gaming battery life on p7811fx

I was wondering how many hours of gaming can you do on the p7811fx using just battery power, and does it give the same performance framerate wise unplugged. Thanks.

 

I'll let a 7811 owner give you the answer to your first question, as I never game on battery(Not too many people do). But I can tell you that unless the registry is hacked, framerates on battery are effectively cut in half to save battery life.

 

On the 6831 I had which is pretty much the same thing I got about 1 hr 45 minutes while playing World in Conflict.

 

D@mn. Thats pretty impressive.

 

ITS OVER 9000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
...seconds.

 

The reason I ask is because on my Toshiba x305 I can game on battery without losing frames per second, it holds the same framerate as when its plugged in and it does it for 45 minutes. That's when the battery gives the 10% warning that it's about to die.

I was pleasantly surprised, because on my Toshiba x205 sli1 it would "downclock" and lose at least 30% of the framerates per second when I unplugged. I also read that this was something common on different models because of the posts on this forum. I assumed that every gaming laptop couldn't game at high performance if not plugged into an ac outlet.

But what got me wondering was Toshiba only had the stock video driver version 175.90 on their US website and I wanted to boost my performance, so I was linked from a x300 (european x305 model) user to an updated video driver version 176.18 posted on the Toshiba europe website I installed and it and could still game without a drop in performance on battery. Until I installed 178.13 from laptopvideo2go, and from there the x305 wouldn't be able to keep the same framerate on battery as it did plugged in.

Keep in mind, I followed the steps to installing video drivers correctly which is uninstall old drivers, reboot in safe mode, run driver sweeper then install new driver. I did this for each driver version.

Anyway I was upset because I couldn't get back the performance when I reinstalled the default Toshiba drivers. Call of Duty 4 would drop to 8-12 fps when unplugged and running on just battery as opposed to 30-60 plugged in.
Thankfully system restore brought it back to normal and now I can game full effect, graphics maxed out running with framerates hovering between 30-60 fps for 45 minutes away from an ac outlet.

I'm thinking that the laptopvideo2go drivers or inf does something to the registry on users laptops that make it "downclock" and no longer able to sustain high performance if not plugged. Or it could be driver sweeper that clears important info that the manufacturer put in place in order to keep the gaming notebook performing when mobile.

And since the P 7811fx came out around the same time as the x305 and both models have the new generation of mobile GPUs 9 series that it too should be able to game on high performance without losing frames per second when running just on battery power.

Unless no one tested a stock p7811fx setup with default video drivers to see if it could game without "downclocking" on just battery and everyone just installed laptopvideo2go drivers. Then maybe no one is aware that maybe the p7811fx can do gaming mobile and on the go without being plugged in.

It's a nice treat being able to do this, and must be experienced. Although the x305 can only manage 45 minutes. I hear the p7811fx battery life is around 2 hours.

 

I've gotten 3 hours watching a dvd....pretty sweet

 

hacking the powermizer is EASY, anyone can do it.

 

Not if you don't have a "perlevelsrc" string to change. I tried that route and did some reading up on the forums to enable/disable powermizer and some of the well "repped" guys don't or can't change "powermizer" settings in their registry because it's missing. Infact with my x205 I did change the entry from I guess 3322 2222 or something, followed the steps to the T and still it would downclock. As far as the X305 with the 178.13 laptopvid2go driver and inf I don't know if it had the perlevelsrc string didn't check but after system restore and running official Toshiba nvidia drivers for the 9700m gts. I'm staying put till I find out what needs to be in the registry in order for this notebook to maintain performance running on just battery.

Anyway back to my question, Does the Gateway p7811fx "downclock" and how long can you game when running on just battery? Thanks.

 

that might be so, however none of the gateway users i know of reported he couldn't get it done. and i can tell you it worked for me with several different drivers.

 

So can you game on just battery power with out losing performance? and if so how long can you game on just battery? Finally, with the stock drivers, did it allow you to game full effect without changing settings in the registry (disabling powermizer). Thanks

P.S. What driver version are you using right now? I just might try it if it has a perflevelsrc string I can tweak.

 

i haven't touch it for a long time as i don't game on battery.
you should know that if your battery voltage even spikes down below ~10.8v (don't catch me on the exact number) your notebook will power down immediately, and you will have to remove the battery replace it plug it in and only then it will power up.

it is super ugly.
[email protected] Grid would shut down my notebook in less than 30 sec.
didn't want to experiment with it, abrupt shut downs are not my daily playground.

 

@ the OP: You have to disable NVIDIA's power saving schemes. I tried gaming on the battery and my FPS took a huge dip. I checked the clocks on the GPU, and sure enough, NVIDIA's power scheme downclocks the GPU and memory (GPU memory, not system memory) to help battery life. I haven't had a chance to mess around with it, but I'm sure if you disable this, you can probably squeeze out an hour.... maybe a little less.

 

This can't be right. Toshiba's x305 can't be the only gaming notebook that allows users to game on the go without being plugged into an ac and not lose performance. I mean that just defeats the whole purpose of being mobile and portable, and it's a very significant reason why consumers would even consider purchasing a gaming notebook instead of a desktop.

The Gateway p 7811 fx is a competitor and came out around the same time as the X305 and both possess the new 9 series cards.

Both companies R&D departments had to take this into account especially if they're developing for gaming. This also applies to Nvidia since this is their new less energy consuming mobile line of gpus.

Battery life potential has already hit it's plateau and new battery technology is required in order for longer operation, So the companies can be forgiven on that note.

I hear the average battery life for notebook gaming is one hour which sounds about right, since the Toshiba x305 can game on high performance battery settings for 45 min before it gives the 10% battery charge alert.

So it seems that the gateway p7811fx users on this forum install newer unofficial video drivers as soon as they get the notebook and lose the ability to game while mobile and not plugged into an ac without losing performance. This may be the case, unless someone actually does test to see if a stock brand new out of the box p7811fx can game on just the battery charge with out "downclocking"

Eurasianman, have you tried this with your gateway gaming notebook with the original drivers assuming you still run them or never installed another one, because if you do install laptopvid2go drivers then try to install the stock ones again the ability would already be lost because of some changes that were made through the installation that I'm not aware of. If I didn't know it from gaming on battery the first time I tried, I would be like most users on this forum and assume that all notebooks will "downclock" if you game on battery. So I'm actually trying to help people see how satisfying it can be to break free from an outlet and game at a public place.

So new p7811 fx owners maybe you should test to see if you can game on battery with full graphical settings maxed without out losing performance before installing different drivers. Less you lose the full potential of your powerhouse notebook.

 

*smacks jacob808 with a rotten carp*

YOU DON'T LOSE ANYTHING! It's a simple feature that NVIDIA implemented to help people out who wish to run discrete graphics without impacting battery life. If I wanted to, I could disable the "Powermizer" or whatever NVIDIA calls it so that the clocks always run at max regardless if I'm on battery power or AC power. It's a simple piece of code that NVIDIA wrote for NVIDIA mobile cards. Their desktop product line doesn't downclock when at idle AFAIK. As far as drivers go, I'm not that familiar with notebook graphic drivers, so I can't comment much on the issue relating to users installing new "unofficial" drivers as far as mobile graphics go. All I know is is that if I want to game on battery power, I can easily just go into the NVIDIA control panel and disable the powermizer or whatever and game just fine on battery without a performance hit.

 

Look, I'm not trying to bash or put down the P 7811 fx infact I'm thinking about purchasing one and all I want to know is can it game without a performance hit out of the box without tweaking anything and how long does the battery last while gaming?

 

Hmm... let me see if I can test this out for you...

P.S. I was just joking with you with the whole "smacking with the rotten carp".

 

*sighs*

I believe I'll have to do a registry tweak to disable powermizer. I checked on my other laptop and sure enough, there's a powermizer tab in the NVIDIA control panel. However, there's no easy way to access this under Vista. Rivatuner and ATI Tool don't really let you change the clock either.