Windows Vista kills 7150M in Games

Hi, I have a new HP Pavillion laptop I bought this January. Here are the specs:

OS: Windows XP Pro SP3 (32bit)
GPU: 7150M @ 128MB Dedicated Memory and Current Driver: 180.42 (LV2Go)
CPU: AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-60 @ 2.0 GHz
Motherboard: nForce 630M/MCP67M
RAM: 3GB
Power: 10.8V (I think)
HDD Size: 250GB
Audio: Conexant SmartAudio 221
Media: Slimtype DVD A DS8A 1H WH66 149 @ LightScribe Compatible

All of them have latest drivers available. The Conexant SmartAudio is Vista only but I found some modified drivers from the community at the HP ITRC forums.

It originally came with Windows Vista (32bit) and I like to use Vista but games (and Aero) are really slow with the 7150M on Vista. When I downgraded to XP games were much faster (even with the same settings, and all drivers updated).

I also have advanced knowledge of technology. I know the 7150M is integrated and won't work for most games and that this is more like a business laptop, but the games I run on XP now run faster than on Vista. Even with the "max-stable" overclocking for this laptop Vista still loads slow.

I just want to know if there is anyway to get the 7150M or Vista SP1 to perform better so I don't have to use XP. Any ideas?

If there is no solution to this, then XP would work fine for now. Yes, I also looked at the posts about 7150M on this forum and read the review. I am able to use another driver than just the 156.65.

 

This seems fairly uncommon. The 6150m on my moms laptop handles aero perfectly fine. It has to be something wrong with your drivers.

 

Weird. Games like GunZ, Drift City, Combat Arms and other games like TS2 load a little slow. CS:S, Guild Wars and GTA:SA works fine on Vista, but not that good as on XP but still playable even on plugged-in profile to High Perf.

I have only tried the 156.65, 177.92 (including XG modified), and a couple more which performance was almost same back when I was using Vista. What drivers is she using?

 

hold on were you trying to play games on battery? Play games while plugged in and the should run much better.

 

Sorry, my bad. It's plugged-in and the profile is set to high performance. Also, I turn off the NVIDIA PowerMizer stuff using the regedit keys.

 

oh haha hmm I'm not sure, I would probably try updating bios, and make sure video card drivers are updated. Otherwise I'm not sure.

 

I have latest bios F. 24. I'll try out some other video card drivers as you said it might be a driver problem... or maybe the game itself isn't optimized well for vista.

 

Vista kills mine, and mostly every other 7 series card (desktop and laptop)

 

I don't know about games, but I can tell you the 7150M's PowerMizer settings for the desktop are awful.

I actually briefly had an HP with the 7150M and Aero was just a dog. The chip just clocks itself too low when running on the desktop and Aero takes a hit as a result.

 

Yeah I installed Vista again and now am trying out Dox's modified 180.43 for Vista 32bit @ LV2Go.

 

are you a student? check out dreamspark and windows server 2008. also, just type in windows server 2008 workstation into google to find a guide to set up windows server 2008 as a desktop OS. the result is a more streamlined vista.

 

I'm just going back to XP. Not sure about the Windows Vista Server though. Seems that the 7150M doesn't do gaming on Vista that good after all. Unless there's another way to try, please do tell.