***ENVY 14 Gaming Lounge***

system restore to a point before you did that.

type in system restore in the run box and go from there.

 

Cool, thanks!

 

Maybe I'm missing something here...

I just got to start playing around with my E14 a day or two ago. I decided to start off with some lighter games, so I transferred my Steam versions of The Witcher and FEAR over, and I'm very disappointed to notice that they're both only running at a slight improvement over the 8400m GS + T7500m in my Inspiron. I just ran FEAR Extraction Point's settings test for a few minutes on far from maximum settings and had the FPS dropping well below traditionally playable levels. The Witcher was similar, medium settings and poor FPS in both gameplay and FMV's.

I checked GPU-Z, and it seems my GPU was throttling to 300/300, rather than 450/800, though I'm running on outlet power. I saw something at one point about that being a problem that occurs in some certain conditions, but I don't recall what the conditions were, nor do I remember the solution. Can anybody help me out here?

 

the conditions are "dude you unplugged your envy and/or swapped graphics and then plugged it back in and swapped back, powerplay is pissed"

disable and re-enable powerplay and it should fix itself.

that or reboot.

 

I think I finally fixed my crashing problem. I've played at least 5 or so matches with no BSOD.

I'm not sure this is a definite fix but this is what I did:

1. Used Windows update to install all recommended updates except the language packs

2. In advanced system settings under startup and recovery, I changed the settings to kernel dumps

3. Installed the FULL .NET Framework 4

After that, it's been smooth sailing, at least on Call of Duty 4, I'll try Modern Warfare 2 later today or tomorrow

 

Is using ccc 10.7a really a big difference because I don't like the fact that you have to wait 5 minutes with a blank screen to install it.
I have been just using afterburner at 520 and 820 and it seems to work good for most games. My other question is,
they will probably update drivers eventually right? So I can just wait till they do?

 

eh.

it's not that big of a deal right now.

you can stick with 10.3 until we confirm that it has that same issue 10.6 has with hardware accelerated video and that new codec streaming websites are using (causes a BSOD)

you can turn off hardware acceleration in flash though and it won't BSOD anymore

 

Oh ok, I have a question I guess I'm a newb. What is flash? Is that in the bios, or the player or what? Sorry haha. I also want to know how to overclock the processor? Do I do that in the bios or can that be done with something like msi after burner. Btw, thanks for being so helpful to everyone on this forum.

 

Flash Player. Right click on any Flash movie, select Properties, then find the "Hardware acceleration" checkbox and turn it off.

 

You cannot overclock the processor on this machine.

 

Could you downclock it? Or at least disable Turboboost/Hyperthreading? It could save some battery and it's not really necessary for general tasks... a simple DualCore is fine for note taking and WebBrowsing.

Also, I wanted yo know if any of you guys have changed the thermal compound for something like MX-2 Or AS5? On the GPU and/or CPU.

 

AFAIK, it's either impossible or very hard to undervolt/downclock the i series CPU's. You can disable turboboost, but it won't increase battery life at all.

 

hmmm something is weird.
When i oc using MSI afterburner and checking GPU-Z, GPU clock does change to what i wanted but the defalut clock stays the same.
When i look at the graph thing in afterburner, it stays at defalut.

 

That's the problem I had. Go into the Catalyst Control Center and disable, then enable PowerPlay. That should fix it. It did for me.

 

OMG thanks it fixed it!!!

 

Btw, is furmark good for testing if OC is stable? because i just crashed playing games at 550/850 T.T

 

Furmark is really only good for temperature. It can't determine issues with games that could be due to a bazillion other factors.

 

Damnit I was playing starcraft II and it crashed twice on me with black and white verticle lines. Is that because I overclocked it to 550 and 520 the second time? Or is this a known bnet thing with ati cards?

 

Sniper Ghost Warrior runs really smootly on max settings at 500/800.

Although my game is bugged so im basically stuck in chapter 2 because my computer sniper guy friend does not freakin move and just stand like a statue.

 

NP. I only expect back rubs in return.

I would run at 450 for a while and see what happens. To be honest I've seen little improvement from 450 to 550 MHz in Bad Company 2. Maybe 1-2 fps at best. Better to root cause with stock clocks than be wondering. I've been playing SC2 SP campaign @ 450, med/high settings (basically turn reflections off, boost your fps considerably) with no issue.

I considered that game. But I heard it was severly bugged and wasn't as much fun as it sounded. I love sniper games.

 

sc2 could also be overheating on account of "dude I'm sc2. I have no fps cap by default and if there's nothing happening I'll ratchet your fps up to the 500s and force your card to redraw this one thing way too many times and stuff like that until it crashes, or melts."

 

Somehow, i passed chapter 2 by ditching my friend sniper. I think it was still bugged as enemies didnt even attack me and just stood there doing nothing.
So i just walk passed them to finish it. Then chapter 3 came where i fail the mission as soon as it starts. This game is seriously bugged or maybe just the one i dled...

 

Where does this happen for you? It only occurs to me when I try to talk/view units in the armory.

 

the name of that game just makes it sound sheap and cheesy lol

 

Nvm

10 chars.

Oh and DAMN IT! After so long, today my notebook crashed again while playing COD4. I want to try out other games and see if it's specific to this game. I'm sure I don't have a faulty card though. ATI probably needs to release a driver update, not an update to CCC.

 

hmmm *turns off catalyst AI and gets 30-40 fps on 1600x900 in SC2 on high settings but medium shadows, mainly 30, sometimes 25*

whelp. I know what I"m never turning on again unless it was helping some other game. sure fps drops to like 15 if the map zooms out all that much (so I'm gonna probably drop some other things down and/or go back to how my settings were before), but damn catalyst AI was screwing things up

 

Oh yes. I've never seen a game where AI improved things; it only degrades them. I've seen corruption, texture issues, lag, crashes, lockups, anything. I don't know what AI is supposed to do, but never turn it on...

 

good to know.

also that 15ish fps is more of a "cutscenes" kinda thing and/or the super zoom out on the challenge maps.

 

What settings does everyone use for SC2? Resolution, Medium/High/etc, any other adjustments?

Also, how do you check your fps in SC2?

 

ctrl+alt+f turns the fps counter on.


before I knew about catalyst AI sucking I was on high shaders, low lighting, a special setup for shadows (that got rid of soft shadows and made the shadows not as smooth in general by lowering their resolution/size/whatever that option was) and something that turned off hdr lighting altogether.

now I'm currently on high with medium shadows. Gonna experiment more with regular settings.

 

When I run GPU-Z is default clock suppose to be 300mhz-300mhz. GPU clock is 450 / 800, jw if default is suppose to be 300/300. Thanks

 

no it should say 450/800

mess with powerplay (it's screwing with you, does that for everyone when you go from battery to non battery and/or swap to the intel and back)

 

Should I leave powerplay disabled? When I disabled and reenabled it went to 150 and 100 lol, however if i leave it disabled its normal

 

Hey Magus, did you get around to playing Modern Warfare or Modern Warfare 2 yet?

 

no. someone else with a new envy posted it was going fine for a couple hours in the owner's lounge a post or two ago though.


so I dunno why the hell it's crashing on yours.

 

This is really weird. When i launch Sniper Ghost Warrior i just get a black screen and sound. Its not frozen as i can like alt tab and kill the task. It was working perfectly few hours ago.... wth

 

I've had a few glitches with hl2 games.

if I change the video options more than one it'll become a tiny black spot in the top left.

so...*shrugs* anyway to play in a windowed fullscreen mode?

 

I want to update to 10.7 but where I read you need to install 10.3 first, Where can i find 10.3? Thanks

 

10.3 is default drivers that came with the laptop.

 

Umm I was thinking about getting an Envy 14 until I looked at this thread. Is it really that problematic if you're going to use it for gaming? It looks like it really under performs with the underclocked GPU. I was sorta hoping to be able to at least play Starcraft 2 on high and L4D2 and TF2 at least high as well..

 

I'm pretty sure L4D2 and TF2 will play pretty much maxed out.

 

I play starcraft on all high settings and medium shadows and I get around 35-45 FPS during a whole game except when there is huge battles it lags a bit drop to 25ish.

 

yeah SC2 works fine at 1600x900 AFTER you turn off Catalyst AI.

if that's on your fps suffers

 

I play max everything on TF2 (no AA though) and get 40~ FPS. Remember, TF@ is a game that valve is too lazy to optimize , so by no means does it determine performance on other games. Source games like L4D, TF2, HL2, etc. are more CPU dependent than other games as well.

 

Can you explain how to do this? Ive been to busy playing SC2 to read this thread =P

 

Just played Blur for like an hour. It runs really good on max at 500/800.
Temp got really high tho.
Core1 Max: 87
Core2 Max: 85
GPU: 77
Are they dangerously hot?
Btw the room temp is 25.

 

Catalyst Control Center, select AI and it's a check box.

edit: also realized just right click the ATI icon in the system tray and choose 3D Settings, Catalyst AI, and disable.

 

Is it on by default?

 

Ah gotcha. Im an nvidia user, so I am lost with all this catalyst stuff lol

 

Unfortunately, yes.