GLSL and onboard graphics

[TerrapinM]

I recently put together a bartop and have been using a an old PC I had lying around.  It's an i3-2020 running Ubuntu and SDLMame.  The issue is the space inside is VERY tight.  I can't fit a graphics card.  I've been running off the onboard graphics (2nd gen HD 3000).  By default, everything is working great.  I great great frame rates on every game I tried.  However I really would like to use a shader with GLSL.  Every one I've tried work but have been way too slow for that GPU.

My question is will any onboard GPUs run shaders at full speed?  For example, I've been looking at this:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B018NSAPIM/

That is a 6th gen CPU with an Intel HD 520.  It would fit great in my bartop and is cheap.  It would certainly be a lot faster than what I have.  However would it run GLSL at a decent framerate?  Anyone else using onboard GPU with GLSL?

I've also considered using a PCI Express extender, but I've heard of alot of people having issues with them.  And I'm not sure how I would mount the GPU in that case.

[keilmillerjr]

I run onboard hd6770 on my mid 2010 iMac and can run glsl shaders no problem. I have no idea what can run what, but if you can find a comparison chart, at least you know what I have or better should work. Maybe some one running something of less specs and still working can chime in.

[nitrogen_widget]

core2duo with a 9400 GT will handle some shaders without issue.
I can get basic screen curvature and scan lines working without slow down on most games using lr-mame2003.
yes, the version for rpi.

you can also try a shader made for the raspberry pi.

If you have a pci-e port you could try a 90 degree riser card and mount the video card sideways.
If you have room for the cpu heatsink and fan then you should have room for a horizontal pci-e card.

[TerrapinM]

I run onboard hd6770 on my mid 2010 iMac and can run glsl shaders no problem. I have no idea what can run what, but if you can find a comparison chart, at least you know what I have or better should work. Maybe some one running something of less specs and still working can chime in.

I just checked and the HD6770 is a bit more powerful than most the Intel HD onboard stuff.  The newer generations, especially the Iris stuff on the i5 seem faster, but I can't be sure.

[TerrapinM]

core2duo with a 9400 GT will handle some shaders without issue.
I can get basic screen curvature and scan lines working without slow down on most games using lr-mame2003.
yes, the version for rpi.

you can also try a shader made for the raspberry pi.

If you have a pci-e port you could try a 90 degree riser card and mount the video card sideways.
If you have room for the cpu heatsink and fan then you should have room for a horizontal pci-e card.

I hadn't thought about the RPI shaders.  I will definitely give them a shot.

The cabinet is really tight.  I thought about the extenders as opposed to 90 degree riser card.  I've read alot about people having issues though.  They are pretty cheap so it's probably worth a shot.  Still, for < $300 I can get a NUC and it would clean up the horrible mess in that cabinet. 

[TerrapinM]

Unless I'm missing something, the RPI shaders only work with retroarch.  They don't look to be the same format.  Of course, I could missing something.

[nitrogen_widget]

Unless I'm missing something, the RPI shaders only work with retroarch.  They don't look to be the same format.  Of course, I could missing something.

That I don't know.

[verion]

I'm running really demanding GLSL shaders (halation, CRT-geom) on i5 1.3GHz with onboard HD5000 (haswell) and it's running great (MacBook Air, MacOS).

I have no performance issues - but laptop is getting hot/loud.

[djrobx]

I use HLSL shaders on an Intel H8M board with i3 4340 with the built in video.   Works 100% perfect.  Vsync is on and never a stutter.    Even some of the newer stuff that I would expect to be slow on this system like Gauntlet Legends runs fine.    Extremely happy with the new pixel shader stuff.

If I enable oversampling (anti-aliasing) for vector graphics (which are not default), I need to turn the bloom filter off to keep it from stuttering, but that was the only concession I had to make, and it wasn't a hard one since I don't really like the bloom effect on that anyway.

The BGFX stuff is slower.  I didn't play much with it since I was happy with the HLSL effects.

[nitrogen_widget]

TerrapinM - it dawned on me, you are on linux. I can install linux on my one laptop with intel graphics 10 times and maybe half those times the graphics will actually work.

Driver's for those chips on linux are not the best.
Nvidia and amd (even open source drivers) run glsl just fine for me most of the time.
not intel on linux.

[TerrapinM]

Wow, thanks for the updates.  So it's sounding like later generation chipsets will handle the shaders.  That is great to know and I may pull the trigger on a NUC.  The 6th gen i3 is super cheap now and I can use my existing SSD.  Just need to grab memory.

As for Linux, I'm not totally set on it but it has been working very well.  If I had driver issues I could try Windows but so far so good.

Thanks again for the help!

[verion]

Just double-check your NUC version. Some of them can have only m2 SSD, not the regular 2.5" SSD.