*****The GMA X3100 gaming thread - HL2 screens + more*****

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the RS780 exclusively a desktop IGP for now?

 

Does anyone else notice little stuttering for like a minute on every game with the X3100?

 

AMD Puma with the Griffin CPU is the next generation mobile platform that features the RS780 derivative core. It'll be out sometime in April/May, which will look like its gonna compete with Intel's Montevina. The Puma platform is supposed to have the ability to turn off either the discrete/integrated graphics without having to restart the computer.

 

I posted this on another thread, but I'm not sure if anyone's able to answer it:

I want to run Rainbow Six Vegas on my intel GMA (my specs are listed below in my signature, I also have Windows Vista Ultimate 32 bit edition) but everytime I try to run it, the game hangs at the first frame (when you're in the helicopter) I have both dx 9 and 10 installed, and have the 15.7 driver release installed for the graphics card. Any suggestions? Thanks, and sorry if this is in the wrong thread.

 

Heya, I'm new too.

I just got a Toshiba Satellite Pro A200 which has a 1.66 GHz C2D, 2GB memory and a X3100 chip. I've only tried a handful of games, so here's my impressions of some key ones:

Urban Terror - a free FPS based on the Quake 3 engine. I've found that if I run it in 16-bit color, the frame rate is generally quite good at my preferred res of 1280x800. I prefer running games at this native res for reasons of sharpness - anything lower and the lines kinda blur. I possibly could run UrT at 1024x768 in 32-bit color, but 16-bit's not too bad.

Warsow - a free FPS based on a heavily-modified Quake 2 engine I believe. I tried the same trick as above, running it in 16-bit. It speeds things up, but the problem is any textures a few feet away from the player become heavily corrupted-looking, so it's basically pointless. 1024x768 at 32-bit's OK.

Tomb Raider Legend - anything higher than 800x600 is unplayable, and even that res is not entirely fun, but I don't want to go any lower cos Lara will look like crap.

Beyond the Red Line - graphical glitch in menus ( http://www.game-warden.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5537) which isn't that serious, cos the game itself looks fine. Can't seem to get it to run at a reasonable frame rate though.

Defcon - playable at 1280x800 at 16-bit. Also playable at 1024x768 with 32-bit, but once again I prefer the higher res if possible.

One other thing - I notice a fair amount of mouse lag in many of the listed games when running in 32-bit color. If there's an option to use 16-bit, I find the mouse lag significantly reduced or gone entirely.

So, those are my current observations. I know development of the drivers is still ongoing, and to be honest I'm surprised what this laptop can do at the price I bought it for. I know it's not designed for gaming, so any surprises are welcome.

 

i loaded up Blade of Darkness for the first time and the problem is that textures dont know when they are behind each other, for example a guy sitting behind a table will be in front of it, aka textures dont know what order they should be in, kind of hard to explain but you can see people through walls...anyone have this problem? remedies? im using d3d renderer

edit: i also cant see the intro movie, only hear it

edit2: the game runs fine on my desktop

 

It's called "Z-Buffering" anarky321. Sounds like the drivers have got a few bugs in the Z-buffering code, so certain objects/textures are being rendered in the wrong place. I've seen other graphical glitches so this doesn't surprise me.

 

yes z-buffering, anyways i tried changing depth buffer from 24 bit to 16 bit in display options, didnt make a difference

i just basically want to know if others have the problem because im using a shady .exe i thought maybe its because of that

 

Hey GFree I'm using Fedora 8 have you got Desktop Effects enabled with your Ubuntu OOTB? My laptop is a HP Compaq 6720s with a Celeron M 540 I'm attempting to upgrade to a Core 2 Duo T5250 when it arrives probably Tuesday or Wednesday. It's a big risk because there's no guarantee that the C2D will work anyway I get pretty poor performance 15-30 fps with Nexuiz and Urban Terror on multiplayer and near enough lowest settings lol. Anyway the Core 2 Duo should increase that performance considerably. Plus Intel have just released documents on the GM965 and Q35 IGP so now people can develop some really decent drivers !

 

Eh... I'm actually Microsoft scum, using Vista.

I figure the graphics drivers tend to get updated more often in Windows than they might in Linux. I did install Ubuntu Gutsy as well and yeah, Compiz Fusion (ie. Desktop Effects) doesn't normally get enabled because the chipset is blacklisted. It's got some incompatibilities with a couple of Compiz Fusion features; for example, you won't be able to play any video using the "xv" renderer if enabled, so you have to change to something else or disable desktop effects entirely. They say eventually things will be fully supported, but for now, I just bypassed the blacklist. Most things still work fine.

So, if you want Desktop Effects, do this, it should work in Fedora 8 too:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=3803403&postcount=2

Urban Terror seems to run a touch better in Vista actually, but that's probably due to me running the latest drivers. Haven't tried Nexuiz.

 

I don't need to do that GFree, Desktop Effects work OOTB with Fedora Core 8 and actually the Linux drivers are pretty good you know, might be similar to those of Windows in performance. And now the documentation has been released might even become better than the Windows ones hehe.

 

Fusion works OOTB with this chipset in FC8 eh?

Damn you Ubuntu! I thought you were the greatest!

 

I can run TR:Legend playable on 1280x768 with everything on except fullscreen effects and next gen content on xp..

 

Since I've just joined, I'm not really wanting to wade through 80+ pages, so can anyone tell me what are the best settings to use for running Half-Life 2 at 1280x800?

The stuff on earlier pages relate to some older drivers, so I'm hoping there's been some discussion regarding what settings have more effect than others when using the latest X3100 drivers. For example, I've noticed virtually no difference between the DX 80, 81, 90 and 95 levels, and in fact I could swear the game runs a touch smoother at the default 95 level. But then again, I read someone run Portal well at 80, but he had used low shaders which I know have a major impact.

Any other tips? I figure if there's not much else to tweak, I might as well go for the nicest looking option since making it uglier for no noticeable benefit seems pointless.

 

what about.. using the search? mg:

 

Yup, I think Fedora is better than Ubuntu

 

Hay, will Fifa 08 run on a X3100 with a T7500? Thanks!

 

It probably will but I think the performance will probably be lame.

 

My apologies. I just assumed that since the drivers were updated a month ago, any information about running HL2 is technically invalid since they would have been reported when using older drivers.

Oh BTW, I'm running HL2 in DirectX 9 and it's acceptable, but I notice I can't seem to get any shadows. If I force the game into DX8 mode shadows appear, but the colors seem a little dull due to the less capable lighting engine. Has anyone else got missing shadows in DX9?

I notice another person running HL2DM in DX9 with shadows, but I also know that HL2DM was upgraded to a newer Source engine and HL2 still uses the old one.

EDIT: One more thing. HL2 doesn't seem to have much advantage of running in DX8 compared to DX9 mode. The frame rates dance around the same values for me, so that's why I prefer DX9. Maybe the Orange Box, which uses a far more advanced Source engine, is where the difference becomes apparent?

 

yes, the difference between DX8 and DX9 in Orangebox-Games ("Source Reloaded") is huge.

Anyway, the effort intel puts in driver performance optimizations for games is zero. It seems they are only fixing bugs, and there are still plenty of them.. so the "old" HL2 reviews should be more or less accurate, even with the "new" drivers. I've seen no performance improvement whatsoever in the 3/4 year I got my laptop with the X3100. In some games, it even became worse...

 

I have the exact same "direct x error" problem with CoD4 on XP that other people on this thread have had (see top of page 13). Has anyone found any solutions for it yet?
AcidicX, I noticed you had this problem. Have you had any luck fixing it?

 

can anyone get KOTOR2 (Knights of the Old Republic 2) to work? when I tried to run it, I get the following error with Vista just before actual gameplay (loads game fine, can set up character, but after Star Wars intro movie):

I tried setting the compatibility settings to Windows XP SP2, and ran as administrator, no go.

I tried disable sound because Vista sound drivers are programmed very differently from XPs, no go.

I tried downloading a modified Mss32.dll that's suppose to fix the Vista sound issues, no go.


so if anyone get this running on either Vista or XP, please let me know

 

I been having the same problem with KOTOR2 on XP

 

Bah, I give up. The lack of frames in HL2 is something I just can't get used to.

If I really wanted a notebook for gaming I would have put down more cash.

 

What, Half Life 2?? Hmm I heard that Vista has worse performance on Half Life 2. At least with XP and the desktop X3000, I can get 30-50 fps 1024x768 everything High(only in HL2 though, not in things like Portal...).

Interesting. I am hoping something is not complete with the driver and crucial features like Z-culling and Z-buffering has problems/disabled. That can give nice performance boost.

Anyway, I wonder what the upcoming 14.33 and 15.8 drivers are supposed to feature?? The naming indicates some new features are coming, whether 3D, video or both(Hint: it's not DX10 or OpenGL 2.0).

EDIT: Gary Key from Anandtech is hinting at future Intel graphics drivers: http://www.anandtech.com/weblog/showpost.aspx?i=377

Hmm, so we know what 15.9 drivers enable. What would 15.8 be .

 

w1nt3rmut3, nope sorry.. maybe you can get the Engine into DX8 mode??

I didn't bother because I can play it on my desktop much better and the SP is so short...

 

-dxlevel 71 - for all your FPS needs

 

x3100 is fine. if u dont play big 3d game , it is enough .haha~

 

Lol guys you should be playing games which use the Unreal, Quake 2 or Quake 3 engine with the X3100, not the Source engine

 

it's nice!play normal games is fine!

 

You'll get similar frames with Civilization 4, NFS:U as you would with games like Call of Duty 4. Read the user reports. And with me, I get similar performance on Doom 3 640x480 low as I do with 1024x768 High. In games like FEAR, DX9 mode runs better than DX8 mode. I get 30-50 fps in Half Life 2 with everything High+1024x768 DX9, 20-40 with Lost Coast(without HDR), and yet only get 10-15 fps in Portal, which uses the same damn HL2 engine.

I still feel the driver is nowhere near ready hopefully they will get it fixed real soon.

 

Go n' wait another 20 years

at least you are able to upgrade to a dedicated graphics card...

 

Hey, the 15.9 driver seems to fix problems related to home theater side, so maybe we'll see something in 3D. There's something really wrong with the drivers and they'll have to fix it because the driver will be used for their next generation IGP architecture.

 

I really _hope_ so.
But I don't _believe_ in it ;-)

 

tried playing Heavy Gear 2 - invisible textures galore....*sigh*

 

I upgraded to the latest drivers from 12.xx drivers that came with my laptop. The old drivers were able to run Final Fantasy XI fine with no graphical errors, but now with the latest ones, all the character models are rendered with these crazy flashing textures that are all sorts of weird colors. What has changed in the drivers that would make the old drivers run the game fine, and the new drivers not?

Thanks.

 

we're not Intel...
I guess they fixed some bugs along the way, but imho, I only saw the quality / performance decrease with newer drivers... Mafia also got pink flashing textures now after the 14.31.1 drivers..

 

If you want to try some of the older drivers because they were better in some way to the current version, you can download them from Intel's archived drivers list:

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Product_Filter.aspx?ProductID=2800

Select your operating system, then click on the "Previously Released software" link at the bottom of the next page.

 

I've been playing NFS:Carbon with it mostly low settings at 800x600.. I'm getting "a good gaming experience" to quote that guy from the Intel demos.

I wanna add that my games ALL run better in Vista. That seems contrary to most peoples results. Also my shared video memory only allocates 96mb in XP but 128 in Vista, many games will not run on XP like that... (I only have 1GB RAM)

This x3100 is all over the map. Some games run very well, and others are terrible.

For instance Ut2k4 runs great and half-life 2 and mods seem a little sluggish. Is hl2 really a more intense engine than ut2k4??

 

Sure is. Source has a ton more features than UT2k4. The stock UT2k4 engine doesn't even have normal mapping, but HL2 does. I think it also uses many more shader effects than UT2k4.

Then again, I tend to think UT2k4 has a very well-optimized engine, so that help in it running on the X3100.

 

Hey guys, I'm going back to Vista. My Fedora Core installation keeps going dodgy after a kernel update so back to Vista I go. I'll be able to see how my X3100 performs now with my upgraded processor and Vista. Hopefully they'll be a big performance gain

 

Hello guys..Call of duty 4 was running gud on my XP with all setting low untill yesterday ..suddenly it has started giving dirctX error while loading the game(during the first map SAS).
I downloaded the latest directX 9 ,uninstalled & reinstaled again but all efforts in vain
Any ideas what bug as crept in?

 

There has been report that COD4 runs much better under Vista than XP. Might want to try that.

 

hello,can you please tell me ur settings,Im getting directx error in XP.Cant revert back to vista as after lot of hardship I have downgraded to XP

 

I do get some errors on CoD4 too. It's probably the DirectX error as you quoted. Anyway, run it again and it will give you an option to run it on safe mode. Then it'll run fine.

 

I did that but still its nt wrking
Is there any other exclusive method to run it in safe mode other than game ending abruptly
Spent some gud bucks on this game so nt willing to let it go down the drain tht easily

 

just play it on a laptop/desktop with a real graphics card ;-)
Safemode doesn't work for me either... don't know why! But I didn't try older drivers.. I tried with 14.32 I think.. maybe the 14.31.1 are working..

 

About to test Nevewinter Nights on my lappy, I'll tell you how it goes

 

I finally received my laptop, and I don't have time to downgrade to XP as of yet (in the middle of exam season). Though I'm interested in trying to install a game or two (to test). What are the recommended x3100 vista drivers for the best experience? Thanks!

 

Laptop Specs:

Core 2 Duo T5250
1GB RAM
X3100
Vista Home Premium

Game: Neverwinter Nights
Performance: Below Average
FPS: 20-35
Playable: Yes