Intel G45: problems in the ignition?
By admin at 19 August, 2008, 11:27 pm
The latest Intel chipset with integrated graphics solution is hardly available it is already the headlines of the press and not for his skills, since two quite boring problems have already been identified against the G45. Presented by Intel chipset as the ideal solutions for type Media Center, thanks to its video decompression engine, the G45 would have some trouble precisely on that side. It turns out that the direct competitor of Intel, AMD, has established a demonstration of the G45 used on a laptop brand Hewlett Packard where the acceleration of video streams Blu-ray simply does not work. Intel said that the demonstration of AMD is unclear, its competitor not indicating which processor is used where other specifications of the machine. And AMD is apparently not alone in having some trouble with the acceleration of H.264 flows since our colleagues from ExtremeTech have also failed to activate this function.
According to Intel, with the software Arcsoft Total Media Player acceleration Blu-ray would be functional with a CPU utilization of less than 20%. It remains a problem: 24p, the image freezes every fifteen seconds on average, a problem which remains valid. The latter problem was still present on the previous Intel chipsets, the G35 and G965 but at the time criminalized Intel chips SDVO used for HDMI output. Problem … these chips are no longer used with the G45 and the problem persists …
Finally, the G45 systems are not able to send audio stream to 7.1 on the HDMI interface, a problem that concerns all reality chipsets, Intel or not, when it comes to HDMI 1.3. Intel blame here since the software environment is a limitation related to the implementation of the protocol COPP in video playback software and not a limitation at the hardware level. Indeed, the current software support COPP but not the use of repeater. Intel needs to convince software developers to revise their copy, a task that may take a little time.
Pending the G45 seems, according to initial tests, somewhat disappointing for Intel presented as the ideal chispet for systems Media Center, and we must keep in mind that not even question 3D performance here. In any case we will return to the G45 in the coming weeks in an upcoming test. It should be noted nevertheless that Intel France tells us that the hardware acceleration of the Blu-ray is fully operational in Windows Vista with the latest versions of Power DVD or WinDVD. But pilots in Windows XP do not yet support the acceleration in question.
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