New M11x R2 Opinion

Just got mine in yesterday and so far I am happy with the performance in games for a laptop of this size. One thing I noticed, and this only pertains to when the laptop is plugged in, is that AERO never uses the Nvidia GPU. When I use the tool that shows if it is active it shows the GPU as idle. Now when I have this connected to a moniter that is ouputting at 1920x1080 moving windows around is choppier then on my old laptop with a 9400m. This is somewhat annoying. There should be a way to accelerate AERO using the nvidia when the laptop is plugged in.

 

I have this same issue. Although 4gb of ram will definately help that situation. If you have a spare 2-4gb SD card lying around you can use that to ReadyBoost the OS speeding things up significantly.
Hopefully when Nvidia sort out new R2 optimus drivers, they will recognise 1080p output and kick the dedicated graphics into gear.

 

confusing.. why does aero need discrete? Are you only noticing sluggishness when you go external? I guess since we have to use nvidia when using hdmi on the R1s so I don't know if it's sluggish or not.

 

You can't use the 335m just for one thing (Aero); you turn it on and it does the rendering for everything. I also don't think you also can't choose to have it turn on and accelerate certain things only when it's plugged in. If you want it to accelerate Aero and Aero is always on, then just add to Optimus's list any Windows file that's always running, but it will do this while on battery, too.

The best thing for you would be a manual toggle, but that is unavailable on the R2.

 

Im not sure that will work. You can add something like Media player to optimus and it will accelerate the video, and the tool will say it is on, but its still not doing the windows interface. When you have 4-5 web browser windows open and a few other things this thing turns into a slide show with AERO.

 

That would be C:\Windows\System32\dwm.exe which is the desktop window manager. But yeah.. if forcing that to use Nvidia it would be on 100% of the time.

 

No, it does not only accelerate the video. When the 335m is on, it renders everything displayed, not just certain programs.

Here is the link to the whitepaper produced by nVidia on Optimus so you can see for yourself: http://www.nvidia.com/object/LO_optimus_whitepapers.html

I will quote the relevant passage (bolded by me) so you don't have to read the whole thing. This is from page 11:

So you see, it is not possible that Aero is being handled by the IGP when the 335m is on. The problem is from something else.

 

Corn, Im not going to argue what Nvdia says, but here is what I see.

Open up a bunch of windows on your desktop at a high rez like 1920x1080 and hit the window key tab combination to get them to do that graphical swap thing. Now run a program such as windows media player that turns the 335M on, then do the window key tab thing again. The performance is the same for me. Shouldnt we expect it to be different?

Now, on my other computer those windows FLY by, and it is not using a card nearly as powerfull as the 335M

 

Does WMP activate discrete? Grab a copy of the test app and see if it does.

 

In another thread someone said that they were trying to play a movie in iTunes and it was lagging but when they also had an application open which used the 335m it was smooth proving corwinicre's point.

 

I guess the easiest is just to put the 335m as default in your control panel ? so it always uses that...

 

The integrated card should have no problems handling Aero. Something is seriously wrong.