***ENVY 14 Gaming Lounge***

Hey, I had a few quick questions if anyone wants to answer them...

I'm an MMO player, so I'm curious to see how well WoW will run and what is the best settings. Haven't played for around 8 months but with the Envy I kinda want to get back into it. Is it going to play well at the native res for the Radiance screen? Does it even have an option for 1600x900? Or should I be playing in a windowed mode?

Also anyone play Civ4 on the Envy? Kinda wondering how well that'll work too.

Thanks!

 

Quick question, on older games especially counter-strike 1.6. I get a good amount of stuttering, especially when I buy guns or someone uses a radio command. Any idea what might be causing this? Thanks!

 

pure speculation, but I think the envy will crush civ 4....unless you were thinking civ 5? Civ 4 was heavily CPU and RAM intensive (especially later in the game) but I have no idea what to expect from civ 5!

 

What are ok GPU and CPU temps? How high can they get before I should start worrying?

 

ok is anything below 90.

normal is 70-mid 80s depending on the game, how long you play the game, and uh what part of the world you're in.

90 is alright so long as it isn't mid to upper 90s (that's when you get close to the "oh crap it's gonna go over the thermal limit)

I haven't seen mine go above 85 or so and I was screwing around with OCing at the time

 

I tried WoW when I first got my Envy and I played at 1600X900 all ultra settings except medium-low shadows (they are annoying and drastically lower fps)...but in 25m ICC I was 30-40 during a boss fight and I was at 60 fps in VoA 25m. So easily playable and cataclysm will be fine also. I am just worried for SWTOR..hopefully I can play at low settings fine. Game looks so SICK!

 

OK i was hitting mid to high 70s playing spider man web of shadows. It was a little laggy though. Would a clean install help gaming performance? It ran smooth for the most part but every now and then it would pause for a couple seconds which was annoying. Are there any settings in the CCC I should change? They're all at the default values now.

 

*shrugs* only things I would recommend are turning off catalyst AI and making sure you're running at 450/800 (turn off powerplay, apply, turn powerplay back on).


there's a glitch in powerplay when you go to battery and/or change graphics card. it gets stuck on the slower, increase battery life speed after going back to the ati/plugging in.

rebooting the computer or turning powerplay off, then applying, then turning it back on fixes it til you swap graphics/unplug again.

 

I've got a question along these lines. I should probably just test it out myself, but I don't have my power adapter available for the next several hours, so I'm just going to ask in the meantime:

If I never use the ATI GPU on battery except when I power on and I have't confirmed the switching dialog yet, will turning off PowerPlay have any impact (negative or positive) on my computer. Will this same error occur with it turned off, or is the error specific to PowerPlay being turned on?

As a corollary, will turning PowerPlay off while on AC with the ATI GPU at 450/800, allow it remain at its stock speed on battery power, in case I want to game away from an outlet for a while, or is the downclock on battery an Envy thing rather than an ATI thing?

 

OK thanks. Is there a tool that can tell me what speed my GPU is currently running at?

 

Get GPU-Z - it gives a ton of information on your GPU. You'll have to switch it to the ATI GPU at the bottom, though, it defaults to the Intel GPU regardless of which one is active.

 

gpu-z can in the sensor tab. you'll wanna check the box on that tab that says "take results while hidden or something"

if you click on what's shown for speeds you can get min, max, avg, or current

 

I really haven't bothered trying. I think the computer will get warmer if you're on the ati gpu with powerplay off ('cause it's running at max clocks) but it won't be getting 75 C warm

 

Well, when I'm gaming, I would generally prefer to have the GPU at full clock speed anyway, so wouldn't it make sense to turn it off? Or is it PowerPlay's job to downclock when I'm not gaming as well? I guess I take that feature for granted, as my 8400m GS on my old Inspiron did that as well.

Regardless, it would be nice to know if turning off PP before switching to battery power (and retaining the 5650 in command) will retain the 450/800 clocks. It may suck up enough energy that I can't even reach 3 hours gaming on the slice at those clocks, but I'd rather have that option if I want to use it, since gaming at 300/300 is pretty much not going to happen on any remotely modern games.

Incidentally, to add to the general game-specific knowledge base, Borderlands does quite well (usually 45-60 FPS) with medium to high settings, though I've got a number of the more advanced features turned off and AF/AA are low. It does get dicey in some of the General Knoxx locations, particularly the long roads; looking down the road can cut my FPS in half easily, presumably since there's so much being processed along such a narrow stretch of map, even though it's not showing up on the screen.

 

It does bump the clocks up to 450/800 while on battery.

so *shrugs* if you wanna run with it off you can. See how it works. See how long the battery lasts, etc.

edit: and yeah powerplay's job is to downclock to 100/150 when not gaming plugged in or not and to downclock to 300/300 if on battery saving modes or something while gaming.

 

I just thought I'd share my 3DMark06 and 3DMark Vantage scores with you. I ran 3DMark06 at 1280x768, which would run on the native screen resolution, but I also ran them at the standard 3DMark06 resolution of 1280x1024 using a mini DP to VGA adapter and external monitor. 3DMark Vantage won't score you unless you run at 1280x1024, so requires an external monitor.

I was able to clock the GPU from 450MHz to 550MHz and GPU RAM from 800MHz to 900MHz which completed the tests stable. I can't run any game for any length of time with 900MHz though, but for benchamark purposes it'll tell you what you need to know.

The interesting results out of this is that 50MHz GPU bump = 100MHz GPU RAM bump, basically bumping the GPU clock speed is of greater benefit.

I will show both a screenshot of the excel sheet I stored it on only because it tabulates it better, but also will use text in case the graphic goes away.



3DMark06 1280x1024 - 3DMark standard resolution
GPU/MEM | 3DMark Score
450/800 | 6247
450/900 | 6502
500/800 | 6525
500/900 | 6859
550/800 | 6822
550/900 | 7154

3DMark06 1280x768 - 3DMark default resolution with 1366x768 and 1600x900 screens
GPU/MEM | 3DMark Score
450/800 | 6924
450/900 | 7198
500/800 | 7220
500/900 | 7585
550/800 | 7557
550/900 | 7901

3DMark Vantage 1280x1024 - 3DMark standard resolution (required for score)
GPU/MEM | 3DMark Score
450/800 | P3081
450/900 | P3207
550/800 | P3467
550/900 | P3632

 

Thanks HT! Out of curiosity, has anyone broken 8,000 on the lower resolution? I've gotten within 40 or 50 I think. I know it's meaningless, but still.....

 

My best run was 7986

 

A tip for when the switching doesn't want to happen (the confirmation window doesn't even appear):

1) Go in Start, type Services in the search bar and hit Enter.
2) Look for AMD External Events in the list.
3) Right click and hit Restart.

If you have tried to switch GPUs, you'll probably be prompted to switch as soon as you do that. So far it's worked 100% of the time

 

anyone ran splinter cell conviction?
if so, what would be the best settings to run?
also, how can i make the game full screen? i set it to 16x9 and there are still 2 black bars on either side of the screen.

 

Maybe it's a non-supported aspect ratio, or intended for cinematic effect...?

 

Question - does anybody know how to get audio-out sound on Borderlands? I finally got the jacks working by diligently not doing anything about it for a week, but the sound switches over to the laptop speakers when Borderlands runs. It could be a Borderlands thing, a Steam thing, or an Envy thing, but I can't find anything that seems likely.

I'll add that when I was having audio-out issues before, they were constant - I had a hard time watching videos on VLC from across the room because of it, but VLC transmits to the external audio just fine now.

 

It's a borderlands and IDT thing.


this happens to me in starcraft 2 if I set the mic codec to direct sound instead of fsound or something.


apparently a work-around is to disable the microphone stuff in the .cfg files and stuff

Wierd audio problems with headphones. Borderlands Only Problem. - Steam Users' Forums

but well...then you have no mic audio. and also it broke at least one guy's menu stuff (though he might of been screwing up somewhere else)

 

Sweet - it worked, although I'd be pretty upset if I played online and wanted voice chat enabled. Apparently, one guy had to disable his mic/s in the system rather than just Borderland's config file - not cool in the age of Skype, so I'm glad I can get away with disabling it in Borderlands only.

 

for anyone else who has updated to catalyst 10.8, is powerplay not working for you?

I seem to be locked in at 450/800 even with it on.

 

Long time no see. How you been? I apologize for disappearing suddenly. Been really busy lately.

Anyhoo, how's your lappy? Any sweet stories to share about SC2 or etc?

 

*shrugs* it runs alright on medium but don't expect high or ultra or nothing.

beyond that sc2's been sc2. Campaign was fun. Haven't played too much multiplayer lately.

 

so guys, i've never overclocked before, i get how to use afterburner. But how do you know when you have a stable overclock? Can overclocking damage your card greatly? I really don't want to ruin my pretty much perfect machine.

 

Anyone have an issue with Fallout 3? My game crashes right after I choose my gender after the intro.

 

see if this helps:

Fallout 3: Video/Display Freezes, sound keeps going

 

This worked! Thank you!

 

Generally, stable OCing for desktops results in just that: stable performance (it doesnt hang on bootup, or crash, for example). If you OC over a certain ghz for the CPU, it'll hang at the BIOS screen. For GPUs, they say that when you over-OC it, that it'll result in artifacts or something. So keep stepping up by factors of 5, till you get to a certain point that looks desirable and isn't laggy. It prolly won't ruin your machine "greatly" if you don't let it run for too long obviously.

If you're still having trouble picking a value, ask one of the veteran posters what values they got, and go up to minus 10 of that value, and see how it goes. Then if you're greedy, step up in 5s again.

Sum'in like dat.

 

cool thanks a lot

 

Hah, I was getting <30fps in SC2 on medium/low and was about to rage on this thread, but then I noticed that powerplay was sucking at life and leaving it at 300Mhz instead of the full 450, and disabling and enabling it fixed things. Woot! Despite the fact that my desktop plays it at High/Ultra at 60fps, SC2 is still pretty nice at Medium settings. No time to look at the scenery while I'm being rushed by protoss...

 

Successfully OCed my I5 450 with setFSB!

Use SLG505YC56DT. My I5 only goes up to 140.00. Any higher than that and it hard freezes.

Confirmed with CPUz and 3Dmark about the new clock speed.

2.5GHz with Turbo Boost @ 2.775 GHz. The temps only increased about 4 degrees.

My chip might not be able to OC too high, but others may be able to get even higher. Enjoy the extra free performance

Thanks to Bronsky in the 3820TG forum

 

Anyone get the new ati 10.8 drivers?

ATI Catalyst? Mobility Display Driver

 

Here's hoping it fixes the crashing issues. Then again, it's not like I'll have time to play anyways.

 

Is the 2.775ghz dual core mode?

 

Yes, 2 cores, 4 threads

 

not sure if this helps anyone else, but ive recently started playing stalker soc, with the complete 2009 mod, on my envy. graphically its really nice, and with 'maximum' settings at 1600x900 im getting a minimum of 30-40fps outside (increases indoors obviously) - ive got view distance and shadows down to about 75% (it doesnt seem to make a difference at all) but everything else is full. 5650 is overclocked to 500/800 and it plays very smoothly and im happy with how its running. ive only just started overclocking my card for this game, and havent gone higher than 500/800 yet.

with the recent discount on steam* i reckon some may have picked this up, so thought id mention it. i did spend about half an hour fiddling the settings to get a good mix, as full max got me about 25ish fps at minimum which did get a bit sluggish, hence the reductions. im continually impressed with my envy's ability to handle games.

looking at various forums it appears shadows and viewing distance are pretty good options to reduce whilst still retaining excellent graphic quality. the complete 2009 mod looks a million times better than vanilla, and the various extra features are fantastic.


*unfortunately ive recently moved to australia and our internet here wouldnt really allow me to grab a digital copy, so im on retail dvd.

for the record i have a 520m i5, 4gb, radiance display envy.


the only other games ive played to completion are mass effect 2 (1600x900, max settings) ad bioshock 2 (1600x900 max settings) both ran perfectly (on stock gpu speed), me2 particularly is stunning. ive tried the crysis demo as well (its a pretty poor game so ive put off buying it..) and that runs suprisingly well as well on pretty high settings, though i should get round to overclocking and checking it out.

 

How can I download older versions of ATI's drivers. Thanks!

 

ignore10char

 

This interests me...too bad HP is hiking up prices as usual.

 

so how does bad company 2 work on here? I just bought it for 18 bucks 'cause EA's store is having a sale.

 

I think it runs well on medium.

 

all medium except for shadows and HSAO off

 

Bad Company 2, like others have said, all medium with shadows low (I don't think there's off). But to really impove performance go into "My Docments/BFBC2" and edit "settings.ini". Change "DXVersion=auto" to "DXVersion=9". It will force DirectX 9 rendering and usually greatly improves performance.

 

So I finally broke 8k in 3dmark

525/975 OC to the 5650 and i5 450 OCed to 2.620 with turbo boost to 2.911 GHz. Temps were great with both things OCed!

You have to play with both the bottom and top bars in setFSB to get a stable OC.



Edit: Got greedy and tried a higher OC. 2.743ghz with turbo boost to 3.05 Ghz 8053

 

Ugh... I'm pretty sure I've got a bad GPU. I've had it crash probably 20+ times while gaming, and it gets in these ruts where it can't play any GPU-intensive games for several hours to a day. The last 5 times I've fired up Borderlands, it's crashed in under 10 minutes, for example, and I even waited overnight for this last attempt...

I would just send it in, but I live in China and don't know if I'd be able to deal with their tech support, either culturally (most people who serve customers, from waitresses to doctors, do so somewhat begrudgingly) or linguistically, setting aside the fact that they don't offer the Envy 14 here, and the international warranty uses scary terms like "availability" a number of times... Oh, and it's also the computer I use every day for work, and I don't have an alternative...

 

Buy a cheap netbook to get you by, and send the Envy 14 in for repair. That's what the warranty is there for. It sucks to get a new laptop for a good sum of money especially, to not have it work.