A free GMA500 graphics driver

Posted Feb 22, 2011 15:39 UTC (Tue) by hp (guest, #5220)
Parent article: A free GMA500 graphics driver

Getting 3D going on this might be huge just because it could open a path to 3D on a bunch of SGX-based phones too

A free GMA500 graphics driver

Posted Feb 22, 2011 16:21 UTC (Tue) by gregkh (subscriber, #8) [Link] (10 responses)

This is for 2d acceleration only.

A free GMA500 graphics driver

Posted Feb 22, 2011 16:27 UTC (Tue) by hp (guest, #5220) [Link] (4 responses)

I know, just saying getting 3D going would have an impact well beyond GMA500

2D isn't good for much beyond emacs/vi/bash these days

A free GMA500 graphics driver

Posted Feb 22, 2011 16:38 UTC (Tue) by gregkh (subscriber, #8) [Link] (1 responses)

Not true at all, at least your machine will properly use the
resolutions the screen supports, which is a huge step forward from the
current situation.

A free GMA500 graphics driver

Posted Feb 22, 2011 16:54 UTC (Tue) by hp (guest, #5220) [Link]

not knocking 2D progress, useful for many.

but with a wimpy Atom or ARM you need 3D even to hope to play video, for example. not to mention the latest html5 features, webGL, and upcoming desktop
environments. It all mostly assumes a GPU.

that's why I say 2D is more for those who just do command line and text editor. it's a good step.

the point is, 3D would be awesome too as a future step. seems uncontroversial.

Value of 2D-only

Posted Feb 23, 2011 9:07 UTC (Wed) by pjm (guest, #2080) [Link] (1 responses)

> 2D isn't good for much beyond emacs/vi/bash these days

Hang on, you mean there's other graphical software besides xterms and emacsen?

Value of 2D-only

Posted Feb 23, 2011 17:44 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

There's Battle for Wesnoth. ;}

(no 3D yet, but what's the betting it'll start using GPU capabilities in any case, one of these days?)

A free GMA500 graphics driver

Posted Feb 22, 2011 16:27 UTC (Tue) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (4 responses)

Right now it's not even for 2D acceleration.

A free GMA500 graphics driver

Posted Feb 22, 2011 16:32 UTC (Tue) by gregkh (subscriber, #8) [Link] (3 responses)

Oops, sorry, you are right, it's 2d only, not accelerated.

A free GMA500 graphics driver

Posted Feb 22, 2011 16:54 UTC (Tue) by arjan (subscriber, #36785) [Link] (2 responses)

2D acceleration nowadays is "just" blitcopies; there's no real use for the accelerated drawing of circles and stuff like that ;-)

A free GMA500 graphics driver

Posted Feb 22, 2011 23:53 UTC (Tue) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (1 responses)

On at least modern consumer desktop hardware the 2D functions are carried out by the same hardware bits as the 3D functions.

I don't know how the PowerVR stuff goes, though.

A free GMA500 graphics driver

Posted Feb 23, 2011 10:03 UTC (Wed) by ken (subscriber, #625) [Link]

What confuses me is that why the 2D stuff was ever a problem to begin with.
The Imagination hardware I worked with has never implemented anything with the actual display it's simply a hardware block that works with memory.

The display has been a different block by a different company but maybe intel outsourced the entire thing to imgtec