G74sx-A1 Blu Ray software? + initial impressions

So dumb question, but what is Asus including for Blu Ray playback on the G74? I know they DID include PowerDVD, but I'm not seeing that on the downloads page for my G74.

Reason I ask is I did a clean install...

They do list Sonic DVD Suite...t.is that it? The last Sonic software I got was with a Dell, that was some DVD burning software, not for playback, so...I'm not sure.

Anyway, on to the impressions...so far, it's pretty fantastic.

Issues (nitpicky issues):
-backlight bleed-obvious when I first boot the system, otherwise I don't see it. I wish it weren't there, but I don't know if it'll actually affect me ever.

-The way the second hard drive is connected to the system-I don't like that flimsy looking ribbon, nor that it's just held on by pressure, really. I wouldn't have pulled it out while swapping drives had I realized that. But...so far so good. My second drive's working fine.

-I'm not crazy about the rubber feel to it...and I wonder what the heck it's treated with to do that (and whether we'll find out it's carcinogenic...yay)

Positives:
-Otherwise it's pretty easy to get to the drives and RAM...there appears to be tons of space to work on the RAM, despite the 4 DIMM slots. Most 2 DIMM notebooks look more cramped.

-The keyboard is one of the best I've ever used on a notebook. I LOVE having a number pad too (I guess they did something weird, and the numberpad is a duplication of the keys above your keyboard, rather than registering to the OS as a numberpad...weird. Very weird. But probably irrelevant to me most of the time).

-Noise under load is either the quietest I've heard, or possibly tied with a Dell M1Xx I had briefly...I think this might be quieter though. It's impressive how reasonable it is even with the CPU and GPU at 100%!

-Screen-okay, the leakage is lame, and worries me slightly, and it's glossy (like 99% of notebook screens), but otherwise the viewing angles are good, it's bright...it's just pleasant to look at, by notebook standards. It's too high resolution for the screen size...I'd prefer 1600x whatever or something like that, but it's not TOTALLY ridiculous.

-Cooling system...seems to be doing a great job (despite not being very loud). Holding the CPU at 75, and the GPU at 65, both at 100% load from Folding.

-Probably because of the great cooling, the CPU is overclocking itself to 2.5GHz, and has been holding itself there for hours...under 100% load on all four cores. I was NOT expecting it to be able to do that. Honestly I thought MAYBE 2.2...and 2.0 under continuous heavy load wouldn't have surprised me.

-I like that the GPU is clocked faster than the GTX 460...okay, only 15%, but it's something. 1550MHz for the cores in a notebook GPU ain't bad.
Yeah, I'd rather have a GTX 570 or 580...but this is still a huge step up from what I had, and appears to be quite competent.

And...zero Floptimus. No driver weirdness. I just went to Nvidia.com, downloaded the drivers, and installed them...and it all worked, just like on my 9650GT, and just like on desktop GPUs. Yay!

So...all in all it's pretty fantastic at the moment, I'd say.

 

Wolfpup try the link(s) found here
G73/74/53 Series Driver and Application Reference
See ASUS applications.
I am running Cyberlink Power DVD 9 on my G73 (free version) it works fine.
When you search the ASUS site sometimes you have to select Product - notebook... Series - APPS (not your model) to see all available software
I think it is listed under ASUSDVD there.
BTW Congrats on your machine, good move on Clean install

 

Any idea if the program they use has changed? I see WinDVD and Sonic, but not PowerDVD...

Oh, also "Roxio 3D CinePlayer BD" which sounds like a Blu Ray player.

Hmm...I don't know which one to try!

Only thing I've had go wrong on my system so far, was about an hour ago the video drivers rebooted...which is hopefully just a driver bug that'll get fixed, not a hardware issue.

 

You got it wolfpup, ASUS Chooses Roxio CinePlayer for 3D Notebooks Hugh's News
I assume U R getting it from here:
ASUSTeK Computer Inc. -Support- Drivers and Download G74Sx (Under others section)
Sorry the one I recommended in post 2 above does not support 3D

 

Thanks Josea! I don't care about the 3D part, but sounds like that's what I'm supposed to be using.

Looks like it's under the apps section...sort of confusing to get to. I would have saved myself some effort if I'd just popped in a disc before swapping hard drives, so I'd have known what I was supposed to download!

Regarding performance...I still haven't gotten a chance to really play anything on it, but I just launched Modern Warfare 2 for a few minutes, and it looks like maxed out at 1080p (except with AA off, since I never notice/use that), it's silky smooth at 64-110+ FPS. Really great looking, and it's just running circles around the consoles while looking much better doing so....

(Usually it appeared to be at least in the 80+ range, though I did just for a split second see it hit the mid-60s every now and again...of course could be worse further in the game, but still. This is with Nvidia's current official drivers, no weird hacks or anything.)
And it's not loud at all doing it. One of if not the quietest notebooks under load I've ever used!