New Intel graphics core (i845G/i830)

[pxc]

While the new desktop chipset isn't coming out until May, the new graphics core has shown up already in the mobile i830 chipset. It does look like a very much improved core. I ran across this while looking up a cheap notebook I'm planning on buying.

The most notable new features are FSAA, cubic environment mapping, MPEG-2 acceleration, flexible power saving modes, early Z rejection and this strange quote:
"The Intel 830M and 830MG Chipset GMCH-M can access UMA memory located in system memory at 1.06 GB/s. The [B}Intel 830M and 830MG Chipset uses a tiling architecture to minimize page miss latencies and thus maximize effective rendering bandwidth.[/B]"

I assume that means an on-chip scratchpad buffer and not deferred rendering. I guess they're not trying to mislead anyone.

ftp://download.intel.com/design/chipsets/datashts/29833803.pdf see starting on page 158 for the detailed specs.
Core Frequency up to 166 MHz
High Performance 3D Setup and Render Engine
Performance
 Triangles list, Strips, and Fans Support
 D3D Vertex Formats
 Pixel Accurate Fast Scissoring and Clipping Operation
 Backface Culling Support
 Support D3D and OGL Pixelization Rules
 Sprite Points Support
 High Quality / Performance Texture Engine
 Per Pixel Perspective Corrected Texture Mapping
 Single Pass Texture Compositing
 12 Level of Details MIP Map Sizes from 1x1 to 2Kx2K
 All texture formats including 32-bit RGBA and 8-bit paletted
 Alpha and Luminance Maps
 Texture ColorKeying / ChromaKeying
 Bilinear, Trilinear, and Anisotropic MIP-Mapped Filtering
 Cubic Environment Reflection Mapping
 Embossed and Environment Reflection Mapping
 Embossed and Environment Bump-Mapping
 D3D (DXTn) Texture Decompression
 3D Graphics Rasterization Enhancements
 Flat & Gouraud Shading
 Color Alpha Blending For Transparency
 Vertex and Programmable Pixel Fog and Atmospheric Effects
 Color Specular Lighting
 Line and Full-Scene Anti-aliasing
 16-bit and 24-bit Z Buffering
 16-bit and 24-bit W Buffering
 8-bit Stencil Buffering
 Double and Triple Render Buffer Support
 16-bit and 32-bit Color
 Destination Alpha
 Fast Clear Support
 2D Graphics
 256-bit pattern fill and BLT Engine Performance
 Programmable 3-Color Transparent Cursor
 Color Space Conversion
 GDI+ Feature Support
 Anti-aliased Lines
 Alpha Blended Cursor
 Anti-aliased Text
 Alpha Stretch Blitter
 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit Color
 ROP Support
 Video
 Dynamic Bob and Weave Support for Video Streams
 Supports 720 x 480 DVD Quality encoding
 MPEG2 HWMC decoding support
 Video Overlay
 Single High Quality Scalable Overlay
 Multiple Overlay Functionality provided via Stretch Blitter
 Independent Gamma Correction
 Independent Brightness / Contrast / Saturation
 Independent Tint / Hue Support
 Destination Colorkeying
 Source Chromakeying
! Display
 Analog Display Support
 350-MHz Integrated 24-bit RAMDAC
 Hardware Color Cursor Support
 DDC2B Compliant
Intel® 830 Chipset Family
R
 Dual display options with FP/ digital display
 Concurrent: Different images and native display timings on each display device
 Simultaneous: Same images and native display timings on each display device
 DVO support
 3 DVO interfaces supported
 165-MHz dot clock with 12-bit interface
 Supports Hot Plug Display
 Supports a variety of DVO devices
 Dedicated DVO (DVOA) interface
 165-MHz dot clock 12-bit interface
 Multiplexed DVO (DVOB and DVOC) interface
 Two channels multiplexed with AGP
 Can combine two 12-bits channels to form one 24-bit interface
 Supports larger display resolutions
 Supports one additional flat panel display and / or one TV

 

[Althornin]

Looks interesting, too bad historically Intel video chipsets have sucked. And FSAA? i doubt this will have the power to really use FSAA, i bet its just another marketing buzzword.
Maybe i am wrong, but while this MIGHT be an increase for the value market, its nothing anyone would really want to paly games on...at least thats how i see it.

 

[Sharkfood]

I also raised an eyebrow at the ".. tile based rendering.." portion a while back when I first read about this chipset.

I also looked at the release date- which at the time was April 1st, 2002. I began to speculate of the historical value of that date. :smile:

 

[Saem]

Have a look at the video I/O stuff, I bet much if not all of that is thanks to the cross-licensing deal with ATi after the Intel and ATi out of court settlment.

 

[Dave]

The tiling stuff sounds more like memory tiling, which is not a big deal.

 

[Tygrus_Artesiaoa]

I had an old i740 and I still have it and sometimes play with it...and have all its doc and sdk n' all. It supported antialiasing via supersampling...which woulda been hard on performance considering it's 64 bit memory bus...though it could texture ok...for the implementation.
It actually was a decent card for the time...it's video was horrible it's 2d was ok-acceptable...
Like how Sis talks about all kinds of features in their new chips...but the performance ain't nothing to write home about...that and their IQ...especially with their drivers sucks the stray mountain goat.

 

[ben6]

Well , Intel has said that their new integrated chipset would be around 2x faster than their previous chipset which is still using much of the i740 core ....

 

[Geeforcer]

On 2002-02-11 21:46, ben6 wrote:
Well , Intel has said that their new integrated chipset would be around 2x faster than their previous chipset which is still using much of the i740 core ....

Twice faster.. wow, that brings them up to whole 9fps whith eyecandy on.

 

[pxc]

Hmmm... I'll see the performance of it tonight. In the US$899 range (new!), I have a choice of 2 laptops: a Tualatin Celeron 1.066GHz Toshiba with the i830MG or a 1GHz Duron HP with the KN133 ProSavage UMA. I don't doubt the ProSavage is faster, but the Duron is a battery guzzler and 3D capabilities are secondary in importance to me for a laptop. The specs on the i830MG look good enough to me for a laptop, especially in this sub-budget price range.

I'll report .

 

[ben6]

hey pxc what was the graphics like?

Ben

 

[pxc]

Summary:
Not as bad as it could be for UMA with PC133 memory.

The positive:
The WinXP drivers are pretty good. I've not seen any visual glitches in games or 3D apps and I've not had any crashes in 2D/3D. 3D quality is also very good. Speed with UMA is about the same as my old Savage/IX (100MHz) with 8MB of local 100MHz 64-bit memory.

The negative:
It's UMA. The i830MG is a "value" chipset and the graphics core is clocked at 100MHz (the chipset supports "up to 166MHz" core speed). I haven't found any overclocking utilities that work with this chipset. The OpenGL driver does software decompression of S3TC textures (D3D does DXTC in hardware). It is very slow with this enabled. External FB/ZB is possible, but RDRAM is needed.

If the i830 had 8MB or more memory (via an external module or included in the same package) and a 166MHz clock speed, it would be pretty decent (TNT2 class speed) for a laptop. Based on the specs of the i830 (same graphics core as i845G), the Brookdale-G is sure to disappoint people who want fast integrated graphics.

That's off the top of my head from using this the last couple of weeks. Do you have any specific questions?

 

[ben6]

That's about what I expected based upon the information I had. Was nice to hear about a hands-on report though...