Intel G965 to support SM4.0?

[NocturnDragon]

Just read on HKEPC http://www.hkepc.com/bbs/news.php?tid=589167about the next integrated chipset from Intel. As it looks like DX10 compatible, and hardware H264, and WMV9 decoding.

An interesting thing to know would be if they are using that PowerVR licence...

Link: http://www.hkepc.com/bbs/news.php?tid=589167

 

[Ailuros]

I don't think it contains IMG IP. It would make sense though

 

[_xxx_]

It'll be the slowest, lamest thing out there anyway, so why should anyone care? It'll just do spreadsheets'n'stuff and run anything 3D with lower teen fps, if at all...

 

[NocturnDragon]

It'll be the slowest, lamest thing out there anyway, so why should anyone care? It'll just do spreadsheets'n'stuff and run anything 3D with lower teen fps, if at all...

It's nice if you are developing something that needs DX10, and want to do it on vacation with your cheap notebook! It's still way faster than the reference rasterizer...

But surely any discrete dx10 chip from nvidia or ati will be 10 times better!

 

[_xxx_]

Maybe, though a developer will prolly have a notebook with a better gfx chip. How many devs are using the current integrated solution from intel for DX9 stuff when on the road anyway?

 

[Kaotik]

Maybe, though a developer will prolly have a notebook with a better gfx chip. How many devs are using the current integrated solution from intel for DX9 stuff when on the road anyway?

Isn't i965 just around the corner? Since if the developer doesn't have a choice on which DX10 chip would he wants on that laptop of his, I'm sure he'd rather use this than faster DX9 hardware for that DX10 developement, no?
Even though devs will get their chips faster than the customers, i'm quite sure it'll take quite a while before any of them has laptop with any other DX10 hardware, than intel.s

 

[JHoxley]

Interesting news.

How many devs are using the current integrated solution from intel for DX9 stuff when on the road anyway?

Don't ask how many of us dev's are using notebooks, rather the question should be how many of our audience (aka customers) are using notebooks

I don't know what the current state of play is, but Intel's IGP's did (maybe still do) have the largest market-share (~40-50%?) so unless you're specifically targetting the hardcore/dedicated gamer then you've got to have some support for these chipsets. It's all too easy for developers (and the regulars of B3D) to forget that not everyone has an X1900 GT XT XXX ++ or a Octuple Quad SLI GeForce 7900 setup

Jack

 

[amk]

An interesting thing to know would be if they are using that PowerVR licence...

AFAIK Intel has licences for MBX (fixed function) and "Eurasia", part of which is SGX, advertised as SM3.0+. If PVR have an SM4.0 part, they've not announced it.

 

[Sxotty]

I don't know what the current state of play is, but Intel's IGP's did (maybe still do) have the largest market-share (~40-50%?) so unless you're specifically targetting the hardcore/dedicated gamer then you've got to have some support for these chipsets. It's all too easy for developers (and the regulars of B3D) to forget that not everyone has an X1900 GT XT XXX ++ or a Octuple Quad SLI GeForce 7900 setup

Jack

Exactly Intel determines the lowest of the low, the worst of the worst *cough* in graphics I mean So whatever igp intel graphics can accomplish you can be sure your games will at least have those features in them.

 

[DemoCoder]

Doesn't DX10 have performance requirements tho now? It's not enough for Intel's IGP to be feature-correct DX10, doesn't it also have to have a minimum level of performance now?

 

[JHoxley]

Doesn't DX10 have performance requirements tho now?

No, unless they've managed to sneak it past me

The specification for D3D10 is very rigid and well defined in terms of functionality and features, but performance is completely undefined. Very few people really know quite how usable the GS will be (for example) - noises from NV/ATI seem to indicate that first-gen won't be powerful enough to use it heavily.

The other one that was mentioned by someone I know on the DX team was about the "unlimited instruction count" shaders. Yes there is no defined limit... BUT there will be a practical limit - probably dictated by the cache sizes. Go over that limit and it'll still work but performance will drop off very rapidly as it starts fetching new instructions from other parts of VRAM.

So instead of having feature-caps like we do in D3D9, I'm expecting the rise of "performance caps" where the code-path used is more dicated by performance characteristics of the hardware. For example, have a "long shader, 1 pass" approach for one IHV and a "short shader, mult-pass" approach for another IHV - despite using the same features and generating the same results...

Jack

 

[Demirug]

Doesn't DX10 have performance requirements tho now? It's not enough for Intel's IGP to be feature-correct DX10, doesn't it also have to have a minimum level of performance now?

There are some performance requirements if you want a Vista logos but this test will measure with the D3D9 interface. It there to make sure there is enough power for Aero.

 

[iwod]

Sigh. can you guys stop destroying my hope of better IGP ><.

The better intel IGP gets. The better baseline graphics Game developer can start to work with.

But then.... without IMG IP i cant really say i expect much ><

 

[NocturnDragon]

AFAIK Intel has licences for MBX (fixed function) and "Eurasia", part of which is SGX, advertised as SM3.0+. If PVR have an SM4.0 part, they've not announced it.

It depends on how big that + is. We know Eurasia already is an unified shader architecture. How many chances there are that it could be support SM4.0? What are the big requirements? Geometric Shader, Virtual memory, what else?

 

[Arun]

I'd be VERY surprised if GMA965 was SM4.0. - everything I know points towards it being SM3.0. without "optional" features. It's a kind of "minimum minimora" for Intel, in order to get something sufficient for Vista without having to pay licensing fees (=> royalties) for IMG/PVR IP. Obviously, having to pay royalties to other companies is not acceptable in some of Intel's productlines.

Uttar

 

[DemoCoder]

There are some performance requirements if you want a Vista logos but this test will measure with the D3D9 interface. It there to make sure there is enough power for Aero.

Yeah, that's what I was talking about. Presumably, if you have minimum Aero requirements in D3D9, then you must be able to achieve the same performance in D3D10 emulating D3D9 class devices. Otherwise, you'd have the bizarre case of a D3D10 device that can't meet Aero performance requirements.

Too bad MS doesn't create "performance profiles" on a logarithmic scale (for unlimited future), so that games could say

"Require a D3D10 compliant card with a rating of 4.3 on the PP scale"

 

[Demirug]

Yeah, that's what I was talking about. Presumably, if you have minimum Aero requirements in D3D9, then you must be able to achieve the same performance in D3D10 emulating D3D9 class devices. Otherwise, you'd have the bizarre case of a D3D10 device that can't meet Aero performance requirements.

Sorry but I can’t follow you. Aero use the D3D9 interface and the D3D9 part of a driver.

Too bad MS doesn't create "performance profiles" on a logarithmic scale (for unlimited future), so that games could say

"Require a D3D10 compliant card with a rating of 4.3 on the PP scale"

The have. It’s called WinSAT and my current System has an overall rating of 3. My 6800 GT is rated with 5.9 for the performance and 4.7 for the 249 MB usable graphics RAM.

I am not sure if it is logarithmic but at least there is a small set of numbers.

 

[Kaotik]

I'd be VERY surprised if GMA965 was SM4.0. - everything I know points towards it being SM3.0. without "optional" features. It's a kind of "minimum minimora" for Intel, in order to get something sufficient for Vista without having to pay licensing fees (=> royalties) for IMG/PVR IP. Obviously, having to pay royalties to other companies is not acceptable in some of Intel's productlines.

Uttar

GMA900 was already sufficient for Vista.

 

[Arun]

GMA900 was already sufficient for Vista.

Not for Aero Glass, aka Premium. GMA950 iirc, could be 900 though, was at roughly 40-50% of the performance requirements, at least according to NVIDIA. Its featureset was indeed acceptable, but that was only part of the equation.

Uttar
​

 

[Cypher]

It's nice if you are developing something that needs DX10, and want to do it on vacation with your cheap notebook! It's still way faster than the reference rasterizer...

You haven't used an intel onboard graphics chip lately, have you?