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

I just overclocked my FSB from 200mhz to 230mhz and I more than doubled my score on 3dmark05.
I know that 3dmark05 isn't the best way to test performence but it does indicate a very nice performence boost from such a moderate overclock.

screenshot here:
http://s896.photobucket.com/albums/ac167/moral_HaZaRd/x3100/

also if you wan't to see how I overclocked it, here is a link:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=393027

You can see from that thread, I have been able to overclock past a 250mhz FSB, but my temps reach 90C which isn't so good. I will undervolt a bit and then run 3dmark05 again with the 250mhz FSB and post the results here.
I think I will get a score close to the 4500MHD.

 

(I hate writing this again, I will make it brief this time...)

Here is x3100 vista driver (32bit)
Version: 15.13.3.1787

This is modified driver from intel 4 series ,so use it at your own risk.

Links:
http://www.fileducky.com/cbkaTiBw/
http://www.rapidspread.com/file.jsp?id=dzrr6vdd4q
http://www.uploadjockey.com/download/3985694/GFX_Vista32_15.13.3.1787_PV_Intel.rar




Benchmarks:
I noticed some increment in performance and decreasing in others, but after all the increasing average was more with this driver than what I test. So check your game before and after using this driver.

I can tell you that you might get from 4% to 18% increasing than your old driver, but in real life you might not notice it.

*note: I tested windows 7 drivers on vista ,but the performance was so bad, thats why I didn't upload it here
**Windows will warn you about unsigned driver, Install it anyway and reboot.

 

ok I have more results after overclocking from a 200mhz fsb to a 230mhz fsb.
the graphics bandwidth shown by using winsat dwm;
originally 2163.2 MB/s
overclocked 2488.64 MB/s

I have attached some screenshots of my new WEI.

 

Nice, but do you realize that windows experience isn't a benchmark?

Also , Could you test the driver I posted here?

 

yes I know WEI isn't a benchmark, I was just doing that for the winsat graphics bandwidth.

sure I will test your driver now, give me a few mins.

 

Thanks, I will be waiting to hear from you

 

ok, i instlled it.

I tried to run WEI but it didn't finish so I can't give you the bandwidth.
I did run DMC4, and I have attached the results with your driver compared to my original one.

 

Thank you for the time you spend, The pictures aren't clear but according to what I can see the old driver looks faster then this one. I suggest you to use your old driver


Anyway I wanted to see the results of anyone with better laptop than mine. (Most of benchmarks I found where from better laptops and lower benchmark than mine)


My benchmark if I remember was like 2x more in aquamark 3 ( http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=673 ) In case you feel interested in it

 

Frx - many thanks for posting this driver.

I tested it and my Win7RC WEI went from 2.9 to 3.1, win 'winsat dwm' reporting a noticeable increase in video transfer performance shown in the [email protected] section here. 3D gaming performance went from 4.9 to 3.1, though I can't see how X3100 could ever have 4.9 level performance, so always thought that was a joke number to begin with.

Are you suggesting there is a native Win7 driver that could be tested instead? X3100 users till now have only had the delivered Win7 driver, which leaves big black bars on the sides, and the Vista drivers. I'd prefer a proper wdm1.1 Win7 X3100 Intel driver.

How did you mod the series 4 driver to have it work with X3100?

 

First, about the drivers I obtain them from http://downloadcenter.intel.com then selecting "Intel® 4 Series Chipset Boards" drivers. The same way as ATI/nVidia keep dropping the support of older hardware the same intel did (Selling strategy?).

----------------------
I did the mod for you:
Driver version: 15.15.0.1808 (32bit - Windows 7 *Also works on Vista*)
Links:
http://www.fileducky.com/BuOzEMst/
http://www.rapidspread.com/file.jsp?id=oyucjgotqj
----------------------
Anyway after you obtain the latest driver you get to extract the files from the setup (winrar will do it). After that, go and edit a file called "igdlh.ini"
From here you can go to the long way (editing and adding each part of to include a reference to your own hardware) OR just edit it to fits your PCI ID.

Go to the [Intel.Mfg] and change %iCNTG0% its value into iCNT0, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2A02 ------------- (2A02 refers to your PCI ID *Mine in this case* -- You can obtain this from device manager)


Here the changes you need to do for x3100

from:

Code:

%iCNTG0% = iCNT0, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2A42
%iCNTG1% = iCNT1, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2A43
%iEGLG0% = iEGL0, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2E02
%iEGLG1% = iEGL1, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2E03

To:

Code:

%iCNTG0% = iCNT0, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2A02
%iCNTG1% = iCNT1, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2A03
%iEGLG0% = iEGL0, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2A12
%iEGLG1% = iEGL1, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2A13

you can at this point stop, but I found in my laptop the performance gets bad unless you change these (In our example you should apply this):

Code:

[iCNT0.GeneralConfigData]
MaximumNumberOfDevices = 2
MaximumDeviceMemoryConfiguration = 512

[iCNT1.GeneralConfigData]
MaximumNumberOfDevices = 2
MaximumDeviceMemoryConfiguration = 512

[iEGL0.GeneralConfigData]
MaximumNumberOfDevices = 2
MaximumDeviceMemoryConfiguration = 512

[iEGL1.GeneralConfigData]
MaximumNumberOfDevices = 2
MaximumDeviceMemoryConfiguration = 512

To:

Code:

[iCNT0.GeneralConfigData]
MaximumNumberOfDevices = 2
MaximumDeviceMemoryConfiguration = 256

[iCNT1.GeneralConfigData]
MaximumNumberOfDevices = 2
MaximumDeviceMemoryConfiguration = 256

[iEGL0.GeneralConfigData]
MaximumNumberOfDevices = 2
MaximumDeviceMemoryConfiguration = 256

[iEGL1.GeneralConfigData]
MaximumNumberOfDevices = 2
MaximumDeviceMemoryConfiguration = 256

After we set the RAM we are done, you can play with this .ini into enabling /disabling features or naming your hardware (I left them as it is)

This might not be the best tutorial ,but I hope it is useful
Enjoy

 

Frx - thank you once again. While the modded series 4 Vista driver works fine, the modded Win7 series 4 has bits that work and other bits that don't. Aero doesn't work (it flashes the desktop on/off), WEI won't run to completion. It looks like it falls over DX10 features. A DX9 game works, but has the same black bars as the native Win7 X3100 driver. Though the Win7 series 4 driver does include some TV Wizard to setup Clearvideo with TV signal attached, something I haven't seen before. I've now disabled the driver and reverted back to the Win7 driver.

Was there anything I was supposed to do with the provided modded file?

 

I excepted some problems with win7 driver. as I am only having an access to Windows server 2008 (Vista core) and Linux (Arch), so I cant test Win7 stuff.

But you know what? you could compare the original windows 7 with the modded and try to fit what is necessary. (Search for "igdlh.ini" in C://Windows) and if you could upload the file here it will be good for all of us (hopefully).


*note: you might find more than one igdlh.ini (3 actually) one would be for modded win7 driver the other one for vista and last one is the original one

 

OK, here's the latest Win7 igdlh.ini supplied by Microsoft's X3100 driver, identified as "Mobile Intel(R) 965 Express Chipset Family (Microsoft Corporation - Prerelease WDDM 1.1)".

Win7RC1 X3100 DriverVer=05/06/2009,8.15.10.1749 (108kb)

I tried to just copy this into the 8.5.10.1808 series 4 drivers supplied above by Frx, but that didn't even boot. Definitely requires massaging the two igdlh.inf files from both versions.

 

Thanks for the file. I might end up rewriting most parts of the igdlh.ini when I have the time (Today probably). If I succeeded I will post the driver

By the way in 1808 the structure of writing igdlh.ini looks like it been changed this might be the answer why it didn't work.

 

I have installed the latest intel driver and have done some tests in DMC4.
here are the results.

with all settings lowest:
scene1 = 21.07
scene2 = 20.21
scene3 = 23.35
scene4 = 18.88

with all settings high but not highest, resolution at 1280 x 800:
scene1 = 4.49
scene2 = 3.85
scene3 = 6.42
scene4 = 4.10

with all settings high but not highest, resolution at 1280 x 800 and overclocked fsb to 230mhz:
scene1 = 5.26
scene2 = 4.15
scene3 = 6.94
scene4 = 3.91

now with settings lowest but resolution at 1280x800 and overclocked:
scene1 = 11.36
scene2 = 10.15
scene3 = 13.57
scene4 = 9.00

now all settings lowest but overclocked:
scene1 = 24.30
scene2 = 23.24
scene3 = 30.00
scene4 = 14.07

so there are some strange results that show how little the improvement was from overclocking. I was expecting a lot better than that.

 

so wait are we saying the x3100 does not hardly run in windows 7? if so that sucks i have a office full of slightly older systems with the x3100 that run everything they have to just fine. i did want to upgrade these to win 7 though now i am seriously hoping someone gets a good working driver without bar issues working so i can use win 7 and still have aero as it works now... any thoughts? i have not tested it yet is the reason im wondering. im holding off until the official release so i dont mess with these more than once

 

Have you tried a faster PCI-E clock set as well? Default=100Mhz, could try say 108Mhz. On my system wifi starts randomly disconnect at 109Mhz. Not sure if that will/won't make a difference but worth finding out.

Comment about black bars. DirectX games using the Win7 X3100 seem to ignore widescreen mode and give black bars on the sides, since there is no rendered data. Not a problem with the Vista 32-bit drivers.. they work fine.

I have a Aero Desktop score at 2.9-3.1, due to single-channel config, which I would say is only just good enough to run Aero. This is due to a single-channel RAM config. Disabling Aero in Win7 gives XP-like snappiness in scrollbars, menu redraws, etc. Win7 otherwise boots up very quickly and is a pleasure to use, with or without Aero.

You can run install Vista Upgrade Advisor on an XP system and run it's 'winsat dwm'. The FPS value is ~10 times the Aero Desktop score so you'd see how your system would work with Aero. winsat already comes installed with Vista if that's what you have. If you have only 1 RAM module, consider adding another for faster performance. A previous post showing single-channel RAM config gives 65% of the performance of a dual-channel setup.

 

for xp driver the file to modify is "igxp32.inf" but no time to try and bench. ciao

 

Here is the new version - 15.15.0.1808m (modified), I decided this time to leave 2 places in igdlh.inf so if you want to tweak it search for the word "tweak". This driver didn't work with me (Windows 2008/Vista), So I assume it will work fine under win7. From what I can see if this driver worked fine the main advantage would be the support of openGL.

Anyway Good luck and as usual use it at your own risk

Links:
http://www.fileducky.com/GsieBMuR/
http://www.rapidspread.com/file.jsp?id=ttc88ozlyt

 

This is great. Though before I download and test, is there any chance of just uploading the modified igdlh.inf file that can be copied into the previous set? Saves another 21MB download.

 

@nando4: Good you didn't download it.
Anyway it will saves me the time of reuploading, so I only uploaded the .inf part this time

@Everyone else
I fixed the part in igdlh.inf which prevented it from being installed in win2008/vista -- So if anyone wants it please download from here

Links:
http://www.fileducky.com/eeHNzpxC/
http://www.rapidspread.com/file.jsp?id=hny3wdlnof
http://www.filebam.com/download/113026-61a292/igdlh.rar



There are 2 files inside (igdlh-win7.inf (The one that didn't work under win2008/vista) and igdlh-VistaFix.inf) rename whatever you picked to igdlh.inf and replace it. If you feel having more time then try both of them.

 

Frx - thank you for modding the series 4 drivers. Unfortunately I have been unable to get the Win7 specific drivers to work reliably. My system boots up with multicolored squares/flashing, systemtray complaining about the driver being reset such that I had to uninstall the driver in Safe mode, reverting back to the Vista driver. I can't go back to the default X3100 Win7 driver either, possibly some leftover incompatible registry setting.

If anyone else gets the series4 drivers to work in Win7, successfully performing a WEI benchmark, please report your results. I might be seeing a system specific issue, requiring a clean out.

 

I am not sure if you tried the driver with igdlh-VistaFix.inf, it might work better (Also you might want to try to tweak it ,because it have many options to mange the device). Anyway in order to get your old driver (that included with win7), First bring your Win7 DVD then just go to device manger or any other methods you like and click on the device (GM965) and click on update the driver. From here go and select a driver and pick igdlh.inf that you provided us with (The original Win7 igdlh.inf) after selecting it will ask you to insert the DVD.

Hopes this help.

Just to give you more hope, in Linux we are going to have a better way of handling Intel GFX cards (hopefully) , so we can except a better performance than win7 drivers.

 

Street Fighter IV Runs very playable on the x3100, i tested on Windows 7, but have a funny feeling its gunna run much better on XP. So ill give that a try tomorrow.

 

Can somebody post a link to the latest Mobile Express 4 drivers? I am only seeing the ones from April in the official page.

 

has anyone posted a list of games which actually work playably on the x3100? (in this or another thread) obviously i mean popular games from the last 5 years, not 15 year old 2d side scrollers....

 

Games Playable on X3100

 

Hi everyone, I just noticed something I though of sharing it.
Have anyone noticed a gain in performance when you install x3100 driver without rebooting?

I mean as with me I am using this driver http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5020310&postcount=1752 and I reinstall it (without rebooting). When I check my benchmark I can notice a noticeable change

from winsat dwm before reinstalling I get near 1700 MB/s ,but after reinstalling (Without rebooting) I get near 2200 MB/s which is 30% more. However , Restarting my laptop will cause it to come back at 1700 MB/s.

Days back, I tried reinstalling many modded drivers without restarting ,and I noticed x3100 was using near 447MB of RAM (Mine should be only limited to 252MB)


So, Has anyone noticed that? Or probably can confirm it?

 

Sorry if I'm out on the loop, but I don't see this in the last 3~4 pages in the thread.

On the Intel website, there are actually Windows 7 Downloads for the X3100.
Sadly, it's dated as version 15.12.75, so I dont know if anything has changed

 

Intel has official Win7 X3100 drivers, the 32-bit drivers downloadable here.

 

do these drivers have the "black bars" screen resolution problem? and what is performance like (roughly) ?

 

win7 Intel X3100 drivers have black bars.
Vista X3100 drivers = no black bars

'winsat dwm' returning same values as original Win7 driver, ie: less than XP.

Both the Vista and Win7 modded series 4 drivers give me better values but I get colored/flashing screen with Win7 driver regardless of using the vista or win7 inf file provided by frx.

Hmm..

 

I installed oficial Win7 Drivers (X3100) and they have *exactly* the same problems as the default Win7 Driver: most games do not recognize DirectX capabilities and memory. They present as the only available resolution a 640x480 4:3 resolution.

I will revert to Vista drivers (never had problems).

PS: does anyone knows why on Windows 7 build 7100 or newer my LCD does not turn off? (when I say windows to turn off the LCD after X minutes it doesn´t turn off, it flashes and stays ON. I also used a program that "forces" the LCD to turn off but it does the same, flashes. This seems to occur to several people with GM965 X3100 and Win7 Build 7100+). With Win7 build 7000 it worked fine.

 

Still no one confirmed this? It wont take more than 3 mins (If it takes more don't sue me )

By the way, I tried latest win7 driver for x3100. From what I can see, Its having less features and no support for directx10.1 (as with newest driver for 4 series) and no improvement (noticeable) in all ,Also the openGL support didn't get any major improvement like 4 series driver had. On vista, the benchmark showed me decreased in performance. After all, this driver was meant to be for Win7 not Vista so we cant judge how good win7 driver would be for x3100

 

I can confirm - the modded series-4 Vista driver you provided here is the better performer than the Win7 driver. winsat dwm tells me: Vista driver gives me 1950MB/s, Win7 driver gives me 1550MB/s. It *feels* faster too. I've enabled Aero.

I wish the modded series-4 Win7 driver worked properly. I was able to get some winsat dwm benchmarks with colored screen and found it performed like the Vista driver. Arhhh... need to integrated those two together to get excellent performance.

In the interim back to the modded series-4 Vista driver. No black bars with games either.

 

Thanks for confirming it ,but I think I didn't explain what actually want you to confirm.

you are using driver version 7.15.10.1787 right? Just reinstall the same version (7.15.10.1787) again. The driver will ask you to restart you computer click on Don't restart. Take a benchmark now and you will notice it became faster (If you restarted/rebooted it will back to normal so don't)

I can assume you will get in this way 2476 MB/s


(Just late , can't explain much) Have to goo!

 

I tried the above, but get the same results under Win7. Though there is some peculiarity on my system. If I bootup running on AC, I'll get winsat dwm of 1790MB/s. Running on battery gives a value of 1900MB/s. Connecting on AC sees the value decrease again.

IN any case, WEI won't run without being plugged in, so I assume it's timer is somehow tied to the power source. So I am seeing better results of 1790MB/s with your modded 4-series Vista driver, which I am now running. versus Win7 X3100 driver of 1500MB/s.

 

Oh well , Sorry for all the troubles and all the time you spend on testing it. I though someone might get the same results as me which was going to be helpful in few games (2~3 FPS To 10 FPS on some games)

Anyway, Thanks again

 

At least I'm convinced now that "winsat dwm" produces at least a somewhat meaningful number and not a pure synthetic one:

http://technet.microsoft.com/library/cc742140(WS.10).aspx

The winsat dwm bandwith should be proportional to Aero performance: e.g. smooth, judderfree display of dragging windows. I notice X3100 gets a big performance hit if you use extended desktop on two displays. I used 1920 x 1200 + 1280 x 800, which makes a big difference in single channel mode.

 

Found a new Windows 7 driver, which has explicit GM965 (X3100) support and has production version status:

. Win7 32-Bit v15.12.75.1825 dated 06/22/2009 ( Download)
. Win7 64-Bit v15.12.75.64.1825 dated 06/22/2009 ( Download)

It even works on older cores such as GMA 950 and GMA 3000. And its version string suggests it's a branch of the v15.12.x release.

 

New? These are the ones who already been posted here no? I´ve installed them several days ago and games do not detect x3100 DX capabilities so I´m stuck on 640x480 resolution (on games) or not be able to run them at all.

Vista drivers are flawless on Windows 7.

Intel graphics? Only if they are stuck on an Apple machine with Apple-modded drivers. I may have to pay a little more for an nVidia/AMD graphics chip but at least I will have great software support and overclocking capabilites, not to mention waaay faster graphics out of the box.

It would be nice to have a video comparing a "ION platform" vs. "Core 2 Duo + x4500 platform" on a 1080p video and a game running at 1280x800

 

You're right. I must have overseen this posting:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5033417#post5033417

And even with release notes.

 

I don't think I have the first problem you have ( I only play CS and Warcraft III) but I do notice that my LCD does not turn off.

 

I have just run 3dmark05 with my FSB at 240mhz.
I got 1087. compared to the score with an fsb of 230mhz which was 1048, you can see that overclocking the fsb has a limit to how much it can help the score.

Also I would test with an overclocked PCI bus but I can't get it passed 101.6mhz.

Edit: seems like my score is getting near the X4500 range.

 

I am not sure how you comparing your score to X4500 (or X4500 HD) , but you might want to check this http://snipurl.com/m5ih8 to see if you are correct

 

You are in the range of the Desktop X3000.

 

Does anyone know which test would be better for the X3100, 3dmark06 or 3dmark vantage?

 

Probably 3DMark 06.

 

notebookcheck liksts 3dmark06 values:

X3100 = 445
X4500 = 763

 

Here are the expected base scores for 3DMark with GMA 4500MHD. The scores with lower clocked chipsets(like GS45/GL40 for 4 series and GL960 for previous generation) will get correspondingly lower.

GMA 4500MHD
3DMark05: 1200-1500
3DMark06: 850-950

GMA X3100
3DMark05: 800-900
3DMark06: 500-600

If you are getting anything lower than those, its likely running the lower clocked GS45/GL40.