Dox's 180.70's and SAGER

I spotted this today(thx kevin_jack for the resource)... http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=21982. Any feedback from Sager owners? It seems other laptop owners might have a few issues.

 

Just tried it, took a small hit in 3DMARK06 score, haven't tried on any games yet but everything else runs fine.

 

Got my first BSOD on my M860TU this morning. The only thing I had installed recently was the Dox drivers, and the BSOD name was something like DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE.
I'm not saying they are bad or anything, I just prefer to keep the stability of the stock drivers.

 

I wonder if your issue could of been because of the "powermizer" feature. I have installed the drivers and don't seem to have any issues yet. I did not install the powermizer or the rivatuner... just the drivers themselves... and the physx drivers. The 180.70s are definitely faster on my system than any others so far, with less probs. L4D even ran for almost 2 hrs and not one crash to desktop. Might of had to do with the "multicore" feature, which I turned off.

 

Ahhh, that could be the problem I was experiencing, as I installed the Powermizer.
I'll give it another go tonight, and report back asap.

 

I've posted about this before, but at least for me the 180.xx series very often causes my 5796 to freeze if I unplug or plug-in the computer in normal mode. If it boots up in one state and I don't touch it, everything is fine. The only non-sager release that doesn't seem to do this is Dox's 178.13 (customized for clevo's). That's my two cents... and it might just be my computer.

Otherwise, I found performance to be a little less than 180.43.

 

Runnin strong on 180.70 Dox drivers here. 3d mark 06 dropped a lil bit here, but gameplay is smoother it seems. Minimum FPS have gone up a few.

 

Yes, there is a little slowdown when it comes to the synthetic bench's. But the boost in gaming performance along with the superior in-game visuals are well worth the sacrifice. Dox, You Da Man!
Jkiller2, if your issue is related to the sleep-mode issue, your not the only one. Personally, I rarely use my lappy unplugged, and I never let it sleep. I let the monitor turn off after so long, thats it.
Good luck Shadows.
Ross, do those oc numbers reflect core, shader, and memory clocks? And are you using riva-tuner?

 

Back again. I couldn't get 3DMark06 working, so I used TrackMania Nations Forever as a Benchmarking tool.
Settings: 1680x1050, Max Everything.

Official Clevo Drivers: 31fps
Dox's 180.70 Drivers: 37fps

(I ran the test 3 times in a row just to be sure)

 

Using these drivers. Screw 3Dmark06, what exactly does that program do for my computer anyway?

Real world things are running faster and smoother, especially noted in the 2d applications (vista areo and some other stuff).

 

I agree with you, 3DMark06 has never given me any real confidence in hardware capabilities.
Carrying on from your comment about smoothness of gameplay, I have seen a increase in my Minimum FPS, which is always nice

 

Shadow, try running a dx diagnostic to check for a culprit as to why 3dMark didn't run. 3dMark scores don't mean much in regards to real-world gaming performance, but I do like to know that the system will at least run them. That tells me that there aren't any conflicts in the dx files(which could lead to in-game graphics glitches like missing or corrupted textures). Normally, I try to keep any new apps/games from updating my dx files upon install unless I feel I might really need the update(or I don't have a choice in the matter). It used to be you could narrow down dx probs by running the problematic game in opengl. If it runs in opengl, most likely the prob is with dx. Most games these days are dx only, so all you really have is the dxdiag tool, as far as I know anyway.

 

It had something to do with OpenAL32.dll missing.
I've tried every solution on Google that I could find, nothing worked.

 

strange tested before i released these on 3d mark 06 (vista and XP)
an not had any error, have you updated to latest DirectX?

had a user posted same thing in one of my support thread.

 

...and maybe update your sound drivers(if you haven't already)?

sup Dox.

 

So these are the latest and greatest for the 9262 also??

 

Tried Updated everything. Funny thing is, it's there, GRID uses it, but 3DMArk06 won't accept it.
Oh well, I guess I'm not missing much lol.

 

whats the error message you get on 3D marks?
If its something to do with nvmctray.dll then I have uploaded a "hot fix" (see my thread over at laptopvide2go). Even if tht was the error message installing that hot fix may help you.

 

3dmark fails at life.

 

Are these better than the 180.44 drivers that are supposed to increase Far Cry 2 performance by up to 40%?

 

Also forgot to ask do these work for SLI config? I am downloading 178.13 which looks to be the latest for clevo only notebooks. Does 178.13 support SLI config?

 

It was literally like "OpenAL32.dll could not be found".
Crazy, seeing as the file was there, in the Windows Directory, System32, and install directory (of course, I made copies).
Using Vista Business 64 bit btw.

 

Hmm, whilst everything is running fast and smoothly. Especially the 2d, like I said. I just took a look at my temps and the video card is running at 61 C, just to give you a reference, the hard drive is running at 48C, so the cooler is doing its job in that department. The video card normally runs at 50 C. Why would it be so high this time?

Edit: Would it have anything to do with the fact that I have powermizer off for AC power?

 

Yes. from 15 fps min. to 36 fps min... more than 40%.

 

Yup. the fastest and latest, for my system anyway.

 

...or dx10 is enabled, making the hardware work more?
btw, is aero dx10?

 

yah it has t do with disabling powermizer on AC.
Higher clocks = higher temps.

 

Ok, I just wanted to have a reason. Nothing wrong with my video card at 60C anyway right?

Because if not, I can live with it. The smoothness of everything on AC with powermizer off is excellent.

 

60 seems reasonable with it being on full temps, when it gets to 90+ thats when u should start worrying.

the throttle point isnt usually until around 110 anyways.

 

I'm a bit confused. Are Dox's 180.70 drivers the same 180.70 drivers I d/led from laptopvideo2go.com? Or are they different?

 

So Dox drivers are like specially designed for Sager or what?

 

No, for Clevo`s mainly.
But other laptops are supported also...

 

Is there a configuration for SLI. Or do these drives impede the fact that I have 2 9800's?

 

these are not modded for clevo only,
no clevo specific settings are in them since 178.24.

and yes they work with sli, people seem to have good results with them according to feedback on my thread.

gah, i hate reading people giving false info on my drivers.

 

Maybe I started the confusion... The intent of this thread was to get some feedback from Sager owners about how the new custom 180.70 drivers are working because my laptop is a Sager. And those are the drivers I'm interested in using. Their not exclusive to clevo or sagers. There were some questions as to whether or not Dox would tweek them. Turns out he did. I found the post, then I inquired here if anybody had some feedback(good or bad) regarding their compatibility/performance. They actually work very well. I'm sure they'll work just as well on a dell or a gateway or whatever.

 

I tried this version of the driver for a few days and switched back to my old driver, don't get me wrong for gaming they are great but it slowed my system down a little bit,especially during boot up time and it started to show some glitches, my laptop for the first time froze up twice!
That was the final straw, because it pissed me off and freaked me out a little bit.
Another question I have also had but keep forgetting to ask is when downloading new drivers from laptopvideo2go I get 3 different choices for my 9800 GT's which is a little strange does anybody know if there is any difference between the 3? 0r if there actually is any difference?Thanks!

 

I like this driver because, I don't know if it makes sense, but it has significantly made my computer faster overall. Like programs opening faster and less crashes. Maybe that was due to the 180.44 driver not being friendly with my system, or this one just being better, I don't know.

However, I don't see the gaming improvement everyone is talking about. I only play nba2k9 so it might be the type of game I'm playing, but I actually was getting smoother gameplay from the 176.31 driver- however video playback was choppy, so I'm going to be sticking with these, or I might try out the 178 drivers as I've heard good things about them.

 

Also, it seems like my idle P9500 temps have gone up, averaging around 40-50 going as high as 70 under load. Is this ok for the processor?

P.S. I did some heavy gaming the other night, the temp for the graphics only went up to 80, so I think that is ok.

 

I'm pretty sure those are duplicate references. It shouldn't matter which one you choose. Not sure why they're there. Unless you have triple SLI in your laptop!!!

 

This drivers also reduce Far Cry 2 performance...so Xtreme G 180.48`s it is

 

Yeah im having too many BSOD's with the 180 series, or maybe just the Dox .inf. I believe i need to try a different set. I would like to try those tweakforce drivers -- used them in the past and they were great -- but the website is giving 404 errors on most of the site links.

 

So I had 180.70 and got 8656 in 3dmark06 and with dox's 180.70 i get 8603.

 

Boo hoo hoo. How does your overall system performance feel?

 

I'm lucky I guess. 180.70's are awesome. Higher frames... Better looks... Good Job Dox!

 

that margin of error is far too small to blame it on the driver itself. Remember that Dox's drivers have far better IQ than other drivers. The difference in 3dmark can be up to 300-500 per test.

 

eleron911, are the Xtreme G 180.48 series good drivers? any glitches?

 

Don't really notice a difference.

 

Not much of a benchmarker/oc-er myself, but I can say I've been running 180.70 for almost a week on my single 8800gtx -- and it's been a trooper in dualview for HDV editing and in Fallout3, I've been able to jack up the res more than before. Overall the performance and looks boost is definite.
Can't shake the feeling though, that something about 180.44 just felt more stable somehow. But I didn't run it for very long, so who knows. In any case, Dox's mods have worked amazing for me, noticeably better than nV stock, almost without fail.