Accelerated-X™ Summit Series
Hardware Supported

 The Intel GMA Family

Support for the new GPU architecturre from Intel - termed by Intel as the "next generation Graphics Media Accelerator Family" - is now available is some Summit Series products (2D only now, 3D later). The "GMA Family" has GPU models for both laptops and desktops, with or without TCL (Transform, Clipping, and Lightng) support. The architecture is considerably different from those of the newer ATI and Nvidia GPUs, which promises (according to Intel) better scalability, and easier driver upgrades as new features are added to the architectue.

The mobile versions of the i965 have lvds support, use less power, etc., and are also available with hardware TCL support. The laptop version is termed the "Mobile Intel® GM965 Express", featuring the Mobile Intel® Graphics Media Accelereator X3100". They also can be used with an ADD2 card to drive two digital monitors or one DualLink monitor, in addition to the embedded monitor connector.

The i965 GPUs do not have internal graphics memory like the graphics units from ATI, Matrox, and Nvidia. Instead the graphics hardware shares system RAM memory, and is integrated with a Graphics Memory Controller Hub (GMCH) that can allocate (and release) memory for graphics (up to 384 MB in the case of the hardware TCL versions) as the graphics unit needs it. The memory also has some enhancements designed to reduce latency and overhead.

From Xi Graphics' view, the I965 is a nice step up in performance. The added 3D support hardware is especially welcome, and will enable these GPUs move into many more UNIX/Linux systems, and at lower cost than the typical add-in graphics cards

Economical notebooks and desktops, too, that have GMA embedded, can now provide very fast 2D performance and respectible OpenGL performance with the Summit PX or VX Series. While it is not a "gamer GPU", by any means - and when using the Xorg -compatible graphics drivers provided by Intel its performance is, shall we say, sub-optimal. With Accelerated-X, it is swift, very powerful, and probably won't melt the computer.

HIGHLIGHTS           

"Graphics Media Accelerator" graphics follows "Extreme Graphics 2" and "Extreme Graphics"

GMA is now supported in Summit Series

DualLink GMA support for large digital monitors can be found in the TX Series.

ATC system with 2Kx2K digital monitors can be supported by GMA in TX Series

Notebooks/Laptops with GMA now have support in new PX Series

Accelerated-X and the Intel i965

Value Desktops
The economical or ("value") desktop computers offered by Dell and others, often have an Intel graphics chip embedded in the motherboard. But if one wanted more than just basic graphics capability, a separate graphics card had to be added. If the embedded chip is the i965, that added graphics card may not be needed. P

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Portables
Portables, such as notebooks, laptops (is there a difference?), tablets, and bolt-on boxes for vehicles that have the i965 GPU can be turned into rather fast, powerful units with the Summit PX Series.

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Mission-critical Systems
With the inclusion of a 3D engine with TCL hardware support,to the Intel i965 GPU, the unit can now be considered for applications that normally would use an add-in graphics card from ATI, Matrox, or Nvidia, some of which can be costly.

Xi Graphics now offers Summit packages for the ATC market that can support PseudoColor, Image Overlays, 2Kx2K monitors, and so on, and with good performance. The economics appear to be impressive (if one does not count a $30,000 monitor as a "graphics device").

SBCs
Single Board Computers (SBCs) used in systems with limited space and power can take advantage of the low power and flexibility of the i965. With Accelerated-X and the PX Series (which supports the lvds version of the i965), the SBCs will be able provide fast , powerful, OpenGL as well as 2D performance (when using Accelrated-X, of course).

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OS And Platform Choices
The Intel i965 can be supported in various Summit Series on various OS kernels. Some standard packages are available as public demos. If you need configurations other than these, contact us with your requirements.

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Free i965 Drivers from Intel
Intel is an impressive computer hardware company. The software side, maybe not so much. At least judging by the graphics drivers provided by Intel with the i965 for use with Linux. True, the 'X' market is tiny compared to the Windows market, but still, ...

We have run some comparison tests between our Accelerated-X SW and the free Xorg/Intel i965 SW (on Intel-powered platforms, BTW) with Linux. Intel should be embarassed.

Comparisons

Accelerated-X vs Intel Driver with Xorg on Linux Laptop
Using a Dell GMA-equipped Inspiron 1525 with a 1280x800 panel, the(2D) X11perf results were interesting. This is a composit number of many operations that are weighted, so the acutal performance one may experience will vary depending upon the nature of the application. For example, when using the Intel driver and surfing the net, we noticed jerky performance, to the extent that it was quie annoying. This did not occur on Windows, so the cause is obviously the X sub-system SW combination of Linux, Intel driver, and the Xorg X server. Neither did it occur with Accelerated-X driver/X server, and Linux. So, that leaves the Xorg/Intel driver pair as the culprit.
Linux test results - x11perf Xmarks - Dell Inspiron 1525
Accelerated-X Summit PX Series  
  109.4
Xorg/Intel Driver  
  49.7

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Accelerated-X vs Intel Driver with Xorg on Linux Desktop
Since the OpenGL driver for the i965 is not finished, we offer a SW comparison on a i945 using an OpenGL benchmark, ViewPerf. This unit does not have hardware TCL, but we expect that the comparison (relatively) will be reasonably representative of the results we will see when the test can be run on the i965 unit with full hardware acceleration.
Linux test results - ViewPerf - Desktop (typ)
Accelerated-X Summit PX Series  
  109.4
Xorg/Intel Driver  
  49.7