Intel On-board Graphics worth it?

[wussboy]

When I ordered my last computer, I made the mistake of getting an ATI x1950Pro card. It's useless with Linux. I'd like to solve this problem and am interested in the Intel on-board graphics mobos (as I heard there are FOSS drivers for their graphics adapters). I don't play games a lot anymore, but do a lot of Java work and I'd like to be able to use Beryl/Compiz, and would like to move to dual displays.

I currently have:
ATI x1950PRO
Abit NF-M2 nView
AMD 3200 X2

I'd like to run Ubuntu.

What do people recommend? Should I sell all of the above and get a C2D and Intel board? I don't want to get bit by the compatibility bug again and this seemed like the best place to learn!

[Michael]

Intel's newer chipsets such as the GMA 3000/X3000 and X3100 series should be able to handle Beryl/Compiz/Compiz Fusion quite well. However, if you go with an X3100 solution you'll probably need to build the X drivers from source since that support is very new or unless you wait until distributions start shipping with that support.

Though if you really just care about using Beryl/Compiz, have you tried using the integrated GeForce 6100 series graphics on the NF-M2 nView with the proprietary NVIDIA driver?

[Kano]

Upcoming distributions like the Ubuntu gutsy development version directly support Intel G33 (and I would guess G35 too). G33 is more like the older 945G chipset and G35 more like 965G (G35 even only supports ICH8 instead of ICH9). The speed is enough for Beryl/Compiz, usually without water effect. I don't know any oss driver which would support this, Nvidia's DX9/10 cards support it with the binary driver. Using Xgl it would work, but that's a crappy workaround. For standard use the driver is ok, just it is a bit hard (or let's say expensive) to get the ADD2 card needed for DVI-D. At least I still don't have one... For Debian/Etch I backported the needed packages to support G33/G35/965GM in combination with a 2.6.22+ kernel. Everything older should work out of the box - with the exeception of non VESA standard gfx modes which require the use of 915resulution. This tool is to reprogram a VESA mode with a custom res as older drivers only can use supported VESA modes. Usually needed for 1152x864 or 16:10 res.

[Abraxas]

I have a thinkpad notebook with a GMA 950 (945 chipset) and I run compiz without any slowdowns at all. I have always been an AMD guy but I have to say that this was the best purchase I could have made because all the Intel stuff is so well supported and the graphics card lets me do everyting I want to do including compiz and google earth.

[ftmichael]

What's the current status of G33 with Linux? I'm about to build a new system and plan to use a SATA optical drive and IDE hard drive, under Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy). Is anyone else here running a G33 with Gutsy?

Michael

Originally Posted by Kano

Upcoming distributions like the Ubuntu gutsy development version directly support Intel G33 (and I would guess G35 too). G33 is more like the older 945G chipset and G35 more like 965G (G35 even only supports ICH8 instead of ICH9). The speed is enough for Beryl/Compiz, usually without water effect. I don't know any oss driver which would support this, Nvidia's DX9/10 cards support it with the binary driver. Using Xgl it would work, but that's a crappy workaround. For standard use the driver is ok, just it is a bit hard (or let's say expensive) to get the ADD2 card needed for DVI-D. At least I still don't have one... For Debian/Etch I backported the needed packages to support G33/G35/965GM in combination with a 2.6.22+ kernel. Everything older should work out of the box - with the exeception of non VESA standard gfx modes which require the use of 915resulution. This tool is to reprogram a VESA mode with a custom res as older drivers only can use supported VESA modes. Usually needed for 1152x864 or 16:10 res.

[Kano]

gutsy rc had a little buggy intel driver, everything newer (daily snapshots) works fine.