*****The GMA X3100 gaming thread - HL2 screens + more*****

the successor to the x3100 , the x4500 i believe, is supposed to be x3 faster... not sure if that goes for the laptop version too

 

I believe you are referring to the X3500, though I doubt it will be 3x faster

 

The desktop G35 is coming with the X3500. The specs are as follows:

GMA X3000 in G965: 8 unified scalar shaders @ 667MHz
GMA X3100 in GM965: 8 unified scalar shaders @ 500MHz
GMA X3500 in G35: 10 unified scalar shaders @ 667MHz

The IGP coming with Montevina is supposed to be the X4500. Although there seems to be less coverage about it than previous chipset families there do appear to be a family of desktop chipsets with the _4_ moniker, the first being the X48. I'm guessing the desktop G45 will be a completely redesigned part compared to the G35 which is basically just a G965 with 2 more unified shaders unlocked, lacks DDR3 support, and is running several months late. The lack of DDR3 support would make a mobile version of the G35 unsuitable for Montevina since the new platform is supposed to support DDR3, so it makes sense that Intel would just skip to a G45 based mobile derivative. As to whether it will be 3 times faster, that is unlikely based on architecture alone. A GM45 would probably have at most 12 unified shaders running at 667MHz, which doesn't give 3 times the power. Even if Intel were to switch chipset production from 90nm to 65nm, I don't think they are going to get many more shaders or higher clock speeds than that on a first goal. The source of their 3 times figure is likely comparing the GMA X4500 to how the GMA X3100 performed at launch, meaning no hardware acceleration, while the GMA X4500 will presumably have mature drivers at launch since it'll be based on the existing GMA X3000 architecture. Still if the GMA X4500 can outperform a GMA X3100 running mature drivers by 50%, that is still very significant for a laptop IGP. I'm guessing Intel will decide to add DX10.1 support to the GMA X4500 too given it's programmable nature, but I wouldn't imagine running any games in DX10.1 mode since it'll have no hope against mandatory 4x AA.

 

Did anyone play Heroes of Might and Magic 5 with a X3100 and if yes, at what settings and was it playable?

Thanks

 

I have tried that latest HOMM V (tribes of the east), and its 'playable' but somewhat choppy. Often dips to 15 fps, even on lowest settings. However, i am using Vista. If i can get these results in Vista, im sure its very playable under XP

 

Throw your hopes out of the window, X4500 is supposed to be 3x faster, but when its compared against a G33 part. Some people may realize G33 is the one with no hardware T&L and vertex shaders:

http://xtreview.com/addcomment-id-3631-view-Intel-GMA-X4500.html

 

NO. X3100 DOES NOT WORK with the FS-X expansion pack. It works fine with FS-X Deluxe. I have a T61 w/GM965m XP Pro w/latest Intel drivers, and have verified that FS-X Expansion Pack does NOT work.

To quote Intel support: " This game with the expansion pack is not on the compatibility list for this graphics controller, which means Intel has not specifically tested the game on this controller, and is not aware of any issues. For the list of tested games, please visit this web site: http://support.intel.com/support/graphics/intelgm965/sb/CS-026146.htm"

... i.e. typical "support" response.

 

People dont even bother trying to game with the X3100. Intel has NOT release correctly working drivers for the X3100. As of today the GMA950 is FASTER than x3100 by about 20%. Its been 5 MONTHS since the hardware has been releases to the public and much longer since its been finalized and stupid Intel developers cant figure out how to develope a correct driver??? There is something fishy going on and I believe the X3100 driver delevopment is slowly being ABANDONED! It does not take 6 MONTHS to develop a correctly working driver for FINALIZED hardware!

 

Uh. Ok. What am I supposed to do? Throw my new $2,000 laptop into the trashcan and buy something WITHOUT an Intel card...??????? Just because Intel has NOT delivered on their claims... that is not a practical solution - Intel needs to fix the driver.

 

I'm not sure what you are basing your claims on. Just because the GMA X3100 doesn't score as high as the GMA 950 in 3DMark 2001SE, means nothing. In fact, it may even be a good thing, since that indicates that Intel is fundamentally rewriting the driver code. Intel's previous software accelerated drivers have had years to optimized for canned benchmarks so it isn't that unreasonable to expect that they would be faster than Intel's early hardware based implementation. In actual gaming, it's almost assured the GMA X3100 performs significantly better than the GMA 950. There are probably a few exceptions where the GMA 950 may still be faster due to maturity, but I doubt the GMA 950 can match the GMA X3100 in games like BF2, Supreme Commander, Call of Duty 2, if the GMA 950 can even start them at all.

In terms of whether Intel is abandoning the GMA X3100, that is completely baseless and doesn't make any sense. First of all, Intel couldn't abandon the GMA X3100 even if they wanted to, because all their current and near future generation IGPs use the same architecture. The GMA X3000, GMA X3100, upcoming GMA X3500, and likely the GMA X4500 all use the same unified scalar shader architecture. So unless you are saying Intel is going to quit the graphics space altogether, which perhaps consumers would be pleased, but would leave corporations stranded, the no Intel isn't abandoning anything. As to the timing of driver releases, there is no evidence that Intel is slacking off. In fact, it's the exact opposite. Intel has been releasing a new driver for XP and Vista almost every month since the summer which is basically unprecedented given their previous commitment to drivers. XP and Vista (32 and 64-bit editions) have each had 2 official drivers + 1 beta since August.

I have to admit though, Intel is really taking too long releasing decent hardware acceleration, but I believe XP support is better than Vista. That is something to complain about, but is to be expected given Vista's small marketshare. Now it's true Vista is shipping with most new computers, especially notebooks, but the Intel's drivers aren't just used for the GMA X3100, it's also used for the GMA X3000 which being released earlier before Vista, would have a larger consumer base using XP, especially if it's used in the corporate world, which is going to be predominantly PC for a while. Intel's CEO has also said he doesn't really want to focus on Vista until after SP1 comes out and this lack of enthusiasm which combined troubles nVidia and ATI have had on their Vista drivers, would explain why the Vista drivers are worse than the XP ones.

 

Can somebody with XP test Hellgate London?

 

ltcommander_data,

Quit fooling yourself....the X3100 should be FAR superior to the GMA950 and WOULD be IF there were proper drivers. Its 100% clear Intel is having SERIOUS issues developing drivers. We're NOT talking about driver optimization here we are talking about drivers that actually FUNCTION correctly. Intel has not given even FUNCTIONAL drivers after half a year now....if you think that is NORMAL you obviously have not been in the PC/Laptop world for long. Even a blind man can see Intel is having MAJOR problem developing drivers. Again, we dont even have FUNCIONAL drivers that use the hardware correctly after 6 MONTHS. This has NEVER happened before in the GPU industry and Intel should be ashamed of themselves!

 

Would Lineage 2 run playably on the x3100? I've been trying to decide between a Macbook (which just a few days ago was updated to the x3100 with the Leopard launch) and a similarly priced, but far superior spec'd Asus notebook on Newegg I found. I'm a Mac user and I need a new Mac, and a notebook. Problem was before, the Macbook only had a GMA950. But, with an x3100, Windows games might run fairly well I would think. The main games I play are Lineage 2, Albatross 18, and some other assorted lower end games and the occasional little korean mmo like Fiesta. Also how well would Doom 3 and UT2004/UT99 run? And Phantasy Star Universe?

Thanks very much for any insight.

 

There is a possible chance that the new upcoming MacBook will include the X3100 as its primary video. Though there has been no official announcement from Apple, we shall wait and see as the holiday season approaches.

 

no, it's there now, http://www.apple.com/macbook/specs.html
there was no announcement about it

 

Oh ok then thats great. The X3100 can handle UT04 and 3 yrs old game quite well.

 

Hmm. I wonder how long it will take Intel to program decent drivers for the Mac...

 

ltcommander_data, i'm 100% sure they are having serious problems to get the drivers to work properly. Still, the X3100 works only in software mode. No HW acceleration. Not with XP, and not with Vista (I can follow ur Vista-before-SP1-thesis, but they haven't even released proper XP drivers yet).
I think "onion" is right there.. there must be a serious issue. I mean, what if they have a problem in the hw architecture? Maybe they realized they CAN'T get the unified shaders to work?
Intel HW accel drivers for X3100 might be vaporware.. :X

 

It's still unclear with the Vista drivers, but I think it's incorrect to say that the GMA X3100 has no hardware acceleration at all in XP.

http://forums.vr-zone.com/showpost.php?p=4252499&postcount=384

The results in actual gaming of the GMA X3000 (which should be pretty representative of the GMA X3100), show results that the GMA 950 could definitely not achieve. You can compare those with the results of the GMA 3100 (non-X) in the G33 desktop chipset, which is already superior to the GMA 950, yet can't start BF2 or Supreme Commander because they check for hardware acceleration while the GMA X3000 runs them playably at 800x600.

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3111&p=18

In terms of what Intel promised, I don't believe they marketed the GMA X3000 family specifically based on their DX9 hardware acceleration. When the GMA X3000 was launched, most of the focus was on hardware video acceleration through Clear Video and I believe they even commented later that the reason the DX9 hardware acceleration support is so slow in coming was because getting Clear Video hardware acceleration was their first priority. Their graphics driver team is likely not as big as nVidia's or ATI's so they couldn't focus on 2 things at once. The major marketing for DX9 support was that it supported DX9.0 just like the GMA 950 technically does, and that it had full Vista Premium support, which was quite the marketing catch phrase at the time given the disappointment of GMA 900 users that they couldn't run Aero Glass. Intel had a marketing chart comparing the features of the various chipsets, but they had a footnote that HW DX9.0c support was expected in August 2007, which technically they seemed to have delivered for XP users, even if the performance isn't optimized yet. But I suppose that's little consolation to Vista users.

 

ltcommander_data stop kidding yourself. You obviously DONT own a laptop with the X3100. I own two core2Duo laptops. One with x3100 and one with GMA950. Both have the same core2Duo 1.66ghz CPU with 2gb ram and both run dual boot Vista and XP.

 

"...which technically they seemed to have delivered for XP users..."
nope. no dx9.0c hw support yet.
Example? Portal (Source Engine) runs on my Laptop (C2D 2ghz, X3100) only in windowed mode, 800x600 with like 15 fps at all (with portal-visibility ZERO!)
And its like 0,5 fps in the flames of the last testchamber.
The GMA950 can handle it better.

 

acidicX.... well, it's pretty weird but i can run Portal pretty smooth. In 800x600, high detail fraps shows ~40 fps normally, ~15-18 while looking through portals. (C2D T7300, 2GB and x3100 ofc)

 

on vista or xp? which graphics driver version?

 

1. If you run on a crappy CPU, X3100 will be bad for you regardless of config
2. XP is wayyy better than Vista
3. If you run games that are like 3-4 years old X3100 will also be bad for you
4. X3000/X3100 is faster in first person shooter games and shader intensive games like BF2/Half Life 2
5. Show your results with both GMA 950 and X3000/X3100 on XP and I might believe it, I also used GMA 950, GMA 950 is NOT SUPERIOR, its bad.
6. I own a Desktop system with Core 2 Duo E6600 and G965 chipset using GMA X3000. I can even run Unreal Tournament 3 with low settings. Try that on the GMA 950. Half Life 2 frames per second is at 20-40 with 1024x768 everything high with HDR and Bloom.

You are only making that conclusion on wild theory. It does support hardware. However, hardware doesn't guarantee it'll be faster than software. Itanium's software translator to 32 bit is 3-4x faster than the hardware one on the CPU. In 3dmark, Geforce 256 DDR's hardware T&L performs about the same as Athlon XP 2600: http://www.sudhian.com/index.php?/articles/show/voodoo_6000_review_part_2/3dmark_2001

Now imagine we use Core 2 Duo instead and see what kind of a GPU it'll be equal to.

However, if we use shader intensive programs or applications like the latest first person shooters or 3dmark06, GMA X3100 will be better than the Core 2 Duo, because its unified shaders are optimized for those latest games rather than 3-4 year old games that are based on DX7-8.

 

Vista Home Premium, driver: 7.14.10.1329

 

IntelUser,
1. C2D 2ghz should be enough
2. I run XP.
3. Portal is a Month old.
4&5. Portal runs on a GMA950 more smoothly, and thats on a P4 Laptop (also XP). And on my machine it just feels like software mode.

Got the latest driver version btw
Graphics: 6.14.10.4864

 

tell me... did somebody tested :
-fifa 07/08
-Painkiller
-CounterStrike 1.6

how will they work on DUAL CORE T2310 - 1,46 GHz, 1024 MB RAM DDR2 (533MHz) and X3100 ?


ups...sry, now i see i posted it in wrong sec

 

Could someone with XP test "the witcher"? I doubt that this game will be playable.

 

X3100 drivers SUCK. Thanks for nothing Intel! They hyped how GREAT the X3100 would be.....HA! Pathetic!

 

can yo send me the url to download of latest x3100 driver?
i get a erro msg using the intel home page

 

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Product_Filter.aspx?ProductID=2800&lang=eng

 

when i try to install this driver i get a error msg saing:
"drive installed is not valid for this computer"
but i have a x3100 in computer!

 

do you have the newest chipset drivers installed (they are on the same page, as it's the page for the chipset)
otherwise, you _dont_ have a X3100 in your notebook.

 

then i need to install the chipset's driver and the gfx's driver?

 

yes... you have to

 

both are in the site that you passed me? which name of each driver that I need that to catch?

 

sorry, the page does not show it.. dunno why they removed it from the chipset page, lol.. weird.
its the Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility... ->

first install the chipset drivers, then the graphics drivers.

 

Hmm. I thought Portal was based on Half Life 2 engine. I figured it should run well considering Team Fortress 2/CS:S and Half Life 2/Episode One both runs it pretty well.

How do you explain similar config Fafex's system running better??

Let me tell you something. This one day I tried to run Crysis. I naturally put everything low, and it loaded and everything, but it was lagging, like getting 1-2 fps. So I thought hmm, maybe that's how it performs in Crysis with everything low 800x600.

Well, I was wrong. I found out when that happens, I just need to minimize the game and maximize it back. Then the frames would jump to 10-15. I don't know why it happens, but it probably has to do with the shared memory management the GPU has to make. There could be something wrong with your system and that's why your system is performing low. For me for instance, if I am testing Quake 3 Arena and hard drive activity suddenly goes up, fps will go down. That doesn't happen with dedicated memory cards. It happens with shared memory cards like IGPs.

Anyway, even if it runs bad on the graphics card doesn't tell anything about whether it has hardware T&L/VS or not. You may want to look here: http://www.sudhian.com/index.php?/articles/show/voodoo_6000_review_part_2/3dmark_2001

Note how the Geforce 256 DDR is only performing like AXP 2600+ in terms of T&L performance. Current CPUs like Core 2 Duo will perform vastly better. Just because its a dedicated hardware doesn't mean it'll be better than a generic processor like a CPU.

GMA X3000/X3100 is designed to perform better on shader intensive apps.

Run Half Life 2 and CS:S and tell me how it runs.

I get around 30-50 fps on Half Life 2 with everything high HDR+Bloom.

If you don't think the current drivers(XP or Vista) have hardware T&L and/or Vertex Shaders, test these games to see if they run at all.

Battlefield 2
Bioshock
Call of Duty 2
Crysis
Supreme Commander
Unreal Tournament 3

They REQUIRE hardware support to run at all. I can run them, how about you?

Software is ONLY SLOW if the hardware alternative is reasonably powerful enough. GMA X3000 vs. Core 2 Duo is at a point where we have a crossover and the X3000 may not outperform the CPU on certain cases. Intel knows that: http://www.4gamer.net/games/038/G003822/20070926019/
(And that's a more powerful IGP, the upcoming G35) This tells ABSOLUTELY nothing about support. Support is just support. Either you run it or you don't. Run those new games I put on the list. If you don't have hardware T&L/VS it'll tell you your graphics card isn't supported and shut down.

 

ok.. let's say it got hw support now (DL crysis demo atm)..
the GMA950 still performs better on Portal. I've seen it. I even got a way better CPU... and still it sucks. So whats the point of having 8 unified shader pipes if my CPU could emulate it faster...

 

I am with a problem playing CS:S, the walls and the boxes when I move away they show a white texture and the walls are with passing white lights also. I am with driver of chipset and of the gfx brought up to date what i can be?

GMA X3100 - directx 9c
Intel 2 duo 2.0ghz
1mb ram

 

I am with a problem playing CS:S, the walls and the boxes when I move away they show a white texture and the walls are with passing white lights also. I am with driver of chipset and of the gfx brought up to date what i can be?

GMA X3100 - directx 9c
Intel 2 duo 2.0ghz
1mb ram

I see your pic and it have the same problem!

 

U got the latest IGP drivers? couse I think it was fixed in the new drivers..
Btw, I don't think Windows will install on a machine with 1 MB RAM.. ;P
(it's more likely 1 GB)

 

sorry, i install the newest driver! and i have 1Gb ram!

 

So ok try on Half Life 2. Since I only have Half Life 2 Demo that's the only one I can test. Let's see if your performance is uniform with all the HL2 engine based games.

 

Lets not to mention that those with weary eyes needed some images to go along with the specs.

 

Images would be a great help, as long as they're accompanied with an FPS, preferably from something akin to FRAPS.

 

My laptop is the Acer Extensa 5620-6830
Enhanced Intel® Centrino® Duo processor technology with Intel® Core™2 Duo mobile processor T5250 Intel® GM965 chipset,
1GB DDR2 memory for multitasking power, expandable to 4GB; 667MHz frontside bus, 2MB L2 cache and 1.5GHz processor speed. (I have 2 gig sandisk flash drive with readyboost enabled)

Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 with Intel® Dynamic Video Memory Technology 4.0 and up to 358MB shared video memory and direct X 10

Will the Sims 2 run on my laptop and the expansion pack Seasons?? thanks

 

Sims 2 and its expansions will run on your laptop but probbaly not on the highest settings. Getting 2gb of ram would help quite a bit.

 

i have this card but i'm disappointed, this card can be fast running 3d some games but it presents some problems with textures and graphics of games. for exemple my cs:s run with textures erros at some maps (i.e de_dust). i try to play rainbow six vegas and i see green spots in the wall (this game can't play with this card, but i try). x3100 dont have anti aliasing and the games are ugly

sorry my english, im from brasil

 

Thanks for your answers, at least I know I can run the Sims 2 & expansions just not at the highest setting which is just fine with me. I noticed when I go to my graphic accelerator x3100 window for 3D settings Open GL, it lists Force S3TC Texture compression to OFF and Force FXT1 Compression to OFF. Would it help to enable them?