M11xR2/R3 - NVidia Optimus Issues/Whitelisting Problems

c:/program files (x86)/steam/steamapps/ {your account name}/portal/hl2.exe

 

Strange...it isn't there D:
Ah well, I will just try something else.

 

the portal that came with m11x u need to activate it first by signing steam as far as I remember.

 

But that's the thing, I do have an acc.
Ah well, I am downloading the Medal of Honor Beta.
I hope I can get optimus to work with that.

 

by the way if you go to manage app tab in your nvidia control panel. uncheck the box that says show only installed app. u will be able to see the entire whitelist. unless the game is relatively new or something not so popular, they should be already in the list. just look up for the game name and check what is the current default gfx set to it (integrated/nvidia). just change the default to nvidia from there if its being listed as integrated and optimus should automatically kick in.

for some reason if you keep it at show only installed app, it may not list all the games you have despite they are already in the whitelist. so I recommend to keep it uncheck and modified according to what you have. that way you dont have to worry where are your game files unless you are trying to add something new that is originally not in the whitelist.

 

if portal comes with it, after u sign in your preloaded steam it should activate automatically. and you should be able to see it in your list of installed games within steam. unless you deleted the steam folder before hand.

MOH works as far as I know. You might need to add whitelist or check whitelist setting before you start the game to ensure the game is listed there else add manually.

 

WOW! That worked! Thank you so much!

 

This is correct - you do need to activate the free game. What's funny is we did that last night, and still had nothing in this directory... only after launching Portal once, and then checking the directory again, did we find "LH2.EXE". The only driver we've changed so far is the new 257.30 Nvidia driver posted to Dell's website a couple of days ago. Optimus picked up HL2 (Portal) and WOW no problem so far... the system is very nice!

- Kirk200

 

Found it a few minutes after I posted that and was so stoked to play JC2 I forgot to edit the post and let y'all know. Thanks!
By the way, the problem was the DirectX thing that somebody mentioned earlier in this forum, my solution was the 258.96 WHQL with the modded INF and everything works *perfectly.*

 

I have no idea what half of this thread is talking about since I am not a PC gamer but now I need one for college. So basically if I DL games from Steam than they will work perfectly? I really have no idea on how the whole installing/removing drivers work.

thanx

 

I am having an interesting Optimus problem on my R2.

I have the steam version of "Vampire the Masqarade - Bloodlines" and after patching it, it seemed to work pretty well; however, I noticed that it was lagging in outside areas, so I checked to see if the NVIDIA GPU was activated, and, as I suspected, it was not.

I went into the NVIDIA control panel and set the game's affinity to the NVIDIA GPU, however, upon attempting to restart the game, it gives me the "Failed to Find Steam" error that some users are reporting, especially those attempting to run COD2. If I switch it back to the integrated GPU, it starts up alright, but I then have to contend with lag in what is already a fairly buggy game with a poor interface.

Does anyone know what changing the program affinity would do to the game to prevent it (or Steam) from recognizing one another? I'm fairly stumped as I don't know what setting affinity would do to make the game incompatible with Steam.

 

I had no problems until I installed GTA 4 , I added the game to the whitelist but no matter what I do the Nvidia GPU doesn't kick in .
If i do the GTA 4 benchmark I get bad performance and it also reads Intel HD Card in the Benchmark stats .
I will pass this game for now .

 

Hi, everyone

I try to play Prius Online and FlyFF which will run with GameGuard. It seem that the gameguard will kill the game whenever the optimus try to switch over.

Anyone know how to solve this problem?

Thank you.

PS:I have a m11x R2 Core i7 8gb ram.

 

Hey guys, I received my laptop 2 days ago, and today I decided to try playing some games on Steam, but the problems is, it won't recognize my discrete graphic card, only the integrated one, and it will also block me from playing some games, saying I don't have the required configuration while I know the 335M is powerful enough to play them. I find this weird because Dell lets us decide if we want Steam preinstalled, so I tought they would have arranged it to make it work. I was also wondering if there was a way to tell, other than by looking in the nVidia control panel, if the discrete card or the integrated one is on, because I don't hear any differences when I activate either one of them in the control pannel nor any resolution or screen quality changes. Thanks in advance for your answers.

 

What games?
In any case, I suggest you update your drivers to the 257.30 ones.
They can be found on the dell support page.
Or if you know your way with computers, you can also download the 258.96 drivers and switch out the .inf file with a modded one. Either way, it should help with a whole lot of Optimus Issues. Though some have yet to be fixed.

Taken from the R2 Optimization Thread

 

I did like you said but this made me think of another question: Does Steam.exe Optimus discrete graphics cards optimization applies to all games launched with Steam, or do I need to go in each game folder for Steam and add them ? I tought I didn't need that because Steam would be running during the time I would play games but I don't know. Thanks.

 

Nope, you need to go and find each .exe and add it to Nvidia Optimus.
It's a bit of a pain I know, but at the moment that's how Nvidia Optimus works.

Come to think of it, I can't even get steam to run on the discrete graphics card. You know what, you try, maybe it will actually work.

 

Yeah, I see, thanks alot for the answers man, I'm really amazed how you and this forums answered in 15 minutes the questions I was wondering about for 2 days !

 

Do you guys think the issues with Optimus should be enough to persuade me to get an R1 instead of an R2 with an i7 processor? Or will the problems be ironed out and dealt with soon enough with these new drivers?

 

I have no problems with optimus, I use the 258.96 drivers. I play all my games through steam, I have only had to add Shatter to the whitelist.
That thing steam does when it says it's only detecting the intel graphics chip can be ignored, the nvidia turns on when the game actually starts up.

 

I assume this is correct. This is from the CUDA Developers Guide for Optimus Platfroms:

Now this isn't to say that Steam or any of these games are CUDA applications, but it does set a precedence for applications detecting the Intel GPU rather than the Nvidia one. I would assume that if an game/application detects the Intel GPU and its capabilities the game/application may configure itself improperly for running on the Nvidia GPU. My guess is that this could be causing at least some of the issues people are running into.

I have also seen quite a few reports of Nvidia profiles not saving correctly so you may want to make sure to run whatever it is by right clicking the Icon and choosing run with Nvidia every time you run a problem game/application.

 

Hey guys I just got the M11xR2 and while its a sick laptop, I'm having some issues with warcraft 3. When I run a custom game, the frames hover around 20 frames per second. I've tried everything, I've tried three sets of drivers (used driver sweeper also) and I'm on 259.22 right now, I've tried adding the game to the whitelist (I used the right exe from task manager), and I've made sure that the game is using he gt335m using the little activity icon in the taskbar. Hell I've even tried overclocking (with the overclock it was at 20, before it was at like 10-15). Anyone know if its an issue with the optimus drivers and if it can be resolved? I mean my old laptop with a gt230m which had 48 shaders compared to this cards 72 ran it without a hitch.

 

warcraft 3 and starcraft II seems to be lost cases on the m11x... mainly the cpu being small gimped and way to slow.

 

So theres pretty much no hope for those games? Even in the future?
EDIT: I just tried using the gt335m at low settings and it was still hovering at around 22 frames but with the intel, it ran at 60fps at that same setting!... It has to be some sort of driver issue.

 

actually this is definitely an optimus issue. this is not only on m11x. even on asus n82 i read ppl are using the intel hd to play WC3 rather than the gt335m. over 2 reasons. its not necessary to use nvidia as far as they commented. intel hd is more than enuf powerful to handle that game. second reason it benefit your battery better if you are not on power source. if i dont remember wrongly they also had similar issue with WC3 when attempt to use gt335m as the renderer. i think this clarify. this is not just a fault in m11xr2 after all

 

In the case of starcraft II I think it's an unhealthy mix between the i7 been slow, optimus being really really bad and starcraft II having really questionable coding and cpu/gpu utitilazation.

Strangely enough other a lot more powerful laptops are having similar issues as mentioned. the HP dv6-3030tx with a proper i5 2.56ghz and an ATI 5650 should be more than capable! the cpu of course does a lot better than the m11x but due to the again switchable graphics (it also has a HD intel gpu too) the 5650 performs really wierdly and even though the fps in general are higher than the m11x on the same settings, the actual performance ingame is very sloppy and not fun. Also it changes A LOT depending on which map is played. Lost temple is one of the least heavy maps, where the new Xelnoga caverns (or what its called) is heavy in the center also Metropolis is really heavy in the top right and left spawn locations.. massive fps drops in those areas.. SC2 issue there.

 

actually the i7 ulv thou is definitely not a power player here. but its definitely not that weak overall. it still does have quite a bit of muscle in it. SC2 issue its not with our system but purely just SC2 itself. example Blizz show their "recommended" card as 8800GTX. I did a sys req test before on my desktop saying that its good on high. But on the actual retail test it dont turn out the same way. it still runs but quite choppy if goes with high settings. and I do mean choppy right from the beginning and not in mid or end game. Here it shows my desktop does not have Optimus and still choppy. Next I did a test on Asus N82 i7 edition (this one has no Optimus unlike the i5 version) it run fairly "decent" on medium setting. This one has a GT335M as well. No optimus and clearly has a more powerful processor than one in M11x. Still it would run choppy with high/ultra when goes into mid/end game. so i think you should stop blaming your M11x. like i said before its not created to do wonders but i think it has perform pretty well in its own department so far already.

last thing to note is if you remember or aware of this. during the last beta test of SC2 a lot of users are reporting drop in performance of the game. as it was running a lot smoother during the initial beta phrase. blizz change something but its not documented. and they just need to sort it out

 

I know.. I was in both beta 1 and 2. they added to the graphics engine at the beginning of beta 2.

my concern is I dont see the same massive fps improvements on the m11x when turning down anything that could cause the fps be low. like on the HP, if i switch textures and shaders to low so its not so heavy on the faulty GPU I see a massive fps gain. the macbooks are having gpu memory leaks so they slow down too slowly, but again, putting stuff to low helps. On the m11x the only gains I have seen and that being 3-5 fps is by turning down cpu heavy things... trust me I would love for sc2 to run on the m11x !! its a nice machine but at the moment its an expensive brick for me.

 

now its the time i wish i could find a way to by pass the intel and make R2 purely run with the GT335M and see how it really perform along with the i7. i think this is the only way to really determine the issue here. but i think there should be something in the bios that restrict this to happen. thou i havent really try anything yet as its just a thought that just came to me

but nonetheless to me as a owner of R2 i am still quite happy with it as i wont call it a brick simply it fail to run one thing. thou there are run nasty issue right now. but it still manage to run most of what i and throw at it so far. i think as the size of this machine its already great to be this capable.

 

I am new to NBR but it has been so educational the last couple of days I have decided to register for the forums. Here is my situation: I received my M11X R2 on Tuesday (8-17-10). [i5 4Gb DDR3 blah blah] came out to $1,078. I seriously only need it for Starcraft II and Diablo III. I have a desktop, netbook etc. (college student) I loaded up the blizzard SC2 client and installed. First surprise = recommended settings - LOW.hit the forums. "Update the drivers" is written everywhere. I AM running default 189.-- drivers.. I look into it before updating and see that updating could make thongs way worse. It's ridiculous. INF mods? Really? I dropped 1k to easily run pc games on high or ultra. Browsing a bit more I see the GT335M apparently does what it wants, Optimus is in it's infant stages, and you have to switch settings and right clock every .exe and force 335 and cross your fingers? Basically, I run off blizzard clients so forget Steam, forget the "whitelist", and forget downloading a Dell driver and deleting and replacing a modded file. Is there a solid/easy fix for nvidia/optimus? Or should I return the m11x for not operating as advertised? I just want to run these games on high or ultra like I should be able to do with an Alienware. Suggestions? I understand it's my decision whether to return it or not. I was just hoping something new has surfaced.. Sorry for the rant as well. Lot of money >.<

 

The M11x is not targeted at high-end gaming. It's a nich product that's targeting reasonably good gaming performance in a compact form factor for people who need mobility (battery life). The 335 is a 2nd tier, mid-range GPU and the ULV processors are somewhat weak for games that are CPU intensive or not optimized for multi-core performance. In other words running games at high/ultra is generally not always the norm.

Optimus isn't nearly as finicky as people who pop open the M11x for the first time are often making it out to be. Yes, you'll want to update your driver and frankly the modded inf process is flat out simple to do. It really is.

Yes there are a lot of people having issues getting decent performance with SCII. If that's your primary need for a mobile gaming notebook then you might be better off looking for something with a little more juice. I would imagine that most gaming laptops have a pretty thorough discussion on how SCII is running for them in their respective communities.

 

I completely understand. It is tagged for it's portability. But LOW? Lol. I'm guessing i'm at the trial and error crossroads like everyone else until the put put a solid fix method? That being said, I'd say I'm about 6/10 on the tech-savvy scale. Can anyone link me to the INF mod posts? I suppose I will download the newest drivers tonight and try to figure this out... Crazy. Awe man that means I have to uninstall the current nvidia drivers first.. Here cone the errors and safe mode boots >.<

 

I haven't really kept up with which driver SCII players are having the best results with. It seems that some people are having more issues with performance than others. The driver thread you want to start with this this one:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m11x/510346-modded-optimus-drivers-collection-r2.html

It's a collection of all of the non-Dell driver threads. The second link has instructions for how to uninstall, sweep in safe mode and install a new driver with a modified inf. kopicha even went the extra mile on the 259.22 driver by pre-packaging the inf so that you don't have to bother with replacing it yourself.

Anyway, hope it works out for you and the rest of the people having problems with SCII. Me, I've got too many other games in my queue and I'd just as soon wait until Blizz and/or nvidia get things sorted out.

 

I really appreciate it. I'll follow the instructions to the T. Hopefully it shows some improvement. Letting me get to "medium" without bad lag.

 

Hey. I just installed WC3 today. It's really choppy, so I googled for some tips. I tried running it with the intel HD, but it's still choppy.
Help?

 

Hey guys. I just installed CSS and im getting 36 fps..Added the game to the white list..and it's not making a difference. Im now installing WoW.

Any help would be good around about now.

 

Hello everybody,I have ASus k52jc i3,4gb ram, nvidia geforce 310m with OPTIMUS. my system is 32bit. I'm find just 64bit sytem issue spendings,so any body can help me? I cant play gta 4 and other alot of games becoause is lag very much,so please help me,told me what I have to do? Sorry for my english. so what I have to do,if I wont play some games like gta4 normaly on my Laptop ?thx

 

Some body HELP ME

 

GTA4 isn't optimized at all to run on the PC. Just saying.

 

Also having this GTA4 "problem"
It's really slow, even after disabling Turboboost.
Running the Benchmark shows the Intel HD GPU.
If I switch to the desktop I can see that Nvidia is running GTA. So...wich one is it?
I whitelistet gta.exe and gtalauncher.exe.

 

Stupid PB kicking me out every 5 mins in ranked matches... errrrrr.... I'm using 258.96 drivers

 

The PB crud is the biggest issue for me at the moment. Some day it will be fixed.

 

how to avoid being kick by pb --> http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m11x/519805-how-avoid-getting-kicked-pb-cod4.html

 

No one is answering the GTAIV problem regarding it only reading the integrated HD card..

I did the following but no use at all.

1- Updated to the lastest nVidea driver from Dell. (No .inf mod done)
2- Right-clicked the .exe and ran it using Nvidia
3- Added it to the nVidia list.

Please help us, anyone!!
I'm having issues with both the original and the expansion GTAIV..

thx

 

No disrespect intended, but maybe it is using the Nvidia. There was a lot of discussion in the gaming thread about the very poor performance of GTA4 on the M11x in general

 

So it would seem as though Im having Optimus problems. I've been trying to figure out how to get FF14 to play and have had no luck. The GPU is not showing up. @_@$#

*edit* Well, I found some info through searchig these threads on making the .exe's run the gpu so all is well now.

 

Hi,

Not sure if this is an optimus issue, i am having trouble with dawn of war 2 (steam version). when i change graphic settings it goes to the loading screen but when i check the settings again the changes didn't save, reverts back to low/medium. I have seen youtube footage of the Mx11 R1 palying this on high.

things i found on the net and tried:

1. disable32eck - no dice
2. Config LUA, (change to read only) - didn't work

my spec:

Mx11xr2
Core i7 - 120
8 gig ram
Gt 335m

Nvidia driver: 260.63 beta

 

Hey guys, I got a reply from Punkbuster about the Optimus issue. They said:

"Note #2: This is an issue with the Nvidia drivers themselves, possibly in conjunction with your particular hardware. Even Balance does not allow multiple Direct3D DLLs to be running when playing on a PunkBuster-enabled server. This has been the case for quite some time.

You will be able to play if you revert to an old graphics driver (< v200.00), play on PB servers without restriction kicks or on servers without PB.

I'm sorry, but this will need to be addressed by nVidia."

Way to go, PB!

On a side note, how do I reinstall the stock drivers? What's their model number? I wanna play Modern Warfare 1 without getting kicked. Currently using the 258.96 Nautis mod.

 

Punkbuster..............The art of resisting evolution. Here's hoping a Texas tornado takes out their whole faciliity.

 

Well that sucks. After all the driver issues I've had switching back and forth I guess I'll have to just play with the cheaters I sure as hell am not switching back and forth all of the time.