Improving performance of IGP?

I currently have the A215-S4747 and when I first got the notebook it had 1GB of memory with 128MB being "dynamically allocated" as they call it. I made the choice to increase my notebook memory to 4GB which gave the video 319MB to be allocated and if you look in the ATI Catalyst it will also show you that there is more memory that the notebook may use as shared memory. My total shared memory is 1599MB right now.

I can play games such as Half-Life 2 on nearly maximum graphics now without a problem. The settings in games that you have to watch out for would be things like reflection or particles and any high-end features such as 3d shadows and dynamic lighting. The best way I have found to use my X1200 is to set it for optimal performance and change everything to allow the programs control over quality and activate features one by one.

It will all come down to how much you use your laptop for games. If you want to play Halo 3 and such games you may be able to get by for a bit as is with low-res settings, but upgrading everything is the only option at that point since IGPs cannot be just swapped out unless you know how to remove them and the new IGPs are compatible with the motherboard used.

In a nutshell all you are going to find is that increasing notebook RAM to 4GB will give you a little increase enough to be noticeable, but you can't change the clock cores on the x1200 IGP which is about the only way you can speed up a video chipset. Just like a car, you can make it look fast and sound fast, but unless you change the engine, it's the same old car.

 

As I said in your other thread...

I'm going to close your first one since you have stated your problem better in this one.

 

yes. im confused. i've never heard of such miracle. but this gives me new, or atleast false hopes to expand my shared memory on my humble x3100. im not sure if my motherboard can hold 2 gigs per-slot but i'll give it a try, in hopes to play starcraft 2 just as well as i play now... cept my computer cant even play starcraft that well... the area where the CPU is gets very hot, yet the fans dont run at full... ODD..........

 

use DNA-Drivers and Ati tray tools

www.dna-drivers.org

when i was using an xpress 200m these drivers gave me literally twice the performance.. i still use them on my new comp. and get about 2/3 more performance.. these guys know what they are doing

and you can use AtiTool to easily overclock the card

http://www.techpowerup.com/atitool/

 

Increasing VRAM != getting a new engine.

It's much closer to filling up on more gas. Won't make your car go any faster.

 

I once had a Radeon 9100 IGP that shared 64MB of memory; after upgrading from 512MB of RAM to 1GB, the driver automatically locked the frame buffer at 128MB.

 

If i have a x3100 i would create an Xp partition only for games and vista for the rest...15 frames makes difference between playable and unplayable games...
Xp can give the most safe boost to this gpu and show real power of the card...
F.e. on my uncle's laptop his ati 2600 makes 3800 on 3dmark 06 on xp witouth overclock...equal to a non overclocked 8600gt (that is 10% faster) on vista...

 

I have managed to overclock my x200m slightly using powerstrip. I noticed an 8-10% improvement in 3dmark from moving it up from the stock 372MHz to 459MHz, and this translates to a slightly beter in-game performance. Perhaps that could work for you as well?

 

IMO IGP's just aren't meant to play games. It's nice you get a good HL2 experience out of yours, but I'm not expecting miracles from my GMA950. The only thing it has to do is render my desktop and MS Office apps.

But all of this makes me wonder how much I can OC a GMA 950...