Onvoard video: What's it good for

[perdomot]

Nvidia seems to be pushing their Geforce 6100/6150 series of onboard video and I wanted to ask the experts here how good it is for non-gamers. I mean in day-to-day usage. The reason I ask is that my second rig has an old Radeon 9200 in it and you can tell how weak it is when you minimize/maximize windows or even web surf. I havent found any articles which give an idea what these new chipsets compare to in terms of add in cards and I'd really like to know. Let's say I decide to get a mobo with these chipsets on them and use the onboard vid, would it be better than the 9200 for regular use?

 

[Tom]

on the minimize/maximize windows point, do you have animations turned on for that function ? That might be why it seems slow.

Other than that, I don't know why your Radeon would be slow for those functions. Most modern onboard video would perform the same or better for those uses, I think, but most will use some of your system memory because they don't have dedicated memory like an add-on card has.

 

[Crescent13]

what CPU do you have and how much ram? I don't think the graphic card is responsible for minimizing/maximizing windows.

 

[NoStateofMind]

"War!!! huuuhhh!!!!! What it is good for!!!! Absolutely nothin!!! Say it again!!!!!"

From a previous thread, I was told that the ATI's X200 boards are better than my Radeon 9200. How true that is, anyone's guess.

 

[Celeryman]

Onboard video is good for Grandma!!!

 

[professor1942]

Yeah solitaire works awesome on it.

 

[MercenaryForHire]

What's with all these people having trouble surfing on "weak video cards"?

If an old C500 with an i810 can handle it, anything should be able to. Check your software settings and/or RAM.

- M4H

 

[MercenaryForHire]

An integrated nVidia/ATi chipset certainly won't be comparable to even a low-end discrete card, but it's certainly not useless. Older games, the Sims, etc ... "casual" gamers will be happy with them. Intel prior to GMA900 ... well, let's just leave that at the "Etch-A-Sketch" level, folks.

- M4H

 

[kranky]

My motherboard has the Intel GMA900 integrated video and not only was it perfectly functional with non-gaming tasks, I could play BF1942 @ 800x600 smoothly. I have 1GB RAM and the GMA900 used 128mb of shared memory and even supported DirectX 9.

I typically have many windows open and never had a problem with it - switching windows, maximize/minimize, scrolling, whatever. Very good performance.

I don't know anything about the 6100/6150 but it's probably better than the GMA900.

 

[Yreka]

Originally posted by: PC Surgeon
"War!!! huuuhhh!!!!! What it is good for!!!! Absolutely nothin!!! Say it again!!!!!"

From a previous thread, I was told that the ATI's X200 boards are better than my Radeon 9200. How true that is, anyone's guess.

Lolzers, exactly what I though of when I saw the title.

Onboard video... huuuahh!! good gawd ya'll what is it good for ? People who dont game.. say it again huuha !

 

[MercenaryForHire]

6150 vs X200

There's a GMA900 article hanging around somewhere, but I can't be arsed to find it at the moment.

Edit - Haven't been able to dig up anything on the RS690, which is supposedly going to be an X700-based IGP.

- M4H

 

[unclebud]

"From a previous thread, I was told that the ATI's X200 boards are better than my Radeon 9200. How true that is, anyone's guess."

it's true imo. its an actual dx9 part
but its still not a discrete unit as an add-on video card
do not own a 6100 igp board yet, so don't know about that
but the fact that the onboard graphics is decent is the only reason i haven't pawned this 1610nx off on a relative as a christmas present, cuase i am unable at present to use the pci-e slot with the current bios offering

"There's a GMA900 article hanging around somewhere, but I can't be arsed to find it at the moment."

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2427

 

[selfbuilt]

A bit out of date, but here's a round-up of 7 integrated chipsets from last summer:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/chipsets/display/int-chipsets-roundup.html

Basically, you're fine for regular 2D usage on integrated (except for Via unichrome on higher refresh rates/resolutions on CRTs). Just don't expect to play games with them.

 

[beggerking]

with an onboard dx9.0 capable video, you can play games as if they were picture albums.

 

[Peter]

Originally posted by: selfbuilt(except for Via unichrome on higher refresh rates/resolutions on CRTs).

Doesn't get any more true by repetition.

Besides, that xbitlabs test is a major step in PC evolution behind - RAM controllers are now quite a lot faster than they used to be on socket-A and -478.

 

[videopho]

Onvoard is good for two things:

1) spell checker
2) slide show

:beer:

 

[LungExpansion]

Dont mock onboard video!

I have an Nforce 2 mobo with onboard video and while I see a lot of people crying they cant get their WMV9 High Definition files to play smooth with much more powerfull rigs this simple mobo has not had an issue with them from day 1. This was way before the optimized drivers were even available.

Its an Athlon XP running at 1730mhz and has no problems downscaling a 1920x1080i WMV9 which of course takes extra effort. Meanwhile I saw people in here who couldnt get their 3200+ machines with Top end Radeon and Geforce cards to play them.

It may not be the fastest gaming rig but for HDTV encoding/decoding it rocks and it saved the cost of a video card and whatever additional power requirements and heat that would be generated.

Kudos to the onBoard video chipset from Nvidia.

 

[sandorski]

As long as non-Gamer doesn't mean 3D App User, then Onboard video is fine.

 

[LungExpansion]

Correction 1920x1080P WMV9 files play back smoothly with my Nvidia Nforce 2 mobo with Athlon XP 1730mhz cpu. I stated 1920x1080i earlier.

 

[beggerking]

Originally posted by: LungExpansion
Dont mock onboard video!

I have an Nforce 2 mobo with onboard video and while I see a lot of people crying they cant get their WMV9 High Definition files to play smooth with much more powerfull rigs this simple mobo has not had an issue with them from day 1. This was way before the optimized drivers were even available.

Its an Athlon XP running at 1730mhz and has no problems downscaling a 1920x1080i WMV9 which of course takes extra effort. Meanwhile I saw people in here who couldnt get their 3200+ machines with Top end Radeon and Geforce cards to play them.

It may not be the fastest gaming rig but for HDTV encoding/decoding it rocks and it saved the cost of a video card and whatever additional power requirements and heat that would be generated.

Kudos to the onBoard video chipset from Nvidia.

lol. okok.. I was only joking..

actually onboard video is , imho, more stable than dedicated solution due to its complexity, and easier to program in driver. I have intel 850 set and some old cirrus sets and they all run videos etc flawlessly w/o the need to constantly updating drivers( windows tends to auto update them). Also, there were less problem with heat. I have never had a crush in 6 yrs.

But for gaming, they are terrible..

 

[unclebud]

graphic snabs get the big whatever
i am playing my games just fine, but if one of them wanna send they big liquid cooled geforce quadruple that costs as much as a used cadillac to me for free, i'll be singing death to onboard graphics also
til then, they get the big pbbblt

 

[deepred98]

Originally posted by: PC Surgeon
"War!!! huuuhhh!!!!! What it is good for!!!! Absolutely nothin!!! Say it again!!!!!"

From a previous thread, I was told that the ATI's X200 boards are better than my Radeon 9200. How true that is, anyone's guess.

dude that is exactly what i was thinkin
rush hour was the pwnage

 

[perdomot]

Thanks for the info and links. I think I'll look into getting a 9600 PRO to replace the 9200. Should be a reasonable upgrade. The rig is a SKT 754 2.0Ghz Newcastle with 512MB of ram so I'm thinking the 9200 is the weak link here.

 

[RobsTV]

Originally posted by: MercenaryForHire
6150 vs X200

There's a GMA900 article hanging around somewhere, but I can't be arsed to find it at the moment.

Edit - Haven't been able to dig up anything on the RS690, which is supposedly going to be an X700-based IGP.

- M4H

Bad comparison.
Many ATi xpress200 solutions actually incorporate some dedicated onboard memory, in addition to shared.
The review above is not one of these boards.
Also, the ULi Southbridge seems to help video perform better than ATi Southbridge.
End results are, onboard ATi does indeed beat many add on dedicated video cards.
Here, xpress200 (x300) scores around 2100 in 3dm2k3, and 8000 in 3dm2k1se. (see madonion website).
That compares to about ATi 9100/8500 which is a lot faster than low-end discrete cards like the ATi 9200.

Been building affordable HTPC's for years, primarily using NF2 mATX motherboards, and usually had to add a dedicated card like ATi 8500/9100/9200 to get decent TV out, as well as able to satisfy the occasional gamer. Have two friend/customers that actually play Doom 3 with the 8500/9100 cards! So with the new onboard ATi video, no longer need to buy an add on video card for quality TV out and occasional gamers. FarCry and Half-Life 2 both perform well (45+fps) at 1024x768 with the ATi onboard. FEAR? Haven't tried it, but I would think not... AOE 3? Again, fine at 1024x768.

 

[hans007]

your computer is seriously screwed up if it is slow minimizing and maximizing video.

2d acceleration topped out about when the riva tnt2 came out. probably even before that. nothing in windows is 3d accelerated as of now (it will be in vista but only optional) so integrated video is fine.

onboard video (good onboard video like the 6100/6150 and xpress200) whats it good for?

95% of computers that is what.