Scared about the graphics issue

Ok so I ordered a dv6tqe recently. Estimated ship date is June 22nd. I've been reading a lot about the graphics issues people seem to be having. To be honest, I'm actually really scared. I pretty sure I need a good laptop that runs reliably, both for gaming and for my major. Should I be scared about this? Because if this becomes too big of an issue, I may just consider ditching the entire gaming part of the laptop and get something with just Intel HD graphics and bring an xbox to college. Of course, it doesn't help that im a paranoid perfectionist...oh well. Thanks in advance.

 

The complaint people have about the laptop is that the way it switches between the intel HD 3000 (the integrated graphics that consumes less power) and the HD 6770M (dedicated graphics thats more powerful) is done through dynamic switching in the new models instead of manual switching. Before you would just manually switch between the gpus and it would flash the screen for a second and you'd be using that gpu. With the newer models, the "dynamic" switching will automatically use whichever gpu you have the program set to. For instance if I load up Starcraft 2, it will use the ati card. If I load up Google Chrome, it will use the intel HD gpu. no flashes at all.

works just fine for me and given time it will probably support both manual and dynamic.

 

Yeah seriously dont worry. It works fine for most games but wont work with (as far as I know) these:

1. Flight Simulator X (though not sure as one forum guy got the demo working)
2. Minecraft (the card refuses to work with any OpenGL game at the moment)
3. Second Life

Other than that I think it should work fine with all new and new-ish games (that dont use OpenGL)

Up to you but I wouldnt take all the panic too seriously - its actually a very specific problem that would only annoy you if you play the above or OpenGL games. Its a good laptop but gets a bit too hot for my liking sometimes playing SC2. But its a thin laptop so I shouldve expected higher that usual thermals.

 

The DV6T does appear to run a little warmer than the DV7T, but based on the temp reports I've seen from others, and what I've seen on my own DV7T, it's still one of the coolest running power laptops out. The only place on my entire laptop that gets slightly warm to touch is the top left corner. The exhaust port at the top left is the culprit, and does a darn good job getting rid of the heat. As long as you don't park your hand there, you could pretty much game with it on your lap, if you wanted to. How many other laptops could you say that about? Pretty much all of the Clevo/Sager's run hotter. The Asus G53SW and 73SW run about the same temps or slightly better, but either is a behemoth of a package!

 

dude is that all?
the way people were going on, it really sounded like a major, annoying issue. i was a bit concerned myself, having also just ordered one of these.
and yeah, being a bit of a control switch, i'd like to have the option of manual switching, but worse case scenario if that doesnt return for a while...
this doesn't actually sound that bad at all...

 

Yes that's pretty much it. I mean thats what people have been reporting in terms of stuff that dont work. Im sure some obscure older games may not work...who knows. But the dynamic switching works...a little buggy but works. Manual switching would be nice but you can mostly live without it. And in time Im sure theyll implement it in updated drivers. Were buying new technology so theres always a chance of getting buggy software. Im used to it. I buy too much electronics!

 

Yeah... and with minecraft, if you drop the graphics settings it runs decently... just not all pegged values for right now. It sucks considering Minecraft doesn't seem all that graphics intensive, but I've been able to play WoW, Starcraft and League of Legends without any issues. I had an issue with Portal 2 working initially, but it was the way I had copied my steam files from my old machine to my new one (I was lazy and didn't want to have to download all the games again, but in the end, this is how I had to do it for portal 2). All in all, I love how cool it runs with the intel card (Much cooler than my old dv5t-1000) to the point where I can code with it on my lap without issue. Oh... and the battery life rocks b/c of the intel card when you're not gaming!

I love the laptop so far, and I'm very happy that I picked it up.

 

If this was a huge deal HP would be in a sh*t storm. It's more of an annoyance at the moment I think. Yes people are upset the 6770 won't kick on with certain games but in going through HP's forums believe they know about it.

 

It is not a big deal for gamers, no. But it is a huge deal for professionals and creative folks. Add to the list of things that won't work with the current setup:

Adobe CS (Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, Premier, etc)
AutoCAD
AVID
Maya

And those are just the ones I know of. Basically this is really a huge problem.

 

If that's true I'm going to have a huge problem since this is for my wife...and she uses a few of those programs for school.

 

you can just use cpu to render for those i believe

 

Wont be anywhere near as efficient.

You're right Khan...if you want this as a workstation to do creative work through things like CS I wouldn't get this laptop until it's fixed.

But to be honest Im not to optimistic OpenGL support in AMD drivers in general will be that great in the foreseeable. In a developer's presentation on BACON it shows on one of the slides that OpenGL is left to the IGP rather than the dGPU. I'd take this with a pinch of salt but it seems that OpenGL support is definitely secondary to DirectX support.