According to an FAQ posted at VIAarena, the new VN896 IGP for the C7-M ULV CPU won’t be able to support Aero after all.
Can any of VIA’s Direct X9.0 integrated chipsets run Aero?
No they cannot
I had previously reported that we were waiting for confirmation, then I saw WDDM drivers and assumed ‘aero.’ Apparently you can’t make that assumption. Sorry readers! Don’t expect aero on VIA-based UMPC for another year or so. Personally I’m not worried about this issue at all. I didn’t expect it and I don’t even want it. Flying windows will kill my battery life! There is another issue that’s worrying me though and that is, why doesn’t Vista Media Center and Media Player work for the VIA UMPC owners? So far I’ve had 4 reports of it not working. Thoughtfix even blogged about it today.
Not only is Windows Media Center broken as hell, but Windows Media PLAYER is broken too! I got about 3 frames per second from just about any video I tried to play on it. Identical videos played without problems on XP Tablet 2005.
I’m trying really hard to get info from VIA about this but I haven’t got anywhere yet. The only things possible at this stage are that they release some new drivers or, as they did on XP, a dedicated media playback application. That option isn’t going to impress anyone. Especially if they’ve just spent $2K on an OQO Model 02.
