X3100, no openGL support ? no acceleration ?

[f41t3r]

Some week after buying new Macbook 3,1 with x3100 I started to see some strange things. I was comparing for my only satisfaction graphic results with my friend with macbook with gma 950 graphic card. And gues what...
950 appears to be a lot more efficient than x3100. It's all because openGL.
When I was running xbench benchmark I scored:

OpenGL Graphics Test
22.79

Spinning Squares
22.79
28.91 frames/sec

while my friend with 950 scored about 300 points in both.
glxgears scores much less then 2000 fps

Some games that I thought will run easily are just unplayable, like Heroes of might and magic. Some textures are just missing.
Acceleration just isn't working for me.


Any ideas why ?

 

[Techguy172]

It's because of drivers you see the GMA 950 has excellent drivers and they have matured the X3100 ones haven't the card is fairly new therefore it has lower performance for things like Open GL and acceleration.

 

[TSE]

Intel GMA 950 drivers are far superior to the GMA X3100 as the other poster mentioned. But the X3100 realistically should be around 10x faster, even though thats not saying much. The X3100 is regarded to be a great card as far as integrated goes, it is just that both Vista and Mac OS X drivers for it suck.

 

[f41t3r]

So, I gues I have to wait for some better drivers. Thank you for reply. It meant a lot for me.

 

[ctt1wbw]

Intel GMA 950 drivers are far superior to the GMA X3100 as the other poster mentioned. But the X3100 realistically should be around 10x faster, even though thats not saying much. The X3100 is regarded to be a great card as far as integrated goes, it is just that both Vista and Mac OS X drivers for it suck.

I wonder why that is? I have a Dell Inapiron 1720 with the GMA965 chip in it and it won't support openGL at all. But if I run a live cd of Ubuntu, xorg works on and openGL is fully supported. I asked Intel about this and got a typical ******** answer. Basically the people at tech support didn't know diddly.

 

[f41t3r]

Don't you think that it's strange situation ? Intel introduce new gma integrated graphic without fully working drivers ? I'm forced to wait for new drivers. I have to wait with all this I have - a big nothing.

 

[clevin]

Don't you think that it's strange situation ? Intel introduce new gma integrated graphic without fully working drivers ? I'm forced to wait for new drivers. I have to wait with all this I have - a big nothing.

I don't know, but it IS strange. Is this really just a problem of drivers?

PS. this X3100<950 is confirmed by many sources
http://www.everymac.com/systems/app...s-performance-compared-to-gma-950-gaming.html

 

[Eidorian]

Don't you think that it's strange situation ? Intel introduce new gma integrated graphic without fully working drivers ? I'm forced to wait for new drivers. I have to wait with all this I have - a big nothing.

Intel pushed back the release of T&L drivers for the GMA X3xxx Series for about a year.

 

[djinn]

Maybe the 10.5.2 video drive patch will include some better drivers..

 

[f41t3r]

Maybe the 10.5.2 video drive patch will include some better drivers..

Without any intel support I don't think that there would be any change in x3100 acceleration. I wouldn't count either for non-official drivers.

 

[clevin]

well, for better or worse, its easy to update your graphic card driver anytime you want in windows...

 

[CubeHacker]

Don't go by xbench results. Those are next to meaningless. Run a real 3d application (or a game) and compare framerates that way.

 

[f41t3r]

well, for better or worse, its easy to update your graphic card driver anytime you want in windows...

In windows they aren't perfect either. I think that, if they would be final drivers for Windows, for Mac OS it would be just a matter of time (days, maybe weeks). New macbooks are for about 2 months in stores. For such a long time x3100 is still not fully functional because of buggy drivers.

 

[KornStar]

X3100

I just got my MacBook with a GMA X3100 and decided to install Aliens Vs pred 2.

First time i tried to run i got an error message saying it needed an OpenGl supported graphics.

Now when i run it it simply doesnt respond.

Im gonna try update the drivers and see what happens. I find it odd that Apple would ship new Macs without the latest drivers.

Any ideas?

-KornStar-

 

[djinn]

Only thing you can do is wait for the drivers to come out. I agree its pretty crappy for the X3100 to come out and not have optimized driver support.

 

[mosx]

Intel GMA 950 drivers are far superior to the GMA X3100 as the other poster mentioned. But the X3100 realistically should be around 10x faster, even though thats not saying much. The X3100 is regarded to be a great card as far as integrated goes, it is just that both Vista and Mac OS X drivers for it suck.

10x faster? Theres no way its 10x faster. Even on paper it is not 10x faster. The paper specs for both are highly overblown. If you look at the specs for the GMA 950, one would think it could outperform the GeForce 8400M GS in some respects. But real world is completely different. The GMA 950 can barely choke out 30fps in Unreal Tournament 2004 at 800x600 medium settings in Windows, yet a similar system with a GeForce 8400M GS can run the game at highest detail settings at 1280x800 and locked at 60 fps. Even if you compare the GMA 950 to the top integrated card during the time they were both released, the ATI Xpress 200M, the GMA fails miserably. The GMA 950 looked much better on paper, but the ATI card could push UT at 1280x800 at around 40 frames with everything set to medium. The ATI card even supported OpenGL 2.0. The top nVidia integrated card then, the GeForce Go 6150, could even push Doom 3 at good framerates with good detail settings.

Now you fast forward to today. Look at the GeForce 7150M. The paper specs are VERY similar to the 6150, yet it outperforms all of the other integrated cards.

Paper specs don't mean anything. The X3100 is showing that. The card has been out for how long now? It started showing up in PCs just shy of a year ago. Intel has had plenty of time to get proper drivers out for it. They just blew it with the design. The X3100 is a sign that Apple either needs to bring dedicated GPUs back (yes the Radeon 9550 in the last couple of iBooks was and still is faster than ANY of the integrated GPUs in use by Apple today) or switch to nVidia's Intel chipsets.

I don't know, but it IS strange. Is this really just a problem of drivers?

PS. this X3100<950 is confirmed by many sources
http://www.everymac.com/systems/appl...50-gaming.html

A couple of game tests by a couple of websites that didn't give any kind of hint of system configuration don't mean anything to those of us who know our hardware and know how hardware should be tested. Two or three people getting better performance when the rest of the world says otherwise proves that the X3100 is a flop. I'll take my stable and proven GMA 950 over the X3100 any day. Even though the GMA 950 is still leagues behind my GeForce in my HP.

 

[peterx]

mosx - couldn't agree more. the x3100 chips are pathetic, dismal crap excuse for a graphics system. Apple either completely dropped the ball with the 950 & 3100, or they didn't give a sht, or did exactly what they wanted to do all along - a calculating marketing price point. Probably a bit of 2 and 3. If the macbooks had decent graphics chip (just good enough mind you), i'm betting a ton of Mbook pro biz would fly out the window. There's really little relevant difference between the machines at this point EXCEPT the graphics. Sure there's a metal enclosure, slightly bigger HD, some peripheral connections, cpu just barely faster, but the core of the machine is the same. So, you pay a $700 premium for a dedicated graphics chip and 2" additional screen, and a few other tidbits. Very frustrating - btw this was typed on a brand new 2.4ghz macbook with ***** graphics capabilities The x3100 is SO BAD it's really like using a graphics card from 2000 or earlier.

LASTLY - HOLD YOUR BREATH - anyone who thinks any significant improvement will come by way of drivers for this chipset. Check the net - there is simply not much work being done on these. Intel put the chips out there, delivered T&L to the windows platform A YEAR AFTER THE CARD WAS RELEASED. This is a super low end solution so there's no money in drastic driver improvements. I'm sure intel is well into development for the next chipset, which I believe we'll see in macbooks this summer. I tried WOW and second life - just for kicks. Both are dismal in the 10-20fps range @ 800x600 res. WOW is quite a bit better than second life and does get into the 30fps range, but still it's just ridiculous. I was really hoping for some better performance out of this card, but this is just plain embarrassing. I'm surprised apple doesn't receive scathing reviews for being way behind the competition in this regard.

 

[Nichod]

mosx - couldn't agree more. the x3100 chips are pathetic, dismal crap excuse for a graphics system. Apple either completely dropped the ball with the 950 & 3100, or they didn't give a sht, or did exactly what they wanted to do all along - a calculating marketing price point. Probably a bit of 2 and 3. If the macbooks had decent graphics chip (just good enough mind you), i'm betting a ton of Mbook pro biz would fly out the window. There's really little relevant difference between the machines at this point EXCEPT the graphics. Sure there's a metal enclosure, slightly bigger HD, some peripheral connections, cpu just barely faster, but the core of the machine is the same. So, you pay a $700 premium for a dedicated graphics chip and 2" additional screen, and a few other tidbits. Very frustrating - btw this was typed on a brand new 2.4ghz macbook with ***** graphics capabilities The x3100 is SO BAD it's really like using a graphics card from 2000 or earlier.

LASTLY - HOLD YOUR BREATH - anyone who thinks any significant improvement will come by way of drivers for this chipset. Check the net - there is simply not much work being done on these. Intel put the chips out there, delivered T&L to the windows platform A YEAR AFTER THE CARD WAS RELEASED. This is a super low end solution so there's no money in drastic driver improvements. I'm sure intel is well into development for the next chipset, which I believe we'll see in macbooks this summer. I tried WOW and second life - just for kicks. Both are dismal in the 10-20fps range @ 800x600 res. WOW is quite a bit better than second life and does get into the 30fps range, but still it's just ridiculous. I was really hoping for some better performance out of this card, but this is just plain embarrassing. I'm surprised apple doesn't receive scathing reviews for being way behind the competition in this regard.

Sigh. One could hope.

 

[jincongz]

Problem is, the video card by itself doesn't really justify the $400 price hike for allota ppl, including my mom. Think that if we all went to talk to Apple, they'd change?