microsoft reveals something about the present, too.
Intel 915 chipset
(Credit: Intel)First some background. Intel makes integrated graphics silicon--that is, graphics functionality that is built into its chipsets. Performance is not the name of the game for Intel. Delivering power-efficient, adequate graphics that can handle everyday tasks and do basic gaming is the goal. Anything beyond this is left to the high-octane discrete chips from ATI and Nvidia.
"We've always been consistent that high-end gamers should use discrete graphics," said Intel spokesman George Alfs. Intel graphics is also inexpensive and comes virtually free on some PCs.
But Intel graphics silicon is everywhere. It ships in tens of millions of PCs every year. And herein lies the issue. The silicon becomes the lowest common denominator that Microsoft and game developers must write to because it's so ubiquitous.
This is the root of the Intel 915 integrated graphics and the "Vista Capable" controversy. As widely reported, Intel's 915 (which shipped as standard in many PCs) was not up to running Vista's Aero Glass interface (among other features). So, Microsoft dropped this as a requirement.
Reams of material have been released according to this Seattle Times blog documenting the infighting that took place trying to resolve the 915 issue. The documents stem from a lawsuit that alleges Microsoft misled consumers by lowering the requirements so a 915-based PC could be designated as "Vista Capable."
According to an unsealed motion citing e-mail and internal Intel and Microsoft documentation released by U.S. District Court Judge Marsha Pechman, Microsoft objected to an internal Intel link "positioning the 915 GM as optimum for Windows Vista on mobile PCs." The motion states that Microsoft viewed this as "misleading" and "egregious" and that Microsoft asserted that the 915 chipset "should not even be in the list of recommended hardware for Windows Vista" and further opined that the "higher end of the chipset choices" from Nvidia and ATI were more suitable.
But that may not be the whole story. According to an article on Channel Web, Microsoft did not "cave" to Intel and the 915, but rather "it was Microsoft, led by Poole, that initiated that change all on its own." Will Poole at that time was a Microsoft senior vice president.
"We are seriously confused. We believed that 915 is NOT vista ready as it will never have WDDM drivers," according to an e-mail from Intel Vice President Renee James, cited in the Channel Web article. (WDDM stands for Windows Display Driver Model.)
Whatever the case, Intel integrated graphics was so commonplace that it was a big issue.
(For the record, Nvidia had issues with its drivers and Windows Vista too.)
Intel targets graphics
Fast-forward to September of 2006 and the Intel X3000 and X3100 (G965/GM965) graphics. With this silicon, Intel decided it was going to provide a better graphics experience for gaming in particular. The 965 started shipping in September of 2006, but it took Intel nearly a year to write the drivers needed to unlock better performance.
"New drivers for the company's 965GM chipset, found in many notebooks and midrange desktops, still don't deliver the uniform performance increases promised earlier this year, according to testing by CNET Labs," CNET News' Tom Krazit wrote in October 2007.
Intel documentation (here) says that "Intel recently introduced the 15.6 and 14.31 Windows Vista and Windows XP graphics drivers that enables Shader Model 3.0 including support for hardware vertex shader and HW TnL on the Intel G965, GM965, and G35 Express Chipsets."
The document continues: "This capability has shown enhancements in game compatibility as well as game play" and concludes the "Introduction" by saying: "The end result is that Intel is able to deliver the highest possible frame rates by leveraging Intel's world class processors."
Now fast-forward to the present and the MacBook Air. The first version of the MacBook Air was rolled out in a show of great camaraderie with Intel CEO Paul Otellini. Intel silicon all around: not only a special version of the Intel mobile Core 2 Duo was used, but Intel X3100 graphics, too. At that time, Apple CEO Steve Jobs heaped praise on the Core 2 Duo processor.
Then came the MacBook Air update. Intel graphics out, Nvidia 9400M graphics in.
This time Apple stressed the graphics capability of the Air.
Gains and compromises
To reiterate, the issue is not that Intel graphics are horrendous. It's simply that Intel's graphics silicon is so widespread that it becomes an issue for people, for example, who buy a laptop and later decide they want to play games at a certain level or do more high-level graphics.
What do analysts think about the X3100? Jon Peddie says Intel graphics has improved, but he is cautious. (Note that the X3100 has recently been superseded in laptops by the Intel GMA 4500MHD.)
"Whereas it would never be used by a real gamer (of which I like to consider myself) it will allow someone with a tighter budget to have some experience (with gaming on a PC)," Peddie said in response to an e-mail query. Peddie does research and testing of graphics products from Intel, Nvidia, and ATI.
Peddie: "Based on early tests we have run on the X3100, we found it ran all the games we tried, i.e., Spore, Stalker Clear Sky, Crysis, and Far Cry Warhammer, but "mind you we had to use lower resolution than we would normally, and if the game didn't automatically turn off some of the special features, we had to in order to get a descent frame rate."
He continues: "But the fact that it ran at all is I think a major slap on the back for Intel. Turning features off and reducing resolution is a reasonable compromise considering the costs."
But Intel (to state the obvious) is not Nvidia. "Now having said that I also have to say that the Nvidia mGPU 9400 (now used in the MacBook Air) is much more capable and you can run at higher resolutions with more features turned on," Peddie said.
The conclusion. Intel graphics is adequate and probably does more than enough for most users. But the issue will never go away because integrated graphics set itself up as a low-watermark benchmark for competitors (that offer higher-end discrete cards) to surpass. Meanwhile, it forces multimedia and game developers to make their games and applications run in a less-than-stellar way on millions of PC worldwide.
Intel's long-awaited DirectX-10 graphics update for its chipsets is available.
DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces (APIs) for handling multimedia tasks in Microsoft-based environments, especially those tasks related to games and video. DirectX-10 support was mentioned by Intel as far back as 2006 when its popular 965 chipset was introduced.
(Credit:
Microsoft)
The new Windows Vista driver enables DirectX10 functionality for Intel GM965 and G35 Express chipset based platforms. The GM965 uses the X3100 Intel graphics engine, while the G35 uses the X3500.
The update is available here.
"We have been able to add features to products using these chipsets via driver updates. DX10 is the latest capability we have been able to add," an Intel representative said.
Asus is now selling a motherboard that the computer maker is billing as the "world's first to provide an Intel platform with an onboard integrated VGA solution that features built-in support for Windows Vista DirectX 10."
Intel has also announced a G35-based DG35EC Classic motherboard. The DG35EC board is based on GMA X3500 integrated graphics and includes HD video playback for movie clips and media streams without the need for an add-in video card and is the first to have integrated Microsoft DirectX10 capability with OpenGL 2.0 support, according to this report.
But don't expect top-flight gaming performance with integrated graphics--even with the new DirectX-10 driver. Typically, the frame rates in games using integrated graphics pale against the frame rates allowed by discrete graphics chips from Nvidia and AMD-ATI. More information here.
We already know that Nvidia doesn't think highly of Intel's graphics technology. But is it really that bad, or is it good enough for most PC users?
Let's focus on the graphics technology that Intel has been supplying in volume to notebook PC makers over the last year or so. Namely, the Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) X3100, which is integrated into the GM965 chipset. Like many graphics platforms (Nvidia and ATI not excluded) it has a checkered past: late drivers (very late in some cases), broken DirectX promises, and erratic performance.
That said, tens of millions of people blithely use computers with Intel X3100 integrated graphics. And there's no great hue and cry for better graphics (gamers excluded).
That doesn't mean Intel's graphics technology is great. It simply means that "free" (as Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang put it) Intel integrated graphics is used without objection by lots of people. "Corporate is 60 percent of (graphics chip) unit volume. So, 60 percent of the market falls into the 'don't care' category," said Dean McCarron, founder and principal of Mercury Research.
Where Intel gets into trouble is its claims about game performance. Here's what Intel says on a Web page entitled Intel Graphics: Making the Most of Your Visual Experience. "With the dramatic improvements in Intel Graphics and Intel processors, it's no longer necessary for most users to buy expensive add-on graphics cards."
Intel integrated graphics capabilities
(Credit: Intel)Complete Intel chart here (PDF).
Though the cost-saving claims are accurate for low-end games, the overall gaming claims can be problematic for analysts. (Note IGP is Integrated Graphics Processor.) "If you want to do anything that has good to great video quality associated with it...you won't be very happy with an IGP," said Jon Peddie of Jon Peddie Research.
"You can find examples of (video and game) applications that will run just fine with an IGP, but that's like saying I can drive my Pinto over the mountains and cross-country just as well as you can in your fancy Lexus. True--but which experience would you prefer?"
Intel has compiled a list of popular games that are playable on the Mobile Intel GM965 Express chipset family which uses X3100 graphics silicon.
McCarron says that part of Intel's performance problem is tied to a transistor budget dilemma. Only a limited number of chipset transistors can be allocated for graphics. "They do what they can in hardware within their transistor budget and what won't fit in, they do in software (on the CPU)," he said.
Upcoming X4500 graphics that will be part of the mobile Centrino 2 "Cantiga" chipset will be an improvement in areas such as Direct-X and Shader Model technology (typically used for scene lighting) but still pale next to the standalone "discrete" graphics offered by Nvidia and AMD-ATI. "The (X4500) will be a credible DX-10 device. Yes, they're doubling performance but you'll find that integrated graphics is still 5X to 10X behind the discrete stuff," McCarron said.
Which brings us back to the original point. Yes, Intel graphics is not good enough for about 30 percent of the market (McCarron). And that's a very significant number of people--around 100 million users (Peddie). But that leaves hundreds of millions of users for whom Intel graphics is good enough. Or at least they're not complaining.
Intel spokesman Dan Snyder said recently (in an e-mail response to a query) that good graphics needs a fast CPU too. He cited artificial intelligence, physics, video encoding, and 3D rendering--all consume significant CPU cycles. "We feel that the CPU is absolutely vital and you need a fast CPU AND a fast GPU for the best experience." (Original caps included.)
(For a full review of Intel GMA X3100 graphics see this write-up from NotebookReview.)
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