Intel actually documents their graphics processors, as can be shown here:
http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/Q965_Q963/documentation.htm

This is in opposition to ATI and nVidia who don't document much worth anything.

Just found this and figured this out, hope you all enjoy it!

-Ryan "Rhyno" Lloyd

According to this... http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070219-8878.html Both ATI and nVidia should have they GPUs well documented to be used directly. ATI supposedly should give away info for programming directly in they GPUs Assembly language while nVidia adds extensions to the C language.[/url]

Hmmm... I've never read that before. But I've asked nVidia directly for that kind of info and they said they couldn't give me it.

Intel's graphics solutions aren't exactly as high-end or R&D-heavy as ATI and nvidia... also, intel graphics is more targetted at OEMs, whereas ATI and nvidia solutions are targetted mostly at gamers, that only really care about their games (which means Windows).

IMHO it's understandable enough that nvidia and ATI don't want to release a lot of details and possibly give the competitor any advantages. There's still done quite a lot of work in the drivers...

And to follow on from f0dder, ATi and nVidia also license a lot of IP/Technology from 3rd parties, (hint: SGI), which makes it harder to provide documentation for the chipsets.