Modded 197.16 Hybrid Graphics Driver for UL30/50/80VT

Yeap. I did the 257.21 driver... and it works!
I simply followed the steps, with some slight modifications, in the 1st post of this thread.
Then again, I didn't notice any significant improvement or degradation in performance. Forgot to capture 3D marks before the change.

The background shows the PhysX configuration.

 

Hello Tanweeho,

You said that you have some slight modification to the 257.21 driver. Are there any differences compared to the steps of modification listed in the post 1? If so, what modification did you make?

Thanks and Regards,

Jacky Luk

 

Great news!
What slight modifications?
Or can you post somewhere your complete modded driver?

 

I really followed all the steps except those which are not relevant.
For example. there's no "modes.txt" in the 257.21 package, so I skipped it.
There is also no "hdaudio_1.0.9.1_nforce_8.34_xp_vista_win7.exe" so I used the HDAudio folder directly from the 257.21 package too.
As for the PhysX, it is missing from the 257.12 too. Go download the latest from the link provided in the 1st post.
It's that simple!

 

Thanks, Tanweeho!

 

nautis, are you still following this thread, and has anyone found a way to get optimus to work with the ul*0vt series?

Tanweeho how many 3dmarks are you getting?

 

I am not certain that Nautis is still following this thread, but I do know that he is still active over on the LaptopVideo2Go forums. In fact, he has his own dedicated forum there. (Link: Nautis1100 Hybrid and Optimus Drivers - LaptopVideo2Go Forums )

As of late the progress is pretty slow, but Optimus has been confirmed to work on the ULxxVT models. The drawbacks at this point being that the Nvidia card doesn't completely and/or consistently shut down, so battery life is diminished, and also it seems there is an overlay of some sort when using the Nvidia card.

I have not tested out the Optimus drivers myself to confirm yet, but I plan to soon to help aid in the process of developing working drivers.

 

thanks for the info, and good luck. I will check out that forum.

 

I've gotten the 257's installed, but it seems to be pretty flaky. First install didn't work at all. Re-rolled the whole thing (I thought?) the exact same way and it works... only now that I've rebooted it seems stuck on the intel GPU. It tries to switch, but never actually does.

Any ideas? Maybe some tweaks to the inf that need to be done for more complete functionality?

 

Compare to the original driver from Asus, the 257 one takes a while to switch to Nvidia display after logging in. For mine, the display for switching only comes on after logging in. I leave the machine by itself for a while and it will toggle to the Nvidia display automatically.

I did a 3Dmark test on the 257 driver and it gave me a score of 3630, which is almost the same in comparison to the 197 driver. The original Asus scored 3440.

 

Hey guys.. sorry bout neglecting things here. I am currently working on 257.21 & 258.49 for both Optimus and Hybrid Graphics.

There really has not been any extra progress as it is on Optimus. I have learned a ton more on how both Hybrid Graphics and Optimus work. I have been spending extra time on the M11x portion of the forums here as they just got a model upgrade from Hybrid Graphics (M11xR1) to Optimus (M11xR2). I was really hoping that once a company upgraded their notebook model from Hybrid Graphics to Optimus we would finally have some answers. I guess to an extent we do.

The overlay and possible power issues with Optimus on the UL*VT, M11xR1, & Vaio Z (VPCZ11 Model) are most definitely due to the multiplexer that is in our HG notebooks and removed from Optimus notebooks.

The 256 series of drivers have a lot of new files and some new settings so modding it the way it says in the first post may not get you everything working properly.

EDIT: Thought I had subscribed to this thread but apparently didn't have it set correctly.

 

Well, it's started to... sorta work. Still is incredibly flaky about switching between GPUs, and I frequently lose brightness control until another GPU switch or three. Though this is all quite vexing on principle, it would be much more live-with-able if I could at least deduce or find a workaround or trigger to make it switch when I need to -- or so I can disable whatever's stopping it from switching, or whatever the case may be.

But maybe Nautis' work will just solve all our problems

 

anyone tried this method?

Forceware 195.62 - LaptopVideo2Go Forums

nautis i see you are mentioned here

 

I am indeed. I am the one who explained to Dox on how to add Hybrid Graphics support to his driver set. I also help out behind the scenes there at LV2G. What you posted there is a bit old at this point.

Speaking of, I just posted some new info and a test driver on my Hybrid Graphics Master Set section. ( click here for more info and a link to 258.49 Beta1 NOTE: Already working on a new beta version fixing a couple of bugs and adding a new feature.)

 

Argh
I have followed every step outlined in the first post to the letter, except i used nautis's driver package. I just cant get the modded nvidia drivers to work. Time to load from a restore point

Anyone have any tips? This is the second time I tried and failed to get modified drivers to work. I have the ul30vt btw.

 

on the other side i have sent many details through to Asus asking if/when there will be updated drivers for these series of notebooks - and because cuda is a feature advertised but not supported, informed them that a class action lawsuit would be a possibility if updated drivers are not provided to provide the advertised functionality.

they either need to work out a way to hack optimus drivers for ULx0VT series or make a release in the next few weeks really.

my take would be: without updated Intel drivers that support flash, this whole thing stinks.

4500MHD easily handles flash etc and doesnt eat battery like the G210M would do- therefore it is very important to update this driver as well as the nvidia and not JUST the nivida version.

i got a response from Asus saying that they would check with their engineers as to whether there would be any updated video drivers forthcoming. i will let you know what i hear.

 

Nice to hear that they are going to at least check the situation, the answer I got ~ 3 months ago was:

"Currently, we have no information when driver updates will be avaliable, unfortunately."

There was no indication that the support person checked this with engineers, and I didn't have time to press the issue.

 

i actually work for quite a large b2b computer hardware reseller and emailed them to my work account. not saying that will have any sway but if they at least consider the situation it is better than nothing at all.

i dont even own an asus yet but i wont buy one until i get some answers!

 

interesting:/

i did wonder right.. new acer timeline have updated intel 4500MHD drivers... could these be installed onto this - as they support switchable tech from a 4500mHD to an ATi 4330...?

also ppl have hacked the Acer bios so you can set into the bios to run ATI gfx only or INTEL gfx only so its not switchable in windows but u set it in bios and then the other hardware cannot impact on the battery life...

but noone seems to have approached this from the Asus side of things

still no word from asus - i would like them to release a patch and incorporate it into the Optimus driver compatability scheme - but i dont know if it is simply marketing or actual hardware descrepancies between G210m and 310m.?

 

well i just got the answer we werent all looking for:



"Dear Nick,

I am afraid that we have to inform you that Asus will not release any Graphic card drivers for your unit.
Therefore we have to direct you to the official website of Nvidia to see if any new drivers has been released for your graphics card.

Please see the website:
Drivers - Download NVIDIA Drivers

Kind regards,
Asus support team UK"

way to ditch your customer base Asus!!!!

 

Well... That's not a optimal. The quality (of HW) and price were great, but even before this I've been thinking about not buing an Asus again. Just because of the support (or lack of it).

The answer is bloody stupid anyways. Yes there indeed are drivers for the card. Plenty of them. We just can't install them, because of the dual adapter thing.

Edit: The custom hybrid drivers seem now even more important (essential?) than before. Thank you again.

 

hmm, doesn't look like we will be getting such drivers any time soon...




EDIT: SUCCESS! I finally managed to get the modified drivers to work on my ul30vt. I made my own driver package instead of nautis's, which doesn't seem to work for me for some odd reason. =(

Time to go play L4d with my 30% performance increase =))))))))))

EDIT EDIT: hmm, seem to have lost function of my graphixboost key, but brightness still works, and graphics switching still works

 

How about this BIOS option? I could live with being able to boot into BIOS and disable the nVidia card for 2x battery life...

 

have you tried changing battery options? that works for me...

 

Which driver set of mine did you try and could you post or send me the INF that worked for you? Might be able to get graphixboost working for ya. Glad to hear you got it.

 

the download link provided in the first post of this thread, where it says "nautis has made his own that you can use..." or something like that. I didn't get that one to work after 3 tries, so i just followed steps 1-8 and... it worked. the inf i believe is attached in the first post.

my 3d mark score has gone up by ~200 points, and I get much smoother play in left 4 dead and team fortress 2 hooray.

edit: this one http://go.notebookreview.com/?id=52...7-16-hybrid-graphics-driver-ul30-50-80vt.html

 

Gotcha.. good stuff. I am going to have to take another look at the drivers.

I have a 258.49 / 1994 set posted over on LV2G. I do not think it is working fully yet for the Asus UL3/5/80VT though. "The nvidia device does not disappear from device manager after being switched to intel. May not be powering down the Nvidia part correctly."

One of the things to note about my drivers is that in most cases windows will need to be put into test mode and the drivers signed before they will work properly. There are instructions under "Driver Signing & Test Mode for Unofficial 64bit Drivers" to do that.

 

I saw mention of this over at laptopvideo2go, but there was nothing about driver signing in this thread, so I didn't bother.

How do I tell if my nvidia card is correctly powering down? will it go off completely, or just sort of run in a low power mode? (this is what mine seems to do when in intel graphics mode according to GPU-Z)

EDIT: Wait, derp, you said. The nvidia card should completely disappear out of device manager? Mine does.
EDIT EDIT: I did a reboot and now my graphixboost key is working.

 

I think i got 197.16 drivers to install following all the steps in the first post. Looks like graphic X boost button does something, but even on integrated graphics the nvidia 210 still shows up in device manager under display adapter. It's suppose to disappear in integrated mode right?

 

yes, it should.

 

Well i don't know what i did wrong then. I guess i can just manually disable the 210m in device manager. How do you switch graphics without using the graphicsxboost button?

 

click on the battery icon in the lower let hand corner and choose a power mode that isnt "power4gear high performance"

 

I'm using the same driver package (197.16). This works for me:
Open your advanced energy profile settings and set "put discrete graphics to sleep after" to 2 min. Now you just have to wait these 2 min after you have switched to the profile (which uses the intel gpu) and the nvidia graphics disappear in the device manager.

 

I will have a [Nvidia 197.72 | Intel 1994] package that will be up soon that should be easy for you guys to install. It is the newest officially released Hybrid Graphics drivers that I know of with a modified INF to add Asus and other HG notebooks.

 

Nautis how far are you along in disabling the multiplexers to enable optimus in laptops with hybrid graphics? I'm sure people wouldn't mind donating a little if it got toward developing optimus drivers for hybrid graphics laptops

 

maybe I missed previous discussion. Last time after the installation of modded drivers I missed the functionality of switching between graphics modes using hardware button on the top of my UL30VT laptop. It's known issue and fixable as well?

 

I can't seem to get physx enabled even after manually installing it. Is this because of the .inf i used?
EDIT: Bah, you need to enable physx in nvidia control panel. Silly me.

 

exciting news naut. would lover newer drivers for cuda enabled transcoding
hopefully the ul80vt will properly power down the g210, that will make updating the drivers most excellent

 

Hey Nautis.... any word on this package? As always, thank you for your hard work and dedication.

 

i've been messing w/ this and trying to make it work right, but it seems to not wanna work correctly on my 80vt.
i tried the instructions on the first post and Nautis driver and the drivers from his own page, but whenever i install it my NV doesn't wanna shut off
i am running power4gear (the one from the ul80vt asus download page).

anyone getting an updated driver set to work correctly and power down the NV card? if so what version/package are you using and are you using power4gear?

thanks

 

Namaiki has gotten his BenQ (another Hybrid Graphics notebook) to power down the Nvidia side properly with the following setting:
HKLM,"Software\NVIDIA Corporation\Global\Hybrid",DeepIdleTimer,%REG_DWORD%,0
Not sure if it will work for you guys. If you want to test it you can install my modified drivers from the first post and add that setting to the registry.
I also have posted Nvidia 258.49 / Intel 1994 64bit package which may also work with that setting.

After installing putting windows into test mode and signing the two sys files and rebooting you can open regedit and go to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\NVIDIA Corporation\Global\Hybrid
and create a new DWORD named DeepIdleTimer with it set to 0 and make sure to reboot afterwords to make the setting stick.

 

when is nautisian designs going to be up =)

 

Uhm.. When I finally post fully working drivers?

 

You might want to try the P4G from the software section, not your model's section. It's under Software -> P4G HG or something like that. It will most likely be more recent.

 

seems that newer releases (after version 1.25) are incompatible with UL*0VT series, graphic switching didn't work. They are for new, Optimus-based laptops.

 

Humm. I believe I'm running 1.1.36, and I can switch just fine.

 

Yep, I am (UL50Vt) running the P4G Hybrid v1.1.36 just fine. The older versions, like the mentioned 1.1.25, did not work for me.

 

downloading the latest P4G Hybrid:
- go to ASUSTeK Computer Inc.-Support-
- click on the "Select Product" -> pick up "Notebook" category
- "Select Series" -> "Apps"
- "Select Models" -> "P4GHybrid"
- click on "Search" button
- "Select OS" -> "Windows7 64bit" -> click "Search"
- unfold the "Utilities", now all the versions of the P4G Hybrid should be visible

 

just so everyone knows, gaming performance is noticeably better with newer drivers. Older games such as Oblivion and source games such as Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead are much better (higher fps for the same settings) with the 197.12 drivers than with the older 186.66 drivers.

 

Looking for some one on one testing. I have uploaded Nvidia 258.96 / Intel 2020 Win7x64 without the INF for now. I want to go over it with someone that is willing to do some testing and is somewhat knowledgeable. PM me and I will send a link to the drivers and attach a test INF for you. Chances are these drivers will not work fully/correctly until we solve a few issues.