Acer Aspire Timeline Owner's Lounge

Many DirectX 10 games are highly spec'd because DirectX10 is new and requires games with fairly modern code. However, take Unreal 3 for example, I was playing it just fine at 1080p medium settings earlier. Many other games are based on this unreal 3 engine. The Unreal 3 engine has DirectX 10 support but was made primarily as a DirectX9.0c game. As such the requirements of the game aren't raised by it having DX10 support but the performance on the 4330 is improved as DirectX 10 is more efficient than DirectX 9.

 

DX10 runs faster than DX9? That's completely wrong. Using DX10 instead of DX9 will drop your fps. You'll get some fancier lighting and shadows but at the cost of performance. Any benchmark that has DX9 and 10 benchmarks will back this up.

Or the mother example of them all: Set Crysis on medium or high, same resolution, let's see what happens to the fps with DX9 and 10.

 

Experienced the 100% cpu problem. Had to shut off with power switch. How do I check and update bios?

 

F2 during boot, have like a 5 sec window. Then info or whatever. Update bios by downloading update and running it.

 

Hey thanks a lot! This helps out a bunch. With all of the stuff that you said, this notebook sounds perfect for me. Thanks again.

 

I'm fine with the speed and everything. I have a crappy old desktop at my house that uses a pretty old processor so this will be a BIG step up. Thanks.

 

Anyone know what the webcam resolution is?

 

Link

 

I just bought one of those bluetooth micro dongles for my 3810TZ and I was wondering if there was a way to modify the FN+F3 so that I can turn the dongle on and off. Right now it just gives me the pic that there is not bt installed since it's not built in. This is the dongle I bought if that makes any difference:

http://www.iogear.com/product/GBU421/

 

Has anyone installed the latest BIOS for the 4810TZ? Acer told me not to update the BIOS unless they specifically recommended it, but I'm tempted to anyway. For those who have updated the BIOS, any noticeable changes in system performance?

 

Thanks for the info on the webcam. I was thinking Acer simply redefined their somewhat poor resolution aspire one webcam. It sounds instead like they have one of the best. My respect for the timeline series is growing.

That little thumbnail of a bluetooth looks like a good idea. Is this the one that is dirt cheap? Last time I considered this there was a quality control issue where to get one good bt you had to buy 2 or 3, but as I recall you could easily do this and still not spend much. The logitech bt mouse I'm using has a transmitter that sticks out almost 3 inches. I can control the pc from 10 ft away, but sometimes worry I'm going to break it off when moving the pc from room to room.

 

Non Logi BT stacks won't work with Logi stuff and vice versa.

 

Not really. But it was with MPC set to use Cyberlink PowerDVD Codec as H264 codec. If you could try that that would be interestig.

 

heys guys,

does someone have a solution for the short battery life under windows 7.

i tested it for some days now and i just get around 4 hours with normal internet surfing with wlan.

is this problem known? can someone help me?!

 

Firstly you miss the point of my discussion. Secondly, no, you are the one who is wrong. My information comes both from myself as an amateur programmer of graphical apps and quotes from developers.

The reason you see Crysis lose performance is that when you enable directX10 they also enable all the added graphical possibilities that come with it i.e. improved effects, assuming that you're running a bleeding edge graphics card, of course you'll get a performance hit!

However, if a game simply enabled the directX10 pipeline and did not add any more effects (like the unreal 3 engine), it WILL run faster, the API was completely remodeled, there's no longer a COM interface layer, commands have been restructured and there's Microsoft's new memory buffer interface. This means that your PCI-E line is tied up less and that for each command you execute in comparison to directX9, it will have less lines of code to execute with many bottle neck points removed.

If the programmer then used some of the advantages of SM4.0 to achieve more efficient shaders rather than more powerful ones, you would also see a performance increase.

You are confusing the efficiency of DX10 with the fact that developers often use it to push even more data through your graphics card.

One example: http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews.php?/gpu_displays/xfx_8800_gt_xxx_alpha_dog_edition_-_g92_performance/6 - you'll notice from this that when only a few additions are made with DX10, performance actually increases and it scales much better at higher settings. None of those example have dx10 enabled and not adding something, but the results make it clear that if this were the case, you would see a large performance difference.

 

I believe Acer's power saving software isn't fully implemented in windows 7 yet, the solution would likely be to fiddle with your power settings and also disable indexing. Otherwise wait till full release I guess

 

I got my 3810t now here in japan. so far I am quite happy with it.

for those who are wondering about HD video performance here is a screenshot playing Transformers 2 trailer 1080p H264 (bitrate ranging from 5Mbs - 18Mbs) with MPC-HC using CoreAVC 1.9.5. as you can see the cpu was at 60%-70% without any dropped frames, stuttering or mis-synchronization. I have also tried PowerDVD 9 and it gave similar results. since CoreAVC is much cheaper than PowerDVD I am sticking with CoreAVC.

And I have a question, what is the difference between using ACER power management software and using vista's power plans? they seem to work independently because when I press power save touch button the vista power plan does not change into power saver. do I also have to change the vista's power plan every time I go to battery?

quick specs of my 3810:
su9400
4500mhd
2GB RAM
250GB HDD
bluetooth
Vista 32bit
bios 1.08

 

I would suspect Acer's program may communicate with the hardware bios. For me it also switches between the ATI gfx card and the intel. You shouldn't have to change your power options as there is usually a different battery mode setting under all power options that is likely to be set to low performance.

Anyone else?

And yeah, I'm unsure of the effect of the two graphics cards on HD video but regardless of which graphics card I have active I'm able to playback flash 720p (uses more towards max cpu due to lack of acceleration though - also draining the battery), 1080p mpeg4 and VC-1 from the tests that I've done (this included 2 mounted bluray images - full bitrate), this is with a SU9400. Frame rates were all fine.

 

Thanks for the very accurate information.

 

First boot off Linux live CD to check battery capacity.
It is not good to drain lithium ions.
Secondly install the Acer ePower
Thirdly check for power saving options in Intel Graphics Driver

 

Either the 4500mhd's apparent "Hardware Acceleration" is pretty poor or we still haven't got the correct codec setup for something that will work with it. Performing the same benching on my 3810TG but with mains power I had similar results on the 4500mhd about 60% usage though in fairness this was mains power. However when I activated the ATI 4330HD the same clip played back with an almost constant 8% cpu usage! Big difference! NOTE I am using the default k-lite codec pack codecs

 

Scribe, k-lite codec pack tells nothing to us. Please use http://nunnally.ahmygoddess.net/watching-h264-videos-using-dxva/
It really takes only 5mins to setup.

faani, same as Scribe, if You have 60-70% CPU, You're using not GPU accelerated method.

Also both faani and Scribe, please check this clip using both ATI and Intel. As far as I know ATI won't accelerate that one (to high profile), so I'm more interested in Intel, but just in case check also ATI.
Please post links to used test clips, I want to check it with my reference setup.

 

That's the thing.

With the clip you posted there is still out-of-sync (M says "Find bond" while video is lagging behind). CPU hits 100%. This is with MPCHC + Core 1.9.5. SU2700.

(p.s.s Scribe is right @ the DX10 thing )

 

Hey!
I'm thinking of buying the 3810 with SU350 core solo.
Can it handle firefox with 10 tabs, spotify, MSN Messenger at the same time?

 

Consider that Atom can do that (and more).

 

No, it's not the thing

Source

+

Table

+

Click

The only question is if/when it does/will support VC-1 + maybe why MPC-HC site has non actual informations.

Oh, and one more thing (I repeat 100001th time) ... CoreAVC does NOT support DxVA, You MUST use INTERNAL MPC-HC decoder.

 

No one is arguing that core does not have dxva, they made it very clear they don't use it.

Don't know why you're getting your panties in a bunch when the only thing you've asked is for people to play that clip of yours and report back.

So if you want comparisons to your reference set up, why don't you tell us how you want us to test it? Or enable dxva for 4500 for that matter, cuz it's grayed out in 1.2.908.0 of MPC-HC and makes that clip even more unwatchable when not using core (then again, I'm using Win7 so Vista might be different.. even though Win7 is based on Vista)

 

That video clip on the ATI card uses average 55% CPU, on the intel card it's the same but it spikes at 70% randomly so a few % in it.

Following the mentioned steps, I don't have the FFMPEG filter and don't know how to get it, without it disabling the other filter prevents video playback

 

Scribe, is that a SU94 or 35?

 

SU94.

On a further note YES that tutorial does work at activating acceleration on the Intel graphics card. The important step is to use FFmpeg. If you download the latest build from http://www.xvidvideo.ru/content/category/1/1/2 then I found the settings already there and configured.

The Intel card uses an average of 14% CPU compared to 8% on the ATI card. That other video is still not supported

 

things getting more interesting

 

Win7 is SOL for now then

 

Anyone dare to try?
though it meant for gma500,
Download intel media codec:
http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/swu-download.pl?mdl=VGNP588EQ&upd_id=4367&os_id=28

to get

Source: http://forum.pocketables.net/showthread.php?t=2148

 

Ia also wonder how many are using bios 1.20 and if they noticed any improvements? I'm running 1.10 bios in a 4810t. It seems to work fine, except for one time when it went unresponsive in about 3 weeks of pretty continuous use. Has anyone run into this 100% cpu problem with 1.20 bios?

 

OK guys I have done some comparison between CoreAVC and MPC-HC(DXVA). to make sure that MPC-HC is using its internal decoder I first uninstalled all other codecs an then I installed the latest build of MPC-HC (from http://www.xvidvideo.ru). after testing MPC I installed CoreAVC 1.9.5.

I used these videos;
transformers trailer: http://rapidshare.com/files/227751421/Transformers_ROTF_Trailer_2_1080p.mp4
007 trailer: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/132004/test_hd_9refs_high_l5.1.mp4
utaware opening: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/132004/Q-R_Utawarerumono_OP_-_Musouka_(BD_x264_1920x1080_VFR).mp4

transformers @ CoreAVC -> cpu 60-70% smooth, no stuttering, no mis-sync
transformers @ MPC-HC -> cpu 20-30% smooth, no stuttering, no mis-sync,
but a picture defect appeared in a scene which didn't appear in CoreAVC(see attached 3rd pic)

utaware @ CoreAVC -> cpu 50-80% smooth, no stuttering, no mis-sync
utaware @ MPC-HC -> cpu 20% smooth, no stuttering, no mis-sync

007 @ CoreAVC -> cpu 60-80% smooth, no stuttering, no mis-sync
007 @ MPC-HC -> cpu 80-90% just a little stuttering, no mis-sync

as you can see, hardware acceleration of 4500MHD off-loaded a lot of work from cpu in transformers and utaware playback but not in 007 playback. although 007 has the lowest bitrate it choked the cpu, this seems to be caused by the following limitation of DXVA;
"Cannot decode videos that was encoded with numbers of reference frames that exceed certain levels." see: http://nunnally.ahmygoddess.net/watching-h264-videos-using-compute-unified-device-architecture-cuda/

BTW I have no idea why the picture defect appeared in transformers @ MPC-HC which didn't appear in other videos.
anyway, DXVA with 4500MHD makes a huge difference in CPU utilization if the video is compatible. however picture quality might not be as good as other options. for more information about video compatibility of DXVA you can visit http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=12728994&postcount=1

for details please check out the attached pictures for more information. I also attached mediainfo of videos.

quick specs of my 3810:
su9400
4500mhd
2GB RAM
250GB HDD
bluetooth
Vista 32bit
bios 1.08

 

I was using 1.10 before on my 4810T and experienced the 100% CPU bug in linux. It happens right after I wake up the laptop after leaving it overnight downloading stuff. I haven't experienced the problem ever since I flashed it to 1.20.

 

Can anyone tell me what the SU3500 and/or SU2700 score on Super PI 1M?
Download link

Notebookcheck says 35 seconds but I'd like to hear from someone who has actually done it.

 

I have just run that on su9400 and it was 35 seconds

 

Thanks. Super PI is single threaded so that makes sense.

 

Unless you need intensive CPU processing SuperPI will not be reflective of what you need.
Casual computing doesn't depend on Raw Computational Power.

 

Flash does, that's why I'm interested.

 

One thing I feel I need to comment on is a visual artifact not present on screen shots. As this notebook uses an LED screen rather than an LCD screen in order to achieve a better contrast ratio at lower power settings, there is an annoying visual issue were the border around where the LED back lights are a higher and a lower setting shows a black distortion. You would perhaps expect to see a sudden change in brightness that doesn't quite match up or a loss of contrast on this periphery but instead you see a black line.

 

i was almost decided to get su3500 version with gma (3gb ram, 320gb hdd) for 550 euros, but now here in bulgaria appeared su3500 with ati card (plus 4gb ram, 500gb hdd) which sells for 650 euros

i don't care about gaming but now i'm thinking is it worth to get the one with ati. any heat issues and reduced battery life?

 

Why would you get it if you don't care about gaming?

 

for better work with full HD video?
i red that the overall performance will also be better because discrete vc doesn't take bandwidth of the system memory as integrated.

does it help with video encoding or not?

 

Hi (Здравей Chilko,
I think you have the same nickname in hardwarebg's forum. Today I ordered the model with the ati card and I expect to receive it in 2-3 days time. I could give my opinion after I get it.
I really hate intel graphics, because of the poor drivers. My previous tohsiba had X3100 and I had some nasty problems with the aspect ration, lack of options etc. (the situation could be different now I don't know). Since then if I am looking for a notebook I avoid intel as a graphic platform. Another advantage of the ati card is possibly the better HD video playback, the CPU is definitely less loaded. For me it is definitely worth it this 100 euros more. Because of the switchable graphics (actually you get X4500+ati4330), the battery life is not hurted, too.
But you really have to choose for yourself, because I really like to play games from time to time and maybe I am not reliable advisor.

 

thanks
ще чакам впечатления

 

There is a slight loss in battery life, however it is small. I did not notice any extra heating issues, especially as the CPU was doing less work. I have found just from programming 3d applications that the ATI card's drivers are also much better (DX10 & OGL 3.0), whereas I couldn't even run simple OGL code on the Intel card.

Also the comment about a more stable performance with ATI is correct, I do suffer spikes/varying CPU usage when using the intel card, this effect is lessened/completely removed on the ATI card.

 

This is what I've gathered from all the user reports:

SU3500/Intel vs. SU3500/ATI vs. SU9400/Intel
1080p H264: pass, pass, pass
Youtube HD: fail, fail, pass
1080p wmv: fail, fail, pass

In my opinion you'd be better off spending your € 100 for the SU9400 instead of a better videocard.

 

the only problem is that here nobody seems to offer 3810t with su9400