Does Optimus "just work" for anyone with zero issues?

I intentionally avoided Optimus last year, got an Asus G74 instead of Dell's M17x just to avoid it. I really, REALLY don't want it, but it's getting almost impossible to avoid.

Seriously considering buying HP's DV7t or Dell's M14x-R2 or M17x-R4...all seem fairly awesome...except they all use Optimus.

I'm scared to spend $1000 or even $2000 on something that's going to be buggy and 'cause me problems.

As far as games, I play new stuff but also have a HUGE backlog of older games too..in the past I've found Nvidia's drivers have better backwards compatibility but I've never dealt with this...

 

I am with you man! I have read that some machines offer a way to turn this off in BIOS, you may want to research this if it is a major factor in you next purchase.

 

Enduro is buggy. Optimus works just fine. You can right click programs you use often and make sure that is uses the GPU instead of the iGPU. I have no problems with it, although I would 2 month, maybe 3 ago.

The M17x and M18x can turn it off via the BIOS.

The MSi seem to handle it exceptionally well and the Clevo/Sagers enjoy it too.

 

I've had no issues with optimus with my m17x, from the m17x forums it seems there are more issues with enduro compared to optimus.

 

no issues here with optimus on P150EM

 

I had 2 computers now with Optimus, and none of them had any issues with Optimus. There have been one or two games where I had to manually enable the GPU. Other than that, flawless.

 

I ran into a couple problems with Optimus on my old 650m. Certain games wouldn't run on the dedicated gpu, and I never found a way to get them to work. Binary Domain was one that I never got working correctly. Also, Saints Row the Third would crash when starting up. Other than those two, I never had any real problems.

 

Nope.

Disabled it straight away after installing bf3 and it wouldnt work even after setting to my 680.

Only run on dedicated gpu now.

 

No issues at all with Optimus on my Sager with GTX 680m. Been using it flawlessly for the last 6 months or so, and same for my Sager 11.6" notebook with 650m. Only issue I've run into is with battery life. If you have anything polling the GPU on occasion (like a temp monitoring program), it will keep turning it on and off, causing more battery wear than normal. My personal preference is to have a physical or BIOS switch, but so far Optimus has worked well for me.

 

Have you tried playing Saint's Row the Third or Binary Domain on you 6110? I could never get those working right on stock drivers.

 

Ive never had any issues. SR3 included

 

It just works for me.

Alienware machines also have a bios option to disable it if you just want to always run the Nvidia GPU. With Optimus the battery life is pretty amazing though, 6+ hours easy on an M17x.

 

That's good. My old 650m would crash before getting to the title screen every single time. I remember it being a common problem though, and not exclusive to Nvidia (I think)

 

Just tried it again and optimus is working for me again. Must of been a driver issue.

 

Did you hope for some drama in this thread to fortify your view on Optimus, is that why you haven`t responded to the thread yet since everyone told you otherwise?
Maybe time to update your view on the horrendous pure EVIL Optimus?

 

I have a m14x-R2 and I haven't had any issues with Optimus. I've been quite surprised because I expected to have problems with it. The battery life is surprisingly good, I don't game on the battery but I've gotten up to 6 hours on desktop apps.

 

Have had two laptops with Optimus, an MSI GE60 and an MSI 16F3. Both work perfectly fine. The only issue, if you could call it that, would be that some lower-end games-- Stellar Impact and Killing Floor, to name two--defaulted to the HD4000. A simple option change in nVidia control panel fixed that though.

 

Been working fine for me for over a year with very very minor to no problems.
I'm very much pleased with it.

 

Just noticed in the nvidia panel you can enable a tray icon to show you when it uses nvidia card and what is causing it.

For example it runs nvidia card when i launch steam but to save battery life i turned that off.

 

Steam and Adobe reader are both set to use NVIDIA GPU at default, after a driver update the first thing I do is to assign them to use iGPU only.

 

From what I'm hearing, Dell's M17x-R4 does NOT have a BIOS options except in some hacked BIOS, but supposedly with the Radeon 7970 option it doesn't use Enduro, but rather you use a Fn+F7 keyboard combination before rebooting to switch between the GPU and Intel's junk? Dang, wish this was all documented on their site somehow. I like Nvidia's drivers better, but the 7970 is great for performance too, and if it avoids switchable graphics...

 

Why do you need to avoid switchable graphics?
Didn`t you read the thread you made?

 

This is not accurate, the newest driver includes the option. The "hacked" bioses are just unlocked and nothing to be worried about, they flash and work just like the others and offer more options.

 

Okay, so you're saying a driver from Dell...maybe the drivers for the Dell specific keyboard buttons? That driver allows both the Radeon 7970 and the Geforce 680 to operate exclusively if you reboot with that keyboard combo?

A Dell rep was claiming it only worked on the 7970, but then they may not be given all the info they need.

And if I'm understanding this right, this keyboard shortcut functions like a BIOS toggle would, it's just done inside Windows instead of the BIOS? But the end result is either GPU can function on its own without switchable graphics? Am I understanding that right?

(And thanks!

 

I meant to say bios. The keyboard toggle does not work for Nvidia but the option is in the bios. It was just added in the last bios version. It takes about 10 seconds to switch. However, I suspect once you actually try Optimus you will just leave it on, it really works fine and is only positive 99% of the time. If you ever hit a big snag you reboot and change a setting in the bios.

The 7970m has far bigger problems than Enduro. It has major issues with almost every game released in the last few months. Nvidia generally puts out beta drivers the day of a games release or even before, AMD still has yet to put out a release fixing lots of problems that are months old.

 

Yeah, and I've found Nvidia's drivers over the years work better with OLDER games too. I've had old stuff that runs fine on Nvidia and crashes in 30 seconds on...well, it was ATi at the time to be fair.

Okay, so the normal, non hacked, straight from Dell, official M17x-R4 has a BIOS toggle to turn Optimus on or leave just the 680m running, I'm understanding that right?

If so I think I'll just go for this. Yeah, sounds like Optimus has lots of bugs worked out, but still it doesn't benefit me...I've been swinging back and forth between a few notebooks, but if the M17x lets you disable Optimus, and has other features I like (high end GPU, slot loading Blu Ray, good cooling) I think I'll just go for it.

 

I don't have an R4 but I am pretty sure the same option was added to all M17x machines with the last bios. I can confirm the R3 has the bios option. Someone else can probably confirm for the R4 for sure, or your could see if it is mentioned in the bios update notes for the R4.

Again, you keep talking about the "hacked" bios like it is bad. It isn't hacked or bad, it is just unlocked. The Alienware tech support will install it for certain issues, it is just as legit as the locked official bios.

 

I have an R4 fn + f7 will disable integrated graphics if you so wish.

This is persistent between boots, it actually changes the value in the bios.

 

Saint's Row the Third works for me. On stock drivers, default nVidia settings.

No problems with Optimus for me.