Intel's Next IGP Slated to Run Sims 3

[Onus]

While I certainly see their point from a volume perspective, this sounds like Intel is crowing about an IGP that they hope might end up being as good as AMD/ATi's old HD3200.

Intel + Graphics = FAIL. It's just that simple.

 

[rodney_ws]

Intel is learning from Nintendo... casual gaming can get you pretty far. A majority of the people out there don't want to play Crysis at high resolutions with 16XAA turned on... most people are content to play popular games like WoW, the Sims and online flash-based games. Not saying that'd work for me... but it would for most people.

 

[enforcer22]

[citation][nom]jonpaul37[/nom]Am i missing something here? you really think Ms. PacMan can hold a candle to the 12+ million WOW subscribers?[/citation]


perfect example of a low quality game being "fun" to so many people.

BTW you can have a good game with great graphics. The half life series being my example. And when those kinds of games come out i want to see it in 60 frames 2600x1200 and ill spend the $500 for it. TA520th might not understand why but i want large screen high end graphics with my well made games. Sure i still play the old 70's 80's games and alot of 90's games but yes i do say looking at the graphics for me at least does start to take from the game to a degree but the game its self is still fun. While not what makes a game it does polish off a good game. even if it cant make a bad game good.

 

[DjEaZy]

... intel needs to put the results of larrabee R'n'D somewhere...

 

[joebob2000]

The Intel IGP chips have been such a huge disappointment, it would be nice for them to take it seriously at some point. Knowing a bunch of people into The Sims, I can see exactly where this is coming from. I know someone with a modern Macbook with a C2D at 2GHZ and a GMA x3100, and they try to use it for Sims 3. It runs like total crap at the native res of 1280x800. On the other hand, I know someone with a single core Athlon 64 at 2Ghz and an ancient Geforce 6100 card (a rig that cost maybe $250 to build over two years ago, and it can easily run Sims 3 or similar games at 1280x800 or higher.

Why on earth is an ancient GPU that could easily be minimized to work in a laptop so so SO much more powerful than anything Intel can manage to squeeze on there? Are they really not trying at all?

 

[h0llow]

Intel will never make it in the Graphics market. Simple as that. I'll stick with my Nvidia 260
Also. Tom's Hardware should make a poll. Such as whoever says "Will it play Crysis?" will be banned. So annoying. I'm not here to waste time reading that one line every new news post.

 

[sublifer]

next-generation IGP will be capable of playing The Sims 3, World of Warcraft, Battlefield Heroes, and even a Nancy Drew title.

As others have already pointed out I'm sure, this means squat. They could easily be referring to 640x480 resolution with all the details turned down. Whoop-de-do I should hope they could already play those titles in this manner. I know nvidia and ATI gfx can at least.

 

[matt87_50]

is this news..?

surely they would have to go out of their way to make a GPU that underpowered that it couldn't run those in this day and age.

also, I fail to see how we are being 'left in the dark'...

that's like saying rich motoring enthusiasts are being 'left in the dark' because Toyota aren't making a super car, leaving them to have to choose between Ferrari and Porsche...

 

[megamanx00]

A Radeon 4670 can also run all those games (tho perhaps at 1680x1050 and below with high settings). Heck it can even run RE5 (o.k not on high settings) which the Intel classifies as enthusiast. Honestly, I don't expect it to be any better than IGPs from ATI or NVIDIA. Even if it is, AMD is already looking to have at least 320sps in their next IGP (as many as the 4670), so it seems Intel IGPs are still at the bottom.

 

[cyberkuberiah]

[citation][nom]megamanx00[/nom]A Radeon 4670 can also run all those games (tho perhaps at 1680x1050 and below with high settings). Heck it can even run RE5 (o.k not on high settings) which the Intel classifies as enthusiast. Honestly, I don't expect it to be any better than IGPs from ATI or NVIDIA. Even if it is, AMD is already looking to have at least 320sps in their next IGP (as many as the 4670), so it seems Intel IGPs are still at the bottom.[/citation]

320 sp's ? wow ! that would be great for the igp world .. can u post some link regarding this ? PM me , i would forget to come back here for it , thanks .

 

[bourgeoisdude]

[citation][nom]joeman42[/nom]Indeed, A colleague at work (when I worked at a software website) installed and ran BF Heroes without problems on a G31 (X3100) chipset.[/citation]

As you and the first poster point out, those games will already play on the current Intel IGP. My brother occasionally plays WoW on his work PC (Intel G31, aka X3100) during the lunch hour without any major lag issues. Of course the detail is set to medium settings and it runs at 1024x768, but it plays without any major hiccups.

 

[obiown77]

Based on my extensive knowledge of GPU architecture, I must concur, This WILL indeed play Crysis!

 

[rambo117]

[citation][nom]obiown77[/nom]Based on my extensive knowledge of GPU architecture, I must concur, This WILL indeed play Crysis![/citation]
shhhhh!! dont say the C word.. people get greatly offended by it for some reason...

 

[idisarmu]

The title should be extended to: @ QVGA Resolutions at lowest settings.

 

[popatim]

I play wow on my G45 chipset laptop with no issues at all in 1280x800 with decent setting also. WoW is such a low spec'd game...LOL. Runes of Magic is a different story, I have to play on low settings 🙁
Woe is me. LOL

 

[miribus]

Assuming Intel gains a large foothold with this chip (and one would figure that they would), and it's at as good as ATIs (though it should be better, with Intel's R&D budget) it will give game developers something to build a graphical standard upon. A large consumer base, with a genuine graphics chip, worth playing legitimate 3D titles on.
Everyone with a midrange or even low-end laptop will be able to play, even if at reduced quality, and boost sales of the hardware and PC gaming as a genre as a result. So much the better if they go the extra mile and simply put a "If you have this Intel IGP press this button for the recommended settings" option in their titles. That will help solve one of the nuisances that keep newcomers from getting into PC gaming.
After that, they'll be more interested in researching a more hardcore rig... or not, but either way the PC gaming industry wins.

As for "pretty graphics aren't everything". Of course, but if a game looks awful it's that much harder to get people to play. You need style and substance, it's a video game, not a book. Graphics don't have to be the best, and certainly gameplay trumps graphics every time. But that doesn't mean the game can look sub-par.

 

[WheelsOfConfusion]

[citation][nom]Miribus[/nom]Assuming Intel gains a large foothold with this chip (and one would figure that they would), and it's at as good as ATIs (though it should be better, with Intel's R&D budget) it will give game developers something to build a graphical standard upon.[/citation]
Intel has had years and years with their huge R&D budget to come up with decent graphics. What makes you think this one will suddenly be different? The reason it'll gain a foothold is because it'll ship by default on a huge number of Intel motherboards, and Intel won't let Nvidia play ball with them anymore so they effectively have no IGP competition for their sockets. AMD boards already have much better graphics built in.

 

[eddieroolz]

My Intel 4500MHD struggles with Counter-Strike 1.6, Halo for PC, Runescape SD for my brother, and runs Call of Duty 4 in absolutely everything lowest at 15fps. Needless to say I will never buy Intel solution ever again, even for a laptop.

 

[bachok83]

So, when will we have this IGP? When "Universe of Warcraft", "The Sims 4", etc etc are released?

 

[JonnyDough]

So does this mean the OEMs like Dell and HP can keep selling motherboards without any video card slots on them and only make one updated bios so that people can never upgrade their systems?

 

[Guest]

This is the same anouncement spIntel made a while back when they said:

"Game developers should target IGPs"

Instead, they take the lowest system-requirement games, declare them as being playable on an Intel IGP, and then try to say that those are the "real market".

 

[kokin]

I always thought laptops and gaming should be separate after building my own system. Low-end/mid-range laptops can run up to $400-$1000+, not really justifying their price/performance. Being a college student, I don't even see many people gaming on the go.

 

[miribus]

[citation][nom]WheelsOfConfusion[/nom]Intel has had years and years with their huge R&D budget to come up with decent graphics. What makes you think this one will suddenly be different? [/citation]

Intel has never made overtures into saying their graphics chips are capable of even mediocre gaming until now.
That's why I think this could be different.
Granted, I'll believe it when I see it, but the fact they pointed it out says something.

[citation]The reason it'll gain a foothold is because it'll ship by default on a huge number of Intel motherboards, and Intel won't let Nvidia play ball with them anymore so they effectively have no IGP competition for their sockets.[/citation]
Uh, yeah... I'm well aware of that.

[citation]AMD boards already have much better graphics built in. [/citation]
So? AMD had faster 32-bit and 64-bit single and dual-core processors in 2005...
If they want to, Intel can do better, even if only for one cycle and then trade punches like ATI and Nvidia do. Either do it in-house, or buy a company to do it for them and then call it in-house. Larrabee was a failure because Intel tried to play the Intel/Sony game of determining the new standard and hoping everyone went with it so they could monopolize it, even for the short term, else make their solution pointless... this time it didn't work, for now. On top of that it apparently didn't quite work to their standard anyway... but I digress.
All I'm saying is, compelling (meaning better than current AMD grade, ideally) graphics as a standard on 90% of laptops and desktops sold at Wal-Mart isn't a bad thing for PC gaming as a genre.
If programmers embrace it, while still offering higher-performance eye-candy to justify (for lack of a better term) more expensive hardware, even better. Intel has the market share, and muscle to pull that off, whether it was their intent or not, and that's a good thing.

 

[nebun]

Intel sucks when it comes to graphics, they will never be able to keep up with ATI or nVidia

 

[amdfangirl]

[citation][nom]ta152h[/nom]You'll always have the kiddies that don't really understand games, and throw around gay terms like "eye candy" so they sound cute, but the reality is fancy graphics don't make a fun game. If you are complete moron, sure. If you're a simpleton, you bet. If you're completely superficial ...That stuff is relatively easy. But, actually making a mentally stimulating game is quite hard. It's not about resolution, it's about thought. There were old games that were completely text based that were fun. Ms. Pacman was a Hell of a lot more popular than any modern title, although I never fancied it. Defender and Gauntlet were atrociously addicting arcade games, that by today's standards would be ancient. Defender would even slow down the game at certain points, that became one of the charms of the games.One thing is clear though. Power hungry, noisy, ovens that run in computers are never desirable. They are expensive to run, and are unpleasant to be around, and cost a lot of money. For some people, they're worth it, but for the vast majority of people, Intel solutions are more than they need. You can play a lot of really fun games, without paying massive amounts of money for your computer, or electrical bills, and not having a noisy oven in your office.Also keep in mind, Intel IGPs of today are just as fast as old discrete cards that played games you thought were really fun years ago. Did those games suddenly become less fun? They didn't change, and human nature doesn't change so fast, so they're still plenty fun. I still like playing games from the 1980s. So, if Intel can boost performance without boosting cost, power use, and noise, it's a really good thing for way more people than ATI producing a $500 card that runs like a raped ape. Both are good, of course, it's just that the Intel solution will effect more people. It's not a trivial improvement. Counter-intuitively, the barn burners from ATI and NVIDIA are, since they effect relatively so few people.[/citation]

I agree. Most of the population will be happy with IGPs, like me. Not everyone plays computer games. I'm just glad Intel is finally giving the IGPs a bit of a bump. As long as the thermals are good, I might just even buy one for a production machine.