Intel x3100 production drivers with HW accelleration for XP

[egnatius]

I just found out over at Notebookreview.com that Intel recently released production drivers for the X3100 integrated graphics adapter that have hardware vertex shaders enabled. This driver version is only compatible with Windows XP for now, but a Vista version should be coming soon. Intel looks pretty happy about reaching this milestone. They even posted a blog entry about this.

Intel's blog post suggests that we can expect noticeable performance improvements which is good news for those (myself included) who may be interested in an x61 but are a bit wary about the graphics performance an integrated adapter can deliver. So now comes the obligatory question. Are there any X61 or T61 owners with GMA that are interested in trying out these drivers and running some benchmarks?

I remember from several reviews that the pre-production drivers delivered a Windows Experience Index score of 3.0. I'm curious what these new drivers can deliver.

[Jackboot]

My regular vista video drivers on my X61s are:

Graphics Mobile Intel(R) 965 Express Chipset Family 3.4
Gaming graphics 358 MB Total available graphics memory 3.5

I wonder if your info is right on the pre-production score being 3.0?

[Antioch]

Doesn't really matter as the Vista drivers aren't out yet. You'd have to install XP and run a test suite.

[egnatius]

My regular vista video drivers on my X61s are:

Graphics Mobile Intel(R) 965 Express Chipset Family 3.4
Gaming graphics 358 MB Total available graphics memory 3.5

I wonder if your info is right on the pre-production score being 3.0?

You're right, the actual score for the x3100 under Vista is 3.4. And as Antioch says, we'll have to wait a while to see how this score changes when Intel releases the production drivers for Vista.