*HP HDX DRAGON Owners Lounge, Part 1*

Beats me. Someone on here posted that a while back, I bookmarked it. Then somebody else asked about it, since nobody responded with that link, I just posted it.

I certainly deserve no credit for that one!

 

Is this what you're referring to?

I use screen brightness 80%, then the nvidia panel: brightness 45%, contrast 60%, digital vibrance 5%, and gamma 42%.

 

Man...all are gone! The only one I see on Ebay has 1050 resolution...anyone know of a place to get them with 1920 x1200 resolution still?? I wonder how many complaints HP has for getting rid of the X9000..I know theyre at least getting one more today...):/

 

There's one on Amazon, but it's a refurb.

http://www.amazon.com/HDX-Entertain...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1221601995&sr=8-1

 

@ dominick7

One question though... why the need for a 1920 x 1200 reso? What are you planning to use the HDX for? With the 8800M GTS, a better match is the WSXGA+ (1680x1050) if you plan to do gaming on it. You'll be playing native res with more max to med graphic options for longer than you would @ 1920x1200.

I'm rolling with the 1680x1050 with T9300 (2.5Ghz) and having a blast. And you can always get an x9000 cpu later if you must have one and install it yourself.

Keep in mind, 1680 x 1050 is the standard resolution for 20" desktop monitors.

 

One can, I imagine, set the WUXGA TO WSXGA, can't you?

Out of curiousity, can a PS3 play through the HDX monitor?

 

Yeah, the WUXGA screen is really nice, I agree its worth the extra $$$. But WSXGA is better then no HDX at all.

 

I think I remember the s-video connection being an input. I dont think s-video can support higher resolutions without degrading to the signal though.

 

What resolution do you think the s-video would support?

Has anyone tried Assassin's Creed on the Dragon?

 

480i to 576i, not fancy.

 

I'm unable to see the archived post or link.

 

The "not fancy" was referring to the resolution not the game.

 

Got it. So only low res with PS3.

 

Yes, it runs like butter in DX10. Gears of war also - which is DX10.

 

Originally Posted by 2.0
Two ways to do it with the HDX. Connect it to the TV tuner and tune it to channel 3 or 4. Or connect the Xbox's S-video out to the HDX's S-video in. If you go the S-Video route, you can connect the audio out to the HDX's TV audio in jack in the back. You'll need an Stereo RCA to stereo 1/8" plug adapter.

Either way you do it, you'll only get a standard TV's resolution and not hi definition.



Sorry about my noobie moment there.

 

Yes, you can. But the further away you get from native res, the worse things start to look. Plus consider that the GPU has more pixels to draw on a higher res native screen than a lower res native one. The GPU has to "fill" each pixel. CPU can't with help that.

That's why if you look at any game vs GPU test, you see FPS listed at various resolutions with various enhancements and detail levels. The lower res are always faster given the same setup. If you ever looked at native res vs scaled down res on a higher res native screen, with the same setup, the lower res native always wins.

 

Assassin's Creed is supposed to be very atmospheric.

What is standard TV resolution? How does that look with PS3.

Thanks all.

 

Standard TV is 720×480

 

Actually 720 x 480 is technically EDTV or 480p. Standard television resolution is something like 451 horizontal lines.

 

LOL. 3.0, aka rumba, erased all his posts extolling the virtues of the X9000 and WUXGA.

Ay corumba, rumba! Just come back as yourself. Call yourself rumbanova or something. We'll still love ya, man.

 

I think it's still 480 lines, it's just a difference of interlaced or progessive scan.

 

2.0

You mean playing games like Crysis at lower res will look bad on my WUXGA?

 

I'm unhappy to hear that games won't look good on a down-resed WUXGA.

 

Not necessarily. There's anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering that can be applied in game to clean things up. It'll look awesome @ 1680 x 1050 and good all the way down to 1280 x 1024. Setting will be med/low to med/high at various resolutions. But Crysis is a bugger to play on anything below desktop SLI with top cards.

Most other games will run great @ WUXGA. Better if you drop res though.

But by next year, which isn't far, everyone's going to either be dropping reso or dropping detail. Just those with WUXGA w/8800M GTS will be doing it a little sooner. And that's regardless if one has an X9000 or not since with games, it's the GPU that's the bottleneck.

Doesn't mean you can't have fun and enjoy the games. Just means we all have to be realistic about what we can and can't do.

There's some hope though. The gaming market is moving towards making games that can play on notebooks since notebooks are where it's at and where computing is heading. They outsell desktops by an increasing margin. However, most of those are sold with integrated graphics. Developers aren't ignorant concerning the increasing sales of mid-tier notebooks and their mid range graphics power. Let alone high end enthusiast notebooks. Consumers are becoming more aware of dedicated graphics also. Probably what motivated HP to finally put in some decent graphics options in the DV line - Seeing as Dell has been doing it for a while and partly why people would buy Dell over HP.

Anyway, long story short, it's better to have an enthusiast level GPU than not to forestall the day when you just can't play games on your system anymore.

 

Has anyone have problem with e-sata? I can't make it work. I plug HDD with e-sata in but no green light no pickup from windows. Driver try HP or windows vista still fail on HDX9494nr. Is it hardware issue? We don't have any software to check all component like old compaq model. Any suggest from pro ?

 

Thanks, 2.0, for your toughtful response. The GPU issue is why I keep angling for the MXM upgrade.

Although you're right in terms of pure dollars and cents, brand loyalty can be worth more than that in terms of walking advertising. I can't estimate how many times I recommended Thinkpads because of their robustness.

As I ponder the recent arrival of my new Dragon with X9000 and WUXGA I'd hate to think I made a mistake with the display. Games are a great counterpoint to working on the computer, and good visuals are important.

It's that "fire sale", trigger-happy mentality.

 

thoughtful

 

Dude, I hate to be that guy, but just edit your posts.

 

Quick question--what kind of sound card does the HDX have? Some older posts I was reading seem to say it is a realtek soundblaster, however, my research indicates that it has some kind of IDT audio card--Sigma Tal perhaps? If anyone knows exact card that it has--model number and everything, I'd really apreciate it.

Thanks!

 

And I'd like to get input from any WUXGA HDX gamers.

Thanks

 

PC Magazine apparently has their hands on an HDX18, and has a full review online.

Enjoy!

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2330438,00.asp

 

Well, let me comment on the PCMAG review of the HDX18. I just want to say that I'm happy I have the HDX Dragon! I don't see much improved in the HDX18, and a smaller 16:9 screen does not appeal to me at all. As a matter of fact, do that many people watch TV and movies on their PC? Enough to actually move away from the more work-friendly 16:10 ratio screens? Do they think no one works or already has a TV or HD DVD player of some sort?

Not a trend I like to see coming.

Plus, the graphics adapter--an 8600M GT??? Talk about an old GPU! My old Dell XPS M1530 had that in it!

I see my Dragon as an investment. Take care of it, polish it weekly, and soon, it'll be worth more than I paid for it!

 

Agreed. +1

 

It's a Sigmatel, which IDT bought out. Best classification you could say is that it's AC '97 and HD Audio ready.

 

Thanks 2.0. The reason that I ask is I finally got around to installing OSx86 on it. I have the video working perfectly--full 512 MB recognized and QE and CE enabled. However, I'm still trying to get wireless, ethernet, and audio working. I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

 

See the following thread... Crysis with 8800M GTX, @1440 x 900 on a Sager 5790 series notebook.... Also bear in mind that an X9000 is not going to have a significant impact on frame rates. This will give you an idea of what to expect. Simply subtract a few frames for the 8800M GTS.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=206290

Here's an HDX with Crysis figures. T7500 CPU so no bottleneck here.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=234997

Here's 8800M with a 1.67ghz (CPU is bottleneck here) playing various games.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=217805

Lastly, here's the 8800M with a 2.8ghz extreme (Merom), so there's no bottleneck.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=284273

This should give you an idea of what's possible. Higher resolutions will shave off FPS in a rather logarithmic fashion.

 

I just hope my experience of a game on a down-resed WUXGA will be as good as that on the WSXGA.

As I said, when you're in the eleventh hour, and there are only 200 30% coupons left you make the best choice you can, which usually means maxing things out as much as possible.

There must be people with WUXGAs who have tried the latest games.


Cheers

 

I purchased the hdx9494nr model from newegg.com . I wiped the hard drive and installed a copy of ultimate 64 that I already owned. I downloaded and installed of the drivers from the hp website.

I am a little concerned because I see everyone in the forums mention how great their machines are with games, and don't get me wrong mine plays them well also, but it seems they can be jerky at times and even stall for a couple of seconds and then continue.

I am into MMOs and am playing Warhammer online, it's not even a nextgen and my comp isn't as fluid as I would expect it to be with the specs this thing has. The penryn 2.1 core 2 duo, 64bit ultimate, 4 gigs of ram, 8800m gts 512 graphics card.

Is it just me? If anyone can help or shed some light on the problem or if it is just me I would appreciate it.

 

Not so up on Adobe RGB Screens, but in a nutshell. Argb has a wider gamut then Srgb. How much that means to someone depends on what they are doing.

Scott

 

Try updating your GPU driver, theres tons of discussion on this in pages past, I think this is the newest WHQL driver available.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x64_175.19_whql.html

You can also try out newer drivers (slightly more involed to install but easy to do)but components like Blu Ray Drives may not work untill you roll back to a WHQL driver

The same happened to me though, I freaked out that my system was choking when I first got it (last month) but using a driver that isn't a over year old really makes a difference.

 

I'm trying to go through the driver and software config that came on my HDX, looking to get rid of unneeded software, disable unnecessary services and also generally tweak Vista. Working to make a list of of things to do.

My unit has BIOS F.39, figured I'd start at the bottom. Is that the BIOS everyone recommends? My HDX P/N is KR835AV#ABA. Its the 8800MGTS T9300 1920x1200.

The most obvious software problem I've seen is STacSV64.exe crashes almost every session, there are some extra details like "faulting module msvcrt.dll" in the Event Log. I've searched the thread and found a hard to follow debate about sound drivers, I gather lots of posts were deleted.

In Device Manager I see the preinstalled IDT driver with a date of 9/5/2007, Driver Version 6.10.5607.0

On HP's driver page I see

Earlier in the thread I see the half-deleted debate between 5607 and 5929, but now I notice this third version "6.10.5511.0 A" apparently recommended by HP. I'm a bit confused on which of the three to install and the method for installing it without breaking any features. Do we have a definitive answer on the sound driver?


Then my primary hardware worry is about the screen's backlight.

I've been messing around with the Fn key backlight brightness, and the nVidia Control Panel adjustments. While playing a letterboxed DVD in full screen, I still get some backlight bleeding from the bottom of the screen. I've tried to lower the backlight to 30%(3 steps from the lowest) and increase the Brightness, Gamma and Contrast in the nVidia adjustments. Backlight at the lowest setting shows no bleeding, but it's so dark that the nVidia adjustments can't possibly compensate.

On the desktop the backlight is fine at 80% with nVidia adjustments at default, no noticeable bleeding.

Is some level of backlight bleed normal or does this unit have a defective screen? How do the edges of your screens look with a black background such as with a full screened letterboxed video?

 

I tried this and it tells me that it can't find a device to update. I thought this would be the case. I think that the drivers from the website aren't made to use with the Mobile series.

 

Since there are two really bright backlights on the bottom and top of the screen, it is only normal that you'll see a little back light bleed. I think everyone has it..doesn't really bother me at all.

 

How do you set brightness using Fn key? I've always wondered how you set the screen brightness other than using the Nvidia control.

 

Thanks for the reply MatsudaMan. I guess its an issue with a screen of this size. The top backlight seems to not bleed at all, the bottom backlight bleeds noticeably on black pictures. My 24" desktop LCD doesn't seem to bleed from any of the edges though, so thats why I wonder if all HDX 20.1" screens have some form backlight bleed.

I was adjusting the backlight brightness with Fn+F7 for dim and Fn+F8 for brighten. There are 10 steps from the bottom to the top, so far I've found 3 steps(30%) is the dimmest I can make the backlight and still have it look bright enough to watch a DVD with the nVidia Brightness/Gamma adjustments raised considerably to offset the low backlight.

 

From what I gather from the thread this is the best nVidia GPU driver to use on Vista 64bit.

http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=19801

Haven't tried it yet myself, still troubleshooting audio driver problems.

 

Yeah thats the stuff,

Here's a selection...

http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showforum=94

You'll need to download 2 files. The driver and the Modded INF
Once downloaded and extracted, copy the INF into the driver folder, Click yes to copy and replace file and hit setup.

 

Its one of the few Ive seen if only one with that high of resolution AND screen size of 20 inches. I wanted to get one with the highest resolution because I was hoping for that to be the HD TV I would use, taking full advantage of the BlueRay movies, video games, and 3d animation/video. Isn't it difficult to change the processor? While memory and the hard drives are easy to change wouldnt Id have to open the unit up to do that?

 

Thanks but I was aiming at getting a a brand new one so I could ride out the one year manufacturers warranty till I got an extended warranty.

 

Thats what I'm sayin. I want more of an experience, not just something nice to look at.