I'll comment on this. I wouldn't write off the Intel HD so quickly. While it
only compares to older or lower end NVidia cards there are advantages to it
over NVidia. From being less power hungry (good for laptop users) to
accelerated video support (good for those who do more than just game).
Looking at it from a wider perspective and in particular one of free software
it doesn't seem to stack up as badly as you make it sound. There will also be
performance improvements going forward as the driver improves so while some
of these games don't work today they very well could work tomorrow. The
difference between the NVidia blob and Noveau are significant.
What I would be interested in is what games will you potentially be able to
play in the future. A good way to test this is using the NVidia blob with
free software games.
Most of the gaming world also isn't on the latest and greatest either so your
casual gamer would potentially be satisfied by even an Intel HD graphics
chipset or a low end / "antiquated" NVidia 3d accelerated capable chipset.
As far as money goes I'd still buy a system with a less powerful Intel
graphics chipset over a poorly supported NVidia chipset.
All this said I would like to see people testing free software games with the
Noveau driver. It isn't desirable to get a 3d accelerated card and then not
know what games will work. This will ultimately lead to disappointment.
I'm pretty sure if there was a solid list of games people could easily play
(without having to test anything) then there would be greater value in this
card.
One last comment on the AMD powered systems. I'm not a fan of these systems
because they are hostile to free software. You generally can't get an AMD CPU
without ATI graphics except on maybe the high end. In that situation you are
forced to go with a low end NVidia graphics card. The better option is with
an Intel CPU and graphics chipset. AMD and Intel like to tie graphics
chipsets to their processors and this is where the problem is for us
releasing an AMD CPU based system. While I'm all for rooting for AMD I don't
feel AMD has done anything more than put up a false front in terms of
supporting free software. They announced the release of specifications and
then didn't supply ample information for a free solution. A wrapper around a
non-free component isn't sufficient. If they were to fully release the
specifications for ATI graphics chipsets then we would offer such hardware.
Until then though it is not an acceptable position.
Anyway. Thanks for the information. If you have time to test additional games
I think that is of more value than benchmarks to the free software community.
The benchmarks will ultimately change with time anyway and likely be
discouraging to those in the future who come across them. Despite that we
think everybody is better off using only free software users who find the
Noveau driver unacceptably slow and are unwilling to let go of non-free
software completely can always load the NVidia driver. We aren't supporting
that although it is available (at least to those using distributions which
have the non-free blob available).
