Toshiba Gaming Performance (x205)

ojchillinndc and Flashram,

Thank you very much for the first-hand experience.

Anyway, I got more confused now.

I have posted the concern in the Chaz's review. Maybe he would add some opinion soon.

Thank you again!

 

I'm not too impressed with the display, but for me it was not a deal breaker, I can live with it. I've seen better, I've seen worse.

 

So, the screen seems to be an average-level one.

Frankly I will be disappointed if it is not as gorgeous as Qosmio G35 and ASUS G2S-A1. How could a $ 2,500 gaming laptop possibly be with a LCD not amazing?

Thank you, OV10stang.

Regards,
Yuguang

 

Mine will be here tomorrow night. Hopefully I'll get off work before midnight so I can play with it a bit and I'll post some impressions about the screen. Its something I've been very curious about as well.

 

I mean, Toshiba DID have to do something to cut price and use cheaper components in order to install an HD-DVD drive.......you guys think that?

 

Putting in a sub par screen would defeat the purpost of having HD output though wouldn't it? Great source - Poor output..

 

It could simply be a defective screen.

Even top-of-the-line manufacturers occasionally have a manufacturing glitch or a faulty result.

I've seen quite a few laptops come through my IT department.
Dell, IBM, Alienware, HP, Sony... I used to do repair work on them as well...

The x205-s9349 (1440x900) screen is quite nice.

There are indeed better ones, but this is no slouch by any means.
(The G2S screen is superior IMHO, but comparing to the inspirions we get, I'd have to give the nod to the x205. Note that includes the higher resolution screens as well.)

I can't imagine the better version being worse.

 

I will be recieving my X205 soon and was wondering if it would be better to install XP or stick with Vista Ultimate.

I never used Vista and don't know how bad it will affect my performance for gaming and other common programs.

I'm assuming that Vista will eventually take over as the mainstream operating system but it seems right now its too new for good performance.

Any thoughts with this for my X205 performance will be appreciated.

 

I almost love my X205 s9359, the keyboard feels great, the processor is nice and fast, the sound is incredible, HD-DVD drive is fricking sweet...HDMI...all that good stuff.

My only gripe is the FRICKING SCREEN. It has a strong blue tint to it and desaturates everything. Being an artist and photographer, this drives me nuts. I went as far as getting my screen color calibrated using a SPYDER 2 PRO, which fixed the problem on the desktop side, but when I start a game up, the video card just reverts it back to the old color profile. All my games come up blue and desaturated.

You can see what I'm talking about here, the one on the left is the color calibrated setting. This is what it SHOULD look like, all Toshiba has to do is make it permanently load this ICC profile into their video card, regardless of if it's a desktop application or a 3d application.


This screen looks INCREDIBLE when color corrected. The colors are accurate and vibrant, excellent contrast and brightness. Of course the viewing angle can't really be fixed through software, but this problem certainly can! This is why the reviewers are saying the screen is crap. TOSHIBA IF YOU ARE LISTENING, THIS ISSUE CAN BE FIXED ON THE SOFTWARE SIDE!

I've researched and tried everything I can think of, from color management in Vista (which doesn't seem to do anything at all), to video card tweak programs (most don't work on the new 8xxx), to beta drivers from laptop2go (which the x205 seems to hate, forcing me to revert back to the stock ones.)

Like I said, I almost love my X205, it's got so many things right (except for the screen and being Vista only), if the screen issue gets fixed, I'd be completely happy. At least update the 8700 gt drivers that allows color profiles for games like in normal Nvidia cards. Putting the color vibrance feature back in wouldn't hurt either.

If anyone else has any suggestions or solutions, I'd be happy to try them and post the results. I'm considering sending this laptop back to Amazon and picking up a crappier laptop with a decent screen. :\

 

mayb its just a software issue, like said above, i really dont think they would put a crap screen in a 2500 dollar NB, maybe someone should email toshiba and ask about it

 

I'm pretty new to Vista and really don't know much about color profiles.... but after reading your post I started digging and came across an option to make a specific color profile the system default........ Have you seen this?

Edit: Can you post you profile? Perhaps we can try it on ours and see what type of difference it makes.

 

Sure let me send you the ICC color profile. If it works, please do share how you did it

Note, this profile was made for my specific screen, it may or may not work on the X205-S9349 (I've got the S9359)

You can download it here:
----------


Actually I can't seem to find where the .icm files are stored, anyone know?

Also I use the Colorvision program that comes with Spyder2pro to load the profile directly into my video card memory.

 

It looks like they're in C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\

Dig down from there...

I have the s3959 as well - Guess I should put that in my sig!

Edit: have you gone into the nVidia control panel color settings? Changing the settings there makes quite a difference. Using those controls I was able to recreate the effect that you've shown on your screen shots.

 

Yep that was the first thing I did, it still is no where as accurate as color calibration nor does it fix my original problem of the color profiles reseting when I start a game up.

I still cant seem to find the ICM file :\

 

That´s bad news.... but in the other side, it´s good news because the problem envolves calibration issues and not hardware problems, and that can be fixed, maybe with an BIOS update.

Witch BIOS version do you have(most recent 1.50v)? Toshiba recently updated the BIOS of the graphics card, and that can solve the problem! (Updated: NV 8ESE VBIOS)

Justo download the BIOS update from here:

Code:

 http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/tais/su/su_sc_dtlViewDL.jsp?soid=1817237&moid=1757703&rpn=PSPB9U&BV_SessionID=@@@@2091172446.1186996201@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccccaddljkdggjmcgfkceghdgngdgnj.0&ct=DL&all_docs=false

Then record that file in an bootable CD-->restart-->change in the BIOS menu to the 1st boot device to be the HD-DVD drive-->save-->restart with the CD inside the drive-->BIOS update.

I hope that can fix it...

 

How do I check for bios version? When I boot right?

 

By the way, the updated bios is for the P205, not the X205, and it didn't add and functions to fix this problem :\

 

In the download link you can read this:

Applicable Models: Satellite P200-ST2061, P205-S6347, X205-S9349, X205-S9359

As you can see in the update BIOS notes (Updated: NV 8ESE VBIOS), it means that it will update the VGA BIOS, an that may help solv that problem... it´s a mather of trying, it may help or not.

 

Is there a seperate menu for the VBIOS or something? I didnt see anything when booting up the new 1.50 CMOS