Advanced Optimus

IGN posted a review today of the MSI GS66 Stealth ( https://www.ign.com/articles/msi-gs66-stealth-review). Their unit had the QHD 240hz screen wth G-Sync and Advanced Optimus. The same one the new Razer Blade Advanced is using. They mentioned some issues which concern me:

“It’s a good system for enhancing battery life, but it’s not without its hiccups. With integrated graphics, you’re limited to a 60Hz refresh rate, which is a noticeable drop in fluidity even when moving the mouse. I often opted to use the RTX 3080 when running on battery, but this had its own issue: if I left it on “Nvidia GPU Only” the laptop’s display would often not turn on following a reboot, forcing me to restart it a second time.”

Can anyone confirm if this is true? With Advanced Optimus you only get 60hz running on iGPU? And if you change to dGPU only the display intermittently doesn’t come on? This would be a show stopper for me and I was considering the new Blade

Thanks,
mario64

 

Sounds more like the system they were sent has some bugs.

 

So these are not known issues with Advanced Optimus?

 

It looks like Advanced Optimus is just a dynamic mux. It would stand to reason their support of up to 4K@120Hz with adaptive sync would be true as long as the mux works properly.

Could be a bug, not sure.

 

My biggest concern is being limited to 60hz in Windows desktop. Would that be normal for a dynamic mux or a bug you think?

 

No clue.

 

@B0B

 

If a 60Hz limit was normal for Advanced Optimus we would've heard huge rumbles being made over it already. That's what my common sense says anyway.

The fact that AO has been out for a long time, yet one person in one review has reported this issue, is what leads me to believe the received a faulty machine. The black screens they were having also point to this. All of the GS66 reviews dropped on the same day, I web searched them after you posted the thread, and know other reviewer reported either issue.

I feel confident this isn't a feature of the technology.

I'm pretty sure we have people on these sub-forums with Advanced Optimus machines in hand. Go ask them.

 

Thanks for your response. AFAIK, Eluktronics makes the only available AO laptops so far and they don't have their own sub forum, nor do I see any recent activity on the few threads there are. I looked in the MSI forums and don't see any references yet to the new GS66. I hope you're right though.

 

Agreed sounds like a bug on that machine. If people pay for that hz and don't get it they'd be mad and you'd have a media frenzy over it. Eluktronics is just tongfang variants so you'd find info on that in the other manufacturers under whichever tongfang it is. It's getting to the point where NBR needs a tongfang section tbh.

 

They are probably arguably more popular than Clevo at this point.

 

Although I found this little tidbit in an NBR review:

"Keep in mind that 120 Hz mode is only available if the discrete GPU is active. Native refresh rate will be limited to 60 Hz if switching to the integrated GPU. A system reboot is required if users want to enable Optimus settings."

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Razer...w-The-GeForce-RTX-30-Difference.519563.0.html

I don't see why that's so other than it's a 4k screen, in my non-advanced, but optimus system it can push out 120hz on the igpu but at only FHD.

 

So I watched a review which indicated that the drivers come with a toggle to enable traditional Optimus on these laptops. Can anyone verify? I would think that would allow use of high refresh in both games and Windows at the expense of G-sync.

 

I'm buying the Alienware m15 R4 with 4K display which does NOT have optimus, so I'm pretty excited. I never use my laptop solely on battery power.

 

Dug up this thread doing a search - I had a Razer Blade 15 Advanced with adv Optimus - it was stuck at 60Hz on battery as well...need more info here if any has developed here. I'm deciding between a new Alienware X15 and the Zephyrus G15 (adv Optimus vs regular). I prefer HFR on battery as well, willing to take a bit of battery impact to enjoy that smoothness. I had a Zephyrus G14 for 4 months and still had 8+ hours battery life with 144hz on the main display.

 

Unless there's a setting to override this behavior in software, Asus automatically drops the refresh rate to 60 Hz when you unplug it.

 

Right - which is incredibly easy to toggle - panel power saver can be disabled with one click on the G14/G15.

I did not see any way to go HFR on the Razer blade advanced with advanced Optimus. I only had it for 2 weeks before returning because I found the keyboard too cramped - but the adv Optimus being stuck at 60hz when on battery and using the iGPU was a major issue for me that drove a return. I played around - although I don't know if there was a BIOS toggle as I didn't do that much looking.

 

It has a standard MUX, but the Lenovo Legion 5/5 Pro/7 allows for high refresh on battery that you can toggle back to 60 Hz with a keyboard shortcut.

 

I'm not really asking about standard mux behavior - it's been expected that standard mux the iGPU can do HFR on the internal display, then you disable, restart system, and have dGPU directly attached. I'm trying to see if my experience on the 2021 Razer Blade Advanced with QHD 240HZ display is the "normal" for ADVANCED optimus - where the IGPU is limited to 60hz unless you disable optimus and drive the internal display with the dGPU. That's what I'm seeing in some other threads on the topic. Which means I'm not interested in the tech if I surrender the iGPU giving me 165hz and still decent battery life.

 

I can run at 165 Hz on battery on my L5P in hybrid mode.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Totally relevant to this Advanced Optimus discussion.