Intel and those who integrate it...

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=18292

 

Go Mark Rein!

Get Intel integrated graphics up to a more reasonable baseline for 3D games, and I can certainly see game sales benefitting.

 

An interesting diatribe but pretty damn stupid. Laptops with sub-standard video have always dominated the market, and all Intel is doing is trying to steal market share from ATI et al by providing a cheaper/better solution. The GMA950 is a darn sight more impressive than say, the RAGE128 which -- six or seven years ago, was the best 3D GPU you could get in a laptop.

The fact is that laptops are, currently, unupgradeable. If upgradeable laptops appear, most folks won't buy them -- because they'll be too expensive or they don't understand the benefit or buying one won't make sense for some reason (e.g. the upgrades are more expensive than just buying a new machine).

My top-of-the-line in 2001 DELL Inspiron 8000 with its GeForce2Go video is just as unupgradeable* as the iBook I bought a year later. Guess what, a MacBook will cheerfully spank it.

* You can *downgrade* it to one of the cheaper video options available as BTO at the time.

 

Yah, hooray Mark Rein. I'm glad somebody complained about it. I recently went to a computer store and tried to run a prototype of my sim game (DirectX 9c, not made with Unity) on every computer they had. Out of about 30 notebook computers it ran on only a handful and those notebooks all had Intel CPU's and nVidia GPU's. I spoke with a rep from AMD (just happened to be visiting the store) and he claimed AMD will be going to a fully modular design so customizeable graphics etc. will become the norm. Didn't sound like this was going to happen any time soon though.

 

Was DirectX 9c installed on all the computers? If so then arguably it's a driver / DirectX problem since, fundamentally, the Intel integrated video has the features necessary to do the job (check some of the high end game benchmarks on Mac minis -- they're not fabulous, but they run -- under OpenGL).

It's not just Intel's fault if DirectX doesn't work properly.

One of the nice things for indie developers is having a platform that isn't built on top of, say, the latest version of DirectX, since folks who download something to try it out might not want to download a 30MB system install before they try it. When a shareware program asks me to install .NET before it will run, I delete it.

 

@podperson
May i ask what exactly would be so much more expensive if a laptop would feature a slot with a defined interface to upgrade graphics chips? I don't see any expensive costs here...

Wasn't nVIDIA and ATI trying to introduce each their own standard but the laptop vendors then said no as they both weren't compatible to each other?!

This isn't a nogo due to costs. This is a nogo due to nVIDIA, ATI and Intel. You know how fast a lot of people/firms turn to be arrogant and loose ground once they've reached a certain size, don't you?

 

I can see another very good reason for not making laptop gfx cards upgradable: Size.

For the typical laptop producer, size is quite important. Being able to put the GPU on the mainboard makes that size a bit smaller (and also allows them to interleave connections with other components)

EDIT: Another thing that comes to mind is the target audience: most gamers today have stationary machines. A lot of ppl buying laptops are not going to upgrade anyways.

Unfortunately, all this means we have to make our games run on a wide range of HW if we want to appeal to the casual laptop gamers (must say that my McBook pro runs windows games quite well ;-))

 

@nicholas
Nope the laptopmarket is seperated into different fields for different needs. A salesman sure doesn't need more than a gma950 but a player on a notebook needs it and as sale stats show more and more people are also playing on notebooks. There also exit certain laptops which concentrate on gaming performance.

Size does matter but also here there is quite a certain physical and thermal range which would fit for several generations if they wanted to support this.

 

You know how fast a lot of people/firms turn to be arrogant and loose ground once they've reached a certain size, don't you?

Hey I'm poor and small and plenty arrogant!

Here's the deal:

Laptop A with graphics soldered onto motherboard $X
Laptop B with graphics socketed onto motherboard $X+Y
Laptop C with graphics socketed onto motherboard and some kind of way to get at it without breaking something $X+Y+Z

All have the same features on the sticker -- you think they'll put "graphics chip is socketed and you can upgrade it by only undoing 27 small screws" on that sticker?

Guess which laptop sells fastest at Best Buy?

Guess what proportion of the tiny proportion of laptop B and C owners ever take advantage of the upgradability?

 

I think all this can be summed up by saying, "Integrated GFX cards are a necessity in laptops to keep the pricing reasonable, why can't Intel create a better one?"

Same goes for all the new Intel based consumer Macs. The low end standard for 2006 should be a 128mb gfx card... if Intel can't pull it off affordably then Apple needs to speak up and say, "your graphics solution sucks Intel, we need you to partner up with ATI or NVidia to make it happen."

Taking a step backwards in graphics performance for new Intel based consumer Macs is unacceptable.

 

@podperson
I didn't meant you with arrogant...no matter if you're poor or not! ;O)

Market in germany works in a different way. A lot of people look exactly at what to buy, which features are supported here and if they wanna pay for certain features.

I say that there would be no reasonable costs on top if they would come up with a design which allows changing gpu-cards easily if they really wanted us to be able to.

This flexible open design acutally was one of the reasons that killed the amiga and all the others. In the beginning you'll have to pay extra for this because it would be a additional feature but after some time it would be standard and so no more costs.

@tree
Intel is already creating better ones and after the G965 they will come up with the x1300 but it was a lame performance to come up with a g950 without offering a better alternative. And it was more lame from firms like Apple to integrate such a chip without offering better alternatives for those who care but as already written in another thread. Who knows the deals behind Intel&Apple?!

And please spare me that there is a book pro. I simply enjoy having a better choice than just between two systems...