dv6t-61XX / dv7t-61XX Switchable Graphics Discussion

Hey guys. I've been looking for a laptop with medium-level graphics (not a huge gamer, but would like to load one up from time to time, something like an NBA 2K11/2K12, maybe an action game here or there). I've seen problems with both nVidia Optimus and AMD/ATI switchable graphics. I saw a few pages back that HP released a bios update to change the card on your own. That's fine with me. I'm really just looking for something decent that will play a game here or there when I feel like it.

How well does the fixed graphics work now? I saw the 6770 was a pretty good card. Does fixed make the dv6t run too hot all of the time? Any other comments?

 

Just run the intel when you are not running games. If you do that youll run pretty cool.Also in NBA 2k10 i can max out everything including anti aliasing, and vsync and get 60 fps

 

I run on the 6770m all the time, even when not doing intensive stuff, and the palm rest never even gets warm unless I'm gaming or something. There is some warmth coming out of the fan, but that is to be expected.

 

I just got my dv7t i5-2410m 6G Ram HD 6770m 1G gfx card. I have some questions:

1) my WEI for desktop graphic and 3D is 6.6 and 6.6 with high performance gfx and 4.9 & 6.3 for power saving one. Is that normal? I saw some one getting 6.9 6.9, is that only for the 2G version of HD 6770m?

2) is there a indicator whether the laptop is using the intergrated graphic (3000) or high performance one (HD 6770)

3) is it manually switable? if yes how can i do that? And how can i switch from automatic switching the gfx card to manual switching and vice versa? how do i know which switching the laptop is using.

Sorry if these questions has been posted before.
Thanks a lot.

 

To help you a bit....
Read this or view their pictures.

How to Configure ATI Mobility Radeon Switchable Graphics - HP Customer Care (United States - English)

Also, check your bios version is at least F.1A.

This would allow you do define in the BIOS to be in either Fixed or in Dynamic Mode.

 

My bio revision is F.17. I downloaded the F.1A and installed it as you suggested.

Now that i have F.1A how can i define in the BIOS to be in either the Fixed or in Dynamic Mode?

Thanks

 

Check what Con247 mentioned in the overclocking thread:

 

I followed the instruction from Con247 and changed the switching mode to Fixed mode. Then i opened the catalyst control center and see that the current mode (with ac power) is High-Performance GPU. Then i re-run the assessment and got my new WEI score as : Processor 6.9, Memory 7.7, Grahics 6.9, 3D graphics 6.9, Hard Drive 5.9.

Consistent what other folks has obtained.

Thanks a lot.

Your guys are great and fast and very helpful.

 

So it seems like this BIOS fix has done good enough from what everyone is saying. Switching myself not a problem for me. Only problem now is....ship date for a customized dv6tqe not shipping until 8/31...meaning I can't sell my current laptop until then. Unfortunately nothing on Amazon or Newegg prebuilt

 

Has anyone experienced any issues with the drivers glitching out? I have removed them, re-added them after a clean removal and the same thing. it only seems to not happen when im using AA/AF filters anyone have this happen?

 

AMD drivers sometimes glitches out when doing an in-place upgrade or a poor clean install.

I'm going to assume you are trying to install HP drivers.

Download Driver Sweeper
Uninstall AMD via express,
Restart,
safe mode
Run Driver Sweeper
Restart
Install latest HP driver
Restart

As for AF/AA, I forgot why .. I remember a post about it before for your model

 

Can you change to fixed graphics with the new llano based dv6's?

 

I don't think that has been implemented yet.

 

Which gives the better performance,the dynamic switching or a fixed 6770m?

 

Costco has em too, not to mention HP's own quick-ships. but these typically do not have the 1080p display ,dual disk drives, SSD or other happiness available only via CTO.

 

dynamic switching is the ability to change from the high-performance 6770 to the internal GPU. the 6770 will always give the better graphics performance, but the point is that this performance isn't always needed, and comes at the cost of battery life and heat. So "dynamic switching" itself doesn't "give" performance. The graphics performance obtained under any switching method, dynamic or manual, will be determined by the GPU that is being used at the time, i.e. the discrete 6770 or the internal GPU that resides within the processor itself -- i.e. the purpose and objective and rationale of switchable graphics capability.

Assuming that your question implies interest in ultimate graphics performance, whether or not it is needed or not, and without regards to application being used or without regards to battery life or heat, the answer is the discrete 6770. And you will only realize that choice if you impliment the BIOS fix discussed here and configure your laptop to always use the 6770.

 

Thats what i thought,but when i ran a benchmark for mafia 2(game) separately with 6770m and with both(dynamic) i got better fps with the latter...hence the doubt

 

ahh I see the basis of the question now. well something is clearly going weird on you. I suspect some throttling or other factor is confouding your results. on the face of it, the 6770m will alwasy perform as good or better than the IGP, so try to look into why this is happening.

 

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen. Long time reader, first time poster, and brand new owner of a Pavilion dv7t. This forum has been helpful to me in a multitude of ways.

I've got some issues with my new system (2720, 1GB6770M, 8G RAM, full HD screen) I'd like some feedback on from some experts.

First of all, I've got the new F.1A BIOS and the newest .2000 AMD drivers installed. Graphics are set to Fixed through the BIOS and I've selected the 6770M and the GPU.

Issue 1; When I go into dxdiag it shows my 6770M as having "Approx. Total Memory" of 726 MB. Strange right? I thought it was a 1GB card.

Issue 2; When I play SCII (my game of choice) and I go into the video options menu I notice some strange things. It suggests for me a resolution of 1360 x 768 (those numbers might not be exact, but its 1 step down from the 1980 x 1080), and suggests graphics settings of medium to low?! My 2 year old HDX18 plays SCII on all medium settings, and this new graphics card is supposed to smoke that old GTX130. For those who may not be familiar with SCII, the Graphics Options pulldown menu tells you what memory should be associated with what graphics settings. For example it says "Medium" will be associated with a 256MB graphics card, "High" with a 512, and so on and so forth.

When I play the game on 1920 x 1080 with "Ultra" graphics selected, the framerate is very choppy.

I think these 2 issues may be related. Does anyone know whats up here? I expected higher gaming performance than that. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you
Husky15

 

If I recall, starcraft 2 gave me a message saying it didn't recognize the driver so it couldn't properly assign the graphics properties and automatically chose low/medium.

I don't play it on ultra settings because I was used to the way low looked on my old computer but I have set it on ultra and it would play it at a pretty consistent 30 framerate if i recall but i prefer my locked in 60framerate w/ vsync.

It shouldn't be too choppy but can you explain when its choppy? always? in big fights? and what kind of framerate do you get on lower settings?

The 6770m is considered a high end card but its at the bottom of the "high end cards" and thus performance is just decent. It can run any game you throw at it but you'll almost certainly have to tweak some settings in newer games.

 

So have any idea on how to resolve this?

 

What's the OpenGL issue with 6770 .. How can i resolve it??

 

Dwalk -- Thanks for the reply. I think I may have jumped the gun a little bit; I only get choppy framerates (15 or so) at certain times, and I think its right when I load a particular mission. All other times its around 40-50FPS.

As far as VSYNC...What exactly does that feature do? And where do I enable it? Is it in the SCII menus or something specific to the GPU?

Thanks very much.

 

Vsync locks your framerate to the refresh rate of your screen. Basically it caps your FPS at 60 (some monitors have a different refresh rate, but most non-3d panels are 60). This alleviates screen tearing by stopping the GPU from outputting two different frames during one monitor redraw.

 

Does anyone know about the AF/AA settinsg on games with this laptop?

 

hmm. well keep in mind that I'm not a gamer and I've not encountered this kind of issue before. but given that that the IGP should never outperform the 6770, it must be that something is wrong, either with your laptop or with the measurements of succes. I'll have to brainstorm some possibilities:

1. sometimes, after market benchmark tools report incorrect numbers. CPU speed comes to mind. you might check to see what measure of perfomance you are using and insure that it is reliable, i.e the correct fps or other benchmarks.

2. consider challenging or validating that you really are using the 6770, when your results imply that it is performing worse than the IGP. it sounds like you've done that, but given your results, one has to make sure. One way might be to use a DX11 app -- which the IGP will not support. If you can succesfully run a DX11 app, then you know the 6770 is being used.

3. Challenge my statement that the IGP should never outperform the 6770. Maybe there are some corner case tests where the IGP will outperform the 6770! Maybe OpenGL apps (like Furmark). Maybe Radeon can help - try to engage them with your dillemma.

4. Its posssible (althought not likely) that you have a bad 6770 or that it is clocked incorrectly or somehow is performance compromized. Look at power settings, coolsense settings, or other things that might influence performance versus power consumption. It will take a lot of your time, but you could try to chat with HP support, explain that you believe the 6770 is not performing like it should.

5. I forgot whether you were using Furmark or not, but try testing with that tool. If it does not run correctly on both the IGP the 6770 (a problem known to exist previously) , and you've udated everything (like the BIOS, which I know you have), then somethign may be wrong with your laptop. See if you use Furmark to compare the IGP and the GPU and if the results make sense.

 

Thanks a lot for the reply,I'll look into all that u've mentioned.

 

I know this is posted elsewhere, but some are not seeing it, and I tried to list all the steps that were not listed elsewhere for people that just do not know how to enter BIOS or anything.

I had this same problem. HP now has a fix for all their laptops with switchable graphics. It is a BIOS fix, you can download it from the driver section of what ever laptop model you have, I have a dv7-6143cl (also from costco) This is a recent fix (June-Aug 11 depending on model). After you download the fix and run it, it will flash the BIOS and then reboot. Reboot the machine again and Then hit F10 while booting to go into BIOS setup, switch the Switchable Graphics section from DYNAMIC to FIXED. Then boot to your desktop, right click desktop, click Switch Configurable graphics, and you can select to have your dedicated card on all the time, or the integrated. You can also set to have the dedicated on all the time while plugged in and to auto switch to integrated on battery to save power. Hope this helps. I used GPUZ to verify card and it now shows up properly and with the right clock speeds, (it did not before). If you do not switch it to fixed from dynamic in BIOS settings, you won't be able to choose!

 

i couldnt find the switch to fixed from dynamic in my bios.
could anyone help me please?
which tab should i go to?

 

just realized my model is hp dv6t 6000. there is no option on that tab.
btw thanks alot for the pic mate.

 

Yeah I noticed the same thing on my gf's dv6-60XX. I have a 6138tx and was confused as to why the tab didn't exist on hers. I was under the impression that the only differences between mine and hers was that I have a larger HDD and more RAM, yet everything else is the same... and if that's true... then why is the switchable graphics option not available in her BIOS?

The graphics seems to be switching fine on hers, but it's just got this really annoying pop-up that asks for confirmation/gives a warning each time switching is attempted. This was something I was able to remove from mine, but not on hers.

 

I have a dv6tqe - 60XX (Product # XW898AV). On mine, with the F.1A BIOS update, there is no BIOS option to select fixed graphics.

However, the CCC (when booted in Windows 7) has a checkbox to enable/disable automatic switching. I have disabled it and chosen to use the onboard GPU for now to test out my assumption that this is turning off dynamic switching. (as described here: Change the switchable graphics settings in Fixed Mode)

Have only just set up a dual boot configuration with Fedora. I have not yet encountered any issues with the dynamic switching turned off as described, whereas Fedora wouldn't boot earlier if I had the power lead connected (assuming this activated the 6770 automatically)

See my profile for details of machine spec

 

The 60XX DOESN'T have dynamic switching AT ALL.

 

Well, that's not totally true. With an unlocked bios you can set it into
Dynamic Mode even on a 6003. Once Dynamic is selected, the CCC
changes accordingly. It will give you a List of Application instead
of the igpu/dgpu selection from the Fixed Scheme. However since
the dynamic **** is totally useless I went back to "fixed".

 

The point is, people are looking for a solution to a problem they don't have.

 

Quick question guys....if I am playing a game like CS Source for which the 6770m DOES automatically kick in in DYNAMIC mode, why is there such a huge increase when I use the 6770M in fixed mode? Like in dynamic mode set to high performance i was getting like 90fps but with fixed mode...it's like 125 fps..same with Heroes of Newerth...now it looks like im getting scree tearing in both grames.. i mean it's a good thing, but i'm assuming everyone experienced the same thing? i'm just curious as to why that is. Thanks in advance.

 

If by "6770 kicks in in dymamic mode" you mean that you can set your system up for dynamic and still claim to activate the 6770 during this game I'd say that your test results suggest otherwise! Either that or dynamic mode is screwing things up in other ways.

 

Does this issue apply to a dv6t SE 3000 series? I haven't been able to manually switch between integrated and discrete graphics and would like that capability. Would this BIOS update be compatible with my laptop? Thanks!

 

No. The 3000 does not have the capability to switch. This update applies ONLY to the 6100 series.

 

The dv6t 3xxx series with AMD graphics only have Fixed mode.

The dv6t 6000 series dynamic mode can be enabled using a modified CCC, as posted by Ez..

And the recent HP bios update that got sticked here only applies to the current generation ie dv6t/dv7t 6xxx ... etc, though 61xx would be noticeable.

 

So i have a question I have re installed the drivers with cleanup in safemode and setup the Bios accordingly, but in some games im still getting clipping with OpenGL in Mine-craft for instance if i go full screen i get real bad clipping. anyone else have this issue and where able to fix it?

 

Just reporting that I have just downloaded and installed the latest ATi drivers and CCC (v11.8) from their website. My system being the one in my signature and everything appears to be running well. Configureable graphics seem to work as they should and am able to manually switch. Not only that but it seems that a little bug that annoyed me where the switch would not occur unless Windows Messenger was closed, seems to have been corrected.

No issues to report. I simply installed right on top of the stock HP v11.4 driver/CCC package via custom install.

 

Where can I find instructions on how to do this?

 

All I did was install the v11.8 directly on top of my exsisting v11.4 (factory supplied). I used custom install and selected everything. Installed flawlessly. But mind you, so far, everyone who has installed anything other than HP supplied drivers have all reported different outcomes. There has been anything but consistency with the results. Anything from alls well to all out system failure. Just keep in mind the risks you take when using non HP drivers.

 

Not really a bug since Windows Messenger has hardware acceleration. If you disable Windows Messenger hardware acceleration, it switches fine.

 

Good to know. Thanks!

But why would there even be a need for hardware acceleration for Windows Live in the first place? Seems like it would be overkill.

 

It's a trend that been going on.


Didn't I helped you track this before?

So AMD CCC brought back the bug

 

with the bios update
would the hp dv6 6177 dont have any problems ?
thnx

 

Can u guide me to the post? Forum search function is eff'ed up and google search failed me.