AMD Announces ATI Mobility Radeon 5000 Series
by Jarred Walton on January 7, 2010 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
Mobile DirectX 11 Arrives… Where Are the Games?
Just as ATI was the first out of the gate with DirectX 11 hardware on the desktop, they are now the first mobile DX11 solution. That's good, but we still need gaming support, and that is at best a work in progress. So far there are three games that have shipped with DX11 features: Battleforge, DiRT 2, and STALKER: Call of Pripyat (well, it's available if you speak Ukrainian at least; we're still waiting for the English version, although a public benchmark is available). Here's a list of some other titles that are on the way:
Not convinced that DirectX 11 will arrive anytime soon? Perhaps this slide will change your opinion:
Okay, we remain skeptical as well, no offense to Mercury Research. In truth, it's only in the past year that DirectX 10 has really arrived, with most new games supporting DX10 features, but there were a few early DX10 titles not long after Vista launched. Unless adding DX11 features is very easy, or someone is footing the bill for developers (i.e. ATI), DX11 isn't likely to become dominant until the majority of graphics cards have DX11 support. Considering the installed user base for DX10 hardware, that could be several years away.
Speaking of DX11, here are some more slides showing what is possible with the new hardware:
The big one in that list is obviously tessellation… but haven't we heard that before? Why yes we have! And it was only just under three years ago. Okay, you can read more about DX11 and tessellation in our DX11 article. The good news is that DX11 finally makes tessellation a required element, so we're more likely to see it utilized. Unigine is used in the above images, and you can see the complete list of Unigine projects for potential early tessellation candidates. We do like the idea, but until it becomes reality it's just a checkbox on your GPU hardware, which is what we've had since the HD 2900.
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tntomek - Friday, January 8, 2010 - link
Does anyone have a hint if these are immediately available? Dell is already selling the new i5 chips but still old video cards.Also does anyone have a hint of how the video card works in something like a dell. is the Intel onboard video totally disabled?
RobotHunter - Saturday, January 9, 2010 - link
I just ordered one yesterday with a $300 off coupon from HP. Core i5 with the 1GB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5830.bennyg - Thursday, January 7, 2010 - link
This is what you get when the other mob is rehashing years old tech.An evolutionary step thats just "enough" to be better, but much below its potential.
pcfxer - Thursday, January 7, 2010 - link
You mean AMD?JarredWalton - Thursday, January 7, 2010 - link
AMD is the parent company, but ATI is the group within AMD making the GPUs, and the GPUs are still called the "ATI Mobility Radeon". So pretty much you can say AMD or ATI and it's correct.SlyNine - Saturday, January 9, 2010 - link
I think some people tried to transition to saying AMD, but to many were stuck in there own ways and have an infinity for ATI. I know I feel that way, Otho I like Nvidia too. Both companies seem to be the epitome of free enterprise, they are very innovative without all the price fixing, unfair business practices and bullcrap you see in other industries.apriest - Thursday, January 7, 2010 - link
I have spent the last two months in driver hell trying to get two external monitors hooked up to an HP 4510s laptop with a ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330 for an accounting firm. The laptop has an analog and HDMI output, but you can't use both at the same time. So that leaves USB-based DisplayLink adapters. DisplayLink drivers are the worst on the planet and conflict with HP's video driver. You can't use ATI's official driver without hacking it first with Mobility Modder. If you do that, HP's QuickLaunch application will blue screen. If you remove QuickLaunch, you can't control whether your laptop screen or the other ATI video output is the primary screen, nor can you turn the secondary display on/off. Argh! There is no end to the frustration!My simple point is, I can't WAIT to have the simplicity of my desktop's triple head ATI 5870 on a laptop using official ATI drivers. If vendors finally allow at least two digital outputs at the same time as the internal screen using official ATI drivers, it will be nervana for some of my clients!
Pessimism - Thursday, January 7, 2010 - link
The problem is with the users not the laptops. For one, I find it hard to justify two monitors let alone three, that is what alt-tab is for. Your brain/eyes can't focus on more than one monitor at a time anyway. People who think multi-display lets them become some superhuman multitasker are fooling themselves. If they still demand three monitors, they should be using a desktop not a laptop.The0ne - Friday, January 8, 2010 - link
I think most users wouldn't have the need for a 2nd or even 3rd monitor for their laptop use but in my case I must have a 2nd and more importantly bigger and larger resolution. My 17" laptop with 1920x1200 doesn't cut it with my spreadsheets. And although the resolution is nice things are tiny and while you can blow things up, that defeats the purpose of having more things in the same amount of space.In addition to myself, I also set up dual monitors for technicians that use my spreadsheets specifically. It all comes down to being productive.
SlyNine - Friday, January 8, 2010 - link
Total BS, If you believe you can only focus on one monitor at a time why don't you cut a 24 inch hole in a box that is about an arms length deep so all you can see through is the hole in the box.Walk around like that and see how easy it is.