Will ATI RADEON XPRESS 200M play...

Will the ATI RADEON(R) XPRESS 200M...play...

Counter Strike: Source?
World of Warcraft?
Sims 2?
Warcraft 3?
Half Life 2?
Doom 3?
Halo?
GTA: SA?

and so on and so forth?

 

It will play WoW/WC3/HL2/DOOM3/HALO fine but don't expect killer framerates and resolution.

I'm not quite sure about Source and Sims III though

 

nice, if it can run half life i'm sure it can take, source rite? and what if i get like 2 megs ram? it'll help nice, rite?

 

Nope, It depends on the GPU, and in your case its a pretty weak card not meant for gaming.

 

Doom 3? You're kidding, right?

I went over this in my article.

Doom 3 will run "in theory." The Radeon Xpress 200M will be able to support all the features in hardware, yes, but in terms of actual playability, sorry, not happening. I had a 7422GX with a 64MB Mobility Radeon 9600 that struggled with that game, and the 9600 is easily twice the card the 200M is. (No, really, in technical terms, it's about twice the card the 200M is.)

Everything else should run. Half-Life 2 (and Source, accordingly) is extremely friendly in terms of hardware scaling. And WoW even ran on my buddy's old 64MB Radeon 7200, which isn't nearly as powerful as the Radeon Xpress 200M.

 

Hmmmm, might of been confused with something else, I wasn't sure if HL2/DOOM3 worked, so I just said ok

Thanks for correcting me before he went out and bought it LOL!

 

Any game with the source engine will run, but not at peak levels with DX9. If you change the DX level to 8 or 7 you will get a little less eye candy, but a significant framerate increase. You can do this by going into the launch options an typing: -dxlevel Z (where Z is the DX level you want (80 for DX 8, 90 for DX 9, 70 for DX 7, and 8.1 for DX 8). I also can tell you that GTA:SA also runs smoothly while on low quality settings. I havent tried anything else because i dont care for eye candy.
Hope this helps!

 

I'm getting a new Thinkpad R51E with the 32-64MB 200M. I'm not into intense first person shooters, mainly RPG's. Do you think this will run Neverwinter Nights well, Morrowind, or KOTOR? I'm upgrading from an A30P with a 32MB Radeon 7000, so to me this seems like a huge upgrade!

 

Should run KOTOR alright, but not great.

Remember that with a low-powered card like the X200M, keep the shadows off and put all the lighting on low. Turing down the resolution will also help performance.

 

Hey mtrivs, about the direct x setting you say you can change it by ...You can do this by going into the launch options an typing: -dxlevel Z
Where is this LAUNCH you are speeking of?

Oh and a question about my laptop???

I have a hp/compaq nx9010 with the ATI Radeon IGP 345M 64MB (32 shared) IGP

Would it make a difference with gaming if I upgraded it to this Radeon xpress 200M??

Is there a better upgrade than that??

Should I just say F it and leave my notebook how it is and wait till I get something better???

 

On my laptop, I got all of the games to play. However, on games like Sims 2, you may have to scale down the clarity to be able to play it. Doom 3 will run on the X200M, but playablitiy is a completely different story. The X200M would not render correctly and made it nearly impossible to play. If you're a casual gamer, you may be OK with the X200M, but if you're a serious gamer, then go for a better gfx card.

 

You cannot upgrade your card, as it is integrated into the motherboard. In order to get a better card in your notebook, you are going to have to get a new notebook.

But, to answer your question, the Xpress 200M is much better than the IGP 345.

 

hey guys, quick question, i read all the talk about the brand new games (ie HL2, Doom 3 etc) do any of you play counter-strike 1.6 (not source)? if so, what kind of fps do you get with this card? thanks

 

ChazMan421 answered the question about upgrading our GFX Card, but to change the DX settings on steam games, open the play games menu, then right click on the game you want to change the setting on, then click on 'Launch Options', there a little box should pop up and you should be able to put in a different DXlevel like i described earlier.

 

"will the 200m run doom 3?"

The answer is yes. My friend has a ati9000 mobile card and it can run it no problem....i was so skepticle about this, but it did to my amazement. (better than low settings as well)
And so i would assume that if the 9000 is worse than a 200m(which is equiv to a mx300) then the 200m should be efficient in running doom3....not at best settings, but it would run.

 

hey guys, after reading so many people say how bad the 200m is i got very scared when i had bought the HP zv6000 off ebay. I don't know what you guys are doing wrong but its playing all my games flawlessly. The Sims 2 was one of the first games i installed and it runs on the highest settings very smoothly. I used hypermemory to boost it up to 192mb of vram (until my second 512mb RAM stick gets in this will have to do) but it plays the game fine. If you are willing to run the higher end games on a mediocre level (1024x768 med gfx) then you can run most current games on it. Use hypermemory to 256mb vram and i i'm sure itll satisfy you. If you want such a killer gaming rig then just buy a desktop... the 200m and the zv6000 are awesome

 

i have a ton of views! woo!

 

can anyone with the x200 AND Half Life 1/2 post up their FPS
~ to find FPS in HL2 type "cl_showfps 1" in console. In HL1, i think its just "showfps_1" or showfps 1/2/3

i cant find any info on the SIS Mirage 2 graphics chip. How's that stand up against this x200???

i was considering buying this computer http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16834115324

 

Miserably. SIS Mirage 2 is on par with Intel Extreme Graphics, if not even a little worse.

If you're looking to game at all your bare minimum is going to be the Radeon Xpress 200M. I've had a brief and thoroughly depressing experience with the GMA 900 recently, so I can't even recommend that to the casual gamer.

My GPU guide in my sig explains everything.

 

I have HL2 and i can play on DX9 with FPS around the 30s with all the settings at medium and the AA and AF to 0. I can play with higher FPS if i change the DX level down to 8.1 or 7. I believe you would have a better experience with the X200m than the Mirage chip.

 

How about X300 with 64MB, which is now being offered in Dell 6000 config, which I may purchase soon.....?

Thank you

 

That will be faster than the X200M, but not by much.

If you are looking at the Dell i6000, then also look at the Compaq V4000t. You can get one for $1,000 with a Pentium M and a 128MB X700.

 

If your MR9600 "struggled" with Doom 3 then either a) your drivers were horridly out of date, b) your computer was very poorly optimized, c) you were using a bad combination of graphics details, or d) you're one of those people who think they can see a difference between 35 and 85 fps. My 7422GX ran Doom 3 at above 30fps at all times in the screen's native resolution on high graphics detail with bump mapping and specular on. All it took was a driver update, a quick jaunt over to a good Doom 3 tweak guide, and turning shadows and HQSE off, since previous-generation ATi cards hate advanced lighting techniques.

As for the x200M running Doom 3...yes, it will, and yes it will be playable. You might need to go down to 800x600 on medium or low graphics detail, but it will still look great.

 

My MR9600 struggled with Doom 3 because I actually played it with HQSE and shadows enabled. Why? BECAUSE THE SHADOWS ARE THE POINT OF THE BLOODY GAME. Disabling the shadows in Doom 3 practically defangs the game and murders the mood. But for what it's worth, I'm confident in the drivers I was using (Omega Catalyst 5.6 at the time, they would've been) on my clean install of Win XP Professional. And when I got to the final boss of Resurrection of Evil, I had to run at 640x480, Low Detail, with all of the special effects - HQSE, Specular, Bump Mapping, and Shadows - off and the texture preference and mipmap detail set to maximum performance. Try it.

As for the X200M? 800x600 at Medium, are you out of your freaking mind? Have you ever used an X200M? For the record, six hours ago on a friend's desktop X200, I did install Doom 3 and test it. It is virtually unplayable at 640x480 with all of the settings I listed for the end of RoE. It is not playable. It's close, but it's not happening. I can see the X200M in the zv6000 series possibly running the game playably, but you'll be disabling almost everything. It will NOT look "great." I say this not purely out of conjecture, but out of practical hands-on experience.

I would appreciate it if in the future you don't openly attack my credentials or my understanding of the hardware and technology like this. You were telling everyone they'd get about 2000 marks in 3DMark05 on my notebook, and we've all been getting around 1700.

I stand by what I said here - and in my GPU guide - and I refuse to use the GeForce FX 5200 definition of "it works." The average consumer isn't going to be a complete nut about optimizing every little thing, they just want something that works with minimal tweaking.

Moderators note: I was not "attacking" anyone. I was merely correcting slight misinformation (ad in this post, cleaning language). I and several others here know from experience that the zv6000 can play Doom 3 acceptably. And I stand by my assertion that the Mobility RADEON 9600 is a competent card for this game. Heck, I've played it through on a 64MB GeForce 4 Ti4200 in 4x AGP and stayed on 1024x768 the whole way through.

Response to Moderator: No one's talking about the GF4. And the zv6000's 128MB dedicated X200M is a very different beast from the X200M found in any other notebook, which on AMD notebooks has only a 32MB buffer at best and on Intel notebooks has none at all. If someone asks "Will the X200M play Doom 3," maybe you ought to specify which one, because it's not cut and dry and it IS on the cusp.

 

Chazman

Thanks for your reply!
Then, how is the

"128MB DDR ATI's MOBILITY™ RADEON X300 PCI Express x16"

, which requires additionaly $119 bucks over Intel GMA 900 ($69 bucks more over 64MB Hypermemory ATI X300) in Dell 6000 customization list.

If all these are not worth extra bucks to play some decent game, yes, I may look at others (or mayjust order Intel GMA 900)....

Thank you

Little bit confused... some say X200 is decent enough other say even X300 sucks.....

 

Hm, well, I'd say that if you are going for the i6000, then get the 128MB card. There are some new games that require a 128MB card, such as Battlefield 2. The X300 isn't a great card, but it's much more powerful than the GMA900.

Hey - did you check out the Compaq V4000t? 128MB X700 and Pentium M for $1,000. Good deal if you ask me. www.HPShopping.com.

 

Yes! that is very tempting (X700).

My situation is that if I use my company coorperate rate with Dell, I can get Dell 6000 at around ~690 bucks with descent options (X300 64MB, DVD burner etc).

Of course, if I can get HP at the similar price, no question to get X700....

I will check back HP one more time...

Thanks again.

 

well.. the x300 is okay if you wanna play from time to time.. i guess it'll also play fear but don't think you can enable volumetric light and those high end effects.. but it'll play battlefield/halflife2 and those games just fine.. btw don't get it mixed up, the ati xpress200m and the x300 are not close to each other.. the x300 outperformes the 200m like a ferrari outperforms a vw beatle..
the intel graphics accl. is just another bull**** card like the sis chipsets - ofcourse it masters directx9 features but it has got close to no gpu power. yeah i'd also recommend you the x700 128mb. it's an excellent card with alot of overclocking potential.. besides the compaq v4000t there are alot of good laptops like the amilo 1667g with a 64bit turion CPU at 3000+, 1gig of ram, a 100gig seagate harddrive and ofcourse the x700 128mb for about 1000$ too. it's by far the best package i have seen for around 1000 bucks

 

btw, here is a small review of the x300 with 64mb of vram

 

I really have to disagree with you on this point. My friend has a Dell 6000 w/an 128mb X300, Pentium M 1.86GHZ and 1GB of ram. I have a 128MB dedicated XPRESS 200M in my Compaq R4000, AMD 64 4000+, and 512MB of PC2700 ram. We play BF2 together, both on low settings and I see almost the same framerate (1-2 FPS difference overall, using FRAPS) on both our comps. I can also play BF2 at MEDIUM settings, but playability is somewhat sacrificed.

The bottom line for me anyway is that my XPRESS 200M can play most major game titles with no lag at all. This is my notebook and so I don't really care how high I can set the settings all I care about is playability. I just want to play games on the road. If I want to worry about how the game looks I will install the game on my XPS desktop and enjoy the game in all its wonder.

 

That is true, the XPS part. Some people; however, do not want a desktop and maybe do want all the looks they can get. Once you have a really good laptop, there would be no way many people could go back a desktop.

 

the difference is actually not the ram, for games it's often the cpu. and the amd 4000+ outperforms the intel m 1.8ghz, but you are right my comparision was somewhat too high.. the xpress 200m and the x300 are totally different cards, and from what i've heard the xpress 200m is basically an integrated graphicschip like the sis mirage or the intel.. could you give me the 3dmark03/05 results for the xp 200m?

 

No - actually, the X200M is an integrated X300. They are the same card. The X200M has lower clocks I believe. The core is the same, with four parallel pixel pipelines and two vertex engines.

The X200M gets about ~700-900 in 3DMark05, depends on whether it is shared or integrated.

 

X200M has only two pipelines, not four like the X300. I'll double-check it when I get home, but I believe that's correct.

 

Ah - it does have two. I have just checked on ATI's website. Apparantly they're disabled or something.

But the core of the X200M and the X300 is the same essentially.

 

wow. then it's actually much better than the intel gma or the sis mirage3d, i always thought these 3 were on about the same level.

 

The 200M stands by itself on the next level when compared to other intergrated graphics:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=25449

 

I can regularly play F.E.A.R. on 800x600 with all medium settings on my zv6*** with a dedicated 128mb of ram of rthe Radeon Xpress 200m. I think Doom is less resource intensive than F.E.A.R. but I might be wrong.

I'm downloading the CoD2 demo to run benchmarks and should reply soon.

Anyone feel that Elder Scrols Oblivion will run on my machine:

AMD Athlon 64 3200+, 1.00 GB ram, Radeon Xpress 200m with 128 dedicated.

(devs are supposedly optimizing like crazy and it was meant to run on the tech of F.E.A.R./CoD2 era)

 

We just got "The Sims II" holiday edition ..and it runs fine on default settings. I even bumped up the quality a bit and still runs good on 1280x768

 

How do these 2 cards (200m & x300) compare with a Geforce 6200/6400? Does the Nvidia greatly outperform these 2 cards?

 

The Xpress 200M is equivalent to a Radeon X300SE, which is a Radeon X300, but with a 64-bit memory bus. The X200M is also missing two pixel pipelines (it has two, versus the X300's four).

The X300 is on par with the Go6200, and the Go6400 competes with the X600.

The X300 should be around ~15-25% faster than the X300SE/X200M, and the X600 about 35-50% faster than the X300 (this is based on 3DMark05 scores).

 

My ass it gets that many marks.

 

Woah - I said, it depends whether or not it is shared or integrated. Please do not curse.

The Shared X200M will get about 500, whereas the dedicated X200M gets a bit more, around 700-900 as I posted.

 

hi, my first post, great site. i just got as new notebook, here are the specs,
Compaq Presario R4000
- Microsoft(R) Windows(R) XP Home Edition with SP2
- AMD Athlon(TM) 64 3500+ (2.2GHz/512KB L2 Cache)
- 15.4" WXGA Widescreen (1280x800)
- 128MB ATI RADEON(R) XPRESS 200M w/Hypermemory(TM)
- 512MB DDR SDRAM (2x256MB)
- 60 GB 4200 RPM Hard Drive
- DVD/CD-RW Combo Drive
- FREE Upgrade to 54g(TM) 802.11b/g WLAN w/125HSM!!
- 12 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
- Microsoft(R) Works/Money
do you guys think i got a good price at 850 bucks?

and btw, when i was customizing the above notebook, compaq said that my video card is dedicated not shared, is that true.

 

Hai everybody i bought a HP Pavilion dv5030us. Actually i want to buy a Intel Centrino 2.0ghz with a ATI x700 card, but my cousin hurriedly bought this one.

HP Pavilion dv5030us Configuration is :
AMD Turion 64 mobile processor ml-37 (2.0GHz)
• Windows XP Media Center with Service Pack 2
• 1024MB DDR SDRAM 333mhz
• 100GB hard drive 4200RPM
• Double-layer DVD±R/RW and CD-RW combo drive with LightScribe
• 15.4" WXGA high-definition widescreen display (BrightVew)
• ATI Radeon Xpress 200M graphics
• 54g integrated 802.11b/g wireless LAN

can any one tell me about the prose and cons of this configuration. I am very much worried about the graphix card and the HDD with low rpm.

I want some overclocking tweaks for ATI Radeon Xpress 200M and some latest drivers(Third Party also) links for it.

He has bought it for 1300$ in COMPusa is it a good deal ?

Please send me link for the latest driver for ATI Radeon Xpress 200M.

and i would be glad if any body can send me link to download Windows Xp Professional 64-BIT edition.

is it worth while to update to this OS ?

Can any one suggest me some utility softwares to make this system more optimised for the best performance.

I will post my HP Pavilion dv5030us review soon.

waiting for ur replies.....

 

not bad... ut2k4 is playable with 200m and celeron m 380/768mB ram and low settings with the smaller maps...

C

 

santhiratan --

The pros of that configuration are definitely the large hard drive, 1GB of RAM, DVD Burner, and very powerful CPU. However, the hard drive is a slow 4200RPM's, which will slow the system down. Also, the video card is very weak - the X700 is about four times as powerful than the Xpress 200M according to ATI. That machine, although powerful, won't take you very far in terms of 3D graphics.

You can't download XP X64, you have to buy it. It really is not worth it at all to upgrade, you won't see any noticable difference according to ExtremeTech.com.

Check www.DriverHeaven.net and download the latest (5.13) Mobility Catalyst drivers.

Consider reading our How to Optimize a Notebook Computer guide in the Dummy Articles Section. That will help you out a lot.

Chaz

 

thanx chaz, for ur reply i want to know whether i can Over Clock my Graphix chip or not with any ati tools

 

You can with something called ATI Tool. I can't remember now where I downloaded this from but if you do a Yahoo search of it you should be able to find it or maybe someone else can help you with this. I would not overclock it past 350Mhz if I were you. Also, for some reason I have had to do this everytime I boot up and it does not stay overclocked. However, it is easy enough to do with the tool. Anyway, good luck!

 

can u tell me the tool to overclock this ATI 200M chip