Outside of the higher end desktop replacement machines, the vast majority of mobile PC’s are going into the business sector which, for the most part, are not going to be using any 3D functionality, which begs the questions whether 3D graphics is really needed in the majority of solutions currently being used. Beyond the effects of Longhorn, are you trying to get a greater use of 3D outside of the gaming environment?
There are a number of areas that users benefit from in using a high performance GPU. One of the most commonly overlooked areas is video. As we see the widespread adoption of HD video, video conferencing, eLearning and streaming media in the enterprise and home image quality is of increasingly importance. With a high performance GPU, users benefit from improved image quality with technologies such as LCD-EE, LRTC, Fullstream, Videoshader HD and many more. We see video performance as a differentiator for ATI. In addition, those users buying a new mobile platform today expect a 2-4 year lifecycle from their notebook. By selecting a higher performance graphics processor users ensure they have the headroom to support next generation 3D operating systems. Lastly, we see new applications hitting the market like OfficeFX that add 3D functionality to commonly used business applications.
With performance capabilities of products in the range of Mobility Radeon X700, let alone the high end X800, may be persuading more people who were interested in PC gaming performance but want the convenience of a mobile that they are viable gaming platforms now, however a perennial problem is that of driver support. We know that due to the nature of the mobile market the manufacturers must qualify the chip and drivers specifically for their platform, which often results in infrequent driver updates for mobile platforms, even though you are churning out drivers at a rate of one a month that could happily cater for the mobile parts just as much as they do their desktop equivalents. Could you explain a little more why the manufacturers need to take this route and why they don't qualify more driver updates?
With the emergence of mobile gaming platforms we are beginning to see this change as gamers are increasingly demanding when it comes to achieving maximum performance. In more commercially focused designs the desire for frequently updated software is not as much of a priority. Driver updates on these platforms tend to only be necessary when support of new applications is required. As we are now seeing higher performance GPUs used in a broader segment of the market we anticipate that there will be an increased appetite for driver updates.
Also, does ATI have any plans to address this situation in any way?
We have some plans in the future to improve ATI’s support in this area. We really can’t say too much more here just quite yet.
We recently took the opportunity to look at the performance of Mobility Radeon X700 and we noticed that the implementation used only ATI’s, what we assume will be, ATI’s legacy control as opposed to Catalyst Control Center, which means that there is no access to features such as CatalystAI, which will reduce the performance relative to the desktop equivalent processors.
When do you expect we’ll see notebook vendors preloading CCC rather then the older control panel? Are you meeting some resistance to the default installation of CCC?
We have a number of OEM partners that will implement CCC and you can expect to see more developments here shortly.
There has been much said of mobile the likes of the mobile graphic board platforms such as MXM and AXIOM, what do you think are the importance of such solutions and do you ever think they will truly give rise to the notion of fully and freely operable graphics for mobile platforms?
Well, I would never say never but we have a long way to go to get there. The reality is that every notebook is different. It will be very, very difficult to ever truly implement a “one size fits all” standard that all vendors accept when you take into account form factor differences and thermal solutions that change from solution to solution. From ATI’s perspective, we need to support the given requirements from our customers and ensure we are being as flexible as possible in allowing them to implement high performance discrete graphics.
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