Mobile Radeon Xpress 200M problems

I seem to have a problem with my HP dv5116nr with a Mobile Radeon Xpress 200M IGP card. The specs are:

15.4 inch widescreen 1280x800 60Hz
Mobile Sempron 3300+ @ 2.0GHz
512 RAM
Mobile Radeon Xpress 200M IGP which takes 128MB of the system RAM for resources (making the effective system RAM 384 MB)
60GB hard drive etc. etc.

Now, this is my problem. Whenever I try to run older games, Half Life 1 (or any HL mod including CS 1.6), MOH: Allied Assault seem to LAG. They run at sub-par FPS Half Life and all mods at 40 FPS and below and occasionally skip from FPS lag. MOHAA will not push past 20 PFS even on the training mission. I have no anti-virus to worry about, I have only 21 processes going while on laptop and PowerNow! (cooln'quiet) disabled.

Now, I know that this is an integrated card, but this is insane. I remember running HL1 and MOHAA on a Geforce 2 MX400 32 or 64 MB and it was absolutely butter smooth on max settings. Which led me to deduce it was a driver problem. I first had the latest HP drivers and tried them, still lags. I have updated to the 6.4 catalyst mobility drivers (and yes this chipset is supported by them check the .ini file for proof) as I believe the 6.5's don't actually support the mobility xpress 200M. That didn't fix it. I tried renabling/disabling the Catalyst A.I. on all setting and still the same.

So, in comparision, just FYI, this laptop runs CS:S regular maps at about 21-25 FPS at mostly low setting 800x600 and on the aim_ag textures maps it runs at 60 FPS constant at same settings.

So I would like to ask everybody if they have a solution to this problem or have maybe run into it themselves? Thank you for your time.

P.S. I plan on writing a short review of the dv5116nr if they isn't one currently for this site, excellent laptop besides these few problems. And I got it booting to windows at under a minute w/ registry tweaks!

 

I suggest you to get OMEGA Drivers. Do not get the newer ones as they dont work. Get OMEGA Drivers version 3.8.231 That seems to give some umph

Oh yes , I do suggest you to overclock the graphics using PowerStrip [Get a lappie cooler before you do this] , overclock from 300Mhz to at least 350Mhz for its Clock Speed.I heard you could go up to 350Mhz

By the way , I suggest you to cut it down from 128MB VRAM to 64MB VRAM or 32MB VRAM , you will also notice higher fps. The graphics is aint that powerfulll....[I am using X200M] and I highly suggest you to set it to 64MB VRAM or 32MB VRAM. 128MB..It just can't take it

 

It is the speed of ur RAM that is causing the slowdown. Ur laptop only has DDR 333Mhz Pc2700 RAM.. I have a Toshiba with the x200 and i can run MOH Allied Assault on MAX settings and i only have a CeleronM 1.4 and 256RAM!!!AND i am only using 32mb of system memory for the x200!!
My RAM is very fast tho..(DDR2 533Mhz PC4200), which is likely to be helping me out ALOT. I am also jt using my original drivers which work beautifully.

 

What rubbish it has nothing to do with the speed of the ram, it's not like You are funding a highway and he is only on a small mainroad. Your ram will probablt give nothing more than 5-10 fps advantage...at max. A game as old as HL and CS should run without problems on a system like his.

I suggest You try a full reinstall if possible, and then use the Omegadrivers for Your 200m. It seems to be a deeper problem, and maybe You can find the solution after numerous trials. But the time to make a reinstall vs. the waiting time for an answer that works isn't worth the hours imho

 

The speed of the Ram has a major difference ESPECIALLY considering that the x200 relies totally on system ram when it has none of its own. If the laptop is fitted with inferior the performance will suffer. FACT.
And this has been seen in Real World perfrmance. A brand new Toshiba M50 with the same x200M as a brand new Toshiba A100, could barely play anyhting when the A100 performed very well. Both lapotops had identical specs (1.4 celeron M etc..) but the M50 had slow 333Mhz RAM while the A100 had faster 533Mhz Ram. The x200 was relying heavily on the speed of the RAM during gameplay and as a result the A100 far outperformed the M50!. Theres real world proof of what im telling is true as the ONLY difference between the laptops was the type of RAM fitted.

 

Fishy, keep your comments non-personal and appropriate to the forum please. I edited them out of your post so no one was offended.

RAM speed does make a difference, I agree. For some reason, most manufacturers (at least the mainstream brands) outfit their notebooks with DDR333 RAM when in fact DDR400 is supported and makes a signifigant difference, especially if the X200M you have uses all shared memory.

Keep in mind that you can only improve performance to a certain extent. The X200M is a limited card that will struggle with later games. Your system RAM is also low - only 512MB hurts performance. I suggest a minimum of 1GB for smooth gameplay.

Upgrading to Omega drivers is a good idea, they provide a measurable boost to performance.

 

I didn't say it wouldn't have an impact, but imho it seemed to me that Fishy placed all the difference in the ram. And even though it make a difference as I stated already I will at any time bet my right arm that HL 1 should run all but fine on his machine. I have played HL on a celeron 400 desktop with a onboard ATI and 256mb ram just fine. So I didn't disagree

 

I did not state it made all the difference either.

More RAM would be more of a benefit than faster memory

 

Then we agreed ^^

 

I share your pain.

I have Sempron 3000, 896 of free ram, and 128mb xpress 200.

I can run some games on ultra high - Battlefield 1942, Wolfenstein, Soldier of Fortune - and then some other games, despite the low requirements, won't perform at all.

Last night I installed Call of Duty and despite its requirements - 800mhz, 256mb ram, 32mb gfx, I'm getting literally 5-10 frames a second on outdoor sections.

I have the latest omega drivers....and the worst thing is I used to run the game on a Geforce 2 card years ago, on high settings.

Although- this might be worth asking you - is the game the same quality even on high settings? Because if I put Call of Duty - which uses the same engine as MoH btw - on the highest settings, it performs the exact same as it does on the lowest settings.

So its not the actual abilities of the card, just....something else, which for the life of me I cannot figure out.

But to be honest I feel better knowing someone else has this crazy problem too!!

thought it was just my laptop was borked...

 

And just for the record, everyone is correct about the ram - faster ram will yield better results, BUT, even with ddr 333 ram you (and me too) should be able to run these old games at high settings. I have a friend who is using an intel integrated card - which is alot worse then the xpress 200 - with pc2700 ram and hes running medal of honor on high settings no bothers.

I bought Medal Of Honor and all the expansions this afternoon and will post back when I know how they work on my xpress 200m system....

 

Tried Medal of Honor.

Only getting 20fps as well. Pathetic. The most ****in annoying thing is that I can run direct 3d games no problems. Its open gl games that are the problem .

Surely ATI have to be aware of this massive problem with the shared memory version of the x200????