Dell's Graphic Driver vs. Modified Nvidia Driver for 445M

Made the performance test with 720p in 3D Bench Mark 11..can only do this,because I have only the freewareversion..card is maximum overclocked with msi afterburner:



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lol...
Check you out!
nice score! one of 2 with the highest score with our setup. What did you think of the 3DMark11 tests? To be a laptop, this beast rocks.
Rooster

 

The first setting is not the forum settings..it´s maximum overclocked.

Here the test with the 712mhz,1180mhz,800memory settings:



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Driver for both was the 266.58 direct from nvidea.For me its not much higher score,with maximum overclocked as the 712mhz setting,right?In one point its lower(orange 4)?Sorry but I don´t know what that score exactly means..hehe.

Only 93 points more for the maximum overclock..enough or must it be more?

settings:770mhz,1540mhz and 960mhz memory:





So,I made a second run with the maximum overclocked card and get a little better score???:

 

Running short on time, but I do plan to do comparative run with 266.44 driver to see, if any, differences between the two.
Just to be clear, your settings for Afterburner for first run was Core Clk 712 Shader Clk 1180 Memory Clk 800?
As to the last run with higher score, I have read that is possible and not out of the norm, so cool!
Just out of curiosity, did you get the advanced edition to run additional tests, or were you able to do more than one run with the shareware version? Would be good to know for our readers to get some more performance posts.
Thanks kroenen04!
Will check back in a couple of hours when I have more free time.
Rooster

 

Yes,the first run(15313 3D Marks) was with the 712mhz setting from the thread here.The last both(1624and1633 3DMarks)was with the maximum setting for the card(in afterburner).All Tests only with the 266.58 driver direct from nvidea.

I have only the sharewareversion..so I can only make the middle 720p Benchmarktest.

I think you can overclock a little bit more because in games the temperature goes not over 69C.But you have 7-10fps more in comparsion to the standart settings.But with msi afterburner it´s not possible to overclock more..I´ve heared,that the maximum of the 445M is 2500mhz.

To compare the drivers is a great idea,Rooster.

 

Same driver,same maximum settings...:




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Just for complete comparisons, I ran my test @ x2 AA, yours had no AA at all - AA on the tesselation will make an impact on your scores, I think (?)

Test redone without x2 AA:



+12 on Roosters - however, I thought (?) that was an OC'd card (?); the min FPS is where the vast difference lies - 2.9 for mine, 9.6 for yours, meaning much better performance (less judder) for gaming, I presume.

Out of curiousity, what do people think the reason for this is? The OC'ing or drivers?

Ok, so did you a 3dMark11 as well:

Vanilla GPU [0% OC'd]
266.58
Medium temp room [20o C]






-300!

 

To Kroenen

I did an overclock of

CORE CLOCK - 700

SHADER CLOCK - 1400

MEMORY CLOCK - 900

With the 266.58 Driver

3DMARK 06 Score - 12147

Steady Temp of 66C while playing Bad Company 2 and I now have no lag, Huge improvement over stock dell drivers. Got my laptop on 1/18/2011 and with the driver it came with I only scored a 9550 on 3DMARK 266.58 driver brought it to 11251 and then my final score with my overclock 12147

 

So,I made a test with max.overclocked settings and 3DMark 06,too:




But the cpu test was very low..normal?:

 

Yeah that's very normal kroenen, this test will eat most desktops alive let alone a laptop CPU. That's a test that runs very very hard physics algorithms on the CPU so it's not supposed to give high FPS runs, benchmarks are designed to push your system to the max and even ocasionally break them lol.

 

Thanks Dane.I´m relieved to hear that.
So I can say the XPS works fine with the msi maximal settings.Made the Farcry 2 Benchtest too and has great results.No artefacts.

 

your score for 3DMark11 is within norm and only 2 points difference from my first run.
As to the Heaven Benchmark test, I would think that your scores would somewhat higher, even without overclocking, due to your processor being bigger, then again, you may be bottlenecking with your RAM. you have the same GPU and thats the only other difference between your and my configuration. But then again, the graphics card will share memory if the request exceeds the onboard mem, and with my RAM being double...
Yeah, that has to be the reason, right?
Sorry for the stream of thought typing, but I find it easier to concentrate when trying to figure out a problem.
Just out of curiosity,why and how did you come about the Heaven Benchmark?
Rooster

 

Kroenen04,
I've attempted the settings that you stated about your runs with 3DMark11(Core Clock 712 Shader Clock 1180 Memory Clock 800), but Afterburner will not allow me to just run with the Core clock adjusted to 712. it will not apply. Just to be clear, I can seperate the Core and Shader settings, it just will not apply.
But I will keep checking into it. otherwise, I have already run a test with 712 1424 912 settings for 266.44 and posted.

As to your last run with 3DMark 06, what are your maximum overclock settings? and are you saying that you are running your system with Afterburner set at maximum on all settings and your system is stable?

I agree with Dane, CPU scores are right for 3DMark6 and similar to my previous runs.

Dane, what is your opinion about 3DMark11?
Rooster

 

Yes,the last run with 3D Mark06 was with the maximum settings with afterburner:

Core: 770Mhz
Shader: 1540Mhz
Memory: 960Mhz

That´s the settings my system runs all the time.And no problems.In Games I have 7-10fps more as with the standart clock settings.





What do you have in the windows 3D index?Here is mine..:




and here a review of the XPS17..it´s german,but when you scroll down you can see,that the 3D and Gamingindex is only 6.8...the chipscore is one point higher,because they used the i7 840...:

http://www.notebookcheck.com/Test-Dell-XPS-17-Notebook.42281.0.html

 

That's amazing!

And your idle core temp? this is good to know for the readers...
my score is the same as yours..

only difference is your score for graphics is point 2 higher? must be from your settings, and your memory is lower than mine but we both have the same slower hard drive that is lowering our score(an SSD would solve that)
Can I ask that you create your signiture to show your configuration for reference?(upper left corner of screen goto "User CP" clk, then scroll down left side til u see edit signature clk and then enter your system info there)
It just helps to know and compare what config you have to be able to compare to similar systems, though it seems that your system is the same as mine.

Rooster

 

My temperature is not higher than 67-70C under hard work,when I use the big accu from dell.I tested,when you use this battery,the notebook is lying higher from the floor and can become more air.So the temperatures are lower .When you don´t use it,the temps are going up very fast.
My system is the same like yours..but you have more RAM(8GB..I have only 4GB).I wanna update this,too.But were can I become 4GB Ram for a good price?

And why is your graphics and gamingscore lower as mine?You have 6.9 and I have 7.1?Yes,that is interesting.is it the maximum overclocking?

 

Good question,
Since you are in Germany and I in the States, our places to shop are going to be different, but I do have some info stored around here somewhere, give me a few minutes and I'll see if I can help you.
Rooster

PS I believe your graphics score is higher from you having your settings for AfterBurner higher than mine, I only run Afterburner when I am gaming.

 

Thanks rooster.
Yes that is a good point with my higher settings.I remember before I had under 7 score,too.But I´m not sure.

Is my signature ok?Or do you need more systeminfo?I like your picturesignature..were is it from?

 

Thats great, thanks...The pic was created by RedlanceEQ but his workload increased and has been unable to create anymore since his and mine. but I will definitly let you know when he can produce more.
Still checking on the mem. I do know that it is fairly inexpensive now just don't go thru Dell to get it.
Rooster

 

Guys don't give the windows index two thoughts, it's very glitchy at best. When I first got my computer it reported my Samsung SSD as a 5.9 index and when I refreshed it it went to 7.2 so needless to say it's crap especially on the GPU index. My thoughts on 3DMark11 are mixed, it's a good bench but honestly the primary thing that's different from 11 and Vantage is DX11. DX11 as we all know is primarily tesselation which in my opinion is a joke. It's a good bench to really stress a CPU in physics though.

 

Kroenen04,
From my notes from the owner's thread...
RAM
This appears to several's choice for RAM and crucial is good brand.
Thanks DaneGRClose, looks I will be using both Benchmarks from 3DMark then.
Rooster

 

Just got this suggestion from the owners thread, helpful bunch they are!
More RAM
Rooster

 

Thanks for that.But is every ram ready for use in the XPS series?

 

I know that the crucial is, the additional ram info I didn't verify yet, I just went ahead and posted it for you.
If you can, Go with crucial( the first site I sent you to) just due to the quality of their product. and the price difference doesn't seem to be that far out of reach. but Add these sites to your Internet favorites just for your further research when you do get the RAM.
Rooster

ps one more for your records
Additional RAM

 

Re: Dell XPS 17 L701x Thread

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For those who already have their laptops, you might be familiar with this little head scratcher that has plagued us from near on the beginning.
I believe I have figured out why this little tag shows up when we test our GPU's for scores to compare to other GPU's.
Apparently, 3DMark only accepts the most current driver offered from Nvidia, which for the 435M/445M crowd is the 266.58. It will not recognize any modded drivers such as the ones from Dell or any other modded drivers that we've had to use in the past mainly from laptopVideo2go site.
At least that is what I was able to decipher from the support @ Futuremark, the maker of 3DMark products.
this is what they state:
Quote:

Originally Posted by Futuremark The Driver Approval process has been established to help the users of 3DMark products to produce accurate, repeatable and comparable results with different hardware configurations. An approved driver version has been tested by Futuremark to test its compatibility with the 3DMark version used and verify that the test workloads are being run as specified and unaltered. Performance evaluations and comparisons based on 3DMark results can only be done with data produced with approved driver versions.

Then they go on listing the current drivers that are approved.
Anyway, this has been gnawing at the back of head for awhile and I know the question has came up once or twice.
Rooster

*******reposted from owner's thread************
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A new driver has come out but for a different GPU( GeForce GTX 560 Ti GPU )
266.66
DaneGRClose, is this one worth modding for our GPU?

Rooster

 

I'll be testing it out tonight, I'll upload a premodded version here in a little while for you guys to try out yourselves.

 

reposted from " Why so little difference in performance (see fps tests) between low-end and high-end xps 15?" thread to broaden possible answer spectrum.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by RoosterRed There is potential and merit in this discussion and I would like to see it continue with more interaction from more readers who are actual XPS 15 owners. From my own experience with posting on the XPS 17 thread and creating a thread for graphic driver comparison for the XPS 17, I have posted questions in the same vein as you have and usually get a decent response. Might I suggest advertising your query in the thread for XPS 15 owners to drum up more responses? I will do the same in the threads I have mentioned just to see If I can get you more data for comparison. With your permission I will copy your revised question and post as stated. would this be OK with you, crystallakegary? Rooster

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I am curious is the program clock limit mached with hardware clock limit.
In other words is the gpu have remain hardware room for more clock push.
Asking because if the gpu have more room left for clocking then it will be seafty to stay with maxed Afterburner clocking setting.If it has not then you push your gpu in constant stress and and is this reduce gpu life time?
Did you repaste your machine because the temp are very good for the clocked gpu.
And did you know other method to clock gpu.Other program???


Rooster i am from Bulgaria.

 

Guys, I need to understand something, I think is the right thread:

I was playing with my nvidia control panel the other night and I found out that we have a nvidia 3D setting tab, where you can find a list will all the games available and differents settings..

What exactly do you need that for?

Should I leave all the setting in default mode?

If someone can clarify it to me... thanks in advance!

 

Those are 3D profiles. If you don't have a 3D display then you can just ignore them.

 

I see, thank you very much! I was wondering...

Sorry, I have another quick question not related with this thread, I tried to press the f3 button to stop to charge the battery, but this button doesn't work at all..
Is maybe something wrong with my keyboard??

 

Did you try Fn+F3? Depending on how you have it set up, you might have to press Fn+FKey to access the special function.

 

Can anyone help me, I've got a nvidia 445m In my xps17
But when I check my config with dell it says 1gb memory, it also says same with Cpuz,I get a score of 1320 with 3d Mark 06 using after burner
But why does it say only 1gig of memory instead of 3gig?

 

Someone post it already in the thread, it's better if you use Gpuz since you are checking the Graphic card

 

If I press Fn+F3 I got instead the find toolbar...
I've tried other combination, but no luck, I will check in my keyboard setting..

 

OK, so you have it setup that just the function key does the special function. Do you have Quickset installed?

 

Yes I do! Let see...

EDIT: Done!! it was the quickset settings!!

Thank you very much compwiz!!

 

Wow I didn't know Quickset was configurable. I will have to check that out tonight.

 

Maybe is not, the problem was that I left my quickset disable at startup, so I couldn't find the proper setting since I couldn't run it..
I didn't know it was responsible for my f3 button...

 

Click the "Start" pearl and type "DXDIAG" in the search window. You should see approximately 4056MB in the Display tab.
(3GB dedicated, 1GB shared)

 

You can set unique settings for different programs.

This is useful for older games or for crappy console ports - in particular, in forcing AA where the game's engine cannot "do" AA. For instance, I created one for Bioshock that forces x16 AA and so on - the difference is somewhat beautiful.

Generally, you can leave it alone though - however, if you know that a program is a console port, or you're having issues with an older game, its worth playing around in there.

 

Thank you very much Cat in a Hat! I guess I would not needed it thus...
Not a gamer..

 

Who at one time in their life has never been in situation, where one could call themself's "not a gamer". It just to what extent are you a gamer,yes?
Much to do young padowan...
Rooster

 

Cat in a Hat,
You sir, impress me with every post, You are definitely from the school of the beginning, are you not? (may I call you Merlin? )
+1 but the limit is too small for today, I will gladly give you a rep + Tuesday for more today?
Rooster

 

Right I am joining in with this game

What would be better/safer using the modified drivers, unmodified Dell drivers or overclocking?

Currently am using the Dell Drivers that came with the laptop and have only seen it go up to 62c with a furmark test, 58c whilst playing a game for an hour. Also bought a laptop cooler with 3 fans built into it, which will drop the temperature down a few celcius too

 

original dell drivers 259.39 if i remember right, are very good to keep temps down, so if you like a more silent fan, i would keep them

if you want the best with little increase in temperatures, try the 266.44.

i would like to know if someone has tested new nvidia drive 266.39

 

So, this modified driver doesn't work for the OPTIMUS crowd? (435m)? Am I going to be ok running the upgraded AUO screen without the drivers?

 

Might test out the new dell drivers tonight along with the new chipset drivers that were released, cheers.

 

I would wait your results. I'm already downloading the nVidia drivers.

I prefer to keep temps down (or is it a lot increase in performance with nVidia driver?). My country is hot. Right now, on balanced settings and connected to AC (FF, Chrome, Steam, Thunderbird and a couple more open), temps are 56C for CPU and 58C for GPU. I really don't want to increase my actual temps.

I really like my laptop performace out-of-the-box as it is right now. All my Steam games runs smooth at high def, and if not, I have no problem downgrading details. That said, if any driver update brings better performance without risking laptop health and stability, I would use it