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#1
GMA3100 driver crap performance
Hey all,
I have recently installed Win10 on two different Dell desktops (both different models). One was an upgrade from Win7, the other was a clean install (though the computer previously ran Win7).
The computers both have the integrated Intel GMA3100 (G31/G33 chipset) graphics, the performance was more than acceptable under Windows 7, and yet in both cases, under Windows 10 (CU / 1703), the performance is ATROCIOUS.
I should make clear a couple of things:
First, I realize and acknowledge that the GMA3100 is no longer supported by Intel for versions of Windows newer than 7. Despite this, MS does provide a GMA3100 driver for Windows 10 via Windows Update (not included on the install ISO).
Second, when I talk about how bad the performance is, I need to be clear that these computers are being used in an office environment where overall graphics performance is not important. These machines are doing basic office tasks surrounding text manipulation: web browsing, e-mail, word processing. No gaming, no 3D modeling, nothing complicated. And nothing that Win7 couldn't handle on the exact same hardware.
The most obvious way in which the performance problems manifest themselves is in simply clicking on the Start button. The whole Start menu is just abysmally, unusably slow and laggy. The animation of the menu coming into view is jittery and maybe running at 4-5 FPS if I'm lucky. Tiles that animate themselves constantly stutter. Scrolling through the programs list is an exercise in frustration and patience every time.
This is clearly a software problem, though, because if I revert back from the G31/G33 graphics driver to the Microsoft Basic Display Adapter, performance on the same hardware is WORLDS better. No contest. The system is actually usable. And it has nothing to do with the configured resolution: if I do back-to-back tests of the GMA3100 driver vs. the Basic driver and I run both at the same resolution (1024x768), the Basic driver performs fine while the GMA3100 driver is garbage. And as a solution to the problem, I'd happily use the Basic driver, except that it only seems to support 640x480, 800x600, and 1024x768, and none of these match the aspect ratio of the attached monitor, so that's no good.
I have tried turning off as many GUI flourishes as possible (animations, transparency, etc.), and this does help some, but the problem is still pretty evident. I don't have to turn any of that crap off for it to perform acceptably with the Basic driver.
I have also tried to use the last released version of the official Intel driver for Windows 7, which does install and work on Win10, but performance of this driver on Windows 10 is exactly the same as the Win10 WDDM driver that Microsoft supplies for the GMA3100 via Windows Update.
Anybody have any other ideas, preferably ones that don't involve adding a third-party graphics card? I'm extremely frustrated at this point, and it seems ridiculous that just to make the basic system usable for basic tasks, one would have to throw in a modern 3D graphics accelerator.
Thanks,
-- Nathan