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

Flash 1080p is a no go for this system. It can play local 1080p files (like this). But flash 1080p is a slide show. It can do 720p on the other hand but barely. Some videos are viewable but some arent.

On the other hand the toshiba NB550D with the same C50/HD6250 seems to run youtube 1080p fine but it comes with a 1024X600 screen vs the 1280X720 for the acer.
YouTube - AMD C-50 Benchmarks, Gaming & Video Playback Testing

 

Yeah, but it doesn't make sense as 1080p flash with 10.2 should be HW accelerated.

 

Not sure whats the problem...tried both IE8 & FF3.6 with flash ver 10.2.152.26 along with the newest drivers I could find. FF seems to handle it a bit better but 720p is sorta playable but jerky at times. On the other hand adobe's stage video demo works fine at 1080p...
Adobe Labs - Flash Player 10.2 Beta: Stage Video

 

seems you are getting good mileage from the c-50 but it could use the e-350 or even better a ulv dual core with an ion setup. I can't believe fusion setup still plays catch-up to the ion version.

 

Yeah, the E350 has no issues, the dm1 can play any flash video just fine. Its the C50 which has trouble but considering its running at 1GHz & paired with a GPU running at 275MHz, I guess most people were expecting little bit too much.

EDIT: The ion/ion2 form a small part of the overall atom sales. I bet that asus sold lot more atom netbooks with intel igp than with the ion. Considering AMD didnt really have anything compelling to compete aganist either of those two options, they have done pretty well with the brazos platform.

 

Miner:

did you do a clean install of windows 7 starter?

im having no issues at all playing 720p vids on utube....

 

I am still thinking it is because of driver issues(I dont play youtube HD anyway)

If anybody here has news on how to get it to play Flash fine kindly tell us

 

For those interested, I have just made a test with this Youtube 1080p video on my Acer 522 with 1GB of RAM:

YouTube - Cowboys & Aliens - Official Trailer 2011 - 1080p

When watching on Youtube, it is noticeable that the frame rate is not optimal, I wouldn't watch the whole movie this way, it's watchable but not great (although not bad as to call it a "slideshow" either )
I also downloaded this exact same video and played it with Windows Media Player and the quality is better, I would watch the movie this way.

In 720p, it is already good on Youtube. Haven't downloaded.

 

Playing dloaded files are no hassle but streaming is where the problem lies

 

No, not yet. For example try this video (@720p) & see if you find the stutteering when the scence involves a lot of flying birds (0:28)
YouTube - Earth - trailer [HD 1080p]

 

If you guys want to upgrade your Windows Start to a Home Premium cheap and legally, check out this website. They are selling the Anytime upgrade for $20.

Search Results | TheSource.ca

I'm not sure if they only accept Canadian credit cards, and the english version seems to have sold out. However the french version is still in stock (back ordered) and it will work for those non french OS.

A user from RFD mentioned that they called Microsoft and they said it does not make a difference which version you use. He clarified if he had Win 7 SE and used a French Home Premium Anytime upgrade key they said it will leave it in the language the OS is installed in.

All the upgrade is a serial key and that is it.

 

Thanks Domo325, this is great. I think I'm going to buy one there.

By the way, I have just reveived my 4GB memory stick but I have trouble removing the keyboard. I watched the video where the girl shows the manipulation on her Acer 533 but I don't get it, it seems so easy on the video and my keyboard doesn't budge...

 

You will need something thin & strong. People recommend using a credit card & a thin strong metallic object (I used a small knife - but be careful though as you dont want to end up cutting yourself or damaging the laptop). basically you need to push the tab with the knife & pry out the keyboard & then use the credit card to keep it from falling back into the tab. Then proceed to the second tab & pry it open the same way. Once you get the first two out, then it gets much easier to remove the rest & pull the keyboard out. Its the initial prying open thats tricky.

 

You have to use a really thin/small flathead screwdriver and push the tab in towards the screen. Start with the little tab above the delete key. See where the keyboard kind of forms a lip and has an indent for the tab? You need to basically wedge the screwdriver in between the lip and the case. Once you get in there, lift up and use a credit card to slide along the rest of the way to the left.

 

Thanks miner, thanks DooMer MP3.

I finally did it. It took me nearly 2 hours though! 2 hours!!! I was getting nervous when it eventually worked. There are a scratches on the plastic of the small holes. I tried every hole but the one above the F8 keys was the right one for me. Hopefully I'm never going to have to do that again. What a nightmare!

Now I have 4GB of RAM.
2GB usable by Windows Starter whereas before it was 768MB, so I can confirm that the CG takes the 256MB of video memory from the RAM unused by Windows.

 

yes mini did lag a bit during birds...but before and after video played fine..even after i dl it fully and replayed bird part it lagged a bit...

im wondering in not more because of that one part of video? why...i just ran the same vid on 720p on a my desktop pc (dual,nice vid card ect) and it lagged at same part...

either way i would use my post a few back and do a clean (legit) win starter install...that way you dont have any traces of that horrible mcafee antivirus and other crapware....


edit update: just playing around with catalyst control center...section desktop and displays/my built in display/lcd overdrive (built in display) say "improves the quality of fast moving objects durning video playback on certain lcd panels"

 

wow nice find...thankyou! can now at least change wallpaper without that french program or reg hack

 

note: after clean install of win 7 i had forgot to reinstall acer power manager 6.0....seems to help (before when plugged in would revert of lesser brightness i have when on battery even if set to full brightness when ac power....how after acer power manager install it remembers ac power setting even after using battery)

did any of that make sense? lol just install it....

 

Today, I have installed GTA IV on my Acer 522 and it runs!!!
It is barely playable though but I have completed the first two missions.
Every setting is at low level of course, and still the fps rate is terribly bad lol.
I wish the graphics were a little less ugly but I'm happy. I have been waiting for so long to play this game!
Maybe when I upgrade to Windows Home Premium and can finally use my 4GB of RAM there will be a slight increase in quality, but I doubt it.

 

My Pentium P6100 @ 2.65GHz with HD 5470 @ 750MHz core 930MHz memory it still struggles at low setting, chugging along at ~40fps, it smooth but in firefight its choppy. It would be very hard if you play more complex mission

On 522 with 1GHz dual core CPU with underclocked GPU I don't expect it to run smoothly no matter what the detail because it really needs quads and at least HD 56xx or HD 65xx class GPU for it to be playable

 

YAY We are on the top 20 most viewed threads in January on the Site

On topic:

Sorry but it is not just going to happen.

I am planning to try HoN. I'll see if it runs well

 

For those curious about it, I've made a quick video of GTA IV running on my computer. It is a quite slow as one can see, but overall it is not so bad IMO.

The resolution is 800x600 and the details are not at their lowest. I don't know how many fps, but at this point I don't really care

<param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/IblZnQcjw34?hl=fr&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/IblZnQcjw34?hl=fr&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width='425' height="344"></embed>

 

Dump the shadows, the framerate should increase dramatically. But I doubt it would improve it so much on 522

 

A bunch of you have mentioned this and I find it odd. I could play minecraft fluidly on fast graphics / normal view very smooth most of the time. The only time it chunks is when I'm doing some heavy loading of the textures or rendering new terrain (ie exploring).
I'm running windows 7 x64 clean install with 4GB of ram but even before with the default it ran fine. Both single player and on my friend's server.
Have you updated to the latest drivers from the AMD website and the 11.1a fix?

I had the exact same issue as many here have, even after reinstalling the drivers. Then it just seemed to disappear a couple days ago without any further changes to my system. However, i did do the ram upgrade shortly after it stopped. My last day to return to bestbuy is this coming Thursday.
It seems to me the possible problems are:
-Drivers with the new APU
-Hardware issue with the APU
-Screen connection issue.
I find the hardware issue unlikely. My friend leans towards the screen issue but i think the issue lies in the drivers.
Come to think of it actually, I believe the issue may have stopped when I installed the DX runtime, but I cannot be sure.

Soo... any word on overclocking/undervolting?
I tried K10stat but it looks like this CPU part of the chip is way too different.
Also, folding@home ends immediately with "unsupported driver"

 

I'd really like to see how far people can push these Fusion chips. It's why I want to get my hand on one of the new ITX Fusion boards. Can't wait for Llano BTW, it should be pretty sweet.

 

I think with a bit of tweaking it maybe possible to get running at a decent level. As a poster has already said, shadows absolutely kills framerate.

There are also some speed tweaks and mods which'll improve performance. There's loads of guides on youtube etc

GTA IV Graphics and Performance Tweak Guide | SegmentNext

 

As for shadows, at first I played the game without them and every setting at low level. However, for this video, I chose the automatic settings and they are at medium level and with shadows (obviously), and frankly the difference was not huge (although I didn't measure the framerate).

Thanks for the link mashk, maybe I'll try a few tweakings later.

 

Returned my m11x and pulled the trigger on the E350 HP DM1z - from what I have seen here - this system would be able to handle even some medium gaming. Mostly for work and bringing out in the field and doing work. Hope this tides me over till yummy ivy bridge or haswell/rockwells come out within the next two years!

 

Kindly post some GPU videos so we can compare them.

Still waiting for APU OCing software...

 

Just update to the official AMD Catalyst 11.2 Driver and it's breathed new life into my Acer 522.

I had noticed some video artifacts occurred occasionally when playing 720p videos and an ocassional blip in the audio (via speaker, HDMI or even USB headset). After the update all these issues have all disappeared.

Anyone else update their netbook yet?

 

Thanks for the update will try it.

Downloading now

 

As soon as I get the system will post some. Wonder if mass effect will run on max with this (it should handle medium OK with the specs and extra mem for the GPU) - I read in a review that the CPU and GPU is not OCable and the CPU is locked from doing it.

 

Anything can be bypassed

(I hope )

Hmm i just found this

DivX Accelerated | DivX.com

As you guys know DivX videos are HARDER to play than .mkvs so I will post results once i get this setted up

 

Thanks. Will do over the weekend.

 

Update:

.avi are now Hardware Accelerated

Although the difference is minimal... trying to see if playing a 720p .avi will do the trick.

 

I have a question about the Catalyst driver, when asking for the os, i have 7 premium, do i selct windows 7 64 bit from "video card drivers" or "integrated video" drivers or are they all the same?

 

You have 7 premium 32 bit or 64 bit????????

I just used video card drivers

 

The display driver here? How useful is the Catalyst Control Package though and what is the CL Driver? Thanks in advance to anyone in the know.

http://sites.amd.com/us/game/downloads/Pages/integrated_win7-64.aspx#2

 

Here is what i dloaded

Download ATI Catalyst 11.2 Software Suite Vista/7 32-bit | techPowerUp

I got to ask though are you sure you have 64 bit since you just posted that you have win 7 premium without any mention of bits..

here is the 64 bit

Download ATI Catalyst 11.2 Software Suite Vista/7 64-bit | techPowerUp

 

I've just installed the new Catalyst 1.2 and already noticed a problem: the fan starts very quickly and doesn't seem to stop even if I'm only doing light tasks like web browsing.

Has anyone noticed this problem? I like how this netbook is usually very quiet...

 

I have an Acer 522 with 4 gigs of ram running win 7 Home Premium 32 bits.
I was a bit disappointed in the video (tearing and judder) until I installed the ATI Catalyst upgrade from AMD. The selection process on the AMD site gave me confidence that I was downloading the right product. Since then my video has been outstanding. Better than WD TV live which I had been using for my home theater. I use Media Player Classic and am driving a 720P projector via HDMI.

I have not seen any change in FAN activity or speed since installing the Catalyst upgrade . Love the quiet.

 

hey thanks alot, appreciate it

I have windows7 64 bit with 4gb ram and Agility 2 SSD

i got confused because i did not know if our 6250 HD counted as integrated chip or as a video card, because i couldnt find it as one of the Radeon product lines on the AMD website

One more question, should i uninstall the old catalyst programs? before i install this one?

 

Thanks Monkeyprince and Shadowfate. Same here. I wasn't sure if it was an integrated chip or not which is why I was waiting for some confirmation as to what people had tried installing.

I was also thinking of using this as a HTPC, since it's energy-efficient. Will an external USB 2.0 hdd be enough if I wanted to play 1080p contents on this netbook or will the USB 2.0 be the bottleneck? Thank you.

 

I read the entire forum thanks guys for the Input. I have a few question
I'm lending toward this or DM1 or waiting for the ASUS first version.
I have a 1201HA and the SHS overclocking system is amazing, I believe ASUS will come out one similar to the C-50.

1) On the AMD Radeon HD 6250 - Notebookcheck.net Tech website that's that WoW runs at 40FPS at low setting is that true?

2) how's the keyboard? I like my 11.6" going down to 10" i heard it's a big change.

3) Ram up grade to 2GB is a must have right? Would going to 2 or 3 to better.

Thanks

 

If you are going to go through all that trouble taking apart your 522, i'd get 4gb of sodimm ram, just in case you want to upgrade to windows 7 premium. I hate starter, i believe you cannot change the wallpaper and it artificially slows your laptop, allowing only 2 gb of ram to be read.

 

anyone:

im getting a strange buzz/click like sound every now and then from left hand side...it only last a sec at most and happens once and a while...anyone else notice this???

im beyond my 14 day bring back to bb...so hoping i dont need to send into acer (im in vanc .ca)

 

thats probably your harddrive, but it could also be the fan. I changed my harddrive to an SSD but i still get a weird sound that dosnt sound like the fan at all, which could be from the same source as your sound.

 

I just installed the 11.2 drivers. Youtube videos up to 1080p fullscreen is now 30-35 fps. AMD APU ftw!

 

I also use this as a portable HTPC.

PLaying 1080p straight from a WD Elements 320gb is no problem

Havent tested this yet

 

Good to hear that this fixes the dropped frames.

Thanks for letting me know as I have a spare 1 TB iomega drive that I will be able to use for this purpose.

Now I see the streaking horizontal lines (too lazy to hook up to my monitor) which don't show on my external display. --> haven't done the Direct X 9 install.