Intel GMA 4500 MHD: hardware H.264/AVC video acceleration availiable ONLY on Vista (confirmed)

One of the main new features on integrated 4500 HD series will be available ONLY for Vista users, official XP drivers do not support it and specifications will be not availiable for developers. Confirmed by Intel here:

http://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/developing-software-for-visual-computing/topic/60703/

If you was planning to buy laptop with GMA 4500 MHD and you dont run Vista, you can find for "GMA 4500M" version without HD support... or go with ATI/NVIDIA solutions

 

Yup, that seems like Intel to me. I don't know why people tend to go with Intel even if there is an ATi/nVidia solution available for the same cost or just a little bit more. Their drivers and IGPs just plain suck. A prime example of their crappiness is how you have to play Left 4 Dead on low settings @ 640x480 (on an Intel X3100) to make it playable and it instantly slows down when zombies or their shadows (and ONLY the zombies) come on screen. Same deal with my GMA900 and Star Wars Jedi Knight II (minimum specs for the game are a 400MHz Celeron and an ATI Rage). When a storm trooper or any other moving enemy comes onscreen, the FPS immediately goes down to 8, and the framerate in the game varies from, well, 8 to 90FPS. Pretty sad.

Also, one must not forget Intel's "Game Compatibility List". A good GPU/IGP doesn't have compatibility issues with games, and therefore doesn't need a "compatibility list". Sheesh.

-J.B.

 

yeah, well, if you're trying to game on an IGP, you must have misunderstood something.

 

I'd like to point out at this point exactly how crappy the GMA 900 & 950 were. They didn't even have hardware T&L or vertex shaders! At least the GMA X3100 and 4500MHD have those.

 

So how much Video Memory does the Intel GMA 4500MHD have? The wiki online says 512MB?

 

FAQs:

Q: How much video memory does the X4500 have??
A: It depends on the amount of memory but with 3GB of system memory it can dynamically allocate(meaning it varies on application) up to 1859MB of system memory.

Q: Why doesn't X4500 support HD video acceleration on XP?
A: Intel follows the HDCP copy-protection scheme much more stringent than others. Being such a large company, they would have bigger problems not following HDCP standards. XP officially does not support content protection.

 

From Intel board:

Don't be fooled by Intel.

 

Hi, I'm a Sims freak and i was wondering if my new laptop could handle The Sims 3. I'm sure about everything, but my video card. I have a Mobile Intel GMA 4500MHD and the requirements say for the Intel chipset you need: Intel Integrated Chipset, GMA X3000 or above. Is what I have okay?

 

The X4500MHD came out after the X3000 and should therefore work- but- I think the X3000 was the desktop version and the X3100 was the Laptop version. Still, the X4500MHD is the newest IGP from Intel, and it's most powerful (even if that isn't very powerful compared to the competitors...) I would wager you should be able to play it, provided you have a decent CPU and 2GB of RAM or more to go along with it. Sims never was very demanding.

 

Ok awesome. Thanks. It should be fine. Processor speed is beyond requirements and I have 4GB of RAM. If for some reason it doesn't work out, will I be able to purchase a new video card for my laptop or can you not switch them on laptops?

 

If you're running an Intel based machine with the 4500M, you won't be able to change the GPU at all. Very very few laptops have upgradeable video hardware. However, I must mention that the Sims games have always supported bottom of the barrel GPUs on laptops as well as desktops, and if I heard right, the X3000 is supported, and the 4500M is about ~3x as powerful in real world examples. I wouldn't worry, I'm sure you'll get your fix just fine.

 

I hope so. Thanks for the help.

 

Heh not really. I was hoping for that too but the real world increase seems to lie at average 30% and 3x is really the absolute best case scenario.

 

Yeah I was refering to 3DMark05 actually, which is a terrible example

 

i have a toshiba l305-s5901 with the gmx 4500mhd, how do i allocate more memory to the graphics, is there a way to force it? i have 2gb of ram, does it automaticly do it, is the only way for me to get more out of this graphics chipset to get more ram? also is there any graphics overclocking options for this, even just to get a tiny bit more outta it. my graphics needs arent at all demanding, all i play is wow, but 10 man raids are slighty laggy (due to video) and the lag is absolutely horrible running 25 mans. i have graphics all set to low and i'm still only pushing 3-12 fps.

 

would you please translate or put that post you quoted in context? it's rather vague, how is he prevented from utilizing the 4500 to its fullest and what kind of videos was he trying to play that wont work with it?

 

problem - it is only possible to use hd acceleration in vista, on xp you will have problems like this:
if you have power cpu - they will be always making noise while playing hd
if you dont have power cpu (celeron) you will be not able to view hd at all

 

Simply put, Vista is better for using 4500MHD to its fullest?

 

Usually its due to intel cards using less battery life, and in most cases you can't get ATI/NVIDIA cards in an ultraportable for this reason.

 

psh, what's the problem with that? I tanked 25 man Naxx with 8 fps and 1000ms ping (but I'm awesome).

 

Late response but I'll do it anyway. 3DMark05 is actually a good benchmark to compare the X4500MHD to the X3100. 3DMark06 and Vantage on the other hand is a TERRIBLE benchmark. Let me reiterate that, 3DMark06 is bad and Vantage is horrible. Those two are way too sensitive to CPU scores to be useful at all.

3X faster for the GMA 4500 only applies when comparing the SM3.0 and hardware VS lacking-G33 chipset in 3DMark06, which is really using a GMA 950 IGP.

If you look here: http://xi0.info/quick-test-gma-x4500hd-against-gma_2546.html

In 3DMark06 the 4500MHD is only 50% faster than X3100 which is in line with average performance expectations.

To the OP: Intel doesn't support DXVA1 but only DXVA2 so that's why it only runs on Vista. Part of the problem is they don't want to violate the PAVP "law" set by content providers.

 

Well the problem lies in the hands of the providers, the only option without Intel at a cheap price I have found so far in Malaysia and Singapore is the CQ40 or 50 (and they're rare and hot!!)of Compaq with an ATI 3200, even Nvidia option (9100) is much more expensive than the laptop with x3100 or x4500