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I am thinking about using a small mini Itx board with the intel atom cpu. Specifically, it it the Intel Intel Desktop Board D510MO, support openGl 1.4 HW pixel shader 2.0.
Very inexpensive board, low heat and low power requirements.
All it will do is run gauges, PM and FlightDesk
Does anyone have any thoughts or experience with these little motherboards?
Thank you
I have had an Intel atom board for a year, as you say cheap allround, purchased for a similar use to you. I use flightgear and found the Atom was not much chop compared to the 2.8ghz P4 intel boards I have been using. This applies on linux and even more so with win xp.
Infact its just like a laptop, (its a lappy processor any way) noticeably slower than a decent desktop MB for any processor intensive task like compiling. Even mundane things like firefox and office apps are a just little bit slow. Flightgear V2 is a no go with XP on this board.
I was expecting to to use it just as a slave display unit for instruments and admit I have not fully tested it in this mode on linux as yet for one reason or another but I expect, unfortunately, I will to stay with the normal motherboards.
reg Harry
Hi Harry,
Thank you for your input - in fact I have come to the same conclusion, from reading more about the atom boards. Pretty much what most of the inexpensive NetBooks are based on.
I am in the process of setting up my sim now and will use my old P35/duo with a radeon 4870 for instrumentation etc., along with a new Intel I7 on an ASUS p6t deluxe V2 and radeon 5850 (Took some doing to get "command approval" from the wife), I think I will be set for quite some time now.
Regards,
Charles
Just adding my experiences with the Atom processor for glass cockpit software.
I have a couple of Acer Veriton's, basically a netbook without a screen. It has the Intel graphics chip though, not the nVidia Ion. They are silent and compact and will find a use somewhere in the pit.
But they are pretty rubbish at running PM PFD/ND. The benchmark is really low, less than 100 from memory. My 5 year old Centrino laptop with Intel 855 graphics is at least twice as fast (i.e. smooth).
Maybe the Ion graphics might spice things up a bit, but I'm thinking a dedicated VGA card maybe necessary for smooth instruments. Not necessarily a high spec one though.
Sean
Thats a thought Sean,
mine has the Intel video chip in it and a single pci soceket. Droping a opengl video card in it might be enough to make it useable.
Even more suprising a google reveals suitable cards still for sale in the US with pci interface, I doubt i would find any thing local here in Bali, its all PCIE and AGP stuff in the shops.
Got me going now, maybe its time to revisit this Atom idea.
H.
Im running PMsystems in an atom computer with no problem.
I bought an Acer Aspire to see if I could integrate into my sim. It wouldn't run FsXpand. It wouldn't show the gauges. I am now going to see if I can use it as my VATSIM comms system with either SB or FSinn. If it works for that, then I'll keep it. otherwise my youngest just lost her desktop and gained a netbook.
Warren
I have done a bit of digging and some got advise on these atom boards, on the Intel site it seems there are quite a few variants around now, use care if you buy one.
Mine is a 1.6g single core, dual thread, 230 chip. Not the one to get! Various newer versions are higher in speed, dual core and multi-threading.
FS2004 with PMGD737 looks like it runs nice enough on the 230 chip, but I use Flightgear in Linux to run my sim, Older versions of FG run fine on it with good frame rates, its just the new multi-threaded FG versions where problems start in linux or win.
So far albeit a bit sluggish, all other (not MS sim related) windows apps I have used seem to at least run on it. But the different Atoms around may explain why some apps run on one and not another.
Anyone planning on trying one of these Atom based boards could be advised to ensure they get a MB fitted with one of the more powerful versions of the chip, preferably with the option to test and return if it does not run what you need.
I hope this helps someone in the future, because their low cost, small build, low power usage and no noisy large fans make them a great thing for utility type sim tasks, especially if you can live with the existing video chip and use a flash stick instead of a HD
reg Harry