[Tfug] Intel 950/945 video and flash player/compiz

[Jim March]

>>(I don't know if you're able to do it [meaning Flash video/youtube] on GMA950)<<

Absolutely you can.  No problem.

A terminology issue: "GMA950" refers to the whole chipset package, and
always includes the 945 video chipset.

But yeah, the only limitation on the 950/945 is that first, it's not
that good at gaming (neither is the 965) and the 945 shouldn't be
pushed TOO hard with Compiz.  It'll still run though, and do so very
solidly.

With the 945, I found that while I could build a "cube" and run four
virtual desktops, a "two sided cube" was a lot less stressful - much
smoother rolling.  I often ran this sort of "flat plane" to rotate
between Linux and a WinXP virtual machine set to fullscreen - with an
animated ("rolling") background in between.  It's a visually stunning
setup that could still run youtube/flash stuff on either Linux or
Windows just fine.

With the 965, there's no visible difference between running a
two-sided "pane" and a true four (or more within reason) "cube".

As the Intel driver stack was massively revised over the last year,
the 945 suffered the fewest regressions.  The 965 was hit worse as was
the old 845.  Looks like the latest parts as found in Karmic, Fedora
12, etc are going to finally end this dark time :).

Right now I have the 965 chip, Karmic alpha and the 64bit Adobe Flash
player laughingly termed "alpha"...which by all accounts is a lie,
it's finished working code but Adobe doesn't want to piss off M$
and/or Apple by being first with 64bit on Linux.  No nspluginwrapper.
This is by far the best Linux flash setup I've ever used, period, end
of discussion - and I'm sure the combination of Flash64 and Intel 945
video would also work just fine.  *Maybe* a hair slower doing
full-screen Hulu or something, but it would shock me if it didn't work
well enough.