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

Hey guys, I'm thinking of format the VAIO NR140E that I have over here to put a XP (it has a Home Premium 32 bits installed), will you guys think that XP is a lot better than Vista to play some games? The problem is, in the past it was a lot better to play PES5 on the notebook, but lately the game is unplayable, it has too much slowdows! I'm reading that Vista tweak topic, even with that, will XP be better, or not?

What do you guys think it is? I just ran a lot of programs like ccleaner and avg, cleaned the computer, installed the lastest gpu driver version, but the game is still the same... why?

I'm intending to play COD4, will the notebook be capable to do that? (I saw the youtube video Call Of Duty 4 On The X3100 - I still can't post links - but I don't know if the card properly runs the game)

And just one more thing, when I bought the computer, it came with Vista, but now I don't have the CD, only for XP, how can I install Vista again? I have the key (that shows up at the System Specs), but I don't have the CD.

Note: my friend bought a notebook recently and he got a CD for Vista, but I think it's OEM, but can I use that CD to install, and my key to "activate" it?

THanks!

 

The x3100 used to have better performance under XP than under Vista, but that was some time ago, and with the new drivers I don't know if that still holds. It is true that XP is lighter than Vista (especially in ram and cpu) but if your pc has at least 2gb of ram and a dual-core cpu, in my opinion is better to stay in Vista. Besides, it is not always easy to find drivers for XP...

However, it is true that after some time of use, Vista lost performance, i'm not sure of the reason, but this happened with xp too (an any other Windows)

To reinstall Vista, you can use the Activation Backup & Recovery tool (i can't post urls either, but you'll find it in google). With this tool, you backup your activation info, and then, after reinstalling Vista, you can restore it. There is a nice guide in notebookreview's forum: .../showthread.php?t=120228

About COD4, I play it only in multiplayer and in LAN with some friends, it is barely playable, around 12-20 fps with everything in low and 800x600. COD2 is much more playable (around 20-50fps in dx7 and 1024x768), and in a couple of days I'll try COD5 and see what happens.

 

COD4 runs at about about 12 - 24fps at everything lowest (sound lowest also, I remember i have post some screenshots on this thread) and I have beaten it two times on my laptop. But how can cod5 run the same with cod4 when it can only runs at 5- 7fps on my laptop, even in multiplayer also. Any tweak on setting suggest?

 

yea... Heres my Multiplayer config... test it out on the full game or the beta... it dont matter...make sure to backup the original config first...

Download:

Code:

http://www.zshare.net/download/51359642748ad3d3/

goes in:

Beta:

C:\Documents and Settings\"User Name"\Local Settings\Application Data\Activision\CoDWaWbeta\players\profiles\"Profile Name"

Full Game:

C:\Documents and Settings\"User Name"\Local Settings\Application Data\Activision\CoDWaW\players\profiles\"Profile Name"

let me no what your results are...

 

thank you UnReaL596!!! the fps has been doubled up in COD5, I haven't check by FRAPS yet but it is indeed playable in MP now. I wonder if you can do the same to SP, I am trying to mess with the config file of SP but haven't got much result so far. Anyway, thanks again!!
Edit: Well since online gaming in my school have been blocked so even if MP in COD5 is playable now it's totally useless

 

Could anyone link me to a cod4 fps config ?!

 

Hey... after installing the new drivers, i noticed that the igfxsrvc.exe process takes about 25-50% of cpu usage... is it only me, or its normal ?

 

NFS: Undercover on the x3100 Avg FPS: 28... FRAPS Dropped FPS by about 10...

640x480
Everything Low or Off

Code:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8CK2WORi_o

 

Just wanted to say I'll be buying a new laptop in 3 days to play Left 4 Dead. Geforce 9700M GT, I'm really looking forward to having a computer that just works with games, can run everything new and old at awesome speeds, and to be able to kill zombies in smooth detail. I will not miss caring about my x3100 at all. Lesson learned, never buy intel, you'll have to buy again in 4 months.

 

Just wanted to ask, how does RE4 play with shaders enabled?

Also, are we ever going to get another significant driver rather than the small increments we are getting these days?

 

Can i play fifa09 on x3100

 

With PES9, u can play on Low - Medium setting. Not sure about Fifa 2009 though, but I think it should be playable.

 

I am facing this problem for quiet a sometime.whenever i start a game or change resolution during game my brightness decreases .what should i do

 

Sounds like something in your power management profile, it'll be machine / power management driver specific.

 

I can't believe people are surprised that this thread is still open.

Get real man ...

Don't people understand the simple fact that 80-90% of every laptop purchased in the world has the x3100 (now 4500) in it. Which is the reason why this thread is (and will remain) popular for a very, very long time.

Get used to it.

 

yes, they also need to realise that a very large number of those purchasers knew full what they were getting into regards to games, they weighed their needs and size/weight/battery life won out over gaming by far (if they even had the slightest interest), they're still interested in eking out all the performance they can out of the chip for other purposes however.

 

Yeah but I know that most people at my place (south east asia and China) buy a laptop with a x3100 because:
- they can't afford the better one or
- they don't have enough knowledge about IT (like my friend who bought a 1500USD lenovo for gaming thinking that more expensive is faster and he nearly cried when he found out that its performance in games is almost the same with my 500USD Acer ) or
- they don't have other choices (the best laptop for gaming at my place is the dell xps m1530 with 8600gt ddr3 at about 2500USD and they are pretty rare)
I have to buy the acer 4315 after 1 days searching for every corner in my city for a better one at 500USD to 700USD range with a 7150 or an ATI intergrated but it was hopeless, the only option I had is x3100 or GMA 950 and I chose the nearly cheapest one.

 

Try googling 'yitch2'. I forgot the site's address, but the people in the site claimed that this config could give you nearly twice your current framerate.

 

any1 have the tweak setting for cod5 singleplayer?

 

did anyone encounter high cpu with igfxpers.exe/igfxsrvc.exe?

 

The same happened to my, on Vista x64. I had to disable intel related programs that were configured to run on startup. There is a thread in another forum dealing with this problem, i can't post the url, but if you google "igfxsrvc.exe using 50% CPU" you'll find it.


About COD performance. I tried Unreal596 config in cod4 and it worked nice, but I changed some LOD related options because the grass was not fully rendered and it is unfair to player trying to hide while sniping. However, the performance in cod5 is worse than cod4 (i know it is the same engine, but the maps are more complex), and not very playable really. The same goes for yitch2 config. Does anyone have other performance tweaks for cod5?

 

What you did is basically what the forum i said suggest, and I did the same. However, in that forum the advice you not to use msconfig and use any other utility to disable the process, but I honestly don't know why.

I don't see any side effects of this workaround, but I would like to know what does igfxpers.exe exactly do and why it is failing. Any ideas??

 

Other dude at another forum did some research.
It turns out the culpret is not igfxsrvc.exe, but igfxpers.exe, started by an entry in the run key.

It seems that igfxsrvc.exe is an out of proc COM server, and igfxpers.exe is the client, and that igfxpers.exe keeps making COM calls at a high rate, probably an infinte loop.

So, my guess is that there a bug in igfxpers.exe, that makes him:
(1) not notice that igfxsrvc.exe already running
(2) think that it has been terminated, and needs to be re-launched.

Just speculation, buy might be true.
Anyway, im hoping that the problem will be treated with next release.

Cheers.

 

Anybody tried Left 4 Dead?

 

have you tried the demo?

 

Since it was written in Source engine (which run pretty good on x3100), may be it will be playable.

 

skipper_geffen: thanks for your answer, it makes a lot of sense. I too hope this will be solved in future releases of the driver.

I tried Left 4 dead and the performance is quite disappointing. It lags at 640x480 and all low. However I think that maybe there is a bug in the game or, more likely, in the x3100 drivers. The reason I think this is that the game only lags when there are teammates in the screen (or their blue silhouette when they are hidden) and not when there are zombies. It may be a problem in my notebook or in Vista's drivers, so if anybody test the game I would like to know if you experience the same problem I do.

 

I don't think so. I tried the game as well, and yes, it was really laggy. But the problem lies with there being too many zombies that need to be rendered on the screen. The X3100 just doesn't have that kind of processing power.

 

New drivers are out, 15.12 and 14.37. These are new feature drivers. I haven't seen the release notes but some fixes of note are 24p stuttering being fixed(the bug lasted ever since G965 came out in June 2006) which are important for HTPC systems.

 

Hey, I downloaded the last vista drivers for x3100 (X86), but I am not able to install them. my computer says, that I am not able to install the drivers and I should contact the laptop manufacturer. is there a way to get around this? I couldnt find any solution for this here.... :-/
thanks

 

I just checked intel's site...i dont see 15.12...i still see 15.11.4. Where did you download from?

 

You need to download the desktop version.

 

Huh? Why would I have to do that? I still dont see a link for 15.2.

 

Maybe we're not experiencing the same problem, but in my pc the problem is cleary related to the teammates being rendering on screen. Sure, my pc lags when there are many zombies at screen too, but it lags much more when there are only my teammates on screen than when there are 10+ zombies and no teammates.

However, i found a solution to the problem. Adding two DWORDS named ~left4dead.exe and _left4dead.exe, both with haxegesimal value 1, in "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Class\{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0000" (using regedit) improved the performance a lot and, in my opinion, makes the game playable. I don't know for sure that the class is the same for every pc (specially the number between brackets), but you can find it by searching "~3DMark03.exe". The class contains names of programs and games like all 3Dmarks, cod2 single player and multiplayer, etc.

What this do is to force the x3100 to run the game using software vertex shader, thus freeing the gpu power to do the pixel shader. It improves performance for some games, and it makes things worse for others. Thats why some games come preconfigurated to work in this way.

 

Hi, I have been monitoring this forum for a while and decided to create a new account. So I have a question, which driver version did you guys used to play games like Call of Duty 4 and Half Life 2?? The last time I downloaded the latest driver it barely ran any faster for my newer games, and it even ran slower for Warcraft 3 and I get this flashing screen every minute... Please help!!!!

 

But what about real games performance?

 

I've never seen any performance update since I bought this laptop (beginning of 2008) although I update driver every time it's out, the only advantages of updating driver for the x3100 is some games become playable(if you dont upgrade these game will get some graphic glitch like losing texture) like Age of mythology, Mafia...,
But with some games become playable, some games become totally unplayable like warcraft III or having graphic glitch like GTA:SA...

 

I see. Well, I haven't done that hack in a while, and if that solves the problem, that's great. Personally, for me, it was lagging all the time, with 10 or less consistently, and I'm not about to redownload it to try again. I've given up on super modern gaming, just going to stick to my blizzard titles starcraft/warcraft/wow

 

I just want to give some links, since not everybody found the drivers:

The 24Hz output support is confirmed here:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=15170296#post15170296
However there are still some glitches if you continue to read that thread.

The drivers itself are not yet found in the generic chipset download section, but the desktop board (e.g. DG45FC) section:
XP 14.37.0.5009 dated 11/16/2008
Vista 15.12.0.1599 dated 11/24/2008
Vista 64-Bit 15.12.64.1599 dated 11/24/2008

 

Sorry, missed the last Post...

 

Talking about blizzard games, and wc3 in particular, I'm curious what are the stable drivers for the game. I know in XP 14.33 was crash-free, but I can't seem to find such a driver for vista, which is constantly giving me a memory error which im sure is a driver issue.

Anyone with experience know which driver i need?

 

got GTA IV running good on my desktop computer.. & ima give it a try on my laptop for the hell of it tonight.. will let u no if it runs or not... doubt it will but doesn't hurt to try....

 

I was just wondering... on my laptop, a Toshiba L-300, installing driver versions beyond 15.9 for Vista Home basic caused my windows experience index rating to go down from 3.1 to 2.7.

Anyone else had the experience?

 

That said... I just updated to 14.37. And now, WC3 crashes .
I tried to go back to 14.36, and it still crashes, unbelievable.

 

any1 tried gta IV on x3100?

 

Seems like Unreal will test that monster out on x3100, but I'd doubt it will be playable also (I think the game can still start)

 

If you set it to software T&L/VS mode the game should run fine. Otherwise it'll crash regardless of the driver.

 

yeah its not playable at all.... like 3 FPS... i even forced it to 320x240 & didn't make much of a difference at all... & i did all the command lines too... so it was running @ the lowest settings possible...

Solid 3 FPS
800x600
Both Low & everything else 1 or 0

Code:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqURLK2XejY

 

So before i got banned i was supposed to test mount and blade on the x3100, anyway i didnt make it in time but now am back and it runs quite well in DX 7. I get average 20-30 FPS on the battlefield depening on how many solderis running around