***ENVY 14 Gaming Lounge***

powerplay defaults to "max battery" with the 10.7 drivers while plugged in. and then installing 10.8 doesn't change that.


HP makes new issues. fix that.

 

huh? is it cause i had the power management set on "balanced" instead of high performance?

in any case, I got through 3 straight missions with no crashes! Hallelujah!

 

nah. I think it's just HP being weird.

also high performance causes artifacting on your screen for random reasons (or it does for my envy, goes away if you set it at balanced. stays away even if you make balanced mirror high performance so... if I know).



also if it starts crashing again after you up it to regular clocks...then yeah it's probably your vid card not being able to handle the basic clocks.

which sucks but a couple people have had that happen. HP is picking radeon 5650s that are binned low and they got a few that were more of a "crap this thing is broken not just binned low"

 

I mean some people ended up seeing that it was more of a "ok this thing is for some reason doing the opposite of what it's meant to do. The cores clock speed for the vid card are going up really high randomly and bam crash. why the hell HP and/or AMD"

 

changing to High Performance mode seems to have smoothed out the gameplay. I'm gonna experiment with some gfx settings, but otherwise everything seems resolved. And I haven't seen any artifacting yet.

 

well if it works fine then hell yeah you just had some ridiculously screwed up graphics driver issue...or somethin

 

I guess, lol. Running excellently now. Ratcheted the graphics up to High settings with Ultra textures and get a very playable 26-32 fps, which is just fine for a RTS. I actually dont notice any lack of smoothness.

As a note: turning shadows on (which is apparently CPU regulated) kills my FPS down to 14-16). But yeah, 4 missions, high graphics, zero crashes now. Very pleased with the formatting results.

 

shadows murder fps in sc2.


so does a mothership


also higher quality creep and reflections

 

Haha, yeah the shadows killed. The scene after the "hold out against Zergs" in mission 2 where the battlecruiser comes in killed FPS too.

 

well...yeah. creep, super BC, etc

 

also. Mirror's Edge runs fine on the envy 14 at 1600x900, medium texture and high effects.

and 4x AA.

and I think vsync was on (don't remember if I turned it off). either way, game was fun

 

Whats the peak FPS for SC2 on high, then?

 

I think 40. or something. depends on the situation of course.

it was more of a 30 average

also any numbers i Post don't count for the campaign which can drop to like 20 or 15 if the camera angle decides to go "yo, here's half the map, render it buddy. Also, enjoy the particles and shadows"

 

I was getting 26-32 FPS on High w/Ultra texture, no reflections, VSync, 1600x900. Didn't seem to play like it was that low, but that's what SC2 reported.

Honestly though, with the Radiance screen, i'm not seeing much need for AA in anything, MAYBE 2x AA just to eliminate that edging effect if you dont run AA. But the 1600x900 looks awesome.

 

you don't need AA in sc2 unless you're on a lower resolution imo.


can't see jaggies (well in-game cinematics you can, but that doesn't really count).

and vsync is why you're hovering 26-32. still that's fine. I haven't really noticed much screen tearing in sc2 though.

 

@ Both of ya'll: Those numbers are from the Radiance 1600x900... So with the crappier reso screen, numbers should be a bit higher, correct? How about if I plug the lappy into an external monitor that is 1600x900, will it have roughly same performance to radiance, or even worse?

 

Shouldn't VSync improve the visual quality though?

 

vsync just stops screen tearing mainly.

it's nice if you can get sc2 to run at the same refresh rate as your monitor, but most of us can't do that (60 fps is the monitor refresh rate)


still if you don't see any issues and don't mind. dun mess with it.

 

Hows FFXIV running? Any one have any videos/pictures of it runing. If it isnt running that great for you have you did things like turning down the resolution,using gamebooster, turning down detail etc.. If any one could make a video of it runing on the envy14 specificly that would be awesome, like a 15 min video lol! with commentary. Im a freak when it comes to mmorpgs sadly I dont have a rig to play it at the moment, waiting for an alienware.

 

Has anyone had any issues with Rise of Nations or Medieval 2: Total War? My 5650 crashes every time a nuke explodes in rise of nations but the Intel does not. And it is a nasty, purple pattern, no way to fix it but hard reboot sort of crash too.

 

@Piginamig: sounds kinda similar to what I had going on only mine had not specific trigger, so to speak. Sadly, my fix was reformatting.

Here's a bit of an off topic question, anyone know why the DM4T, with almost identical specs, gets double the battery life of the Envy 14?

 

almost sounds like an issue where rise of nations is an old game and the videocard just doesn't support it since it's old and/or has troubles with it.

 

well one: weaker video card.

for two: way many more watt hours in the battery most likely.

for third: something something other stuff.

 

the vid card shouldnt matter in a battery longevity test as it won't be active (Intel HD Graphics running). i wish i could see the mah for the batteries, seems almost unfair... like they are trying to push the slice battery...

 

I read many post about the 5650 being locked at 450 even though design spec is 550. Sure enough when my new Envy arrived it was indeed set at 450.

RivaTuner would not work with my Envy so....

I downloaded the AMD GPU Clock Tool and it works like a champ. Resetting the factory specs leaves the GPU very stable and temp ranges in the low 60's.

I tested it at 550 / 850 with voltage as set by HP and had no issues running Cryotasis with very smooth framerates. Crysis runs on high settings with no slowdowns or stuttering at all although the GPU temp clocked 80 degrees as the high temp and 52 as the low. The i7 at stayed in the mid 70’s range.

My Envy has the i7-740 and the AMD GPU Tool is a snap to reset the GPU to factory low idle defaults to increase battery life when not gaming.

i7 temps were 60 and 61 on both cores (Cryotasis requires 2 cores), HD was a cool 39 with a 7200 HDD and motherboard temps were low as well. GPU was a very cool 60 at full load. HP has worked out the thermal dynamics of this build well. The bottom of the case does not even get hot! WooHoo!

HardWare Moniter works fine with the Envy MB, CPU, HD, GPU for temp checking.

 

amd gpu clock tool works for you?

maybe it's only the switchable ones that it won't work with

 

thank you, what i actually discovered was that i was running the system on "Balanced" Mode, rather than "High Performance" i've got 6.7 now and god.... the SSD is rated at 7.7 my highest rating




On a side note: what settings do you guys recommend to get the best performance-graphics ratio for Starcraft 2? and whats the hotkey to engage the FPS text onscreen?

 

I dunno what the hotkey is but if you put the mouse on the MENU button up top it shows you wifi status and FPS.

Running High with Ultra textures at 1600x900 with v-sync plays just fine for me.

 

Run it at high, and the key is alt f q

 

So what exactly are the clocks that you have for your GPU?

How about your CPU, have you been able to OC it?

 

My SSD is at 7.5. Do you have the 160GB or 250GB?

 

base clocks.

and no I can't OC my cpu. the options don't work.

someone with a 450m got it to OC a bit

 

So unlike the 3820TG, HP locks it down? Damn you HP!

 

160gb. from what i've read, the lower the GB the faster it is... only up until the intel 25m 80gb that is... i dont know about the rest

 

no.

it's more "can't find damn PLL, can't OC"


someone found the PLL for their i5 450m and got it OCed to like 3.3Ghz...or 3.05Ghz or something. wouldn't go beyond that.

 

3.3ghz is what Bronsky got on his 450M 3820TG, which is the highest I've seen so far.

 

then it was 3.05 Ghz (turbo boost not regular speed I don't think)

 

so i dont want to read through all 154 pages, whats the consensus on overclocking the switchable ATI GPU? should i do it?

 

Some Envy 14 owners got decent 5650's that can overclock a fair amount, at least a fair amount over the rather shoddy 450/800 baseline that HP decided to stick us with. Others got fairly poor ones that don't overclock well at all, and can't even come close to the typical 550/800 baseline of most 5650's.

Overheating shouldn't be a major issue, though - the E14 runs cool, and the F.13 BIOS update should help it run cooler longer.

If you know how to do a proper overclock, bit by bit with lots of testing, then you might find it worthwhile to try it out. Or you might not - it's largely dependent on whether you got a good GPU or a weak one.

 

I just got it on friday, and it actually runs pretty decently. Ive been playing on everything low, full screen at 1600x900.

It actually runs better than I remember the beta running. I cant make a video(no camera) but the game is definitely playable on the envy 14. I didnt even OC my video card of CPU to play it. There was no need as it ran fine enough.

 

Do you guys think HP will come out with a driver or bios that can get the 5650 back to normal (550)?
Or is this a hands on only type thing?

 

the could come out with a video bios but they most likely won't.

also it seems like that at least from our end we currently can't modify the vbios (can't get a reading on it)

 

Interesting, because I also have the 160GB and I only get 7.5. I don't take the system scores too seriously but still. Maybe mine will have a shorter life span or something.

 

It would be great if they did release an update to bring the 5650 to stock 550, cause then I could overclock even further! Because with the update they would also bring the voltages to stock wouldn't they?

 

Hey guys,

I'm trying to find the latest drivers that actually work with the Envy 14. Where do I get them? It'd be fantastic if someone could point me in the right direction. I've looked/googled everywhere. Including searching this thread... All I see on HP's website is the 8.7 ones that are really out dated. I'd like to see a performance boost in SC2.

Thanks!

 

Try laptopvideo2go or the AMD site.

 

Well there goes my plan of OC'ing my i3-370m.

 

Hey guys, I'm thinking about getting an Envy 14 around the holidays and this thread has been a big help. I'm a casual raider in wow so I want to invest in a computer that can handle that kind of environment and I'm also interested in playing some SC2. My knowledge of the internal workings of a computer are nill (or only go as far from my brief research) so I most likely won't be OCing or customizing my computer. That said I'm curious to here your opinions on what kind of fps I'd be getting in a 25 man raid/average SC2 battle with the stock hardware. Settings aren't all that important to me as right now I play wow at the lowest settings possible just to stay in 20 fps range, but obviously I'd like this computer to be a serious upgrade. Also the new i5-580M just came out that runs at 2.66GHz and goes up to 3.33GHz with Turbo Boost; has anyone tried this chip out? Is it going to be better than the others? Also, would I see any improvement in preformance going from 640GB 7200RPM Hard Drive to 750GB 7200RPM Hard Drive? I don't know how noobish these questions were but any help or insight would be greatly appreciated.

 

I haven't tried the 580M, but I suppose it would be a pretty good processor, since it's just a higher clocked version of all the i5s that most people use, I've got an i7. What'll limit you would be more of the graphics card, but I don't forsee any problems with WoW, you should be able to play at pretty much full settings.

Hard disks' performances depend on rpm and not size, so those 2 will be the same speed. However, it's not gonna affect your gaming much, as it would only come in when you're loading levels.

The E14 isn't a gaming laptop. If you want one you could try the Asus G53J, that one's really powerful, but it's big and heavy and ugly IMO. But the E14 still can handle games pretty well, you shouldn't have much problems even into Cataclysm. Though if you were to buy one I'd recommend the 580M over the i7s, for the lower price and longer battery life and over the rest of the i5s because.. well it's faster. Let me install WoW and get you some framerates.

 

you will be able to play cataclysm at all medium for sure probably high. I was raiding at full ultra with low shadows above 20 fps. So no problems there.