AnandTech has an early review of the new Clarkdale chips http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3704. Any hopes that the on die graphics of these chips will mean a person can save a few bucks and not get a computer with dedicated graphics to run L4 are unfounded. All these new chips do is bring Intel to graphic parity to ATI and Nvidia in the intergrated graphics department.
Who buys computers without dedicated graphics? Oh, I think I saw one at Home Depot at the checkout counter today.
Who buys computers without dedicated graphics? Oh, I think I saw one at Home Depot at the checkout counter today
Unfortunately for Logos, most people. [:(]
My church computer is a system I built around the AMD 780G chip set and before I added a dedicated video card it ran L4 very poorly. As the review I linked to points out this new integrated solution just gets Intel to that level. For testing purposes I installed L4 on a system with Intel's current integrated graphics solution and as the article points out running any graphically intense program is a disaster.
I never dreamed that the day would come when I would have to have a gaming class computer just to run Bible software. The type of stuff I use to do on my church computer didn't require much horse power--Logos 3, MS Word, MS Publisher and my browser, but now I really need my best system at the church rather than at home.
It is laptop users I really feel sorry for, short of purchasing a new laptop, they are just going to have to live with sub-par performance or not use L4. Those people with a sub-$500 "Home Depot" desktop can find a decent video card for around $60 that well breath new life into their system. But even this is not going to work out well for many of these people because the type of person who purchases a computer from "Home Depot" probably does not understand that their sub-$500 computer has a crappy 150-300W power supply that will only support a select few video cards. I also wonder if the "Home Depot" type would even know how to open a computer case and understand there are different video slots that require the correct card.
The computer at Home Depot was actually in use at the checkout counter. I think they run Linux thin clients w/o any GUI - just a piece of terminal code that uses ansi escape codes - kind of like using Telix to dial up a BBS in the old DOS days. Maybe it was at Lowes.
I have not bothered to keep up with all of the new .Net stuff as the whole .Net idea never was anything that interested me much at all, so I'm out of the loop on exactly what Logos is using for their graphics. Whatever it is, it looks nice. It is also slow.
I couldn't imagine running it on a computer with shared graphics memory. That would be like repeatedly poking yourself in the eye with a sharp stick and remarking after each poke that it hurt.
Terrible example Mike, but pretty close [Y]
People have had widely varying experiences with performance on L4. I've been using this on a desktop with a Core 2 duo processor and Intel 3500 graphics and the performance has been fine. It actually runs faster on this machine than on my Thinkpad with the dedicated FireGL card (the desktop does have more memory and a faster processor). Other users have report abysmal performance on high end gaming machines. The benchmarks for the new desktop and laptop chips are significantly higher than I get with my current desktop (some of the graphic cards in low end systems at Best Buy don't benchmark much better than these reviews show).
Hopefully Logos will be able to figure out the performance issues that some some users are having. It seems that there have been several threads trying to figure out this issue. I also don't see any reason L4 should require the same graphic cards current FPS games do (it seems to me it should be I/O bound more than anything else). I don't play computer games and prefer quieter computers. Given my experiencs so far I wouldn't hesitate to get one on the new laptop CPUs (with at least 4 megs of memory and a fast disk drive of course).
I am running L4 on a laptop with Intel X4500 integrated graphics and it works just fine. In fact I have never had a problem running any program. I currently have Wordx2, Excel, Powerpointx2, Firefox and Paint.Net running. I can at the same time run any of the new graphics intensive Logos resources with no trouble. I have to wonder how many programs you guys are trying to run simultaneously if you are having trouble with integrated graphics.
I am running Vista Business and have a P7370 2.0GHz processor with 3GB of RAM. I expect the new processors will work even better in both processing and graphics. AnandTech states "The GMA X4500 core from G45 had 10 shaderprocessors. Intel HD Graphics bumps that up to 12. Apparently there area number of internal tweaks and performance enhancements that shouldresult in more than a 20% increase in performance though."
It is not a question of whether or not L4 runs on a system with intergrated graphics, but when you see it run on a system with a good video card, suddenly your definition of "runs well" changes. [:D]
It is not a question of whether or not L4 runs on a system with intergrated graphics, but when you see it run on a system with a good video card, suddenly your definition of "runs well" changes.
I'll have to take your word for it as I can't test out a graphics card in my laptop. Unless it improves the speed of indexing it's not going to make any appreciable difference to my user experience anyway.
Tom
Well, the majority of laptops are made without dedicated graphics. And very few people who own laptops buy them with dedicated graphics
My previous comp was a Dell 1705 with a 7900GS and a 2ghz core duo (not Core 2)
My new computer is a Studio 17 with integrated graphics, LED backlit WUXGA screen dual hard drives, Win 7 x64 and a high end mobile Core 2 9550 chip.
Guess which one runs Logos 4 better?
I got rid of integrated graphics because I stopped playing games and my important programs didn't need them. Now I'm one year into a laptop that usually lasts 3 and wishing I had dedicated graphics...
Of course I had no idea a mainstream non-game, non CAD, non 3d modeling program would require dedicated graphics. It's just about the only one on the market that does (can't think of anything else offhand in the office/data management cateogry that does)
Per this article, 57% of all laptop Graphic chipsets are Intel. Given that Nvidia and AMD/ATI make integrated as well, I would guess 70% or more laptops are integrated graphics. Probably closer to 80%
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/intel_gains_10_graphics_market_share_while_amd_and_nvidia_falter
That is just my point. I actually had high hopes for the i3's and i5's. Logos own recommended system requirements recommend a dedicated graphics card with 512 MB memory. This means that for the majority of users, both laptop and desktop, Logos is not going to run on a recommended system.
Well, the majority of laptops are made without dedicated graphics. And very few people who own laptops buy them with dedicated graphics That is just my point. I actually had high hopes for the i3's and i5's. Logos own recommended system requirements recommend a dedicated graphics card with 512 MB memory. This means that for the majority of users, both laptop and desktop, Logos is not going to run on a recommended system.
Maybe Logos ought to have the Send Feedback function of Logos 4 send back a hardware profile so Logos can analyze what hardware people are using to run Logos 4 - and then adjust the software to fit their customer's installed hardware base. Lot's of Linux distributions do this.
Perhaps this is what we need:
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/01/smoking-hot-alienware-notebook-11-inches-and-1000/
Battery lasts 6 hours for normal use, or 2 hours when you switch on the graphics chip to run Logos 4.
Seriously, L4 is starting to feel unproductive in the same way that Vista did. I've tried hard to adapt, but I'm spending way too much time and bandwidth downloading and indexing, not to mention waiting for it to screen redraws, as well as searching for where they hid a feature.
