8510p gfx (mobility hd2600) questions

already asked hp - told me to ask ati. ati - no answer, yet.

i have a hp 8510p business notebook (gb967ea#akn) with a mobility radeon hd2600 - 256mb, winxp pro sp3 32bit. cpu intel core 2 duo t9300 2,5ghz, 4gb ram (2x2048mb kingston ddr2 800mhz).

i use original ati (desktop) drivers by adding
"ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2600" = ati2mtag_RV630, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9581
to the cn_####.inf file of the driver (currently 9.2) and installing ccc afterwards.
this assures me best possible performance (eg. ca. 100-200 points higher 3dmark06 score than other people get with the same notebook) and no errors/problems until now.

now i have 2 questions..
first regarding hypermemory, which should be 512mb according to hp.
ccc, sysinfo, siw from gotpala.com etc. all say my hd2600 has 256mb. Internal DAC 400mhz. ccc says core clock 500mhz, memory clock 600mhz.
i heard people saying ccc showing total possible memory (= dedicated AND hypermemory) as memory size on their notebooks.
so is hypermemory unsupported or disabled on my card when ccc says 256mb (which is total dedicated memory), and not 512 or 768, which would be dedicated+hypermemory, like those other people have?
when running gfx-demanding applications like photoshop or games, i cannot recognize any reserved memory which could be taken from the card as hypermemory - does that mean that the apps arent demanding enough? among others also some very demanding, new games running on full/max details and my native resolution (1680x1050), which should be demanding enough to use hypermemory imo..

second question: video bios.
according to ccc, my current vbios BIOS Version is 010.056.000.008, BIOS Part Number BK-ATI VER010.056.000.008.029265, BIOS Date 2008/06/11.
is there a way to get a newer video bios version? hp told me to ask ATI.. im not gonna just give it a try and flash my card with a 2600 vbios found in the net, since i dont wanna lose my warranty and/or damage my hardware, and as mentioned before, im very satisfied with the performance of my card.

unfortunately, my system bios doesnt give me any options since hp notebook end-user bioses are very restricted, which i was told by hp as well - still, are there any ways to tweak the hp bios or reveal unavailable options like ram timings or especially agp aperture size/onboard video memory size (>hypermemory)?
current bios ver. is newest available for 8510p - f.15.

thanks

 

I play games at 1920x1200 and I have no troubles. Honestly hypermemory doesn't do much unless you have a GPU that has very little vram (64mb). use GPUz to find the core clock speed. Should be 500(core)/600(mem).

Most notebook manufactures do not provide GPU bios flashing unless its a critical update.

Conclusion, the HD2600 has 256mb of dedicated Vram. Just leave your GPU as it is, abit of overclocking would be good if you need any extra performance. Go search NBR for the HD2600 OC thread.

 

thank you.

however, im still not fully satisfied with the performance (pcmark05 score 5109, 3dmark06 ~3550) - eg. in counter strike source. with fps_max 129 and mostly high settings (native resolution 1680x1050) when playing online fps often drop to ~50, which actually shouldnt be the case imo - played hl2 with max settings and AA & AF with constant high fps.. maybe fps drops in cs:s due to certain tasks because of playing online which stress the cpu too much - so fps drops due to cpu, not gpu? upgraded my ram from 2gb ddr2 300mhz to 4gb ddr2 800mhz recently and no performance increase in cs:s noticed, so ram shouldnt be the weak part.


btw looking through the registry i came across the key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ATI Technologies\CDS\0000\0\Memory

called Hypermemory, which is - !surprise! - set to No (0x0..000).
the key "size" in the same location has the value 256mb (0x0..0200).

my clocks are good (500/600) luckily - read from lots of people in the net having works underclocked hd2600 cards by hp (8510p models), but hypermemory 512mb should be enabled and still everywhere my video memory is stated as 256mb.




is there really nothing to do with that card on hp 8510p except overclocking?
any way to get more of hp's bios?

thanks

 

Well after the 1st (or was it the 2nd?) bios update from HP, the HD2600 should be running at stock clock speed. You 3dmark score looks normal. Just keep AA and AF off as AA really kills the HD2xxx series cards. Overclocking to 600/700 should be perfectly safe with a decent performance boost.