Please help ATI Mobility xpress 200m

Ok here is my current laptop configuration any input would be really appreciated

Hp presario 5030ea notebook
Amd turion 64 1.8ghz proccessor
I upgraded to 1gb of ram
ATI Mobility Radeon Xpress 200m
Microsoft Xp Home edition/Ubuntu linux (dual boot)

The problem is that i can never get any decent frame rates on any game
I played world of warcraft for a while my system specs were well above the
recomended specs so i thaught i could play it but i got 14-20 fps same in counter strike source and half life 2 terrible frame rates i can even set all the settings to there highest and i get a very small drop in frame rates 12-17 fps which isent much when you go from the lower graphics to highest graphics settings.

I have upgraded literealy every driver i can think on my computer and still no effect i have seen people with the same graphics card and less ram gettin much higher frames then me and on 3dmark i seem to be the lowest out of all the systems that are the same as me.

Another thing that bothers me is that when i check the easy infor from battle field 2 it tells me my graphics cards is 256 but dx diag says its 128 and i have dedicated 128 to it in the bios also changing the ram dedicated to it in the bios and checking it in dxdiag to see it has been lowered produces no diffrence in perfomance.

Finally a friend baught a hp pavlion laptop all the stats are the same as mine exept the processor is an athalon and 2.2 ghz the graphics card is the same his dx diag reports that he has the same graphical ram as me but his system ram is the full 1gb as if his card isent taking any but my ram is 894 showing that the graphics card is taking the ram.

Is my graphics card 128 all shared as dxdiag says or is it 256 shared and dedicated as EA easy info says? and if so shoulnt a dedicated card get better frame rates then 14-20 on games like counter strike source and world of warcraft? I have looked though several threads that talk about this and i cant make heads or tails i am still confused has my card got dedicated ram if so how can i turn off all the shared so i have my full 1 gb of ram for the system?

 

my mistake, i now know what dual booting is.

Try updating your graphics drivers as well and make sure you settings are set to maximum performance rather than maximum battery life.

Lower the settings and look through this thread:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=26318

Make sure to turn off all Anti-Aliasing as that can cause a big hit to performance.

http://www.tweakguides.com/

 

Ok i only installed ubunt there yesterday to try somehtin new the problems have bad perfomance have been plauging me for some time the drivers are all up to date and i have set all the settings to perofmance over battery and on the graphics card i set it all to perfomance over quality i think i already turned of the anti alieasing but i will check the links you posted and get post back any results thanks

 

yeah i have been browsing that thread for the last hour its massive but nothign really answers me questions most of them have better perofmance than i am getting and thats whats got me concerned why is mine performing the worst

 

just, clean install xp and nothing else, and download drivers. but your computer sux no offence

 

His computer does not "suck".

It is perfectly capable and should run HL2, CSS, and WoW fine.

I would suggest backing up and doing a complete clean win xp install wit the latest drivers.

 

Giving the X200M more shared memory doesn't do anything for it; if you have the 128MB dedicated version then I would not worry about giving it more memory.

For updating drivers, follow our Driver Update Guide:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=64910

 

Rubbish.

I don't think he has the dedicated version, since he wouldn't have the option of changing the shared memory amount in the BIOS if he did. Regardless, Chaz is right - the X200M can't do much with extra memory as it simply lacks the raw horsepower. The reason you're getting different results is because dxdiag isn't fooled by HyperMemory. Might sound off, but have you tried disabling it in order to let your system have that extra 128MB instead of the poor overworked X200M?

Disclaimer: I haven't been tweaking around with an X200M in ages - the wife has my old notebook, and she wouldn't appreciate me borrowing it in the middle of finals to monkey around with now. YMMV on results.

 

hmm ok the clean install makes no diffrence i downloaded the latest drivers from the apporiate sites for my hardware and did a clean install last night using the tweak guide to intsall the graphics card and options still no effect terrible frame rates !! i mean i get 14-20 fps on de_dust2 on css and that is what i get on world of warcraft and on halflife 2 but yet i can play battle field 2 on the comp at lowest settings with a decent draw distance? if i can only get to say 25-30 fps on the source games i would be happy! how do i disable the hypermemory i will give that a try i can always fix any major problems that arise i have the option to lower it to 32 mbs of ram in the bios so i will do that let the system have the extra ram. Any general idea of how to turn it off and i can work around with it. As for the dual booting comment i have no idea why a second operating system has anything to do with this problem its even on an external drive it only affects my comp when it runs ! not like its in the background hoarding resources!

Oh and i know my laptop sucks its 2 years old but im a student and cant afford to by a new comp! Meh its not like i want to run oblivion or anything all i want is a decent 30fps on WoW and Source games! I rebuilt my aunts laptop there two days ago and she has a radeon mobility 9600 graphics card 64mb and her ram is 512 she has an athalon xp-m and her comp got an amzing 70 -80 fps on counterstrike source on all default settings now im no expert but that is a little wierd seing as her laptop is a targa visonary and is more then 2 years old?

 

the 9600 is a bit more powerful than the x200m.

make sure HDR is off.

 

Could you post a screenshot of your settings?

You should definitely be able to run CS:S and WoW on acceptable settings.

 

Let's take this a step at a time.

Framerates
First of all, the framerates you're getting seem to be normal for an X200M with no dedicated memory. Sorry, but I'm pretty sure that's what you've got. If you want higher FPS, you're going to have to lower the detail settings.

I suggest you download and run some of the 3DMark suites from the Futuremark website - 3DMark2001 and 3DMark03. They're older, but so is your laptop - the newer '05 and '06 tests won't get you any results other than "Slideshow." Run the benchmarks at default settings and post back here so we can see if you're within the normal range for your system.

Memory Allocation
Either turn down the dedicated memory or turn off HyperMemory, but not both! That will really leave the poor thing starved.

Aunt's Laptop vs Yours
If your aunt's is getting ~60fps, and you're getting ~20 at the same settings, I don't think we're getting an apples-to-apples comparison here. Either that, or you're missing a very critical driver on your current laptop.

 

Yeah HDR is off i have lowered the shared ram to 32 and the exact same preformance i get ! Also i have set the games to run in direct x 8.1 supposedly that can improve frame rates but to no effect. In catalyst i have an option intergrated graphics card Uma frame buffer and it gose from 16 to 256 mb but when i click apply it just reverst to the previous one i which is currently 32 as i set my bios to share 32mb A question if i get say another gb of ram instead of teh gig i have in it now and get higher latentcy will that make the card perform faster?

 

Ok i will go run css and take screen shots of my settings and my frame rates
also i can tell you now that i have turned down the ram i have no idea about the hypermemory even if it uses it it is curently using UMA mode and i see no way to change that i have run 3dmark 06 and got 124 i ran 3dmark 03 and got 785
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=5243049 i think i published it that is the link when i first performed the 06 test a comparison came up and the guy had everything the same as me except for a driver and 512 ram but he got double my frame frat (a terible .4 somethin i belive but hey it was 06) when i first got the results from 03 i saw that i am at the lowest end of the scale

 

Ok here is a pic of my settings in css and a pic of in game
one comment my aunts laptop was rrunning at relativly high settings mine was on the lowest settings







I hope those images load i dont know of anywere to upload images

 

Those numbers are way below what you should be getting.
Check the Catalyst Control Center, under the "PowerPlay" tab. Make sure that the video card is set for "Max Performance" and re-run the fillrate tests in 3DMark03.

Also, did you try updating the video drivers following the instructions posted by Chaz here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=64910

Make sure to pay attention to the note for integrated graphics users.

Stick with us, we'll get you sorted out!

Images are working fine for me. I don't think he can switch off colour correction as it's greyed out - isn't that shader-dependant?

 

Can you disable Color Correction? It's worthless and degrades performance. And put the settings back to default (indicated by the *).

 

at default the game runs so much slower its not funny all the default settings say HIGH! powerplay is set to performance as is all the settings i know off! I have reinstalled the drivers several times they are updated dxdiag reports this and so dose device manager under display device i will retry with the method you suggest in the post i will set all the settings back to standard and reinstate dx9 and retake those screenshots you will see the diff lol! If you can get this sorted i will be ever grateful i have unistalled 3dmark 03 i will reinstall it asap and re run the fill rate tests so is there something wrong with them?? should i reset the bios to give the card 128 or leave it at 32 for the moment?

 

Umm ok just re reading the post quickly on the intergrated drivers i have had no such problems all my drivers installed correctly and are fully up to date should i still go through what he suggests?

 

No i am unable to disable colour correction i am reverting all my settings in steam to default the dirct x 9 and all teh defalut * settins will post results in about 20 mins

 

Yes - fillrate should be roughly (Core speed x Pipelines) x Textures for the multitexture rate - in your case, that would be (300 x 2 x 1) or about 600. While your multitexture fillrate is within the margin of error, your single-texture fillrate is terrible.

Bump it back up to 128MB, the card is the bottleneck right now, not system memory. That can get tweaked later.

 

Ok here are the pics set everything in steam to default i was able to disable colour correction





I have never tried those omega drivers so im going to install them now and reboot and bump the shared back to 128

 

Ypou could try reducing the detail levels?

 

Hmm i cant find my 3dmark 03 i will have to re downlaod that it will take a while as for the omega i bumped the ram bback up to 128 and have succesfully installed the omega drivers i tryed css again with the same settings as the previous post pretty much the same

 

lol Pop yourself back a few posts ! see the settings were all set to minimum for a very VERY !small increase in frame rate

 

Ok i have rerun the 3d mark 03 again here is the result http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=5294187
They are actually slightly worse again?

 

What is the core of your x200 running at? I take it you've already checked that - just in case by some reason the manufacturer has severely underclocked it...

 

Its running at 300mhz at the moment i checked it with ATI tool

 

Hmm ok so the fillrate is the problem is there anyway to fix that or any tweaks to improve it cuase i reallly would like a decent frame rate in some games!

 

The only hardware explanation other than an underclocked core I can think of is a bad pipeline, but that would be showing as checkerboard artifacts, and you sure wouldn't be getting 600MTexels in the multitexture fillrate test either.

It's got to be software. Someone help me (and poor Bob here!) out - think of other tests that he can run to validate that the core clock isn't pooched.

 

For Counter-Strike: Source, I'd suggest running the game in DirectX 7 mode so it's playable. Do a Live.com or Google.com search for that, it's pretty easy to do.

 

Not really positive on what the problem could be, But with my x200m I could run cs with never any lag and going from 30 - 40 fps. And I only have 512 Ram. So my biggest guess Is to take it it to where you bought it or send it to the manufacturer otherwise there might be other options I dont kno about.

 

Hmm i tried runnin in direct x7 its nasty lookin and runs only a little bit better 25 fps i dont think i can bring it back must be out of warntee by now im in ireland so sending back to manafacturer is a lot of hastle could the type of ram be affecting the performance i really know nothing about fill rates! Is there any tests i can perform to get more of an idea and also artifacts what are they? how can i check for them?

 

*Bump* Im guessing this means people have given up and there is no way to fix this problem just like to thank all those who have tried i will endavour to resolve this myself and post back anything that i find that may help