Will ATI RADEON XPRESS 200M play...

From the post I quoted: "No extra voltages, no CPU frequency changes. No extra heat. But more power."

FYI, I can't comment on any performance increases using this because the only game I have installed is Condition Zero, and that runs perfectly using stock settings anyway. If I run into some more demanding games, I'll let ya know how much this helps..

 

rather just get the 128 dedicated x200m. i just installed Doom III on my laptop and it runs GREAT. I have resolution on 800x600 and graphics to medium. it runs great. AVG framerates are 32, but it goes over that too sometimes. but sometimes (when the action is too intense) the frames dip to 20, but that is still plyable!

 

this is what i changed including the T1 command, i noticed a great increase in fps, i have the 128 dedicated 200m. I ran every memory bench mark under the sun for at least 36 hours not one error. No extra heat but everything is sure a hell of a lot zippier

hope this helps

 

/hey anti hero,

how much did you see in performance increase???

 

when i started fresh 25-33. I uually just play Counter Strike: Source.

In the CCC panel of the ATI card click the box geometry instancing and put standard settings on optimal, set you memory settings to 400 and 1T command at 2.5 cas.

after i did that my fps is about 34-45 fps drops to about 30 with lots of smoke nads.

Settings on

Med Textures
Med Models
High Shader
NO A/A
Low Shadows

756x480 which looks pretty good on a 15.4 widescreen

 

Cool. I will have to try out A64 Tweaker. I will play it safe and use your exact settings!

I will say that I was expecting lower performance with the Xpress 200m... Knowing I can increase the performance (safely) is awesome!

Thanks Anti-Hero. I hope everything works ok for me.

 

All ram modules are different and if you set them to that then yours might be running out of spec and could cause instability. Just make sure you back everything up thats important before doing mem tweaking, its a surprisingly easy way to screw up windows.

 

Oh really. Hmm...now I am too scared to mess with this. Unless someone has the exact same configuration as mine I won't mess with it...

 

i dont know if you would have any problems @ 400 isnt bad at all, just change one thing at a time start out with mem to 200 run prime 95 if everything is good try changeing something else if there are any problems try cas @ 3. But chances are if they are 2X512 or 256 sticks you wont run into many problems ps im using Hyundai week 81 year 05 ram if thats any help

 

Is there any chance that doing any of this will fry my motehrboard or otherwise damage my hardware? I'm not terrebly worried about the software on my laptop, since everything is backed up.

 

well your not increasing any voltage, you can buy 400 mhz ram for the laptops so its not really overclocking your mobo or processor. I havent noticed any heat difference. give it a try. I have had mine at those setting for at least 2 weeks not one single problem to date. And i use thins thing for hours a day.

 

The graphics card is quite good. One downside , i cant even play kotor. the framerate for kotor is really bad - 14fps [Low/800x600]. I will try to get OMEGA Drivers and see

 

I tried A64 Tweaker with Anti-Hero's settings and it worked. I had no problems with freezing or anything like that. No visual artifacting or anything.

The only game I tried was Unreal Tournament 2004. I don't have any others installed. I run UT2k4 at 1280x800x32 with "highest" textures, "highest" for character detail "high" world detail, "low" LOD mesh, "low" physics detail because I really don't care for "rag doll physics", full character shadows, and everything else turned on with fog set to the lowest setting. I got more than 40fps with and without the memory clocked higher. So I'm happy either way. The 200M is a very underrated card. It runs UT2k4 beautifully no matter what settings I use. I tried the Half-Life 2 demo and that was silky smooth on whatever the default settings were. I only changed the resolution.

Doom 3 demo ran good at default settings, but not great. Doom 3 is just terribly unoptimized though. I wouldn't use it as a test to gauge performance at all since it was written so bad.

I didn't run any synthetic benchmarks, like 3DMark, because your 3DMark score isn't an indicator of real world performance in the slightest.

I have to say that I'm pretty confident that this card will be able to run any well optimized game out there. If Epic keeps up their tradition of well programmed engines, it should be able to run UT2k7 on the lowest settings. If my old GeForce4 MX440 and Celeron 1.1GHz could pump out 25-30fps at 800x600 with everything set to medium in UT2k4, then I'm sure this system will be able to at least play UT2k7.

Oh, one thing I should note is that I have the dedicated 200M, with 128MB of memory. When I went into the BIOS and changed the setting to share 128MB of memory, it had a negative impact on performance. Performance went down noticably. I can't give you any real numbers, because I care more about how it looks and visually runs than what number the game is displaying. But the frame-rate was definitely lower and there was an actual "lag" time with mouse response and what you see on screen. Like the details were turned up far too high for the system. As soon as I turned off the shared memory the performance was great again.

I have the HP DV5030us. That's a Turion 64 ML37 at 2GHz, 1GB of RAM, 100GB HDD, and the 200M with 128MB of dedicated VRAM.

Outside of games, A64 tweaker did have a real world performance increase. Using Anti-Hero's settings gave a nice little boost in the one test I performed. I took a 22 minute episode of South Park that I had captured. MPEG-2 format. I ran it through Videora iPod Converter. Video: H.264 384kbps 320x240, Audio: 96kbps stereo AAC. With Anti-Hero's settings the video encoded in 9 minutes and 50 seconds. With the default settings it took 10 minutes and 28 seconds. That's a decent little boost. If you're having low farme-rate problems, I'm sure running this and setting your texture quality setting to "performance" could help quite a bit.

 

glad to hear it worked out

 

keep this great thread alive fellas

 

as long as we benefit from it...it will always be alive

 

Hmm, I tried turning the memclk up to 200 and it made my games crash after 5 minutes or so...any suggestions? I'm using a Compaq V2000/Sempron.

 

y is this thread still alive lol

 

Hello everyone. I've read quite a bunch of the posts in this thread, as I intend to buy a Compaq with the radeon 200M.

I have a few questions:

1) Is the difference significant between radeon 200m with dedicated memory and 200m with shared memory?

2) I currently own an outdated laptop with GeForce FX Go5200, 32mb; it's core clock runs on 230MHz and I get 750 marks on 3dmark03. When I overclock it to 285, i get maybe 755. Why such a small difference? Anyhow, I've read somewhere that the radeon 200m scores about 1400 on the 3dmark03; now, does that mean I'll get twice the frame rate I get now? Because that's not horribly impressive, there are few 3d games that I can play without this card struggling and doubling the frame rate would marginally improve performance in my opinion.

3) will x200m play Heroes V? I can almost play it with my 32 mb geforce... the reason I couldnt say its fully playable is because I only have 256MB of RAM, I believe. But in any case, should I expect to be running this game on pretty high settings? The reason I'm upgrading laptop is only so I can play that game. My current laptop plays Heroes IV fine so I had no problem.

The dilemma I'm faced with is getting shared or dedicated memory. If I elect shared, I get to have the much smaller, lighter and better looking Compaq V2000. If I get the dedicated, I'll get the big, bulky V5000. What I'm trying to figure out is if dedicated ram would pay off for the added weight and size (and less battery runtime ). Can anyone help me out please? It would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

i would prefer that you get an Hp DV5000t, because it has a better gaming processor. Go7400 vs. X200M. thats like comaping watermelons to black beans

 

You should go with nVidia GeForce 7400 as suggested by deedeeman. ATI 200M is an IGP Card. The dedicated memor does pay off , as you dont have to share your RAM with it. Shared ATI 200M takes 128MB/64MB/32MB from your main RAM. As for me , I dont see a *huge* difference between the shared and the dedicated card , apart from that fact that Dedicateds do have their own RAM and the can pump higher fps vs the shared ones.

It would still play Heros V , but you can't play at 1600x1200 with 4xAA - High Settings. You could still play the game.

It depends if you like playing the game on Low settings or not...

 

Hi guys,

I was just about to buy the Toshiba M50, the specs of which specific model are found here http://www.savastore.com/productinf...vastore&product_id=10287136&pid=5&rstrat=3180.

IT has a RADEON 200M card, and I was wondering whether you could advise me as to what kind of performance I can expect from games such as Flashpoint, Warcraft 3, and Civ IV. I know it's only a celeron, but my budget is tight. Also, does anyone know of any problems that I might come across with the widescreen and these games?

Ohh and one final thing, does anyone know if this computer has one of these shiny screens, I think it's 'briteview' isn't it? It's just I've seen the model up from this in the shops and it has, but no mention of 'briteview'. Anyway, thanks in advance.

Chris.

 

The Toshiba Satellite M50 is an excellent laptop. Especially for the money!
The screen is 'True Bright' and is really great to look at. All models (Celeron/Centrino) have the same screen.
I was going to buy one but what made me stop was the fact that is has the shared version of the X200 which takes ALL of its memory from the system memory. This would be bad enough but the RAM in the M50 i pretty slow(333Mhz) which cripples game play as the x200 is relying solely on it.
Now even though this is true with the RAM on the M50, it still performs very well in day to day use..even the version with the CeleronM.
I instead bought the Satellite A100 which is an identical spec to the M50, but instead has DDR2 533Mhz RAM and the version of the x200 with 64mb dedicated+64mb shared. You wont get the great screen the M50 has/ great speekers or lightweight 14 chassis but if you want to play decent games, u would need to avoid the M50.

PVangarde.. the dedicated version of the x200 that supports 128mb(64mb-128mb dedicated) has performance comparable to that of the Geforce Ti 4200 64mb, which is far superior to the 5200 FX u mentioned. It is alot better than people would believe and can play high end games such as Far Cry/ Half Life 2 on nearly max settings at 1024*768 beautifully. But u need at least 1Gb ram!!!

 

First, thanks for the responses.

What throws me off is how the x200m can outperform the GMA 950 which has 4 pixel pipes, and a clock running at 400 MHz. Not to mention that usually the ATI usually come with AMD, whereas you could get a Dual core cpu along with the GMA. Would the x200m still do better than the GMA 950?

 

The X200M is much superior to the GMA950. Unlike the GMA950, the X200M can play and support most of the latest games. A lot of games will refuse to run on the GMA.

Chaz

 

That is very interesting Chaz...

The X200M is much older then the Napa-platform but still it outperformes it. I cannot understand why Intel is so optimistic. They even refused to change the integrated video controller of the Merom. I think Intel is making mistakes.

Charlie-Peru

 

I do agree. But , Intel GMA 950 is a DirectX 9 Graphics card. In theory , it should able to support all the current games on the market , but most of the games would refuse to run. It would claim that its not a 3D Card...I wonder why

 

Hi im jst wondering if the x200m will run Medal of Honour Pacific assault??
Im guessing it will but at what settings? (hopefully medium)
I have 1.2Gb ram fitted which should help the Gpu perform..

Also what would be harder on the Graphics card..Far Cry or Pacific Assault??
Coz i heard from ALOT of people that the x200 runs Far Cry at Med-Max settings + 1024*768 resolution no problem. And it also runs HL2 at the same settings fine.

 

if its not fully shared , medium would be fine..if its shared , you might to tweak a little bit

Tried WoW , 384MB System RAM and 128MB VRAM...It could pump 23-30fps , which is pretty good at 1024x768. The downside is in certain areas , it goes down to 15-16fps...

 

What is the easiest way to tell if you have dedicated or shared i cant find any info when it comes to compaq's site or any other sites

 

Hi, I'm a noob on the forum. This thread actually helped answer some of my questions already.

Just was wondering if anyone here also does any CG work dealing with the program Alias Wavefront (Autodesk) Maya 7.0?

I'm pretty much on a budget when it comes to a laptop, but all my current choices have the ATI Radeon Xpress 200M 128mb dedicated in it.

For those familiar with the CG animation program I stated, will I be fine using this program with the 200M? Will I be able to hardware render?

I've looked everywhere and no one seems to be able to help me out with this question. Even all the animation forums haven't even replied in any of my threads either.

Here is the laptop I'm looking into purchasing.

http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/HP-Pavilion-Notebook-PC-DV8220US-/sem/rpsm/oid/149458/catOid/-12963/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do

Any help is greatly appreciated! Thank you in advance.

 

I already posted my problems elsewhere, but they kind of belong in this thread too. I recently got an HP Livestrong l2000
AMD Turion 64 ML-37 (2.0 GHz/1MB L2 Cache)
ATI Radeon Xpress 200m w/productivity ports
2x512MB DDR SDRAM
80 GB 5400 RPM HD
14.0 WXGA BrightView Widescreen (1280x768)

And I'm not getting the same results some of you are. Tried both Omega and Catalyst drivers, I'm running Catalyst at the moment. Battlefield 2 demo, 800x600 resolution, all settings low as possible I get 16-19 FPS. Farcry at 1024x768 with everything low, well I dunno the exact FPS but it is unplayable. Battlefield Vietnam at 800x600 with everything low, 25-35 fps. I would love to get Half Life 2, but I doubt it will be worth it. Tried Oblivion, lowest settings possible it was unplayable. Is there something I'm missing?

 

Oblivion is going to be unplayable on an X200M, and Far Cry isn't an easy game to handle by any means.
You're going to have to turn down the resolution to 640x480 or 800x600 for the majority of games you play. Upping the resolution drags down the performance considerably, even moreso if you have the shared version of the X200M.

For Oblivion, you can try the Oldblivion mod:
http://www.oldblivion.com/
It helps the game run on older cards, perhaps it will work for you.

Chaz

 

Well, I've seen posts by people in this thread saying that they can run Battlefield 2 at 1024x768, or run Farcry with settings on medium or high. I can get about 16-19 FPS on Battlefield 2 on 800x600 with everything low. Early in the thread there were posts saying it will run Half-Life 2, but I don't see how that's possible with my experience.

 

The CPU certainly isn't your issue; the ML-37 is a fast chip. I'd check what those other people had for system memory. Considering you have a shared GPU, that takes up both the RAM itself and hogs bandwidth. Another thing to check is whether or not those people were using DDR400 memory instead of the stock DDR333 which is standard on Turion systems such as yours.

 

i don't know if this will be of help, but the x200m comes in different flavors. they differ in the amount of dedicated ram that they have. it could be that your model may not have as much dedicated vram as the others. and they might have more regular ram than you. i hear with bf2, having 2 gigs significantly affects your performance.

 

Okay, dello said "my 200m gives me 30~39 framerates in farcry if i have my settings on medium at a resolution of 1024x786. and if i turn my settings to high it gives me 25~28 frames (very playable). and if i set my settings to Very High frames drop to avg. 20. which is still pretty good considering it is an IGP. but maybe it also has something to do with my DDR400 memory???" So he does have the DDR400 RAM.
The rest of his specs,from an earlier post
- HP Pavilion dv5000z CTO NB
- Microsoft(R) Windows(R) XP Home Edition with SP2
- AMD Turion(TM) 64 ML-32 (1.8GHz/512KB L2 Cache)
- 15.4" WXGA Widescreen (1280x800)
- 128MB ATI RADEON(R) XPRESS 200M w/Hypermemory(TM)
- 1.0GB DDR SDRAM (2x512MB)
- 60 GB 4200 RPM Hard Drive
- DVD+/-RW/R & CD-RW Combo w/Double Layer Support
- 54g(TM) 802.11b/g WLAN w/ 125HSM/SpeedBooster(TM)

What is this "Hypermemory"? I don't think mine has that.

I've tried both Omega and ATI Catalyst drivers, I think I'll be switching back to the Omega as I got just sligtly better performance.

Anyone who has an ATI Radeon Xpress 200m that gets decent performance, I'd appreciate it if you posted and let me know what kind/how much RAM you have. If buying more RAM will get me performance like dello and a couple others have touted, I'd be more than willing to shell out the cash.

jengo said, in regards to running Half Life 2 " have all settings maxed (except AA/AF) 800x600 resolution and i get about 30-40FPS constant. Here is my setup:

Celeron M 1.5ghz (dothan Based, 1mb Cache)
ATi Xpress 200M @ 128mb setting
1.2gb PC2 4200 (128 of that going to the 200M)
40GB 5400RPM Toshiba HDD"

Granted, I haven't tried HL2, but if he can get that kind of results, it seems like I should be getting better.

I've downloaded the Everest utility, not that I really know what I'm looking for. I have two sticks of 512 MB PC2700 DDR SDRAM (2.5-3-3-7 @166 MHz)

I'll look back later and see if I can find those other posts in which people describe their (comparatively) excellent performance.

Just saw ejl's post. How can I figure out exactly how much dedicated VRAM (if any) my card has? Anyway, I'm willing to upgrade to 2 gigs. However, it seems like I should be getting better performance with ganes like BF Vietnam.

 

Well as a laptop newbie i too settled for this card thinking hey it has 128 mb of ram it must be able to play most games, i bought the one that has 128 mb onboard memory and uses hypermemory borrow a further 128 mb from system memory.....

My machine specs turion 2.0 64
memory 1024 (1stick)
hdrive 80 gig 5400 rpm
v/card ati xpress 200m 128mb w/hypermemory
Pretty decent in my opinion, but based on what i have been reading this card really suckssss......

I fail to believe that a card with 128 mb of dedicated memory will be running a lot worst than a card with 64 mb of memory (i read that because it has only 2 pipelines it hinders its performance)

Additionally in terms of overclocking this card and installing new drivers where do i find these drivers and what tool do i use to overclock the card, an explanation of overclocking a gpu would be very nice hint hint(moderator)

What would be nice is if one of you technically inclined guys could brake this down for us newbies so we understand why you all seem to say the 200m 128 dedicated memory is a weak card ....

when my lappy arrives i will put it to the test and post my results ....

 

-Dappa-
what is ur laptop CHIPSET?

cheers ...

 

There are several factors to take into consideration when looking at how powerful a graphics card is. The system requirements box on games would have you believe memory is the only issue, but this is far from the truth. To gauge a graphics card performace you must look at;

Pixel Pipelines
Vertex Shaders
Memory interface
Core/Memory speeds (type of memory too DDR/DDR2/GDDR3 etc)
Pixel Shader

For example, lets compare the 128mb 200m and an ATI 128mb 9600pro

9600pro - 4 pixel pipes, 2 vertex units, 128bit mem, core=400, mem=300 (600DDR)
R200m - 2 pixel pipes, 2 vertex units, 128bit mem, core=300, mem=175 (350DDR)

Now, all these numbers are theortical, but give an idea of performance.

the 9600pro hasa 4 pixel pipes, operating at 300mhz, which means the 9600pro has a pixel output rate of 1600Mpixels/sec (4x300=1600). The 200m on the other hand has 2 pixel pipes, operataing at 300 mhz, so this has an output rate of 600Mpixels/sec. Huge difference in pixel output here.

Memory bandwidth available to the card also plays an important role. The bandwidth is calculated by - Mhz of memory x memory interface in bytes. Now the mem interface on a 9600pro is 128bit which = 16 bytes (128/8) So, memory bandwidth is 16x600 (300x2 DDR) = 9600GB/sec. The R200m has 128bit mem (i believe) so likewise, 128/8 = 16 so 16x350 (175 x 2 DDR) = 5600 GB/sec of memory bandwidth.

The amount of memory a card has refers to how much local memory is available to store textures on the card. A higher number does not equal a faster card, far from it. The 9600pro for example came in 128mb and 256mb versions, though the 256mb version offered little to no performance increase over the 128mb model, for the reason that the card is not fast enough to utilise that amount of memory efficiently. Its handy in that the card has a space to store those large textures in, but offers no performance gain on lower performing cards.

Hope this helps you understand graphics card performance somewhat.

 

Illundir.
I have a Toshiba Satellite A100 with the 64dedicated+64shared version of the x200M.. It plays Far Cry beautifully at either 1024*768 (med settings) or 800*600 (High Settings). And all games prior to 2004 play beautifully at near max settings. Now i have 1.2Gs of RAM which will help but only a
1.4CeleronM!!

Forget the CPU as being the problem as it is really the RAM speed and amount the X200 relys on.
I have PC4200 533Mhz ram which obviously helps my situation and ur slower RAM will cripple your performance more than you would be told. Especially if you have the shared version of X200!
For example there was a lad on this forum who had a Toshiba Laptop with a similar spec to mine but had 333Mhz PC2700 RAM and he could barely play anything! Not even the older games. And what was making his situation worse was the fact that he had the fully shared version of the x200!
The x200 really relys on so many variables to perform!

 

Its a very capable Gpu once it is backed up by a good system and has at least 32-64mb dedicated to it!

 

Alright, thank you, Fishy. I've been told previously that getting more RAM wouldn't help, but I guess that isn't the case. The 2700 is what I have, so it seems I'm in the same boat as that other guy. So if I get more, faster RAM I should be in business? Any specific brands I should look for? And should I go for the fastest possible, or does it not matter past a certain speed?

 

wish i had all this info b4 i put my credit card info in and press send(lol) now i am stuck with a sub standard gpu and slow ram(1 gig of ram ordered with lappy). Basically what you guys are saying is that if i should buy a faster ram my performance will be better but what about the fact that i am using only the 128 that comes with the gpu does it still have that large an effect ?????

Well how do i know what speed memory my machine has, i just realised that despite intereacting with computers on a large scales for the past 5 yrs my knowledge of hardware is really limited, so if you guys could point me ion the right direction that would be excellent

Anothger issue radeon xpress 200 m is a chipset ??

does that mean motherboard clarify please

 

I have a Toshiba A105 with the 200M 128-shared only, 1.7 Celeron and 768 RAM I could not play Black and White 2 it was horrible! and Warcraft 3 would hardly run. I installed Omega drivers and Warcraft 3 run great with setting all turned to high at the higest resolution. Black and White 2 did get better but IMO still is not playable. I highly recommend the Omega drivers!

 

Telebandit.
Did u not find when u installed the Omega Drivers that ur screen resolution kept setting to 1024*768 every time u started the machine??? I have the same laptop model as you.. Which version of the Omega drivers did u get?

Dappa.
The version you have of the x200(128 dedicated) is NOT a weak card. Well not as weak as people will lead you to believe. I have seen laptops with ur spec and YOUR x200M run DOOM3 ok on medium settings and FAR Cry on near Max settings(1024*768 res) perfectly. It is only a little slower than the x300 which isnt a bad card. You wont be able to play any of the major new titles coming out but you will be able to play the HUNDREDS of older games that are available perfectly! (pre-2005)

Also you asked what was meant by the x200 being a chipset....
It means that instead of there being a grpahics card in you laptop with the core processor(gpu) and the RAM being built onto it.. You have the gpu built and soldered directly onto the Motherboard and have small memory modules soldered directly beside it (2*64mb), which are dedicated to it.
The x200 can instead simply have the Gpu built onto the motherboard in this way but without memory modules attached near to it. It instead takes the memory it needs via the system Memory 'RAM'. However this is far less efficient as it takes more time for the Gpu to take and process the memory in this way. A mojor difference between the chipsets is that they dont have a heat sink/fan to cool them, the way proper graphics cards do and for that reason, they are underclocked to prevent overheating.

Illundir.
If you get more RAM it may help but the max u will need would be 1Gbs as anymore wont do anything. However you will still be crippled by the speed of ur RAM which i dont think u cna change. The Turion doesnt support DDR2 and the fastest i think iv seen them is 400Mhz PC3200or2700. You will have to check with the manufacturer as the motherboard is prob simply not suited to anything faster.

 

ATI Radeon X200m 128 dedicated:
2 PixelPipelines x 350MHz Core Clock = 700 MegaPixels/sec

ATI Radeon X300m 128 dedicated:
4 PixelPipelines x 350MHz CoreClock = 1400 Mega Pixels/sec.

the x300m is nearly 2 times more powerful, but other factors come in too and the over power over the 200m of the 300m is 30%.

so the x300m is nearly 39~50% more powerful than the x200m 128 dedicated.

 

yet. on my dad's HPDV5000z. he can play farcry at 1024x786 res @ High settings while achiving atleast 20~28 fps

 

The ATI Radeon X300 isn't twice as powerful as the dedicated X200M - comparing the relative performance, the X300 is only about one-third more powerful.

 

And the xpress 200m saga continues, is this technology top secret ???
Was it made by aliens, why is it that every time i think i completly understand this gpu somebody adds a post thats cause me to wonder if this card is really ok , i am not a serious gamer but every now and then i like to indulge in a little game playing (who doesnt), to be honest eye candy whilst not that important to me kinda enhances the whole gaming experience, so what i am now hearing is that if i turn down some of the stuff (eye candy) the games will run smoothly without a hitch at good fps.......

Bway i have to run some tests myself because most times these posts are so contradicting so to all x200 m dedicated gpu owners out there i will post my findings as soon as i can