The gma500 driver and gaps in video acceleration

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vtailor
Posts: 229
Joined: Mon Sep 24, 2012 6:54 pm

The gma500 driver and gaps in video acceleration

Post by vtailor »

There is something really odd about the base z510 fit-pc2 and the gma500 driver. First of all, Windows XP wmplayer.exe claims that it is using "full" hardware video acceleration, while the flash plugin is using software rendering and software decoding, not hardware. Even so, on the z510, you can get the DirextX9 hardware-assisted cube to spin. That means that Windows XP and even Windows 8 using the gma500 driver are "accelerated", but the acceleration does not get to be used.

So, the question is whether there is a missing Microsoft component that ties the gma500 graphics driver to the system so that silverlight and flash see the driver hardware and use it.

Also, the lack of sound synchronization on the z510, except for wmplayer full screen with full motion and lipsync, does not make any sense except in the context of the missing Windows XP component that ties this together.

Hint: If you have an Intel DN2800 board with a Broadcom crystalhd card installed and the nearly non-accelerated EMGD graphics driver, Windows XP will report "hardware-assisted decoding" during streaming flash video play. Somehow, the broadcom driver gets seen by the system, while the gma500 driver does not get seen. And, the EMGD driver only does DirectDraw, no spinning cubes whatever.

vtailor
Posts: 229
Joined: Mon Sep 24, 2012 6:54 pm

Re: The gma500 driver and gaps in video acceleration

Post by vtailor »

P. S. If you want to see something funny, install Windows 8 on the z510, then run the "performance evaluation". The system will restart halfway through the evaluation, and Windows 8 will ask permission to "report the problem". Of course, so far, they haven't fixed it.

An SSD hard drive is much, much faster on the z510 than is a conventional sata hard drive run in IDE mode. And, of course, the defrag.exe program does a "trim" of the SSD, which is an hour faster in operation than on a conventional drive.

vtailor
Posts: 229
Joined: Mon Sep 24, 2012 6:54 pm

Re: The gma500 driver and gaps in video acceleration

Post by vtailor »

P. P. S.: For reasons I don't understand, Explorer.exe the web browser does not work properly on the z510 and "freezes" repeatedly, even after installing all the initial system upgrades and turning off or uninstalling all tiles and unneeded services.

So you need a second web browser even to test the z510 on Windows 8.

vtailor
Posts: 229
Joined: Mon Sep 24, 2012 6:54 pm

Re: The gma500 driver and gaps in video acceleration

Post by vtailor »

So, Windows 7 more or less works on the z510, while Windows 8 installs, with the usual quirks, on the z530. Now that I know what to look for in video acceleration and lip syncing, I find that the old 1024x768 resolution gives best results on the z530 doing Windows 8 with the gma500 driver from fit-pc installed. The results at 1920x1024 are not accelerated, while 1440x900 is fairly good, showing signs of acceleration and lipsyncing at full screen. (The flash plugin stopped reporting hardware acceleration after I posted about its doing so, an unfortunate coincidence. So, as a result, now you have to infer whether acceleration is taking place.)

Hint: Get into the disk driver and turn on the write buffer to get the best operation speedup.

Say, are you guys planning on issuing that promised gma500 OEM driver update anytime soon? Or, maybe you can get after the Microsoft update people and get them to issue their Intel gma500 driver to Windows 8 users also, not simply Windows 7.

vtailor
Posts: 229
Joined: Mon Sep 24, 2012 6:54 pm

Re: The gma500 driver and gaps in video acceleration

Post by vtailor »

So, Windows 7 more or less works on the z510, while Windows 8 installs, with the usual quirks, on the z530. Now that I know what to look for in video acceleration and lip syncing, I find that the old 1024x768 resolution gives best results on the z530 doing Windows 8 with the gma500 driver from fit-pc installed. The results at 1920x1024 are not accelerated, while 1440x900 is fairly good, showing signs of acceleration and lipsyncing at full screen. (The flash plugin stopped reporting hardware acceleration after I posted about its doing so, an unfortunate coincidence. So, as a result, now you have to infer whether acceleration is taking place.)

Hint: Get into the disk driver and turn on the write buffer to get the best operation speedup.

Say, are you guys planning on issuing that promised gma500 OEM driver update anytime soon? Or, maybe you can get after the Microsoft update people and get them to issue their Intel gma500 driver to Windows 8 users also, not simply Windows 7.

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