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Acer Announces First NVIDIA Ion2-Based Netbook
MojoKid writes "Acer has just taken the wraps off the new Acer Aspire One 532G netbook at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The machine is the first netbook with dedicated next-generation NVIDIA ION 2 graphics acceleration. The new Aspire One is also enabled with NVIDIA's recently announced Optimus technology to balance multimedia performance when needed, along with battery life savings, seamlessly switching to integrated Intel Atom/Pinetrail graphics when it's not required. Word is Ion 2 is going to be outfitted with twice the number of shaders for even more graphics horsepower as well."
Back to my fish for a minute. The tank has a volume of 11 gallons. But I hardly ever put that much water in it because the fish ends up bumping its head against the cover and it makes an annoying sound. So I thought about other ways I could keep the tank full without always adding more water, and I came up with a system of adding gravel every other day to raise the level of the water. If the water level falls too far, it becomes a problem for the external water filter. So by adding more baseline gravel, I can pretty much keep the water at a safe level.
When I change the water every other week, I remove some of that gravel so that I have a lower baseline to start from. If this were a larger tank like my old 50 gallon, this system of adding and removing gravel wouldn't work at all. There's just too much volume to make up in the larger tank.
So if the display size is only 10 inches, how much graphics horsepower is really needed? With a decent low-end decoder chip, you can pretty much get WXGA @ 30fps decoding. The additional polygons that the graphics chip can compute seems like it would be under utilized due to the small screen discouraging hardcore gameplay. I've got a netbook like this (an older version) and the ladies are duly impressed when I whip out my big 10 inch display.
I so want one... but no doubt it will be done with a ridiculous straight dollars to pounds when, if ever, we see it in the UK...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Meh. Who needs graphics on netbooks anyway. It's not like you're going to use photoshop/CAD or play games on them...
I play games on mine! :) My current netbook plays stuff like GTA Vice City and Aliens vs Predator (1999) really well.
I'm about to replace it with an Alienware M11x so I can play modern stuff like Mass Effect 2 on the go. Basically it's a portable Xbox 360 for me. It should have the horsepower for most emulators too.
I also like to play "advanced" games. I just recently completed Dragon Age: Origins. The problems is, that if I want a decent gaming performance I don't usually have a choice of a small laptop. I'm currently lugging around a 17" HP which works great, but is a bit heavy and eats batteries like candy :-)
Not to piss on your chips, but you can't have battery life AND powerful graphics, not yet at least. Decent GPU is a power hog. If you find a netbook that runs DA:O, for example, the battery isn't going to last 9 hours like the high battery-life ones do now. Can't have it both ways - sorry.
You can get a decent balance though. Have you seen the new alienware? C2D 1.3 CULV, GT335M,
say 3 hours with a midrange card. Or more with switchable, like macbook pro.
The Asus U30Jc looks particularly tasty for the lighter option + with the new optimus switchable feature from Nvidia (supposed to be seamless, no need to manually toggle). Hopefully more models with powerful GPUs are on the way
http://zedomax.com/blog/2010/01/08/asus-u30jc-hands-on-review-at-ces-2010/
If cash is no issue and you want small/light the new Alienware looks wicked. 11" but proper midrange card! They claim over 6 hours battery life when not running games.
http://www.dell.com/us/en/home/notebooks/alienware-m11x/pd.aspx?refid=alienware-m11x&cs=19&s=dhs
Does any netbook screen support 1920*1080 resolution?
No, but atom + ion = HTPC. The 1920*1080 is on your 42"+/- TV set.
I still dont get why it is needed to have a dedicated GPU
Because name-brand PCs with Intel CPUs tend to come with Intel GMA. This includes netbooks. And as you pointed out, GMA in practice stands for Graphics My Ass.
HD x264 decoding support is as strong if not stronger under linux than windows right now with nvidias newer graphics card. look up VDPAU. people report very very little CPU usage running 1080p videos under linux on acer revos and the like.
> I'm still a bit iffy on how video card hardware support for HD decoding is
> so dependent on driver/codec issues.
> For example, you can't do a lot of it on linux (osx?).
Utter nonsense.
The ION gear is quite well supported on Linux and has been since before any
corresponding gear had made it out onto the market. Nvidia is VERY GOOD about
Linux support in this area. They always seem to be the example that ATI doesn't
follow. Even Intel chips are better than ATI in this respect. The level of partial
acceleration from Intel gear might even be enough to make (non-ION) Atom feasable
for lightweight HD.
The fact that Linux applications can be treated like your own private Frankenstein
is of considerable value here. If the Linux equivalent of Microsoft with MCE is
dragging their feet, you don't have to be trapped with the single source solution.
Although that isn't even strictly true with Windows either if you aren't a total
Lemming.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.