[berga.d]

Intel's GMA500 Driver's Download Page
They are the latest at the moment, for Xp, 7, and Vista. (19 March 2010)
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Sear...ccelerator+500

Windows Logo GMA500 Page - Here you will find when a new driver is out, and for what OS.
LINK=Winqual Help

GMA500 Hardware Video Decoding (DXVA) Features (Intel paper)
LINK=http://download.intel.com/design/int...ers/322503.pdf


Finally Intel officially released new drivers. About 6 (SIX) month... But they are there. Finally.
Ask me for every question/problem.

And I can bring you some BEAUTIFUL news!

1-Win7 driver development is in act, and they are working a lot, but they have started just this summer... They found tons of problem to fix in very build!


2-They know about direct2d hw acceleration and the latest driver now support it. However it doesn't work firefox experimental d2d build yet... =(

EDIT 13/03/2010: It seems driver development got a boost! Now they release a driver versione every two weeks! And it seems we will get openGL!

Hi there, Regarding your query on OGL support on GMA500 platform...
GMA500 Windows gfx team has started working on OGL support. Based on my knowledge OGL 2.0 is being targeted for Win7 OS driver. For Linux OS driver version, already OGL 2.0 support is available.
Hope this answers your querstion

Some facts about poor GMA500 performance **TECH INFO, NOT FOR NEWBIE**

I finally found one of the many reasons of poor performance, particularly about slow and stuttering Aero... Our chipset default ram speed, from intel specifications, is DDR2-533.
BUT Dell soldered DDR2-667. So where's the problem...? The problem is that... DDR2-667 has different timings! In fact DDR2-533 use 3-3-3 or 4-4-4, and DDR2-667 use 4-4-4 or 5-5-5...
Low Timings Values = Better performances (It need less time to make ram operations). The increase of timings between 533 and 667 is balanced by the increase in frequency. But our Mini's are running on a DDR2-667 with its high timings, with the low speed of a 533. This is bad. Very bad. And our graphic chip has only this ram to use. And this is extremely bad. If some of you have tried overclocking a video card he should know the big increase in fps obtained overclocking graphic ram. (And generally this is gddr3 or 4) I want to remember our video driver is wddm 1.0... And video ram bandwith is essential for copying windows textures. SO our GMA500 is RAM LIMITED...

And now? How we can fix this... The ram is soldered! It's simple... Take the fsb to 167, and in this way the ram speed will go 667! The difference in Aero speed is HUGE... (If you want some numbers look at the window graphic index with 133 and with 166...) I have a z520 and I have make the overclock automatic. For me it's perfect stable and the battery life / temperature are not modified.

*ATTENTION*
Overclock is not something exact, it pushes chips out of spec, and they are not guaranted to work in these conditions. Maybe a very little little defect in a chip, that work well under standard conditions, under overclock don't work anymore... It is impossible to tell without try.

[BeardedPants]

Could you post a link to the latest win7 gma500 driver?

[holmes4]

If you start a new thread with some actual links, I'll make it a sticky.

[studio79]

first post..here you guys go
You can download the new driver at the fit-PC site Index of /download/win7-drivers

[Montala]

Thanks 'studio79', and welcome to the forum.

I think however that most members would appreciate a bit more information about these drivers, such as which machines (and which operating systems!) they are intended for, as well as who they are actually written by etc.

I assume they are not either directly from Dell or Intel, but are we sure they are Copyright free, fully tested, and intended for public distribution?

Out of interest, have they been discussed or commented on elsewhere?

As I am sure you will appreciate, the Forum does have fairly strict rules as to what can, and can't, be made available for download to other Members, so we do therefore have to be quite sure of their integrity.

[Jon_J]

Xp and Vista drivers are not developed anymore at this moment. (except iegd drivers)

Not everyone has upgraded to win7 yet. Myself, I don't want to pay $100 or more to get win7. Why no XP drivers?

[neo158]

Originally Posted by Jon_J

Not everyone has upgraded to win7 yet. Myself, I don't want to pay $100 or more to get win7. Why no XP drivers?

Because XP is an 8 year old OS, so why waste time and resources supporting an older operating system, when they can focus on getting decent Windows 7 drivers released.

[berga.d]

Sorry, I have not post driver yet because I wanted test them a couple of days...

Yes they are from the Fit-pc 2 support site. It is the fastest oem to publish new versions.
Fit-pc2 have our chipset, except that the internal screen out (lvds) isn't used, so drivers are in general identical.

Win7 versions are a one click and go...(They are the standard ones) Intel release a new version of them one or two time a month. The Xp version need a little modification in the ini file, in order to activate the internal screen. (because the it's an oem modded one)

You can check when a new version is built through the microsoft whql website. It lists whenever a driver development team want to obtain the whql.


fit-pc company include in the zip package release notes from intel. They are titled as "confidential". So for this reason i have not posted them. But if fitpc make them public, downloadable to all, what we should do?

[aszu]

Many thanks for this berga.d

How you got any more details?

Do they plan to improve 3d performance, at least to the level of XP IEDG driver? Is there any chance for support of WDDM 1.1 & OpenGL ?

Frankly, GMA500 drivers are a joke. This chip has been on the market for more than a year now and the drivers has just recently became _barely_ usable. Completely basic things like DirectDraw acceleration or OpenGL still don't work. Even on 10 years old graphics card like Riva TNT these features were supported out of the box without any issues and 3d performance was much better!

You still get random BSODs, artifacts.. this is just crazy... Anyone remembers S3 ProSavage and its appalling drivers? These were much better than this whole mayhem with GMA500, IMHO..

I can't believe that such situation is possible in 2009..

Shame on you, Intel.

[Pixar]

What a Great Idea!
Thanks!