Hello,
I’m posting here after previously posting on both Intel and Acer forums as these are the original suppliers, however both have been without a suitable response. I have an Acer Aspire D270 netbook, which uses the PowerVR Series 5 GPU (SGX545). The implementation on my laptop is extremely bad, I am unable to use it in the most basic 3D games without seeing many defects. I am asking for some help to improve, or possibly create an entirely new driver which would represent the best of what PowerVR hardware can do, rather than a crippled version which I believe is a very bad advert for your products. I have very little person programming experience, but if the SDK is an option for moving forward, I am more than happy to see what can be done, any support would be much appreciated.
Hi Alasdair,
I’m sorry that you’re having problem with our GPUs, but as we’ve often stated, we’re unable to do anything directly in regard to supporting 3rd party products; it’s unfortunately down to Intel/Acer to provide support here. We provide support through our licensing plans but our customers actually write the final drivers, which will additionally rely on the specific subsystems laid down by them. Our licensing plans are targeted at our customers, and are subsequently rather expensive.
Intel have chosen to target our GPUs at a specific part of the market, and the performance you’re seeing reflects that. Whilst our GPUs as a whole are capable of a lot, in this particular device it is unlikely that you would get much more out of it than you currently have.
If you did decide you wanted to attempt writing drivers, I’m afraid we can’t really help beyond the usual support we give to application developers, unless you were willing to purchase a DDK license.
Regards,
Tobias
Tobias,
Thank you for your reply, as I said in my post I realise this is not a problem created by Imagination Technologies, and I know that Acer and Intel should provide the support we need. They are not, and so I am interested in whatever support Imagination Technologies can provide, while not damaging your own business model.
My opinion of the hardware that has been provided for this application is good, everything runs fast and smoothly for me, my issue is with the defects in the graphics, I don’t think this is a result of the lower end graphics package, since even my GME945 provides these flawlessly. If you are unsure of the problems I am describing please check: http://communities.intel.com/thread/38490?start=60&tstart=0
Now you describe licensing options, is this connected to the DDK you mention or separate? I can not find any information on the DDK on your website.
To finish, I would just like to say that I would really appreciate any support that you could provide, I realise this is not a problem Imagination Technologies has created, but we are now in a situation where no one is willing to give any support of any kind, so some light at the end of the tunnel would be very much appreciated. I am well aware of the product I bought, and the performance that it should provide, and this is not the case currently.
Any suggestions, advice or further information will be very much appreciated.
Thank you for your reply,
Hi Alasdair,
As I mentioned previously, there’s not much support we can give you other than standard application developer support, unless you acquired a license. If you’re interested in looking into a license, you can contact our sales team to discuss this option here: enquiries@imgtec.com. Please note however, that this is designed for customers who ship very high volumes, and our license package is priced accordingly.
Regards,
Tobias
Hi Tobias,
Thank you for this information, from this I understand that the DDK and license are one and the same thing.
Regards,
Alasdair
