Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 500 driver update

One of the biggest complaints I had with the Asus Eee PC T91 was it felt rather sluggish thanks to its low power 1.33GHz Intel Atom Z520 processor and integrated GMA 500 graphics. But it looks like Intel has released an updated GMA 500 driver for Windows XP which some users are reporting improves streaming video performance on the Eee PC T91 and other netbooks with similar graphics.

From the initial reports I’ve read, you shouldn’t expect miracles. But some YouTube and other Flash videos may play a little more smoothly. I don’t have a T91 or other GMA 500 equipped netbook handy at the moment, so if you’ve had a chance to try out the new driver on the Eee PC T91, Dell Inspiron Mini 10, Acer Aspire One 751, or another machine with this graphics chipset, let us know about your experiences in the comments.

You can read more about the new driver in the release notes.

Update: Chippy at UMPC Portal installed the new drivers and ran some tests on a Viliv X70 UMPC with GMA 500 graphics. With the new drivers, the system scored higher benchmarks, but Chippy says overall the changes were mostly imperceptible in everyday use.

via EeeUser