AMD C-50 CPU and 6250 GPU performance(Acer 522 review)

its a windows 7 gadget....
Windows Gadgets - All CPU Meter

there you go!!

 

Awesome, thanks Texanman. I get an unspecified error once downloaded and I try to run it. Sucks.

Can't get it to show up with the other gadgets when I dlownload it and try to add it.

EDIT: Got it running. Ran an anti-malware program (which found nothing), but after a restart it worked no prob.

 

That's a lot of heat buildup.

Is it uncomfortable to hold when run hard?

anyone experience a thermal shutdown?

 

Nope and nope. There's a small area on the underside (far left-centre) that gets hot when I'm streaming TV shows of the net, but I wouldn't call it uncomfortable.

EDIT: Using core temp, it showed around 71C after a half hour of streaming, and settled around 80ish after a full hour.

It's a great piece of machinery, and after upgrades is well worth the price.

 

Is there a ~12" version of this platform? I thought I saw one someplace but went looking and came up empty...

 

Try the 722

 

I thought I'd pose a few questions to the group to get the conversation going in this thread:

-What newer games are you folks running with success?

-What kind of optimization programs do people recommend?

-What have you done to your 522 to improve it?

As of now I'm really only playing Counter-Strike 1.6 and Starcraft 1, but I'm going to beef up my collection shortly.

I've got Catalyst 11.5, Flash 10.3, BatteryBar, CCCP Codec pack, VLC and Classic Media Player - Home Cinema, Microsoft Security Essentials, Google Chrome, and the All CPU Meter gadget. Had Core Temp for a few days but don't see the need long term so I uninstalled it. I run PCdecrapifier occasionally to clean up all the bloatware and unimportant startup stuff.

Pretty much all I did to upgrade it was install 4GB RAM and grabbed an optical wireless mouse for gaming. Not sure if there's much more I need beyond that. Maybe an SSD down the line but I don't think it'd benefit my gaming, which is all I'm interested in upgrading for.

How about you?

 

Hi
I recently bought acer AO722, which uses the same APU as 522. Since there is no thread for 722 yet, I would like to ask you - how do I know the GPU video acceleration is working? I´m trying to play some 1080p videos and they all use like 90% CPU and they don´t play very smooth. Same goes for youtube videos. I installed AMD monitor and it shows zero GPU activity.
OS win7x64

Thanks

 

Right click on youtube videos and click on 'show video info'. That should let you know whether the video is being gpu accelerated or not. For smooth flash acceleration make sure you have the latest drivers (catalyst 11.6). Older versions have some issues with flash playback.

 

Hard to to install some new games on my 522. I only installed SC2 which is probably the newest game.\

Havent tried Brink yet. Halo 2 is also installed so we can plan LAN

 

This computer is now on sale at Best Buy for $230:
Acer Aspire 10.1" Netbook featuring AMD Processor C-50 (AO522-BZ623) - Black : Netbooks - Best Buy Canada

I thought I got it at a pretty sweet bargain for $270 instead of $300 but this is pretty nuts. Why do you guys think it's selling for so cheap? And why is this model still $300?
http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-CA/product...0-ao522-bz499-black-ao522-bz499/10161870.aspx

 

Ok so after a few trials and errors I found divx codec pack which has specificaly in its options activation of DXVA support (Before that I tried CCCP, K-lite, all-in-one, VLC... all failed).
Together with MPC-HC I now play all the formats (wmv, mp4, mkv,...) in HD with under 20% CPU load.

edit: I´m stupid, mpc-hc has all the codecs inside, divx codec pack is not needed

 

would using those codecs with vlc work?,cause i kinda like vlc guess i will have to try

 

I really don´t know, afaik VLC also uses it´s own codecs.

Anyway, does anyone know how to make DXVA accelerate every flash video? I can watch 1080p youtube videos with 20-30% cpu usage, but I tried to watch some streams at one website (teamliquid.net) and even though they are 720p max, the GPU once again is not working and CPU does all the work (70-80% usage) ...

 

I uninstalled Launch Manager with PCdecrapifier awhile back, but reinstalled it so that the brightness and sound icons would show when I adjusted the settings. Now the sound icons work but the brightness ones do not. Any thoughts or help?

And how's your battery life holding up? Batterybar tells me I get about 4:30 out of it on power saver mode, yet the comp tells me about 7ish. I though some folks were getting in the 6:00 range...

 

Light usage, I'm getting a good 3+ hours from it.

I'm itching to tweak this laptop though. I wish there was a windows (or even better BIOS) way to change memory latency and FSB speeds. The ability to undervolt would be nice too.

 

@ Hokum you can try to hack BIOS and unlock those options.

 

Shouldnt you get around 4+ hours when doing something light?

3 hours for me is heavy gaming

 

I have the same C-50 APU in my tablet and I'm having a problem watching YouTube. Even at 360/480p, all videos exhibit a small amount of lag/jerkiness. At 720p, I get a slideshow at 100% CPU usage. I have Catalyst 11.6 and Flash 10.3 installed, but it's like there is no GPU acceleration going on whatsoever. Yes, I've made sure the "enable GPU acceleration" box is checked in Flash player.

It didn't work out-of-the-box and it still didn't work after upgrading Flash and Catalyst, so I don't really know what's going on there.

 

Thanks folks. Like I said I'm at around 4.5 hrs so I guess I'm doing ok.

Shadowfate or anyone else: Have you tried running a battlefield game on this? I really like those over the majority of other online FPS, considering buying one.

 

BF2 and BF1942 should work, but I guarantee Bad Company 2 won't.

 

If this thing can run arma 2 it can run battlefield.

 

It cannot run ArmA2. My overclocked i5/6950 can barely run that game acceptably on medium/high.

 

Arma2 free is out now, maybe this will work? It doesn't have the HD graphics that comes with the paid version. It looks like a wicked game, never heard of it before.

 

I've installed arma 2 operation arrowhead and though you have to run at minimum it works fine. Good enough for my mission editing. Hence my post above...

Realised today I've been playing Real Virtuality (ofp/arma) games for 10 years now!

 

What drivers/etc are you all running? I just installed Halo 1 and in places I am getting 15-20 fps. I even lowered the res to 640x480 all low and it did not help performance more than a few FPS. I could max this game out on i5 integrated graphics so I'm sure a C-50 is powerful enough to run it.

I've also played the game on a 1.6 ghz Athlon and a 2 ghz P4, for the record. Neither had issues. I can't get singleplayer or multiplayer to work for me, though.

When trying to play online, though, both my cores hit 80-90% usage; is my CPU really so weak that it cannot handle a game with a 733 mhz P3 as its minimum requirement?

It bogs down when enemiesxare on the screen in both single and multiplayer.


EDIT: Never mind, it runs decently now. I closed all my background programs, specifically Pidgin (which eats CPU cycles for some reason) and the lag is mostly gone.

 

You can also play Halo 2 Well Works great when we have small LAN games(4 -5 players) Halo 2

 

What settings and FPS do you get with Halo 2? I haven't even installed it since I upgraded my desktop because I remember no one played it online. And what about CoD4?

And of course, being a tablet, it also runs Angry Birds

 

Halo 2 Would be low(or is it mid?) settings. at 800x600 at 30+ FPS

No LAG in MP is what I like the best Halo 1 has some problems with ping even in LAN.

COD4 should be playable at 35+ (I just read it in a previous review) I am not sure what settings

 

BFBC2 can run on that latform:
->DX9
->All low
->Bloom off
->HBAO off
->AA-1x
->AF-0x
The question is if it will run better than on my P4 HT @ 3,6Ghz and a GeForce 6200A 256MB DDR2 with Shader unlock---> ca. 35 FPS.

 

And a P4 HT is weaker than a zacate platform because it has a less efficient architecture.

 

I want Halo 2 so bad but can't find a site that sells it as a digital download. Little help?

 

I don't have high hopes for BC2, I've tried it on a 3.4 ghz Core 2 Duo which absolutely destroys the C-50 and it was barely playable.

Nothing to lose by trying though so I might give it a try.

 

I have some bad news. My factory Toshiba harddrive crashed permanently yesterday. It now stutters and windows won´t boot, nothing. I have been using this net book as my desktop, using photoshop CS5 and Corel Draw 2 on a regular basis and playing Fallout 3, religiously as a gamer junkie.

My thoughts are that Fallout 3 did the harddrive in as I had some crash issues at certain points in the game. I was too stupid to realize that my harddrive was generating the blue screen that I would get from time to time.

So, my stupidity. Good time to get a SSD Drive, I just wished that I had backed up my data...

In total, don´t stall on backing up data. I had to return my first Acer 522 Netbook purchase because the harddrive crashed two days after initial use.

Perhaps the Toshiba harddrive isn´t that stable?

 

If you haven't dropped or otherwise damaged the netbook, then yes it was a faulty hard drive. Software should not physically damage a disk. If you can wait, I would send it back for repair.

 

I've not used it for more than 3 hours on battery thats why

11.5's and i've just tweaked the settings, running 2Gb ram and an ssd.

Tweaked the graphics to minimum but left it at native res and its runs at about 20-30 fps.

 

Bioshock 2 is on sale in d2d, think I'd have any hope of running it?

 

just got my 522 last sunday..

i dont know any of the drivers..im such a noob...do you guys know where to find latest drivers? what OS runs good on this machine?

 

AMD.com has Catalyst 11.6 for the GPU (which works perfectly), the rest of the drivers should be on Acer.com and those shouldn't need updating.

I'm still having issues running Halo 1, in a full server I'll get 20 fps while looking at any type of action, which is odd since I get a constant 30+ in CoD4 at all times. Is the game just that poorly optimized?

I'll try Halo 2 tonight, if anyone still even plays that game online.

 

Alexisapin win 7 starter is fine for most things, if you want a light windows build. Some may prefer the features of home premium but I'm happy with W7S for now. I find the 11.5's better than the 11.6's atm.
Syberia Halo 1 is old now, its probably not optimised for current hardware.

I've installed Homeworld on mine and i'm having a blast. Not played this game is about 9 years!

 

Hokum, ive installed amd 11.6...you said 11.5 is better, what difference does it make...im thinking about making a backup for the current drivers installed...is this necessary or should i just download it at Acer. btw im planning to install windows ultimate 64bit

 

im using coretemp.. and my readings:

Tj.Max 115c

low 66
high 73
is this still normal?

 

Yes it can be up to 90's.

 

I think mine has reach some pretty high temps when I dont get proper elevation from the surface.

 

i did not back up the drivers before i upgrade to win7 ultimate..

do you guys upload it so i can download... TIA

 

Acer.com Worldwide - Select your local country or region duh!

 

I had earlier posted that my harddrive crashed. Well, I got a ssd drive, 64 gig and with windows 7 ultimate 64, I am moved by the increase in speed and a more solid feel in the experience. SSD and 64 OS is the ticket! Of course
4 gig of ram.

 

Playing Company of Heroes on Steam, low settings produce a solid 30 fps

 

I've had a few issues with ARMA 2 and 11.6.

I notice that Men of war assault squad runs pretty slowly.

 

A few of my keys broke

And I have no idea how to remove the ribbon. Do I pull both of the sides out and then it should release, or do you just flip the whole white bar up? I just cut my nails too, UGH