Eee PC 1215n Performance

any way to force the ion GPU on or off? also, it seems like the asus super hybrid engine controls power settings? does this conflict with windows settings?

 

You can force it through the nvidia control panel under 3d settings. But you havve to do it on a program by program basis.

S.H.E wont conflict with windows settings but it will conflict with set fsb if you ever plan on overclocking. If you're not gonna overclock then its fine to leave it.

In response to the fresh install question: I considered doing a fresh install but after thinking about it decided i couldn't be bothered. If i did a fresh i'd put 64bit on it and that won't be benneficial because of the systems 2.8gb limit. So i just manually deleted the bloatware.

I hope they release a bios update to unlock the full 4gb (according to spec) of memory utilisation. Then i'd make the swap to 64bit.

 

Sup guyz, i have a few questions ..


With the new drivers and overclocking the perfomance of Modern Warfare 2 improved ? Other thing Team Fortress 2 is really playable ?
Other thing if the bottleneck of this netbook is the poor pcie x1 link that could explain why results aren´t very consistant. Some games are never get a consistant perfomance ?


thanks for the help

 

I was looking at some other forums on the subject of removing the HDD drive and putting in an SSD. A guy was talking about the same thing oogamar was with him breaking the padrest tabs. I am getting more worried about doing it, and changing the drive. Assuming that I do break a tab, what is the worst case scenario here? Will it annoyingly loose like that guy was talking about?

 

Realistically can a person get to the hard drive without breaking the tabs, if not than I'm gonna reconsider it. I just want honest answers.

 

It is doable but very fiddly... i just went in all guns blazing and did it (because there was no information at the time) and it is a little loose now.
Don't get me wrong its not hanging off but its noticable that it doesn't sit flush like before.

 

Game wise i'll let someone else chime in because i dont have either of those.

But i response to the bottleneck issue - it's really too early to tell. I think that at some point it may become an issue but at this stage with drivers as young as they are we will see far more consistant performance in the months to come.

 

I play Modern Warfare 2 daily on my main pc.
But, on 1215n, even with the new beta drivers (260.63) MW2 is unplayable. Even at LOW settings, 1024x768, it's just too laggy.

Like oogamar has mentioned, it must be some software issue, as some games are able to run smoothly. I just hope nvidia catches this issue.

 

I'll be on campus tomorrow, so I'll download source stuff then. I was able to force the Ion off for media player classic and had no problems with intel HD rendering a 720p video i had on the hard drive. i assume you can add at least an hour of battery life by not turning on the ion.

 

Someone on eee user forum posted a disassembly tutorial with pictures which will be useful for anyone looking ot upgrade the hdd or anyone just wanting to look at pictures of the inside of the machine.

Heres the link: EeeUser Forum / 1215N - Hard Drive Swap with Pics!

 

Thanks for the info oogamar, and I decided to not risk it and just stay with the stock 250gb drive in the netbook. My next step is to install a new OS. I am looking at the Windows 7 64 bit ultimate I was talking about earlier. Recently I saw in chat rooms that people are saying that the 1215n has 32 bit addressing, which would make 64 bit worthless. Is this true?

 

I haven't really looked into it or tried it so i dont know but i've heard the same things as you.
Its a bit crap if that is the case... this system is full of limitations it seems.

 

but expected considering the 500 price.

if they had put the i3 ulv or even the older su7300 c2d, this computer would really be awesome.

as for tf2, haven't had much time to play around with it. but i downloaded, set graphics to minimum, resolution at native, and created a server. out doors, fps dropped to the 18-20 range, in doors it was better. using the stock drivers though and haven't made any tweaks or stuff.

 

It would also probably have been more expensive.

Thanks for testing TF2 - This netbook fits many of my needs and wants, but the somewhat lukewarm gaming performance has me thinking twice. I don't even particularly need it for gaming, but it'd have been nice if it was a competent way to play some TF2 if I wanted too.

 

Hey oogamar,

how do you force turn off ION graphics?
That would increase my battery by a big margin

 

in the nvidia control panel, under 3d settings. go to the program settings tab and you can select the preferred gpu for each application. The only time i've seen my Ion GPU on is either playing a game or watching a video. Although as I said earlier in the thread, the intel chip handled a 720p video without any problem, and I don't own a 1080p TV, so I decided to just disable the Ion for Media Player Classic and my battery life improved drastically.

oogabooga- I'll play around with it so more once I have some time to spare. I was a little surprised at the low frame rates, considering the source engine is very compatible with slower systems, I suspect with some tweaking and maybe driver updates, frames will go up.

 

Thanks for that info!

What I don't understand is, I selected "Integrated graphics" for Chrome. Yet I still can see 1080p Youtube video fluently. That doesn't seem right to me.
I thought ION was required to see 1080p? Anyone want to chime in?

 

Refer to this thread.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m11x/495489-m11xr2-optimus-test-tools.html

To confirm if the ion gpu is really not being used.

 

I was going to get this system but then noticed it only supports 2.8GB of ram, will only handle a 32bit OS and the hard drive is very hard to remove. If it supported 64bit, dual channel and 4-8GBs of ram I would have bought one.

 

Thanks! That's just what I was looking for!

So turns out, ION is running the whole time. I can't seem to turn it off. I have no applications open, and I've set the NVIDIA settings to "Integrated graphics" for all apps.

I'm on fresh install of Win 7 64 with modded 258.96 drivers.

Can someone point me in the right direction to fix this issue?


EDIT: I uninstalled the modded drivers and installed one one from windows update, and now ION turns off when not using.

 

I tried out a few games and i figured i'd contribute the results

half-life2 & portal are both very enjoyable at native resolution and maxed settings. No OC needed for either cpu or gpu for those 2 and was still getting 20-30 fps, every once in a while dipping in high teens.

tf2 is another story.
it is definitely playable with or without OCing, but i couldnt get it to play comfortably at native. I think it was best at 800x600 with med settings. At those setting I was getting high teens in the congested outdoor areas and up to 40s in the empty ends of the maps. **I was OCing for TF2.

I tried running gta iv. NOT a good experience. OCed i was usually around 8 FPSish sometimes lower, lowest resolution and settings. I'm not surprised with these results.

At all times when testing games, i had a few other applications running like bit torrent downloader, web browser, and windows explorer. So results could have been a little better. Also seconding oogamar's finding on inaccurate fps measurements, I will say that WHEN OVERCLOCKED FRAPS's fps measurements are 3-4 lower than they are... in other words: The gameplay is usually smoother than FRAPS tells you.

I OC my gpu to 610/850/1475 like oogamar and my cpu to 2215 mhz.
i'm currently using 257.34 nvidia driver, so I'm sure my 1215's performance will be different than other peoples'. 3d mark06 score just under 3200.

On a non gaming note I find the 1215 to be very snappy given it's modest hardware and price. however, my other computer is a dell mini 9, which is much slower than this one. but I have no problem using this computer for all my computing tasks instead of my wife's vaio f series.

 

Thanks for your contribution, it's good to see others posting their experiences in this detail.
It seems that my initial findings seem to reflect the trend (looking at posts here and on other forums) and therefore it's up to nvidia to crank out some performance fixes for this little machine.

 

I love this notebook. It's just the perfect size, and i just love the design.
I really wish I can keep it, but I decided to return it.


After countless research and OC'ing CPU, GPU, doing fresh install of WIN 7 64, trying different driver versions, I just could not get any reasonable gaming performance out of this machine.

Modern warfare 2 is just unplayable,
SC 2 can be played at low settings, but even at that, when there's alot of units, it'll lag so much.

This has to be the PCI x1 bottleneck. And I don't see it getting fixed with a bios or software update. Neither the ~2.7GB memory ceiling.


I hate to say this, but 1215n really is a miss by asus. the ION2 DOES NOT contribute to gaming AT ALL due to the shortcomings in the architecture.

I can get a nice 12 inch netbook without dedicated graphics, and still view 720p videos fine.

 

I don't think it's a miss. the performance:battery life is really pretty good on this. Maybe it can't play the latest and greatest games, but really, who buys a netbook to play games? My reason for buying this is because I needed something light/portable, not super slow (i,e, not single core), and could render 1080p without much trouble. I can manage 6 hours on battery, and it's quick enough to easily run firefox, ms word, skype, aim, winamp without any noticeable lag. With a Core processor, it would have been even better, but probably more expensive, and probably not "netbook" category.

 

Well, that's what I thought too at beginning. I mean, asus had to have thought it'll be worthwhile to make this netbook right?

But for what you describe, UL20 does that for and much more. The Core 2 Duo SU7300 will blow atom D525 out of the water with performance. I tried them both, and it's not even comparable. Plus UL20 will play 1080p w/out problems. Add to that, a better battery life.

I really don't know why asus bothered to make the 1215n. Going through pci x1 just wasn't well thought out idea. There are rumors that next generation ION will have it's GPU in the southbridge, to avoid intel blockade of its northbridge.

Maybe by then, all this would've been worthwhile. Just one cog in the search for a gaming netbook.

 

I totally understand your dissappointment with the shortcomings of this device. It has been capped off at the heels in terms of ram and the pcie bottleneck could be an issue.
However i personally believe your response to be a little rash.

SC2 demonstrated double performance with the latest beta drivers (30-45fps consistantly), granted it introduced an artifacting problem but this is the drivers fault. What this did serve to do is demonstrate the currently untapped power of the ion 2.
The majority of games i have tried have had gpu utilisation issues - the load being around 60% - which leaves a whole 40% of total performance unutilised!
This isn't a symptom of the pcie bottleneck because even with low bandwidth the gpu would be loaded, we just wouldn't see great results. But atm the gpu isn't being loaded - thus we aren't seeing good results.

The one game i tried that maxed out the gpu was crysis warhead, which showed (25-35fps) which is very smooth and very playable and impressive for a netbook. With an overclock i got an additional 5fps on avg which smoothed things out even more.
There is a stuttering issue with this game but the way it stutters changes depending on which drivers i try - showing that this can probably be fixed by drivers.

My belief is that if this thing can run crysis then it can run modern warfare 2 - just not with these drivers.

Persoanlly i'm both impressed and slightly dissappointed with the performance this machine. But i have total faith that things will get better if enough of us next gen ion owners complain to nvidia about these specific issues so they know what to fix.

If i hadn't seen the massive increase in the latest beta then i'd be more inclined to agree with everything you said here, and while i don't disagree i just think it's a little hasty. But of course its totally up to the user and only you know what you need out of a machine.

EDIT: Also if it were the pcie bandwidth that were hindering performance then increasing to native resolution and slapping textures on high would decrease performance by taking up bandwidth but so far i havn't seen this at all.
If it were the slow processor then overclocking it would help - which in most cases it currently doesn't. Its all on the gpu's drivers in my opinion.

 

first, thank you for your honest input. however, i have to strongly disagree with your comparison of the ul20a and the 1215n. yes, the processor is much better, but the graphics performance is not. i was able to play 720p movie trailers just fine on the ul20a, but not 1080p. it uses the x4500mhd, which has a 3dmark06 score of about 700-800 avg (about 4x less than the 1215n).

 

I understand what you're saying, I too wished for a GOLDEN gaming netbook, and I gotta say it is pretty annoying the way this machine was hyped for months and then finally released without 2 of the major components that was hyped(BT3.0 and usb3). Not to mention build quality could be better.
I was thinking of just holding off on the next iteration of gaming netbook released by asus, and then the atom n550 came out. It is hyped to be the cpu that all the 'high performance' netbooks are going to be fitted with, but according to benchmarks of the n550 it's not as powerful as the d525. And so even if the next next gen ion is not bottlenecked by its connection's bandwidth it will be bottlenecked by its cpu. I also expect the next set of stable drives for the ion to show noticeable performance gains.
So basically what I'm saying is: I think the 1215 is as good as its gonna get. The netbook gaming market just isn't big enough to warrant the GOLDEN gaming netbook: the one without compromises.


On a separate note, I upgraded to the 260 beta drivers and have some additions to the benchmarking list:

GTA IV is definitely playable on lowest everything now, with OC. I am getting about 10-14 fps on fraps, but it is smooth. I do get some small lag every 3-4 secs but it doesn't really affect gameplay.

WORLD IN CONFLICT is playable at native resolution with 'low settings' (which isn't the lowest) and I am usually getting about 25 fps. I think i can play it on medium settings, will check it out later. *Using OC

CIVILIZATION 5 demo is very playable, but it only let me open it in DX9... hopefully a driver issue. The quality of the opening movie is great and doesnt stutter at all. I tried it at native with everything maxed, everthing that it would let me max maxed, and it is definitely playable. *Keep in mind my civilization was tiny* I was getting 25 fps when all the way zoomed in on my civilization, but as you zoom out the fps drop. All the way zoomed out I was sitting at about 13 fps. If you add any movement the fps would drop to about 9. Not horrible, playable if your stubborn. Also, if the game was thinking or computing its next turn and you tried moving the game would noticeably stutter. IMO I would play this at native with MED settings. I havent tried out med settings, but I did try the lowest settings at native resolution and the lowest fps I was seeing was mid teens, when zoomed all the way out and moving. But when zoomed all the way in I would be at 45 FPSish. So if you play around with the settings I'm sure theres a sweet balance somewhere around medium at native resolution.
*Tried the demo OCed.

TF2 is a sad story. With the new 260 beta drivers I can't even play it. Every time I launch it from Steam it crashes during the intro... another example of the faulty drivers.

I hope the next set of official nvidia drivers doesn't disappoint. But I won't be surprised if they do.

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I found this link which refers to the impact of pcie 2.0 bandwidth on performance:
Absolute Benchmark Results : PCI Express 2.0 Graphics Cards Tested

Im actually surprised at how small the gap is most of the time. If you look it's in most cases around 20% less, with a couple of exceptions.
These tests are done with max details and most @ high res with aa and af enabled.
Our 1215n's arent going to be using max details or a resoultion that high or aa or af.

So i think that the impact should be somewhat limited - if it was gonna cut most of the performance off then it wouldn't have been worth nvidia's time to implement.

 

Can someone explain this to me?

When I play SC2 in Singe Player mode, the game will run nice and smooth. However, any game I play in Multiplayer (even 1v1) will show signs of stuttering immediately upon entering the game. This is on all low settings. I've tried different drivers and it doesn't seem to have any effect. I've also tried overclocking the CPU/GPU, but it also has no effect.

 

I would try checking th CPU and GPU utilization during

A) single player game, and
B) Multiplayer game

I'm suspecting during a multiplayer session, something is triggering the CPU to be utilized more than normal.

 

Is it only Ion 2 that uses PCI-E? I don't remember hearing any complaints with Ion 1... and if i'm not mistaken it's a intel hardware limitation that forces 1x right?

I considered the m11xr1, that's something like 700 shipped, but I figured I don't really play games too much anymore. Just a bit of cs:s like 3 times a year.

Anyone else hate this webcam? The auto-white balancing sucks horribly and I always turn out really yellow or really blue. Any drivers i can download or something? I don't know the brand... think it's running off generic windows web cam drivers.

 

This machine has a pcie x 4 link split between 4 different components - one of them being the ion making them all work at a x1 connection.
Yes this is a limit intel imposed so they could have intel only machines and cut out nvidia etc.
So nvidia took what they had been given to work with and came up with the best solution possible.

I tried disabling devices to see if it would reallocate bandwidth to the ion but have had no luck. I suspect you would have to physically remove them and i dont know if that's possible.

In regards to sc2 performance, i played a 2v2 online and there was no more stuttering than on single player. I heard that some maps are more demanding than others so that might explain it but other than that i have no idea.

 

any negatives with the newer drivers? I'd like to install them, what exactly do i need to do?

 

Same here. 101010101010

 

hi there - i'm about to buy this netbook for plaing source games and battlefield 2142 - could you tell me if i really shouldn't install the 260 beta if i want to play team fortress? that would be quite bad...
and could someone tell me if it could be possible playing battlefield 2142 on this gaming netbook ( imho it IS one )
thank you all for your great research- keep it up!
Lpfan

 

i have only tried tf2, half-life 2, and portal as far as valve games go. All of these are playable with default drivers. To be honest all but tf2 were playable at full spec. so if you play games that use the valve engine, they will probably be good without the beta drivers. that said, I have also seen noticeable improvements on other games using 260 beta drivers.
tf2 is the only game that ive played using the beta drivers that won't start. every other game i have reviewed on this thread is good on the 260 beta drivers. With the additions of torchlight at full spec, and batman arkham asylum which stutters from time to time.


in order to download the beta drivers just hit this link to go to the nvidia page.
NVIDIA DRIVERS 260.63 BETA

I'm downloading the battlefield 2142 demo right now, ill let you know the results when it finishes.

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Just played the battlefield 2142 demo on my machine
I maxed out settings and resolution was at the highest option of 1024x768, and on a multiplayer map with about 15 ppl my minimum fps were 17, but most of the time I was in high 20s, and i peaked at 36 fps. very smooth. it stuttered once, but i think it was my internet connection.
I did this without OCing my machine using the 260 beta drivers

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hey chimp, thanks a lot for your effort and your quick answer ^^
this makes me really secure about bying this little giant
OT: does anyone of you think, the 1218 is gonna be released this year? ^^

 

I wouldn't be too sure about that m11x price. If you're okay with 2GB of ram, you can pick up a C2D model for $599 before taxes (they don't have the pentium model-would have been cheaper ) refurbished from Dell. Upgrading to 4GB ram would cost $80 if I'm not mistaken, so it's up to you on that one.
Dell Alienware M11X Laptop: Intel SU7300 1.3GHz, 2GB DDR3, 250GB HDD, 11.6" 1366x768, 1GB NVIDIA GeForce GT 335M, WiFi N, 8-cell, Win 7 Prem - Slickdeals.net

 

hi there , ive got another question - would there problems with the drivers if i install xp instead of win7?
i read that win xp is way quicker and i would like to play red alert and so on as well , which run better on xp

 

just got my 1215n today and so far im liking it

stock out of the box i scored 2709 in 3dmark 06.. ill post again after i overclock it and see how i make out.

 

just ran some OC testing on both the CPU and GPU

so far i know the CPU is stable at 2.4ghz thats with setfsb set to 612
the GPU ive been able to get to 660/875/1475

im going to run more benchmarks but till then here is the 3dmark 06 score with these settings

 

wow. have you tried any higher? and are you doing anything different to cool the machine?

what temps are your components at at those OC settings?

 

Nice!

I'm really considering getting this netbook. Do you think it can run Adobe's Dreamweaver, Flash and Photoshop at the same time? Or even 2 of them at once quite smoothly?

 

wow man, i've bought an 1215N, and running Torchlight a full spec with the beta ones, drops a lot of frames. . . in Town the average is around 20/25fps and in dungeons sometimes hits 15fps..

i dont know what to do... maybe a faulty chip??

games runs better in netbook mode, but.. for that the older models do the job.. damn.

 

im able to get the cpu up to 2.425 stable and up to 2.450 but its not as stable and crashes sometimes. id like to mention that 3dmark does not register the cpu speed right its always shows its a few mhz higher then it really is for some reason. for instance i was really at 2,402mhz when 3d mark shows 2412mhz in the bench.

also i know i can squeeze a few more mhz out of the GPU clocks. id really like to see 3500 but idk if thats going to happen at least not on these drivers.

currently im running the stock drivers and no extra cooling or anything.. just having the laptop sit on a table while running tests. not sure of the temps but im going to download a program tomorrow and ill post them at that time along with some other benchmark stats

 

It was ~725$. I know because I was just about ready to click the place order button.

 

@fluxus I only tried torchlight with the beta drivers. I only played maybe 15-20 mins of the game, so maybe frames start dropping later in the game. I just downloaded the demo to see if the system could run it, and in my experience I didnt notice any stuttering. It was smooth gameplay to me, but the fps were similar to yours.

 

impressive, please keep us updated on your progress, I'm interested in seeing where this system is going to peak at. thanks

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