On Fri, 2009-11-06 at 17:18 +0000, James wrote: > Hello, > > I'm looking at a Dell Vostro 1720 Laptop with this Intel video > chip: Intel® Integrated Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD > > Anyone with any experience or comments as to Intel's video > offerings, as far as it related to (X)/Gentoo on the laptop > are most welcome. > > Here's an old review, best I could find. > http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel_x4500hd&num=1 > > > Maybe some can point me to a forum where the Intel video chip > issues are discussed by folks on the front line of those > support issues for X. The aforementioned review seemed > to dissuade me from the Intel video chip, but those issue > may be overcome with video chip comparison, used in Laptops > if anyone has a url for that sort of thing, or experience.
The software support for Intel graphics itself is pretty good. They have in-tree DRI drivers and X drivers and support for GEM and XRANDR 1.3. IIRC Keith Packard works both on X11 development and the Intel drivers so you get a lot of support software-wise. As some have reported Intel Graphics cards don't perform as well as other competitors in 3D graphics. It's fine though for people like me who aren't gamers and need powerful graphics hardware. I use GNOME/Compiz and things work pretty exceptional (except for the Blur plugin in Compiz; there's no hardware rendering support; you'll want to disable that).
