DirectX Issues Cause Intel CPU Delay

A new report has emerged about the upcoming series of Atom CPUs from Intel, one that sheds some light on just why the recent rumors about them being delayed came to be.

There have been several leaks over the past months concerning the next generation of Intel Atom chips known as Cedar Trail-M.

Some of them even placed the availability in September 2011 (next month), which meant that new netbooks, and maybe tablets, were set for availability soon after.

As such, hearing that the platform has been pushed back until November was something that caused a few eyebrows to rise.

Then again, as Intel itself points out, the only official time frame given by the Santa Clara giant was the second half of the ongoing year. As such, it may not have been completely accurate to say that the units got delayed.

This did not stop inquiries into just why the Atoms aren't arriving sooner instead of later, and at least this facet of the issue got some light shed upon it.

Originally, it was assumed that video decoding was proving troublesome to properly implement.

Now, though, it is reported that DirectX is the culprit, the drivers for it at least, and there is also not going to be any 64-bit OS support at launch.

In fact, even though Cedar Trail has support for DirectX 10.1 graphics, there will only be DirectX 9 support when the release is made.

Overall, the chips will be as ready as they can be on the hardware front but lacking, at least at first, in terms of software, to the point where even the Wireless Display capabilities will be limited.

Although the drivers will be completed by the time of release, the latest WiDi features will only get enabled by the subsequent driver update in the first quarter of 2012. The same goes for Smart Connect technology (lets laptops get e-mails and other things during sleep mode).