Intel X3100 users rejoice! It's finally here! New Pre-Beta Drivers

Interesting, but could you clarify -dxlevel 70?

Also, does it help EP1? One more thing, when i started CS:S, i got some crazy artifacting, eventually it went though

 

In steam, right click on Counter-Strike: Source, Properties, Set launch options...

Then in the box type "-dxlevel 70" (no quotes). As for the artifacts, I've never had the same type of problems.

The same settings should translate into EP1, since both Source and EP1 run on the same engine.

 

Err, no. Geforce 4 MX 440 is off Geforce 2, which is far superior than what TNT2 was.e

 

yeah, sorry, you're right...

 

anyways, aside from gaming performance, i have another question for all

In windows xp, using alt+ctrl+f11 to change aspect ratio at lower resolutions happens seamlessly, but in Vista, it seems to lag a bit before it happens.

is there a way to alleviate this in Vista? or is it an inherent flaw with the Vista driver system

 

Here's another autoexec.cfg file (renamed to autoexec.txt) for attachment purposes. For launch options, I use these: -dxlevel 70 -heapsize 524288

I was able to get 30.61 FPS on the CS:Source Stress test on a GMA950 Laptop with the T2080 @ 1.73 GHz. Iceworld was playable online.

The config should work well with the x3100 as well.

 

hey, not sure if this question goes in this thread , but i will try anyway...
i've lately got lenovo's t61... the minute i put my hands on it, i've installed vista business 64bit, updated to sp1, and updated my g. card drivers to 15.8 ... everything worked great, and i've managed to play some nice games with nice performance on it...few weeks ago 15.9 came out, so i updated it from 15.8 to 15.9, but im having some really weird problem with it... when the laptop is plugged to an ac adapter it works great, but when i use the battery, whenever i turn on my laptop and vista is done loading itself, the screen starts to flicker crazy from black blank screen to vista and back... it does it few times before windows crashes, and when it goes back up, it reports about a driver failure that made the os crash, just before the flickering thing starts again, and the os is crashing again...
I've tried to see if there is anything i can do about it, and found that decreasing the frame rate from 60hz (on default) to 50hz seems to fix the problem... but for some reason working on 50hz gives me a headache.
it's really weird, 'cause when the t61 is connected to AC the driver works flawlessly (on 60hz too)... sure, going back to 15.8 will fix the problem, but strangely enought nvn2 and oblivion works great on it, and it will really be a bummer to stop playing those...any suggestions how make it work well on battery, without decreasing the frame rate ?
thx ahead

 

50hz gives most people a headache, which is why you should stay at at least 60. The other problems, I honestly don't know...

 

Hey, I got a blinking screen too. I know what you're talking about.

The reason why the screen blinks is because the LCD refresh rate is constantly being changed. To fix this, go into Graphics Properties, Display Settings, Power Settings and Disable Power Savings.

We never had this problem in previous drivers because Intel didn't have a power management aspect to the x3100. I think the reason why the blinking persists is because the Thinkvantage software, when on battery stretch, also modifies the LCD refresh rate thus conflicting with Intel's.

As for driver performance, I think the 15.9 is a huge upgrade over previous drivers. I can get 100+ FPS (think IceWorld) on low-texture CS:S maps at 1280x800.

 

Great, thanks a lot ! ... i didn't realize that intel set a power managment center in the new driver utility... guess i should have read the read-me with more attention... i've just unchecked the option for the refreshment rate control (which was set to 50hz...duh! ) and it worked.

I also think that 15.9 is a huge step forward for this card, for two reasons. one- the directx 10 support, and two- the great increasing of the games compatibility list...

i was simply shocked when oblivion ran on it, and almost smoothly, but playble for sure... same goes to neverwinter nights 2... hitman 4 was also a treat COD4, and Residnet evil 4 were both great addons for the games directory too...

something strange though that i've noticed is that sometimes, especially in RPG's, decreasing the details and graphic quality won't allways improve the performance, and sometimes even reduce it... kinda weird... one more thing is that older games that should run perfectly (Indiana jones, XIII) tend to show lower FPS than newer games... really odd...
but heck- at least i can use the driver now...

thanks a lot again

 

Intel states that with the X3x00(X3000/X3100/X3500) that anything that's older than Shader Model 2.0 won't have performance advantage. Especially combined with the fact that the fillrate and the performance of the vertex shader sucks, no wonder it performs worse in older games.

 

You know what? Today i've changed my attitude towards x3100. Actually, i didn't expect much from the most beginning... but last night I recovered my steam account and downloaded HL2. The last time i played it on my GF6200Go with 64Mb dedicated + TurboCache up to 256Mb. And until now i was convinced x3100 is much weaker than 6200. And random game tests were proving my point of view... BUT! HL2 Episode 1 looks sooo much better and runs soooo much smoother that I have to reconsider some things....
I understand, it's not the newest game, and the Source engine is very scalable + well optimized. But for the first time I actually had compliments for Intel on my mind...

...went to play... probably 4th time over? lol)))

 

What the RPG's game u mention?? somehow i notice i got better frame rate with NWN2 when i set the texture to high better than set to low...but if set the resolution more than 800x600 its become very laggy.

 

the RPG's are actually nwn2 and oblivion mostly, didn't try anthing else...
what graphical options do you use in nwn2 ? ...
and about the updates... i find it doing more bad than good... it seems to slow down everything! ... did you try those out ?

 

Can you guys tell me about improvements in Wow ? i am still using XP to play it but if there are improvements in Vista driver i'd like to try change to it...

 

Well i finish the game in reso 800x600, high texture, shadow off, and only with bloom effect..other all off, if i on the normal map terrain, the game are totally unplayable. ERM, i didn't notice any different with the update, just the camera thingy change, didn't notice any performance increase.
Now i playing the Mask of the Betrayer expansion

 

Intel forums: http://softwarecommunity.intel.com

Posted: 05-01-2008, 11:08 AM by archibael /// XP Drivers 14.34

Posted: 05-08-2008, 7:38 PM by DavidC1 ///OpenGL 2.0+ support

Posted: 5 hours, 32 minutes ago by mad\cvdesylv ///OpenGL 2.0+ support

I hope there is some REAL improvements...

P.S. I consider all this as rumors, can't guarantee anything I wish I could though

 

OpenGL 2 support would be GREAT. Even as a rumour it brings more hope

 

14.34 and OpenGL 2.0 isn't a rumor. OpenGL2.0 was put on Intel schedules as Q2/Q3 and 14.34 is just XP equivalent of the Vista 15.9 driver except with DX10 support not being there of course. Considering Intel usually came with XP drivers first and 14.34 is still not here, they must have rushed 15.9.

Archibael works at Intel but isn't directly related to IGP software or hardware development, and mad\cvdesylv is the forum moderator.

 

It sucks but the the Vista drivers performance wise are still far behind. Has anyone tried Doom 3, the demo after updating doesnt seem to run now

 

I know that. I consider as rumors the speculations of eventual release date and/or improvements

 

Hope the 14.34 driver will be available for download soon and also hope it will improve performance, hopefully cod4 and assassin creed can run on the coming driver

 

Come on man. Now you're just being crazy. The X3100 is a good integrated card, but to actually perform on games such as Assassins Creed... now that's just wishful thinking. No driver is going to add brute strength, just compatibility.

 

I discovered something interesting today.

On CS 1.6, in software mode, I get constant high FPS, yet when I switch over to OpenGL or D3D, performance drops substaintially.

Also, in D3D mode, FPS drops to 10-20 when there are overlays in the screen, i.e. text, but when I press esc, and all the HUD elements and text overlays are removed, FPS shows constant 99. Could this possibly mean that Intel just poor drivers/optimizations for the game engine?

 

This was discussed already(better performance in software mode in older games) check out a few pages back in this thread, there is a link with technical explanation.
As for cs 1.6 I get constant 71 fps, never tried soft mode, as I'm not much in this game.

 

I have one question : which driver shall I use for Vampire The Masquerade : Bloodlines , to get constant fps (eh,at least 40 - if it is possible in EVERY area) on x3100 ? Or maybe someone could type for me usefull commands for performance improvement , I already tried this game with pre-beta 14.33.1 but it sucked badly when ANY type of LIGHT/REFLECTIONS was involved

//with the game patched to 1.2(official)

 

Zulugula, if you have Vista, try the new 15.9 drivers.

 

heh , sorry i didn't provided my specs , there you go :

esprimo mobile v5505 /:
intel centrino c2d 1.8x2 , T5500
2 gb ram
120 gb hdd
mobile gm965 express / x3100
system : windows xp sp3

I also tried switching from 14.33.1 to 14.33 - no difference

Is there anyway to turn off those light beams?,at the pier area it drops out to 10 fps ((
This also happens to me when playing Half-Life 1 :/

 

Uhh, what?? I've not heard of pre-beta 14.33.1.

 

Because there isn't the latest driver is 14.33.1

 

uhh ... I overlooked source's cvarlist(that's the engine bloodlines based)but I think I am totally green ,have anyone tried playing this game on vista with latest (15.9) driver,are the framerates better than XP ?

I digged up a little and found trouble with bloodlines could be caused due to VERY BAD optimization(worse than HL2 ),even people with desktop Geforce 8800 had problems ^^ ...

 

Well I'm not but I don't think that any game at this point will run better under vista 15.9 than 14.33.1 xp.

 

http://softwarecommunity.intel.com
Posted by mad\cvdesylv 23 hours, 33 minutes ago
///When will we get Opengl 2.0++?

 

Now heres my question to everyone.....is it really gunna make a difference "Performance wise" with Open GL 2.0?

 

I don't know that, and OpenGL 2.0 support means..that the software with OpenGL 2.0 will run, will be supported

 

OpenGL performance sucks MAJOR right now, i really hope they can close they gap between XP and Vista. The worst thing as ive said is that the chip sucks at everything, doesnt excel at anything. Older games it cant run due use of older DX paths yet newer games too because use of newer DX path. The chip has a lot of power, its showing, games like HL2EP1 running with full HDR at a good setting is more than enough indication, but they need to get to a point were all 2004/2005 games are playable at at least medium/low, if the game isnt popular, you can bet itll work only poorly. Also, if they can do that, i hope they can then get 06 and 07 games to run at a playable framerate on Low

Again, a chip which performs so well in HL2EP1 should have trouble running something like WiC on lowest on low, but it does, it runs that at around 13 FPS with 8 FPS when explosions happen. What puzzles me still is how on Earth it gets Far Cry which is FAR more demanding the HL2EP1 to run at a nice framerate on High. But yeah, anyone tried Doom 3 and Far Cry, they dont load on my laptop

 

Maybe what they need is a per application auto profile changer, so the community can produce profiles that automatically kick in when x application/game is run, selecting hw/sw TnL etc? It's not something that should bloat out the drivers if done properly.

It would take some of the work off them testing everything. And make things a bit friendlier for people who would never want to hack around the registry.

 

#Oemenia

I ran Far Cry :
-official patch 1.4
-res. 1024-768
-driver ver. 14.33
-average fps:19-25
(custom settings:turned off shadows,few changes - like disabling volumetric fog etc.)

 

Nice settings, can i have a few screens please?

 

So... Is there a way to run Company of Heroes Opposing Fronts smoothly?
I'm hating Relic right now....

 

Yes, the 15.9 drivers solved the issue of extreme choppiness when scrolling. However, it doesn't change the fact that you have to play at more or less the lowest settings.

 

Heck its playable, unlike WiC

 

ok but... I'm have XP with the 14.33.1 drivers... and the choppiness is there.

 

New XP drivers are expected soon..maybe next week

 

Good to hear that. Thanks a lot guys.

 

Intel Forums:

 

Man, I just got my new laptop, unfortunately it's got Vista and I'm stuck with Vista's incomplete X3100 drivers. Couldn't install XP because it's SATA and I don't have a floppy drive. Anyway, anybody know how to disable vsync in d3d games? It's locked as on, you can turn off vsync for openGL using the control panel but there's no way for d3d AFIK. Many games don't have an option to toggle, so it's pretty frustrating.

Also, anybody else on a vista system found the best combination of drivers/settings? Are the most recent the best? Half-Life 1 is terrible in OpenGL, D3D runs faster but I get flickers where the whole screen flashes every few seconds. Far Cry is like 20 fps as well.

 

atthegates, go back about 4 pages and you will see that we have had this discussed already))) Thanx for additional info anyway

 

To turn vsync off: Go to Intel Graphic Control Panel->3D Settings->Asynchronous Flip ON

 

@NJoy I read the whole thread but I didn't know that actually the INF file sets SF/HW for some games/applications.