Desktop PC with freedom support
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I'm thinking about replacing some parts of my computer, in order for it to be fully compatible with free software (the main thing I'm lacking at the moment is 3D acceleration).
I found this mainboard on ebay: MSI G41M-P25. It has the GMA X4500 graphics chip and the G41 Express chipset. According to this page it appears to be fully supported in Trisquel. But how much power can one get from that particular chip? Will it be able to run games like UT2004, Quake 4 and Half-Life 2? I'm not expecting those games to run at full details in 1280x1024, just some minor resolution with lower details. But I do hope for 60fps and more, especially for UT2004, since I'd like to play Crossfire (a Counter-Strikish mod for UT2004). Is it possible, or am I just dreaming here?
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I'm not a gamer by any means, but according to this thread:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/257360-33-intel-x4500-good-games
that graphics card definitely won't run any modern game. However, at least one person on that thread reports that they've had no problems playing all of the games you've listed, so you might have some luck.
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The most modern games are of no concern to me, I probably won't even bother with all of the episodes of Half-Life 2, maybe not even with the main game. UT2004 is the most important thing to me, and the rest of the games will be like from the 90s or early 2000s. It goes without saying I'd play all the free software games too : )
I've looked through the thread you linked and it seems really like I'd be able to play the kind of games I intend to.
Does anyone here know how the GMA 4500 compares to the rest of Intels graphic chips in terms of performance?
This 10-day old article reports the performances of the Intel HD 3000 Graphics (integrated in the Intel Core i5 2500K). It benchmarks 3D Games on the Ubuntu 10.10 system (on which Trisquel Slaine is based) but with the latest kernel, Xorg, Intel driver and Mesa...
... and the results are not nice and the conclusion is quite depressing for the state of Free 3D drivers on GNU/Linux:
"This phenomenon though is not limited to just the new Sandy Bridge / Core i5 2500K hardware, but previous generations of Intel hardware and all of the Mesa / Gallium3D drivers. (..) Like the Intel Mesa driver, the performance of the open-source AMD/ATI and NVIDIA (via the Nouveau project) Mesa/Gallium3D drivers are no match to the proprietary drivers. With AMD and NVIDIA, the customer at least has a choice of whether they want to use an open-source but feature-lacking driver or a high-performance proprietary driver that is of similar quality across supported platforms. At the end of the day, the Intel Sandy Bridge "HD 3000 graphics" as found on the Core i5 2500K is a huge step forward in terms of performance compared to earlier generations of Intel integrated graphics. As said last week, its fast and comparable to other Mesa / Gallium3D drivers with discrete hardware. (...) Over time, we will ideally see Intel's Mesa performance close in on the Windows driver performance, but do not expect to see this in the near-term."
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Wow, this looks extremely disappointing. But I'm aiming at the X4500 graphics, it should be somewhat better than the 3000 one tested in the article?
Just how much gaming performance can I expect from the X4500 under Trisquel? Will it at least run the free software games nicely?
As far as I know (and I may well be wrong), the X4500 series is the best Intel graphics chipset that is fully compatible with free software.
According to Wikipedia, the HD series is "much more power efficient than previous generation GMA cores". Sorry.
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The board I'll be buying isn't the HD version though, it's normal X4500.
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I think I'll just buy that board and see how far I can get with Intel graphics, it does have a PCI-E port after all if it gets unbearable.
Do I have to buy a specific CPU in order to be able to use the on-board graphics, or is just any compatible CPU enough?
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I bought everything necessary now and just have to wait for the CPU to ship. Once that new system is assembled, I intend on running as many games as I can. Do you think I should go with a 32-bit system for compatibility reasons, or is 64-bit the better choice for performance?
AMD64 (both AMD and Intel CPUs support it; it's not the only 64-bit
architecture which I use) is faster, but uses more memory. It is needed
to access more than 1 or 2 GiB of virtual memory in a single program, or
to efficiently use more than 1 or 3 GiB of RAM for all programs. I use
64-bit systems on all my computers with compatible processors, and 2 GiB
of RAM is enough for them. (Other architectures have ways to have some
speed benefits available in 64-bit mode without using more memory, but
it isn't commonly supported for AMD64.)
There were compatibility problems years ago, but most programs currently
support AMD64, many not needing any changes except recompiling, and it
works in Trisquel without noticeable problems. Not sure how it is done
in Trisquel, but it is possible for existing 32-bit programs to run
without changes (using more space for separate 32-bit libraries needed
for them and not combining 32-bit and 64-bit code in one program).
Some distros recommend not using 64-bit systems, since they use non-free
software supporting only 32-bit x86. We don't have this problem here.
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thanks for the in-depth explanation. Since I've got 2GBs of RAM for the new PC, it shall get the 64-bit Trisquel.
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All right! Got the CPU (Core2Duo E6400 :-) at last and assembled the system. It runs very smooth, even with transparency effects the CPU isn't showing any extra load while moving windows around. That's something I never got with opensource radeon drivers, even while using the binary blobs.
The only games I tested by now are Frets on fire (basically Guitar Hero for GNU/Linux with a HUGE database of songs for download) and Openarena. Frets ran better than on the old PC, I'd say like 60fps or so. Openarena wasn't that good, in 1280x1024 it ran a little jerky, 30fps and below I guess. But still very playable and maybe there is room for improvement there through RAM upgrade.
For the sake of gamers using free operating systems, I suggest starting a list of games that run with Intels cards (since nothing else appears to be truly compatible with free software atm). Could look somewhat like this: different tables for different types of videocards, on the left you have the title of the game, on the top you have the CPU+RAM. This way almost every possible configuration can be rated properly. 10/10 could mean 60 fps with fullscreen high-res high-details. Everything below 5/10 would then mean running under 30fps in small windows and/or some bugs.
+1 for such a list. Maybe we can make a wiki page for this. It would be of great contribution. I'll test and submit some games too. :)
El sáb, 12-03-2011 a las 18:12 +0100, name at domain escribió:
> +1 for such a list. Maybe we can make a wiki page for this. It would be of
> great contribution. I'll test and submit some games too. :)
Also adding the hw info to h-node.com would help others ;)
--
Luis A. Guzmán García
http://ark.switnet.org
¡Se Libre! -- http://fsfla.org/selibre
The Hardware Database Project-- http://www.h-node.com
Distribuciones libres de GNU/Linux -- http://ur1.ca/3e8gu
GPG Key: EB153FAF
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Tested Nexuiz now, and it shows the 4500 it's limits. However, if one disables opengl shaders, it gives the game a huge performance boost, so you get good over 30fps.
@grvrulz: are you into Nexuiz? I'm using same nick there, going to play that now :-)
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