Intel Is Planning To Drop PowerVR Graphics

[enrico.tagliavini]

More libre devices are incoming with this intel hardware i hope (assuming that the drivers are open and with the same quality as those we are used). May be the 2013 version of the Spark tablet!

Well done intel (at least from us, free software fans, point of view)

[mikkl]

themselves are the problem insisting on their own driver teams. Imagination have no problem running Linux using Atom hardware and getting great performance under Linux. the problem with Atom has always been Intel supplied drivers for all OS's.

This is wrong because for Cedarview the Windows drivers are made by Imagination.

[Darkseider]

This may be great news for Linux and FOSS software devs but I fail to see how this strategy will fall in line with Android and Intel's push into the smartphone/tablet market with Android devices. Seeing that the PowerVR GPUs have excellent support in Android makes me question how well Intel's Android offerings are going to perform.

[droidhacker]

And I should care about this because......???
How does this help those who are already stuck with that PVR TRASH? I've already added intel to the "not a cent ever in my life" list because of that crap, so I don't give a rat's ass if they keep using it or not.

[Adarion]

@ Droidhacker
Well, it could help indirectly. By dropping them ImgTec will lose an important customer. And that is good so far because if communicated correctly it might make them think about their behaviour.
I also didn't spend much Euro/USD/currency of your choice on intel products the last... umm... 12 years but yes I do have and ImgTec PowerVR in my ARM AI-touchbook. That sucks. I don't know if your name suggests you're hacking on Android (no offense meant if this is not so) but a lot of embedded sets bear GPUs like that. Some of them probably nice by hardware but with horrible or not existing drivers and no docs.
Let's hope there will be a lot of market pressure by this intel drop on these chipmakers!

[RealNC]

PowerVR was good! Back in 1995, that is :-P

[GreatEmerald]

This may be great news for Linux and FOSS software devs but I fail to see how this strategy will fall in line with Android and Intel's push into the smartphone/tablet market with Android devices. Seeing that the PowerVR GPUs have excellent support in Android makes me question how well Intel's Android offerings are going to perform.

I fail to see what Intel has to do with Android. Intel is focusing on x86, not ARM. And the main advantage of using x86 in the first place is the fact that you don't have to put up with Android and locked firmware, but can use proper OSs like Windows and Linux, and therefore have a reliable portable computer that can actually be used for serious work. The fact that they will be dropping PowerVR is a good thing in that regard, as it opens the ability to use Linux more efficiently, and once again GNU/Linux is a very important OS for serious work, including scientific and medical research.

The whole x86 Android port seems to be ridiculous to me, since why would you get an x86 computer, if you want to run ARM software on it to begin with...

[maligor]

This may be great news for Linux and FOSS software devs but I fail to see how this strategy will fall in line with Android and Intel's push into the smartphone/tablet market with Android devices. Seeing that the PowerVR GPUs have excellent support in Android makes me question how well Intel's Android offerings are going to perform.

I'd say NVIDIA has the best support as of now. PowerVR is a great product in the current mobile space, but it doesn't seem to be capable of competing against nvidia's offerings in certain parts like the fbo's.

Intel's products are impressive, even in the upcoming SoCs, and for the larger units with larger batteries (aka, 10" tablets) might be restricted by PowerVR. Smartphones might be a different matter, but we'll see.

[hammerd]

Intel dropping Imagination isn't such a problem for me as i never liked the way Imagination walked way from ARM in the early days to build their current closed PowerVR graphics cores in isolation.

Sorry where is this comment from ? ARM 'partnered' with IMG in the early days until ARM walked away from the relationship by putting no effort into the relationship then buying in their own graphics solution.

[dnebdal]

PowerVR was good! Back in 1995, that is :-P

Hey, my Kyro II was very good value for the money back in 2001.