***ENVY 14 Gaming Lounge***

Yep, probably. I don't plan to have too much time to play SC2 during school and my desktop replacement already performs that function anyway.

 

yeah the HP drivers

 

then it's just firefly forest being a pain.

 

Can someone actually use fraps to test their fps?

I forced DX9 and went down to 720p and I get 30 to 35 fps and dips to 10s or 20 when zooming into scope or worse single digits when getting hit with and explosion.

I seriously do not understand how other people are playing this game and not complaining.

 

I'm using AMD/ATI 10.7. I did an uninstall, then installed 10.7. MSI afterburner seems to work well. So far getting a stable 575/825.

You can change the directX level if you go to Documents/BFBC2/settings.ini and change DxVersion=auto to DxVersion=9.

I did use fraps, and at 550/820 I was getting about 30-40 avg, but yeah, some explosions it was dipping to single digits for a second or two.

I'm going to try dxversion=9 and see what happens.

I was willing to sacrifice GPU performance for weight and longer battery life, but so far I'm underwhelmed, was expecting a bit more than M11x or Vaio Z performance here.

One thing I noticed is that the back edge of the machine by the screen is extremely hot while gaming.

I'm honestly beginning to think that HP bought the absolute bottom of the barrel HD 5650 chips and ram from AMD/ATI which is pathetic IMHO for a flagship product. Typically you should be able to overclock RAM by 10% without issue which would be 880MHz. Heck you can't even get 5%.

Also, it must be ATi's drivers causing some issues because even the M11x that I owned for a couple months didn't drop frames to single digits in explosions.

 

Yea I forced DX9 and those were my results with DX9 and low settings and 720p. Thats quite a bit higher than my results which means overclocking to 550 will drastically improve the performance. That makes me feel even angrier at HP for using cheap parts.

 

Interesting. I forced directx 11, and it seems to be performing quite well now.

 

What does "forcing" mean?

 

means setting it to use DX11 in the .ini or something.

 

Yep: Documents/BFBC2/settings.ini change dxversion=auto to dxversion=11 or 9 or 10 whichever you want to force.

 

That is amazing. I forced to DX11 and got 30-40 fps on low. That is so werid that the higher setting gives me fps. I am shocked and amazed. I can play BC2 on my laptop now.

THANKS

 

I just went back to dx9 and plays beautifully at low settings, I think I can crank a few settings up. Levels load more quickly too. Dx10 and Dx11 take so long to load. Google showed this was supposed to be fixed with Catalyst 10.4, but apparently not. GOOGLE LIED!

 

coulda just been broken again in catalyst 10.7 or something.


who knows.

 

Ok this is just strange. Yesterday and earlier today I horrible frames with BC2. Now I can get 30-50 with medium setting with low shadows and 1x aa af on dx9.

I am very confused.

 

did you go from intel when you turned it off to plugging it in and going to ati while it booted?

it sometimes screws up and you have to reboot....I think this is a general thing with switchable.

 

No both time was fully plugged in. I didn't use battery for a few days before today. And I don't even think Intel can run BC2 at all nevermind 20 fps.

 

*shrugs* true.


I dunno what happened?

update the drivers?

 

Nothing. I did nothing. First time forcing DX9 it was slow. But then I forced DX11 and it ran great. Then I reforced DX9 and it ran better.

So in the end, totally random.

 

Update direct X... seriously lol

 

Envy comes with most updated DX.

 

My friend has the dv6 and he said that catalyst updates automatically. Wouldn't it be the same for the e14?

 

Ran some benchmarks before and after the clean install

Before clean install
Cinebench

3DMark 06


After

3DMark 06 was the same

 

better believe it bud.... i was ASTOUNDED on the pricing of the envy 14 when i first looked.... but then i hear about all these people getting banged up laptops (obviously before they were packed), some with fan issues (present on more laptops than one would think), switchable graphics issues, and a CRAPPY gpu cap to top it off.

hp surely bought the cores that couldn't run at the higher end of spectrum to:
1. save costs in the long run
2. save costs again dealing with people complaining with heat/battery life issues because the of the gpu sucking up more pwr and generating more heat

it sucks a lot... and that's why i may buy a 15, although the portability of the 14 sounds sweet....

either way, it is a feat of engineering, in that how much they can cram into a little space, but let's face it, in the end, the company will choose to cut costs. in my opinion, it's a bit mental

 

SC2 is F***ING AMAZING. Sorry, just had to throw that out there. Its very playable on my Envy14 with high settings, and medium shadows, without any OC. It will be even better once I experiment with some over clocking =]

 

Guys we did NOT jipped with the Envy14. The main alternative is the TimelineX 4820TG.

You can get a 4820TG from Microcenter for $900, OR you can get an Envy14 for just over $1000, which comes with a MUCH nicer screen, faster 7,200 rpm hdd, backlit keyboard, and an all metal body. The only downside is an underclocked 5650, which isnt the end of the world.

To me, paying $137 more for the Envy14 was well worth it, because this thing is gorgeous and runs like a charm.

 

could someone please point me to the latest drivers that support switching..
(i think its 10.3)

im still on 8. sumthin - the one from hps website and im having trouble finding 10.3

 

I believe 10.3 is the latest official driver, but earlier someone stated the new 10.7 beta drivers support switching. Just thought I'd let you know.

 

oh thanks for that.. ill try em out

 

Dont know if you have found out yet but the load time fix is in 10.6 drivers.

Also its strange you are getting such poor performance. I am on a fresh build with 10.6 ccc and get 35-60 at 900p. I do get some dips into the 20's if I am in the middle of a mortar strike, but then I did on my m15x with gtx260

 

I'm glad to hear that. I've been dying to play BFBC2. I'll probably be doing that on day 1 of receiving my Envy 14.

On a side note, if you're in a mortar strike, you'll probably be dead anyways, so I don't think 20FPS will matter.

 

Good to hear, was worried I'd have to do some OCing just to play starcraft in high settings. Picked it up tonight and couldn't resist playing, so I was trying out low settings on my older laptop...couldn't imagine having to play on low haha.

 

i'm not young enough to remember star craft properly... is it a good game? After all the hype i have been very curious

 

Graphics are dated, pathfinding is sketchy but it works and APM is the name of the game since you can only select 12 units at a time. No rally points for SCVs/Drones/Probes to mine, after they build you have to manually send them to the specific thing you want to do but all in all, very good for the time period. There are a load of newer RTS's that have better graphics but poorer gameplay than starcraft, not to mention backstory.

 

As well as StarCraft is one of the, if not the most balanced RTS games ever to be created.

 

Don't be so sure about that, usually the Direct X release of new notebooks is the one within windows itself (release of windows that can be several months behind). I recommend anyone to just run a direct X installation from a recent game cdrom or from microsoft websites. If you ran windows update you should be updated tho.

Microsoft Download Center: Product Family Search Results

 

I'd like to note that Catalyst 10.7 on desktop cards apparently has improved Battlefield Bad Company 2 performance.

Not sure if the improvements carried over to the mobile drivers, but it's definitely worth a shot. I'll be installing the 10.7 betas when I get my Envy 14 (hopefully this week).

 

Unless you are running the test with the same resolution for each screen you are comparing apples and oranges.....

 

I updated DirectX. Envy doesn't come fully updated. Just visit microsoft.com/directx and click "Latest DirectX downloads for games" then choose "DirectX End-User Runtime"

 

Same thing happened for me. Weird. I started with auto, used, 10, 11, then 9, and 9 was super fast. Load times are better too, but still not great. Usually get in with 1 or 2 sec's before game starts. Barely enough time to choose your class to get running!

I am running full 10.7's available at AMDs website.

 

Heat and battery wouldn't be an issue because you can switch to integrated GPU, plus in desktop mode, the ATI can downclock a LOT to whatever amount they specify, in this case 100MHz/150MHz. So as far as I see it, it has nothing to do with heat or battery life.

I don't think it's such an amazing feat. Look at the Acer 3820TG in a 13", or the Vaio Z for that matter 3lbs, 13", 1600x900 screen, 4GB, 128GB SSD (minimum), GT 330m which overclocks quite well apparently to 3DMark scores of 8000.

I would probably have gone with the Vaio Z, but it's still a bit more than what I spent on this Envy, and nVidia switchable grahics driver updates from Sony are never updated as I understand it. I guess you're at the mercy of third parties, and workarounds to hope it works. The Acer 3820TG isn't available in the USA, and the 1366x768 screen makes it a no go for me.

With GPU's integrated into CPU's now, I don't know why nVidia and ATi can't fully support switchable graphics.

 

Ah, does the 10.7 release support switchable graphics?

 

So has 500/850 been the most stable with no significant increase in temps?

 

It did for me. We'll see on a full reinstall though. I don't know if existing Intel drivers were there that it detected automatically or if it provides those. Switchable graphics are a mystery to me still.

You have to take it on a machine to machine basis really. I can't get my memory stable at 840 even, but GPU I can get to 575.

 

Cool. I guess I'll be installing the 10.7 release, then.

Friday can't come soon enough.

 

I cant even get my gpu stable at 500 I can get memory upto 900. That sucks. memory makes almost zero difference with such a low clock speed.

Please someone work out how to overvolt!

 

10.7s didn't work for me initially.

eventually I installed 10.7 beta and that worked (sure it did the blank screen and I had to power down after the hdd stopped blinking and stuff).

then I can probably install 10.7 proper.

 

Is there any big advantage of 10.7 over 10.6? I cant be bothered mucking around trying to get it installed if it doesnt give any decent performance increase. 10.6 seems good to me so far

 

10.7 sorta makes borderlands AA & AF run better.

something 'bout fixing hardware acceleration in VLC 1.1.1 but...eh.

 

i'm being nitpicky here, but did anyone who installed msi afterburner on win7 have a missing icon? all that's shown for the exe is a blank page with a folded corner and a program in the middle. the program funs fine though.

 

*shrugs* it varies. sometimes I get the icon sometimes I don't.

win 7 is like that for a couple programs (old old hamachi, I guess this guy, etc)