Laptop graphics, performance?

Miscellaneous Topics
#1

Hi
I’m thinking of buying a laptop, but many of them has ATI graphics card, as you know there has been some issues with ATI and JOGL in the past, are they all resolved now?
Have someone tested the ATI Radeon M X700? does it work well ? shader performance?

regards //
Gregof

#2

I’ve got an Apple PowerBook with an ATI Radeon Mobility 9700 + 128 meg video ram. I’ve had no issues with graphics performance. The shaders and other features all work fine for me.

I just ran the GlExcess conversion from (www.glexcess.com). It ran in both windowed and full screen. I did get a weird app lockup in full screen when I went to exit, but I’ve got no idea if it was jogl/java proper/or my mac acting silly.

I’ve run demos from the jogl site in the past with no problems.

HTH -
Dr. A>

#3

Apple PowerBooks are the best value for money when looking for good quality mobile graphics cards that I found. I had lots of trouble trying to find a half decent graphics card in laptops for the same price, most were thousands more. The reason being that the graphics card is fused to the mother bord and is hard to upgrade (unless you customise, or get a good laptop to start with). Since the OS X actually used OpenGL, most apples have good graphics cards by default.

Be warned though that wile ATI works great on OS X with OpenGL it may not nessesarily on Windows. This is because OpenGL is all Apple has, and the operating system depends on it, forcing Apple/ATI to write very good drivers. On Windows, traditionally ATI has been weak in the OpenGL department. Perhaps this has changed, but don’t assume that just because ATI is good on Apple it’s good on Windows (with OpenGL).

Will.

#4

Thanks for yuor response
However I mostly use linux so I was hoping that someone has tried an x700 under linux. my second os is windows so it would also be helpful if someone has tried it there.

thanks in advance //
Gregof

#5

The x700 mobile is roughly comparable to the 9700pro for the desktop. Features and clockrate are very similar. Considering this, what is true for other ATI chips is true for the x700, i.e. Linux support is there but slightly inferior to NVidia’s. Windows support is on par with NVidia’s. Shader performance is good for shader model 1.x and 2, but there’s no support for shader model 3. If you want that, you have to head for a NVidia 6600 Go or 6800 Go.