Old GeForce FX 5200 Graphics better than FX570M Video

Ok. It would be nice to get some advice on this one. Every once in a while, I like to get lost in a gaming fantasy with HL2 Multiplayer Deathmatch.

The challenge is which video driver to use for gaming. I have a T61p with the 250MB FX570m

My old desktop has the Nvidia GeForce FX5200 and it plays very well with very good stability. So, I thought I would be fine with the latest Lenovo and the FX570M.

And, yes, I know about the optimization around business applications vesus gaming.

And, I am now close to an expert on all the laptopvideo2go drivers.

My latest driver excursion has been with 169.28 with the GeForce INF. It wiped my PC out. BSODs and errors galore. In task manager it showed 6-8 hardware items with a yellow exclamation point. Even before the 169.28, I was getting "jumping", temporary freezes, permanent freezes requiring PC restarts, and BSODs.

Now, I am back to the latest Lenovo 156.85 driver and the BSOD and freezing activity is way down. But, I still have temporary freezing while other players stomp on me.

I don't care about fps.....and I don't want to play the latest game. I want a stable gaming environment with an old game....HL2 DM. as good as my old Nvidia GeForce FX 5200 128 MB. I tried all the forums I could find with no clear driver recommendation.

Are there any gaming folks out there? Is there a good answer? A good driver?

Thanks for any recomendations!


Alacrity

 

I think you are mislead by lenovo/nvidia.
1. Newer card doesn't means better card. DX10 compatibility is nothing, I bet a geforce 6800 can beat lots of 8 series cards out there with the same amount of vram. And 6800 is like a 4 years old card which is already discontinued manufactured and even only support PCI (am I right?).
2. Never compare a desktop graphic card with a laptop card. THEY ARE NOT THE SAME STUFF. Manufacturers have to turn off a lot of features to gain less power consuming with mobile cards. When it comes to mobile solutions, portability always become to be the first aim. Which is definitely not the case with desktops.
3. If you want to game with your laptops, buy gaming laptops, like alienware or voodoo, those machines are mean to be gaming machines. They are fast, huge, and costs a lot of electricity and money, because they even try to install regular graphic cards on their machine.
4. Quadro FX 570m is a nice card, good enough for business use, but it's only a second class card. You can get every thing right installed tho, but it's still not a top class card, like 8800m GTX SLI.

Gateway has a new module out there, go check gateway section, it's pretty cheap, and has a good gaming card.
Here is some bench marks:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Comparison-of-Grafic-Cards.130.0.html

 

Gary,

Thanks for your inputs. Firstly, I did not feel misled by Lenovo....I was only expecting a 2nd tier card (mobile) would exceed the capability of a low end card (desktop) using your nice comparison list.

So, if your inputs are correct, I learned something new.......laptop manufacturers left out many ingredients on the 2nd tier FX570m

I was hoping that someone had found a nice driver for gaming out of the 100 drivers out there. I was pleasantly surprised to find so many sources of drivers and the number of folks working and tuning up drivers for testing. Some FX570 drivers are tuned and shown for specific games like Crysis and BioShock, etc so I was hoping one of those 100 drivers would support a 5 year old multiplayer game. I have more than enough fps to support this old game so I thought stability was within reach with the right driver.

Love the Lenovo T61p otherwise.....just wanted to support a part time addiction/fantasy. Of course my other hobby is PC putzing so I won't mind testing the new drivers as they come out......looking for that elusive stability on this ancient game.

Thanks again.

 

1. The FX570m is a good card.
2. The FX570m = 8600m GT.
3. The FX570m > 6800 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> FX5200.
4. I'm using 169.04, very stable, very good performance.

 

Lithus,

Many thanks! Your initial summary reflects the thoughts/expectations that I originally had.

I had tried the 169.04 with and without the Hackez conversion ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=209796)

This was one of the first drivers I had tried when I initially bought the T61p in Dec 07 and remember it working pretty well.....so thanks for the reminder....I will go back and re-try this driver.

One question, are you using the straight 169.04 or did you combine it with the Hackez INF conversion to the GeForce?

I appreciate your feedback.

EDIT: I see you have the 8600.....so I assume you did not need to do the Hackez conversion.

 

Gary_hide: You have GOT to be kidding with that last post. The person here who is not up to speed with how notebook and desktop cards differ is you.

To Alacrity: Pay attention to nothing Gary said. You should be getting performance roughly equal to that of a 8600, which others have already pointed out. Quite frankly, you are really just trying way too hard at this point. You have fallen far down the rabbit hole and you can never necessarily recover from repeated driver install failures without a format. If your card is not acting MUCH better than a 5200, something is wrong.

Did you do a clean install of XPP on yout T61P? If not, that could be the start of some of your initial problems with the freezing, hitching, and blue screens. You almost need to do a clean install because Lenovo loads so much junk on there your stuff will never run right >.< Your mileage may vary, however I would say start with a clean install of XPP then run the latest "Official" driver fron Nivida, but use the LaptopVideo2Go version of it with the INF mod.

 

Graphics performance -|- BSOD freezing, crashing etc. = two separate issues. Alacrity has not said anything about his graphics performance when gaming - only that the machine is unstable. I suspect that the problem is not with the graphics drivers. You have the 4gb/ FX570 combo so it could be a motherboard problem, or many other causes. I like the idea of a factory-restore, not clean install, just to get back to as-new, and see if there are any hardware probs.

 

Sorry there, I'm afraid that I might have some confusion here. Listen to others, don't listen to me.
Sorry~

 

Thanks to all...including Gary! I think that I had just gone too far with the 169.28 driver. And, yes, everything occurred when gaming or following gaming and freezing ....including BSODs.

So, I re-imaged with a clean early hard drive image and applied the latest Lenovo driver: 156.85. (I had done this before getting the most recent inputs above)

Did some gaming and have gotten no permanent freezing or BSODs in the last 24 hours.

Still get some temporary freezing on some sites or in some situations. This could be the server, though, and not my PC......so I will keep testing.

I will continue the testing with this Lenovo driver then also re-visit the 169.04 driver.

At least with everyone's inputs I now know that I SHOULD be able to get a good final result with the FX570m. Then I can play my ancient game in 10 spare minutes during each day.

Thanks again to everyone.