***ENVY 14 Gaming Lounge***

I read on the blizzard forums for starcraft 2 that there is a bug dealing with the ati 5 series and the sound. Instead of having the output sound on default, put it to speakers and headphones, and speaker setup to stereo. I now don't fps lag when playing the computer in late game

 

Just so y'all know, I started an NBR TeamSpeak 3 server curtsy of meself. Feel free to join, but I may have to kick yer butt all over cyperspace if I's gotta git en! See ma sig for more infa, if u kan reed!

 

Is the E 14 not good enough to play starcraft 2 online competetively at medium settings?

 

read just 2 posts above, dude. might actually be okay

 

*tries out some metro2033*

well. DX9, 1600x900, AFx4, Low for graphics settings it runs fine and looks good. Jaggies up everywhere but I never cared about those (can't turn on AA for whatever reason, probably would kill performance)

Normal works as well but I can't tell the difference between normal and low so I just went with low.

 

BIG. OL'. Disappointment eh?

Oh yea, I forgot. Magus, did you ever get around to testing Dolphin? If you can, could you test SSBM, MKDD, or F-Zero GX? And hopefully someone can figure out this wacko SC2 business, cuz someone in the 3820TG threads said that their lappy can't handle SC2 too well either.

 

Sounds like a pirate talking. Or a propane and propane accessories salesperson.

 

Do you get good performance with high+medium shadows on the actual 1600x900 E14 screen?

 

Anyone crashing in single player champagne in SC2? When i go to the armory, I'll sometimes get a hard lockup or the screen goes blank when i click on the Firebat standing there.

I'm running on default clocks and original drivers. 1600x900 on medium.

I ran 3D mark06 a few times with out any issues and played a few rounds of TF2 flawlessly.

I just want to make sure that it's the game that's buggy and not the gpu.

Also, does anyone have any procedures on how to upgrade to the latest Catalyst drivers?

Thanks.

 

been busy.

one of these days I'll get dolphin setup again and setup correctly.


in other news I'm thinking different people have different ideas for playable in sc2.

'cause yeah it's playable on medium-high stuff. 'cause 25-30ish fps is playable for an fps.


it's not competitively playable but it's playable. I mean I wouldn't try that out online all that much without getting frustrated, but it's fine for campaign so far (only 13ish missions in).

 

Just a thought on increasing the performance on the Envy for gaming purposes:

Looking at the service manual (Chapter 4 - Page 72), it seems the CPU is replaceable. The Core i7-620M is based on Arrandale, has the same integrated GPU speed, and has the same TDP as the i5's that are in the Envy.

Could this be a drop-in upgrade possibility?

Also, to those trying to overclock the GPU and anybody trying to get better temperatures overall, has anybody tried replacing the thermal paste with something like the Shin-Etsu X23-7783D to cool the components by a few degrees. Meanwhile, it looks like you can replace the thermal pad of the chipset with perhaps some copper shims. (Service Manual Chapter 4 - Page 71)

Anybody out there trying these things with their Envies yet?

 

Technically, yes, but the BIOS has to support it. Not sure if it does or not.

After my 21 day "trial" period is up, I may try to install some IC Diamond thermal paste to see how well it works. I'm sure any thermal paste is better than what they use. Not sure about copper shims though. While I'm in there I might add some pads or something to make my keyboard more rigid too. It doesn't bother me really, but while I'm in there might as well, right?

 

Everybody I have a problem, after playing like 5 minutes or so (it varies, sometimes I pla for 30 minutes) of Modern Warfare 2, the game crashes and the computer restarts. Does anybody know what might be going wrong?

 

Totally forgot about HP's BIOS lock. ARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH.

The TIM replacement may be worthwhile, though.

 

Oveheating? ARe you overclocking it? Maybe its unstable.

 

I am definitely not overclocking. I will attempt to check temps but I doubt it is overheating. One time When I exited the game after playing a little, temps were only at 65 C

 

maybe check on gpu-z just to see what it's max speed is (core and memory)

 

It's like everyone else's 450 800. I'll see if updating directx and installing 10.7 does anything.

 

I actually have been experiencing what L3vi is going through... although I can't say my computer crashes as often however (more like 3-6 times per day). The odd thing is that not only does it crash during gaming but it has crashed when I was simply browsing the web a couple of times. I have not overclocked so what's up? =x

 

I'm experiencing the same thing but on with my desktop I beleive that my harddrive that has win7 is the trouble-maker. It is very random when it happens (I usually get it a few times at boot).

Going to add swap out my current drive with another one (that has been perfect for 5 years) and see if that solves the problems.

EDIT:
My ENVY is does not have this problem.

My issue with my desktop is that it will restart randomly. Like: Playing a game, brief pause, screen goes blank, and it restarts. (I have Win7 configured to not do the auto restart on a BSOD so I can see the error screen). As this tends to be when a software crash has occured, I believe one of my hardware components are to blame.

 

Man the last time I had mass crashing issues was back on an old alienware 5500m back when the 9800 pro was the best.


Needless to say it didn't like doom 3 for some reason.

that or windows xp pre SP1 was acting up.

 

Ya my envy does a hard reboot after around 20 minutes of gameplay and going to the armory. I'm wondering if its my gpu overheating because it did get pretty hot. If that is the case.. this is pretty disappointing.

No overclocking.

 

I haven't had those issues.

though if you guys are on low or something that might be the reason. Your menus are running at like 200 fps.

 

Nope.. on default settings which are medium/high

Doesn't seem to be an Envy 14 problem but an ATI/Starcraft 2 one.. guess I'll keep this laptop a while longer

Source: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100728055553AAfOSFR

 

I just got SSBM for dolphin since someone requested that last night. I have a LOT of experience playing the real game, but I've never used Dolphin before. If you have any requests or know any better, more concrete ways to test things in dolphin let me know because fraps didnt seem very accurate.

Everyone is saying Dolphin is CPU intensive so I didn't bother overclocking for this.

1920x1080 on external monitor, both monitors on
4x anisotropic
2x AA
not playable :<

1920x1080 on external monitor, both on
1x anisotropic
AA disabled
EEEH, it seemed playable on some levels (DK level worked out alright), others it seemed a bit slow with the occasional stutter

1600x900 on laptop
1x anisotropic
AA disabled
I felt it was playable, but how fluid it is depends greatly on the level. Fraps open in the background never dipped below 40 on any level, but there was still slight (though noticeable) slowdown at times. I played three levels, and how well they played is in order from best to worst: DK, star fox, and pokemon stadium.

 

I guess I'll have to wait for a driver update, cuz I can't get more than 20 minutes of play time before crash. Window reports a BSOD which is weird.

 

did this start when you updated to 10.7 or was this on 10.3 too?

 

does 10.7 still not support switchable graphics?

 

officially, no.

 

Hey i installed 10.7 and it still shows the switchable graphics and it seems like it does let me switch, but my battery life is only about 2:30 with the "power saving" gpu on and only doin light surfin and some youtube. Does this mean that the ati card is always running? and would goin back to 10.3 drivers fix the problem? Thanks for any help, its very much appreciated

 

I actually really like it on low and even play like that at home on my much more powerful machine. Everything just looks so much more clear and simple for playing.

Then again, I love SC1's graphics

 

So there is a way then to make10.7 switchable? Please do tell...

 

officially no just means that they don't support it but you can try installing it anyway and it usually works...albeit you can get a black screen or something while installing and that won't go away til you reboot. but if you reboot too song it'll screw up the install and then you're in real trouble and will probably have to system restore back a day or so

 

Can you test it ONLY on E14 screen, and not run anything else that'll slow Dolphin down? Like, just tell us if it's playable, comfortable feeling, reminds you of real gamecube experience, etc. You can tape it on post on yt if you like (tape = camcorder, cellphone, etc that is not connected to the actual laptop). Thanks!

 

It crashes for me with 10.3 too

 

I dunno what's wrong.

maybe you have a bad part in your laptop.

mine's never crashed except for when I was doing something ridiculously stupid (hello guinea pig catalyst time and guinea pig OC stuff)

 

If it helps, SC2 crashed on my dino after 10min or so of gameplay, which has a throwback GPU: Radeon 9600 PRO 256mb

 

well your dino laptop can't handle it.


....that being said my old asus G1 got to a scary temperature the first time I played phase 2 (and thusly I didn't play anymore SC2 on the G1)

Go 7700: 97 C


Me: ......God damn I'm glad I didn't get a G1s

 

EDIT: WOOPS Double post. My comp crashed, and re-posted when I opened Firefox again.

 

It's a dinodesktop. The laptop from 2007 doesn't even get close.

 

It was on 10.3 and 10.7. I'm not sure what's going on, I'm going to uninstall 10.7 and install whatever Windows suggests, and see what happens.

 

hey i frequent this forum i have an m11x R2 and was considering trading for a Envy 14 with some cash. I was just wondering, i can get close to 8k... 7.9k stable score on 3dmark06 but the only game I really play on is SC2. It seems the m11x R2 out performs the ENVY 14 in 3dmark06 slightly but I was wondering how it plays SC2 (forgive me for not searching 80 pages). I currently play at 1920X1080 on external monitor with medium settings and ultra textures and get 50 fps during battles 30 fps.. during huge battles 18-20fps. Does the envy 14 do better? The lower i5 version?

For fun here is a pic of my 3dmark06.

 

There's a long thread in the battle-net forums under the starcraft 2 tech support about the game crashing. Might as well post there as well.

Don't think it's a heat issue since it seem the only place i'm having issues is the armory section even after freshly booting up and loading the game and heading to the armory. I'll play around with it some more to be sure.

 

you might be outperforming the envy already on that sort of monitor.

our radeon 5650 is clocked at the low end of the spectrum.

though it also looks like the 5650 is having trouble with sc2 in general (acer3820tg was having some lower fps than what they expected and they can OC their card out the whazoo and pull 9kish 3dmark06)

 

hm ok, good to know.. its funny a GPU overclock on the 335m doesnt yield any higher FPS in SC2 so i keep it at stock GPU when playing SC2.

 

So what would be a possible solution ?

 

that's probably since your bottleneck is your cpu.


sc2 can be cpu heavy at times.

 

wait for blizzard and/or ati to fix it with newer drivers (ati) or a patch (blizz)

I dunno.

 

Heres a video of my SSBM performance:
YouTube - Envy 14 running Dolphin

 

oh wow.

this last sc2 patch totally screwed up my fps or something.

man...what'd you do blizzard.