M11xR2/R3 - NVidia Optimus Issues/Whitelisting Problems

So I recieved my M11x-R2 today. First two games I tried to install were Fallout 3 and The Witcher. However, it appears that neither game wants to work with Optimus. Fallout 3 detects the GFX prior to load so it tries to use the Intel card and crashes on load. The Witcher throws a Minimum system requirements not met error.

Figured I'd start a thread for anyone having similar issues and if anyone has found a workaround.

Thanks,

m11x-R2
i7, 4gb Ram.

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MOD NOTE:
For folks new to Optimus, be sure you review this video -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U874jC2blJQ

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PICSSSSSSSSSS

 

ye, and 3dmark06 bench on def. settings

as for you problem, try reinstalling video driver from dell page

http://support.dell.com/support/dow...erviceTag=&SystemID=ALW_M11XR2&os=W764&osl=EN

or, which is more preferable, install latest drivers from nvidia page, cause it already support optimus:

http://www.nvidia.co.uk/object/notebook-win7-winvista-64bit-257.21-whql-driver-uk.html

 

have you tried manually add Fallout to the optimus profile?!

 

Optimus apparently has done this for awhile and doesnt work at all for some games, sorry.

Board Message

 

Also please try and O/C the gpu and let us know what kind of headroom is there for an extra boost. I am giddy and can't wait till my R2 comes in.

 

$!@#%

 

Please keep up updated handalife.

Also, could you do some 3dmark06 benchmarks?

We're dying to know, the performance of it, with i7!

 

I'm at work but I'll try to run a 3dmark05 bench when I have bandwidth.

 

If you select the fallout launcher exe, it will just switch to the Fallout3.exe. Doesn't seem to be a way around it at the moment.

 

There was a post in that Nvidia thread that states there will be a new driver soon that address these issues

 

hmmmm... manually selecting your video card doesnt sound so bad anymore does it? I will keep my r1 unless I can manually turn on the card in r2

 

I heard there was a way to force it on or off via some type of profiler with NVidia driver. Does that work?

Also, +1 on the 3D Mark 06

 

I love the manual switching card, no reboot and only takes 2 seconds. I never understood the need for Optimus. Optimus is fine but should include the ability to manually switch cards too.

 

Since people were asking, I ran 3Dmark06. Everything default, no OC.

3DMark Score 7063
CPU Score 1892

 

But the i7 was OC'ed on turbo boost right?


nice! thats 900 points more than m11x at default! that brings m11xR2 only about 300 points behind 3820 which makes them very equal in performance... 5650 is the superior card, but the difference here is not that vast anymore.


hondalife - what was the resolution of the 3dmark 06 run?

 

I assume turbo boost is on by default so yeah.

It was run at 1280x768 which was what it defaulted to. I'm going to try a run with a 1.66 oc.

 

yeee waiting for oc run of 3dmark06 and please post a screenshot of details of this run, or upload excel file, thx in advance.

 

Thanks a ton Honda life. Maybe you should have an honor of posting this on the M11x Benchmark thread?

Anyway, from the M11x benchmark thread, I found the following

3DMark 06 CPU score
Stock SU7300 @ 1.3 GHz - 1073 (chewietobbacca's)
OC'ed SU7300 @ 1.73GHz - 1471 (DR650SE's)
Stock i7 640UM@ 1.2GHz - 1892

I'd say that is a pretty good boost in CPU performance - now would you kill me if I asked you to run the same bench with CPU OC'ed?

 

It's ~500 points ahead of OC'd R1. Not that spectacular... considering the price for the upgrade.

Btw, I thought you could manually switch GPUs with Optimus too?

 

Actually did worse OC'd for some reason. 7033 3DScore with 1866CPU score.

 

Maybe 3dmark06 is a single-core application. So both in default mode and in OCed mode clock was the same with turbo boost on?

Think it will be more clearly shown in GTA 4. So if you have this game, set graphics, show us the settings and do the benchmark, so we could reproduce it and compare results.

 

Hmm..that is a little bit disheartening. Maybe it is getting hotter so the CPU isn't utilizing self-TB as much as it would if it wasn't OC'ed?

 

GTA IV apparently doesn't like optimus either.

 

did you tried what i said? install new drivers from nvidia.com page?

 

What did you OC it too?

Is hyper threading enabled in the bios?

 

thank you soo much for the 3dmark06 scores!! Very curious on working OC but if that's it around ~7000 then I am def not reselling haha +rep for taking the time though!

 

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also honda, have you tried downloading the latest directx from microsoft.com ? directx 9 might be useful for 3dmark 06, since its not a directx 10 application!?

 

It's dual core most definitely. On m17x I have both cores turbo boosted in 3DMark06 (I ran it like 5 times... so yeah I am sure ^^). Well at least that's what HWInfo32 is showing... I assumed it's correct.

On a completely unrelated note guys, run some game benchmarks... Crysis, GTA, whatever you can from the benchmark thread. Who cares about 3DMark06 if there's a nice FPS increase.

 

true, Crysis benchmark is always a good one.. unfortunately we may have to wait considering OP said something about bandwidth =) the demo is a 1.5GB download..

 

Could it be that Honda's CPU is so lucky... it simply might not be OC friendly in his case?


And I wonder about temperatures. overheating?

 

Totally agree with you there unreal25. 3dmark06 (free) pushes the GPU (and only the GPU) for 4 of the tests and the CPU for just 2 of the tests. Who knows how the final score is weighted between the 6 tests. Since the GPU the same, maybe the i7 doesn't make a big difference to 3dmark06 scores.

Now GTA4 would be interesting.... As would Supreme Commander 1.... As would L4D 1+2.... As would DoW II... As would.... Minesweeper

Thanks for the feedback Honda. Sorry to hear about your problems. Early adopters eh! Tut, tut...

 

I have the latest drivers and direct x installed.

 

I just wish I had more time to mess with it. I'll try some more this weekend.

 

cool hondalife. You know that since you're first to be known to have teh R2 you're gonna be subjected to questions. Gaming benchmarks please =) I assume you know which are good ones to run since you have an M15x too

 

Yeah, I just have a lot of work to do and the benching and stuff is probably better placed in the benching thread.

I'd like to get back to the Optimus problems and talk to those who get their R2's and if they are having similar experiances.

 

gotcha. back on topic. I'm glad you posted this as I was totally unaware of graphics card problems with optimus. Figured you could go into the app menu and make sure those certain games would make sure to trigger the 335m..

 

Check out the Optimus help information included on your system (in the driver). You need to make sure each executable (launcher) is in the list to use the nVidia card. You only need to do this once. You should also be able to browse to the executable (not the shortcut) and right click to add it to the list. The game should then work just fine.

 

There are no options when I right click on the executable that say use the nvidia card. Can you post a screen of what it should look like? Maybe I'm missing something.

 

Well this quote from an nvidia tech yesterday indicates that there's a supposed fix coming this week.

link:
Optimus problem still exists with 257.15, And with 257.21? Your experiences?

 

Why they are that stupid?

The best fix to mantain the users happy is to put a simple manual switch. Then there's a lot of time to fix it for real.

 

From what I know about it, you have to add those .exe files in the Nvidia control panel under Optimus.

 

There is no context menu right clicking. Also there is no optimus menu in the Nvidia control panel. You can go into the 3d settings and tell the programs to use the Nvidia card, but it still doesn't work.

 

so these new processors are overclockable? Not turboboost but old school way like the R1 models?

 

Ah I see, is there anything about this on Nvidia forums?

 

They are +10char

 

i'm on the phone with dell placing my order I've only got one hand to type so i kept it short =)

 

Not sure what is going on but if you a couple of pages back, the OP said it actually got worse score with CPU OC'ed. Now I'm not sure what is going on here, but hopefully other owners will chime in when they get theirs in.

If i7 640UM doesn't perform much better than SU7300 OC'ed then I would be tempted to reconsider Lenovo Y460 or Acer 3820's...

 

Looks like the predictions so far are true, only a few hundred points better for sythetics versus an overclocked SU7300. I seem to remember 10-20% being thrown around, and this looks accurate.

Huge bummer that Optimus sucks though, why in the world would they not put a manual switch? Just no excuse, who wants something else to configure and fight with versus a simple switch?

 

Optimus is frustrating, but hopefully it will be really nice once it's working.