NVIDIA ION LE hack adds DirectX 10 support, raises interesting questions
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted Oct 30th 2009 12:04PM
posted Oct 30th 2009 12:04PM
If myHPmini forum member runawayprisoner is to be believed (and why not?), rather than featuring some sort of dumbed-down hardware, the sole difference between the NVIDIA ION and the XP-friendly ION LE is that the latter has DirectX 10 support disabled in the device drivers. Indeed, when the full-blown ION drivers are hacked to recognize the ION LE device ID, not only do you get to run DX10, but performance increases markedly as well. Of course, DX10 is Windows 7 only, but you should conceivably be able to take your ION LE machine, install Windows 7 and the driver hack, and get on with your life (and save a few bucks in the process). Why bother with the charade, you ask? Theories abound, but we think it's a pretty good guess that NVIDIA is merely adhering to Microsoft licensing requirements here, and that in the long run crippling an existing chipset is cheaper than developing an entirely new one for an OS that's likely to be phased out sooner than later.
[Via SlashGear]
[Via SlashGear]
> DX10 is Windows 7 only
I think you mean Windows Vista only.
Yep, DX10 is vista and up. Windows 7 has DX11
you guys beat me to it
@Lou, just got dx11 autoinstalled on vista trough updates.
so both are >=vista only..
And now they both have DX11.
DX11 What!? I hope this is just a bunch of typos! Haha!
Windows Vista is now behind us, we do not need to mention it any more :P
Yeah, you beat me to it too.
And DirectX 11 is on Windows Vista AND 7.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971644
XP is DirectX 9 only.
No, XP is UP TO DirectX 9 only.
I have been really bothered by what MS did here (and Intel, for that matter) with this whole hardware nerfing debacle of the last couple of years. But, when you really think about it, you can almost (almost) sympathize with them. They were taking major shit for Vista being bloated, and the LAST thing they needed were hardware manufacturers trying to squeeze it into incredibly underpowered boxes and slow it down even WORSE. And we all know they would have.
There's two sides to every argument. MS had to draw a line somewhere to salvage a bit of Vista's reputation and stop it from being installed on the world's weakest new machines. But then again... I still think this is pretty absurd.
I think you've misunderstood the situation - it's Microsoft who are limiting the hardware specs, not the hardware manufacturers. For example in this situation NVIDIA is having to cripple its graphics chip in order to meet Microsoft's XP licensing requirements. Microsoft also limit the process speed, number of cores, amount of RAM and hard disk/SSD size as part of the XP licensing for netbooks.
Hardware manufacturers want to give us more powerful hardware but Microsoft are stopping them.
My hp mini runs much faster with window7 than XP ever did. Really easy to install too.
I will have to try out this hack and see if it'll work.
I know they'll probably never get prosecuted in the US, but the way in which M$ and Intel (and now Apple to a certain extent) collude, effectively as a cartel, is so obviously anticompetitive and an abuse of market power. They need to be fined billions more by the EU, tens of billions, this time, so that they don't reoffend.
Also, I'm still waiting for some enterprising hackers to port DX10 / DX11 to XP. Or, preferably, now that OpenGL has finally caught up to DX again, with the latest release, for developers to stop taking the cash that M$ waves in their face and use the open source API instead! It's in their interests, as it makes ports to Linux / Apple / PS3 / PSP / mobile phones / Wii / DS a formality (performance requirements / hardware optimisation allowing).
Byrd,
I can almost guarantee that your HP Mini is faster under 7 because you didn't reinstall all the bloatware / crapware that came preinstalled by HP on XP. XP is much, much faster on low-spec machines than 7. On high spec desktops (really high spec laptops), 7 is indeed faster than XP - this is purely because 7 (and Vista) are much better for multithreading ... both are far more bloated than XP and require a far higher base level of RAM / processor work, though - hence why they're not a good idea on low spec machines.
"I think you've misunderstood the situation - it's Microsoft who are limiting the hardware specs, not the hardware manufacturers."
How in the WORLD is it not clear that I understand that? My entire post was regarding that very fact.
Oliver,
"I think you've misunderstood the situation - it's Microsoft who are limiting the hardware specs, not the hardware manufacturers."
NVIDIA are not guilty of *wanting* to do this, they just have to play by M$ AND Intel's game. Intel are a hardware manufacturer and they do actively collude with M$ on this front. They've no desire to put anything other than the very cheapest, most crippled hardware in notebooks, either! You think they like selling fewer and fewer expensive laptop and desktop stuff?
What a bunch of socialist nonsense. Offend in what way? The hardware makers also have the option of putting something other than xp on the machine. MS is within its rights to determine how their OS is used as Apple has amply proven. So they say an xp machine can only be so powerful - yeah that sucks but see there is a solution beyond for bureaucratic meddling: Buy something else. You can get Ion machines with linux on them so for the love of god buy them and quit your whining and fining. That will do more than your absurdly tired "M$" will do.
The direction of the OpenGL API has been a confused mess until the last year. The failure Longs Peak disillusioned many and gave people plenty of reasons to develop for DX other than upfront cash incentives. Now the platform is back on its feet and developers will come back to on their own which you are seeing with iPhone games to name the most obvious. See they go where the money is without needing government intervention.
Parias: "the LAST thing they needed were hardware manufacturers trying to squeeze it into incredibly underpowered boxes and slow it down even WORSE"
You clearly imply that hardware manufacturers wanted to try to squeeze Windows on under powered boxes when it is in fact Microsoft that's forcing them to put Windows on underpowered boxes. Is English not your first language?
MS wanted to kill XP off altogether, the only reason for extending it's life was because Vista was out of the question for low power netbooks and the alternative was Linux. The didn't want linux running on low power netbooks but they also wanted Vista on anything more powerful, hence the strict requirements for XP.
Its not like its that difficult to get Direct X 10 on Windows XP anyway - the source code has been floating around for quite some time - I've got that working now.
The Windows 7 option on the HP Mini 311 costs $50 when ordering that netbook. Same price as the Win7 Upgrade if you pre-ordered months ago. So I do not think there is any savings to be had using the driver hack.
Enjoying the HP Mini 311 w/Win7 & ION!
or, if your like me, and already have a copy of Win 7 and dont want to pay for it again, you can save the $50.00, do the hack and eat your cake too
I ordered this just the other day. This makes me happy.
Windows 7 is Windows Vista plus more...
Why would this surprise anyone. A company (Microsoft) insists that a hardware manufacturer (Nvidia) support only certain features on very specific operating systems.
This has been going on for years. My solution, simple, stop purchasing hardware from vendors that do NOT provide drivers for all operating systems (i.e. Macintosh, Linux, Unix and Windows)
No level playing field, none of my money.
and what magical eutopia platform are you posting your comment with?
He's using the Google tubes.
Microsoft don't dictate drivers for these products, if Nvidia wants to sell lower quality 9400m chipsets as a cheaper product then whats the problem ? they won't support DX11 on these chips because it would have a huge failure rate so they lower the performace to keep them running for longer this is how any CPU or GPU is badged.
@lamapper
So you happy with your self imposed slim selection of hardware? Very few hardware manufactures will provide 'Official' drivers for many platforms other than Windows. Sure most operating systems will run your basis hardware setup without needing any manufacturers drivers, but you get away from anything other that USB add on devices and support dries up pretty quick.
Nvidia, ATI, and Intel are about the only three I can think of that support a lot of their products on all of those platforms and that's mostly just because Apple uses them in their systems. The main reason for the lack of ALL platform support boils down to cost benefit analysis. Not a lot of people build Hackintosh machines so unless Apple is including it in their base systems or the Mac Pro crowd would buy enough of them to make it worth while Apple is out for support. Next up is Linux, again very small following in comparison to the PC hardware market market so unless a product shares unified drivers with a lot of products and/or those products are core components of a system not going to be supported.
So keep fighting the good fight if you really thing its going to get you anywhere, but its not because companies are evil and want to manipulate what you can and can't use on your OS(s) of choice its basic business fundamentals that kills development for the less popular OSs and hardware categories.
I have received my HP Compaq mini 311c today with 3GB ram and will install Win7 Pro on it tonight. Have a wireless N card incoming and will report back after I install the hacked drivers :D
There's a couple of things that smell funny with this.
First off, he didn't post any actual benchmark results before/after indicating any performance gain. He posted a synthetic benchmark (Windows perf score) which for all we know blanket adds points if your card supports Dx10. Or in this case if the driver reports itself as supporting Dx10. He's strangely left all real before/after benchmarks absent, and refused to answer the question when people asked what his Vantage score was after the change.
Second off, he got a Dx10 driver working with a Dx9 device that's known to be at the very least related -- just because it works (so far) doesn't mean it's compatible. Tons of games don't yet fully take advantage of Dx10. The only "proof" he has that it is working is dxdiag reporting that a Dx10 driver is running. I can get a driver for an ATI 5870 running and reporting as working on my ancient Radeon 9600, but it doesn't make it so.
Well I am thinking this just amounts to normal GPU stuff, with the exception of DirectX.
Know what the difference between the manufacturing process in a GTX 260 vs a 280? Nothing. They get tested at the end of the line, those that test stable over a certain threshold get to be 280's, and those that don't get cores disabled and turned into 260's. It's probably the same case with the ION. I bet this is basically overclocking the LE to get the performance gains. Also I didn't RTFA because I am in a hurry, but if this is Win experience score alone, that may just be DirectX 10 capability causing extra points to be added.
As far as DX is concerned, it could be they have to pay MS to license it, so they can sell a DX 9 chip cheaper, or this shows the full ION price is inflated and they can offer a lower cost option that's the same thing.
Anyway, just my 2 cents worth.
No there has never been any setup where cardmakers need a license to make their cards compatible with a specific DX version, I think we'd heard about that insane state of affairs by now if that were true.
And the main question would be what game are you going to play on a 9400m that will actually use DX10/11 effects ?
Any numbers on the performance improvement ? With most CPUs or GPUs those further from the center of the wafer will not pass performance tests so are simply badged as budget or mid-range items with lower clocks, the ION LE is probably the same so a certain percentage of people who hack their drivers will see their chipsets die pretty quickly.
Unless the drivers are messing with the GPU voltages, this won't be killing anything. At worst, the ION LE won't be able to handle or simply won't support some of the features the hacked drivers attempt to use.
Also, it has been knows for years that when nvidia makes a chip, the ones that are slightly malformed or that do not perform perfectly are clocked at a lower rate and have some features disabled.
So for the 8800 series of chips, the perfect ones are clocked the fastest and put in the 8800 GTX, and the ones that performed slightly less well are clocked slower and put in the 8800 GTS with a few pipelines disabled.
This just seems like an extension of that nvidia policy with some Microsoft restrictions tossed in.
It's also been known that when they sell volume and more chips than fail that they simply downscale perfectly OK chips, they all do that, not just GPU's either.
Cost of new netbook = $250 - $400
Cost of the new full hp laptop I bought for my sons: $299
I do NOT see the appeal of netbooks. To pay basically the same (or more) than you could for a reduction in power simply makes no sense to me.
@Patrick
because,
weight of said HP laptop: 6-9lbs
weight of netbook: 3-5 lbs
How long is the battery going to last on your son's new laptop? Is your son willing lug around a 10+ pound laptop everyday? Netbooks = longer battery life and lite weight.
This sort of thing is nothing new to the tech industry, and nVidia specifically. IBM used to 'upgrade' your printer by putting the belt that powered it (this was a while ago) on a faster cog, then changing the sticker on the front. For anyone that owns an nVidia Quadro FX, you're probably aware that the outrageously expensive card you purchased is essentially just a Geforce with optimised drivers for 3D work.
Well it seems damn hard to make good fast OpenGL drivers, it certainly seems ATi can't match nvidia in that respect, so perhaps you are paying for what you get.
I am on my hp mini 311. I got a 3d graphics windows experience score boost from 4.1 to 5.3 when running this hack.
Games to come...yay :) I cant wait to test out Direct X 10
You don't need Windows 7 for DX10. Hell you don't need Windows 7 for DX 11 either. Vista supports the both of them.