Netbooks Are Losing Steam?

[KThunder]

Riiiiight... I'll believe that when I see it.

Just because netbooks are not focused on performance doesn't mean we can't talk about their (lack of) performance in comparison with other products.

You don't know what you're talking about. For all it's worth, GMA950 "supports" shader model 3. The question is not why it can't run modern games, the question is why it can't even run older games at a playable speed, and the answer which I already pointed out is polygon count. GMA950: 10Mtriangles at best, GeForce 2 MX: 17Mtriangles.

Intel has far more and better chip fabrication facilities than nvidia, ati, and matrox combined. their focus is on cpu's, chipsets, and then video chips, they don't seem to care about performance video chips. just because they don't care doesn't mean they can't. they provide basic video.

You can compare the performance with whatever you want, it doesn't mean it will make any sense. netbooks aren't very good supercomputers, or servers, or smartphones either.

According to the links I provided above the 950 has shader 2.0 support but no hardware t&l so most directx shader stuff will not use shaders. vista aero etc. will but that isnt game support.
I do know what I am talking about, I am sitting here typing on a system with a 945 chipset, I have run halo, quake III, and many other games on it including open source games with shader support which i had to turn off. all these games ran at playable speeds, with hardly any framerate issues. My athlon64 system with geforce 8 series video is much better and can run any shader stuff, but this is fine for light gaming.

do you have a 950 or 945 chipset system? have you actually run games on one? do you know what you are talking about?

[pyrre]

Hmmm...
My girlfriends old Siemens laptop.
Pentium M 1.4ghz, 512 ram. ++ crappy cpu, way to little ram....
No longer running xp, it gets bluescreen every time i turn on the wifi radio. Is now installed with linux. Radio works perfectly. still has some (limmited) battery time. but it plays DVD fine, no laggy playback, plays files over network. connects to TVs. (only 720P though)...
What more would i need....?
And the best part, i got it for free....

[whabang]

Actually, Intel is marketing the G945, as it was the only available platform for the Atom for quite some time. If they'd built the platform on the X3100 then the video performance would probably be better.

The GMA 950 has no hardware vertex shaders (tile-based rendering, und so weiter), but has slow but functional pixel shaders. The driver reports shader 2.0 compatibility, at least on my server, which admittedly runs old drivers, but anyway.

At the time of its' release, the GMA 950 had quite impressive performance for an integrated chip (look at my post history for my first impressions of it), and while it required a fast CPU, it was actually able to play most games, albeit on "low" settings.
The Atom CPU sacrificed performance for battery life, thus the 950, which by the time of the Atom's release was getting old, was crippled even further.

Regardless, the 950 has a low power usage, which justified its' use in the Atom platform. I just don't see why Intel hasn't tried to at least use the X3100 or the 4500 and developed a new platform. As I stated earlier, I am convinced that it is the lack of recent development is a main reason for the stagnation of the netbook market.

On a side note, Intel is working quite hard on improving the performance of their 3D-chips, and since they integrated the GPU's into the CPUs, they are actually beating low-end video cards like the nVidia 8400. With the rate they are improving the GPU performance, I wouldn't be surprised if Intel catches up sometime during the next five years. Considering that MS is trying to create a DirectX computing platform, it's not unthinkable.

[DamageX]

Intel has far more and better chip fabrication facilities than nvidia, ati, and matrox combined.

lol, especially considering that nVidia has TSMC manufacture their parts and AMD spun off their manufacturing operations.

no hardware t&l

Exactly. It's missing a decade-old feature. That's my whole point.
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Graphics-Media-Accelerator-950.2177.0.html

[KThunder]

lol you are dancing around my point.
like them or not Intel has some of the most advanced and capable chip fabrication facilities in the world and can produce literally any design they want. the don't directly compete in high end video chipsets for reasons of focus or antitrust avoidance.
this doesn't mean they are incapable, incompetant of whatever. chipset video shares a die with other motherboard functions so there are limited transisters available for video function. therefore there will not be all of the functions available for video t&l shaders etc.
my whole point is have you actually used a 945 or 950 chipset system to provide a real objective view
the 945 in my objective view provides more than sufficient capabilities for a netbook for all internet and office software and older and limited gaming. I have actually run benchmarks on this and other systems and can campare them realisticly. I have this 945 based netbook as well as pcs with 845g, 865g, geforce2, geforcefx5200, geforce6200, geforce 8100, radeon 9800pro, and radeon hd 3200.
I have run many games like halo, quake III, elder scrolls marrowind, as well as many opensource games such as cube2 sauerbraten, open arena, and others and many demos and benchmarks including glexcess.
I have tested these systems and played games on them I can tell you for real and honestly if they work and what they can do.

[the_leander]

Let me fix that back for you and correct myself...$249[/url] at newegg.

US prices, now tell me how much that'd cost with import tax and VAT. Oh and £20 or so for a replacement charger.

Not living in the US, that price is not available to me without risking a visit from Customs.

[ChuckT]

The problem with Notebooks is heat, not being able to expand or change your system easily and one of the things I've researched about them is they don't last as long as desktop computers.  What I've also discovered through research is that most netbook users use them at home.  So why didn't they just get a laptop or desktop?

If I buy a PC, I believe I will have to start with Linux because Windows is really getting on my nerves; I've almost had enough with Internet Exporer crashing every day, viruses that appear even when you are running virus software, Outlook Express Crashing and losing my email.  This is actually true and I'm not making it up.

I'll go to use system restore and even though it is enabled, Windows tells me that I can't restore.

I'm not excited with Windows and I'm tired of the system registry which is why I want Linux which isn't supposed to have one.

[ElPolloDiabl]

RE: Any design they want

They can't produce an itanium. They can't produce a GPGPU. Really there is probably only a handful of engineers (spread across the big 3) who can make things go faster. Intel's graphics division seems to have Cyrix's philosophy, make em cheap, but fast enough at office programs.

[the_leander]

The problem with Notebooks is heat

Actually of all the things netbooks commonly suffer from (thin casings on them that allow too much flex which in turn damages the motherboards, for instance) heat related issues rank fairly low.

not being able to expand or change your system easily

Same goes for laptops. But here's the thing: You don't buy one of these things for upgradability. You buy them for portability and price.

and one of the things I've researched about them is they don't last as long as desktop computers.  

You get what you pay for. You buy an el cheapo desktop and you're tempting fate every bit as much as with a poor quality netbook. It also has to be said that netbooks are subject to stresses that a desktop system rarely, if ever encounters in its service life.

The original netbook brief of small cheap computing meant that they were all but disposable, if you dropped them, meh who cares.

What I've also discovered through research is that most netbook users use them at home.

Care to provide citation for this?

So why didn't they just get a laptop or desktop?

Size, cost and what they intend to run on it. You don't need some C2D 17ins laptop if all you want is something to browse the net occasionally.

I'm not excited with Windows and I'm tired of the system registry which is why I want Linux which isn't supposed to have one.

I've got some very bad news for you. Just about every modern OS that runs on a variety of different hardware platforms has some form of database to help with driver config. MacOS, Linux, Windows, Solaris, BSD, hell even BeOS.

[DamageX]

lol you are dancing around my point.

I don't know what your point is. I stated that polygon counts are a serious weakness of Intel's graphics and you contradicted me.

this doesn't mean they are incapable, incompetant of whatever.

No, you're right, I'm sure Intel has the resources to be competitive at a higher level in the graphics market. But they aren't doing it, instead they have been flooding the market with cheap low-end products. If their integrated graphics is good enough for you, that's fine, but I would rather avoid it because I believe the other vendors' parts are better. I don't play that many PC games, but I play Half-life 2 and some other source-engine games and these old Intel parts without transform & lighting just don't get the job done. I had a laptop with the 915 chipset which is almost the same thing and most maps would run really slow. Maybe the 400Mhz version of the 945 would just barely suffice, but it is not clear which laptops (if any) have the 400Mhz version as opposed to the lower clocked versions. Further, since it is made with the old 130nm manufacturing process it would also be less efficient than something like a GeForce Go 7300.

I think the Pentium M was a great CPU for small laptops and I was just annoyed at the time that so many of them were stuck with the GMA 900 for graphics. That's why I have to rant about it, you see.

[whabang]

RE: Any design they want

They can't produce an itanium. They can't produce a GPGPU. Really there is probably only a handful of engineers (spread across the big 3) who can make things go faster. Intel's graphics division seems to have Cyrix's philosophy, make em cheap, but fast enough at office programs.

Which is why they have a 40% market share on the video market.

Not developing/supporting an API for GPGPU operations does not make the chips incapable of handling those operations. Last time I checked, the recent Intel video solutions had programmable shaders and directX-capability; it's just as with the slow speed that those chips run with, combined with the fact that they do not have their own RAM, which makes them horribly unsuited for GP computing.

Oh, and Cyrix actually had the integer performance crown for a while in the 90's.

[Arkhan]

The problem with Notebooks is heat, not being able to expand or change your system easily and one of the things I've researched about them is they don't last as long as desktop computers.

I have a few NEC Laptops from 1998 that still function as if they were new.
The problem isn't the hardware, its clumsy people tossing them around like toys, eating near them, smoking, etc.

  What I've also discovered through research is that most netbook users use them at home.  So why didn't they just get a laptop or desktop?

What research?  I see about 100 netbooks a day at school.    Seems like maybe most people use em on the go.

If I buy a PC, I believe I will have to start with Linux because Windows is really getting on my nerves; I've almost had enough with Internet Exporer crashing every day,

Stop using Internet Explorer?

 viruses that appear even when you are running virus software,

Well if you run virus software, thats why you have viruses!  :roflmao:
Do you have a proper firewall set up?  If not you WILL get viruses, and the ANTI virus software is there to notice, and destroy it.   Resident scanning, etc.  doesn't prevent it from arriving, it just prevents it from staying.

Outlook Express Crashing and losing my email.  This is actually true and I'm not making it up.

Stop using Outlook Express?

I'll go to use system restore and even though it is enabled, Windows tells me that I can't restore.

Did you set up restore points?   Turning it on and not having a restore point wont accomplish anything.

I'm not excited with Windows and I'm tired of the system registry which is why I want Linux which isn't supposed to have one.

Emmm.  Stick with Windows.  Linux will probably give you more issues.