My discoveries on Vaio Z’s Hybrid Graphics

Wow, you keep thinking about that even when away

 

TO ADMIN! tried to post a picture in png - post form does not work!

 

Of course, how else are we to have the latest greatest drivers, and how else am I to fix all of these minor issues people are reporting.

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I am currently working on 190.40 and trying to fix resolution & standby/hibernation issues. I hope to have it up sometime this week if possible. Can't promise it will all be fixed but I think I have some idea as to what may be causing the issues.

Something to remember: Microsoft has already gone on record with their dislike of hybrid graphics and has said that they will not support it on Windows 7. This is not that big of a deal as long as nvidia & ati continue to support their technologies. Some of the issues (like brightness) may be due to hybrid graphics not being officially supported on Win7. Until Windows 7 is officially released and/or we get officially released Hybrid Graphics drivers for it I would not expect a fix for it. There may be other issues that can only be fixed "officially" too.

 

To be perfectly honest, I did not expect anything else

Actually, I can live with the brightness issue in speed mode very well. Since I got my Vaio Z, I only used speed mode while testing HL2. And that was not very often...
Still good to know that it is there...

 

I am experiencing similar symptoms with 1080p/720p H.264 videos using DXVA with 9300M (190.38) connected to an external display via HDMI. The system overheats and the video stutters and becomes non-responsive to user controls, ie: MPC takes a long time to pause as the video stutters on etc. When the renderer is changed to system default which disables DXVA, the symptoms go away. They do not present themselves when using DXVA with 4500MHD and the internal display as well.

 

Well from that description it sounds like the issue is with Nvidia PureVideo rendering the video and stressing the 9300M GPU too much. (Which is basically what you just said.)

My next release will be more of a compatibility release to see if we can resolve some of the issues everyone is having. The release will be Nvidia 190.56 and Intel downgraded back a notch to 1808 (The last officially released for the Mobile Intel 4 Series). I am using this combination now and it seems to work well. The resolutions in Nvidia Control panel are back to what they were in 190.15 and the Sleep (and maybe Hybrid) issues seem to be gone from what I can tell. I will look into the video overheat issues to see if there is anything that can be done INF wise (I have a couple of ideas.) I found a few more settings related to brightness that I had to test but still a no go. Thats all I really have to report right now. Sorry for the delays everyone.

 

Nautis: Since I switched to Windows 7 x64, those problems I had with the intel card are totally gone so far (been using it quite much)

Currently using 190.15 64-bit

I have got a new small problem though, not sure if its been posted by someone else:

in the nvidia control panel, I cant switch refresh rate from 59hz to 60hz, it jumps back to 59hz after the switch. The same goes for scaling settings. The scaling settings are set to the monitors own scaling settings and I am unable to change it, it just jumps back to the original setting after I switch.

 

59Hz Issue
I maybe able to fix the 59/60Hz issue by forcing it to use 60Hz, we will see. I noticed this issue myself. It seems windows 7 has introduced a bunch of new bugs or quirks. Other people are having both of these issues under Win7 so it is not limited to just us.

Someone on another forum made the point that Win7 isn't rounding the Hz up anymore so it shows as close to the real Hz you are actually getting. I don't know if this is the case but it sounds like it could be. Is the 59Hz causing any issues for anyone?

Scaling Issue
The scaling issue is another Nvidia/Win7 issue and doesn't seem directly related to the Vaio Z or these drivers. I was looking at some extra scaling settings that I can try and we can see if Nvidia put in any hidden fixes.
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I am really not sure if anything can be done on my end to fix the Hz, Scaling, and the Brightness issues. We may have to wait until Win7 is officially released and proper drivers come out for it and Hybrid Graphics notebooks. This does not mean however that I am going to stop looking for workarounds for these issues.

Thank you for turning my attention back to the Hz and scaling issues and for syncbeam for pointing out the PureVideo issues. I will see what I can do if anything.

 

No not at all, thank you so much for all the work you've put in for us

I have rolled back to 185.26/1659 which was the version I used in Vista. The Purevideo worked fine with this driver though. It could be that some settings were tweaked in the midst of the driver updates.

 

There have been some new files added to the drivers that have to do with video decoding and encoding in Windows 7. It is most likely the registering and use of whatever is in these new files that is causing the issue.

EDIT: If anyone with these purevideo/movie playing overheat issues using Windows 7 could do a test, it would be most appreciated.
Open the INF in a text editor and find [nv_common_registerdll__02] and remove the following lines:
For 32Bit delete the following lines
11,,nvdecodemft.dll,1
11,,nvencodemft.dll,1

For 64Bit delete the following lines
10,SysWoW64,nvdecodemft.dll,1
10,SysWoW64,nvencodemft.dll,1
11,,nvdecodemft.dll,1
11,,nvencodemft.dll,1

Then save the INF and uninstall the drivers and reinstall/install the drivers with the edited INF. Hopefully this will remedy the overheat issue.

 

That would be great. When I had Vista 32-bit the 9300 hz settings would sometimes reset itself back to 59hz when switching between the two gpus.

Also, I just noticed that I cant change scaling options for the intel card as well. Intel card still operates at 60hz though.

 

Link on the first page is broken. Is there a different link/other way to get the driver?

 

Thanks for pointing that out. I have fixed the link to Doxs drivers on the first post. Those drivers however have issues on some Hybrid Graphics notebooks: Will not work on some Windows 7 installations, and various other issues. (Blame me)

There are newer drivers in my signature but even those have certain issues: Brightness adjustment in speed mode, resolution issues in some games, sometimes a lockup when restoring from sleep, etc.

If you can be patient and wait a couple of days I should have a much better and more stable driver set released. It still has a few issues but those seem to be caused by the move to WDDM 1.1 in Windows 7. The issues are something Nvidia may have to fix. I am working on fixing as many things as I can in this next release and plan it as a compatibility release.

So you have a few options. Hope this helps.

 

Hey Nautis, was using the Dox drivers for my Benq S42 but had a few problems with freezing. Trying these and they seem better, however reading the start of the thread you mentioned the auto-switching on power plugged in or not which I really like in the stock drivers.

However the way to enable this mentioned early on no longer seems to work. Any tips to get it back again?

 

I basically have the same problems with Nautis drivers 190.38 and 190.15 that I do with Dox's 185.85 but these are slightly faster..

I have a Sony VGN-Z610Y/B and it uses a Hybrid Intel 4500MHD/9300m GS

Here is what I posted:

"Okay, I did get the drivers to work..

However I have a few issues, first off I cannot change the brightness with the Intel (never could with the Nvidia) all of the time, sometimes I can but other times it just does not work.

With the Intel Opengl programs like Photoshop CS4 or XBMC do not run and will crash, Nvidia seems to work okay here. The original drivers Intel worked fine with OpenGL but Nvidia had some major issues.

Windows color profiles (made with Spyder2pro or through the Windows Wizard) will not stick with the Intel (have to turn
the profile off and re-enable it), the Nvidia keeps the profiles most of the time, but every once in a while will revert back to the standard colors... This is not a deal breaker since the original drivers did the same thing, but is very annoying since the colors are way too blue/red by default."

Any ideas? Thanks.

 

You are using Vista?

Vista has a known bug, that it will sometimes override the LUT.
So you have to configure your LUT loader to write the values back to your graphic card regularely. (the one from spyder 3 does this automatically under vista)

TDO

 

I installed "64-Bit | Nvidia Version: 190.15 | Intel Version: 1808 | Packaged By: Nautis (Featuring "Dox Optimised" settings)" but I wonder, that I have only normal resolutions like 1600x900, 1280x768,1024x768,800x600. Did I make something wrong? I want some other 16:9 resolutions :/
And I cant change between STAMINA and Speed Mode

 

I'm using Windows 7 RC1. I'm just using the built in profile management. Even if I create a profile using the calibration built into Windows 7 it still resets back to default most of the time...

 

The brightness issue is, and has been, a real problem under Windows 7. I have also noticed some of the brightness control issues like you are describing on the Intel side myself. It seems to happen after switching back and forth between the GPUs. I have been trying every setting and setting combination I can find to try to remedy this issue with no success so far. Nvidia seems to have quite a few issues under Windows 7 (all relatively minor) which I hope will be remedied soon.

This is the first I have heard of this specific issue. I have Photoshop CS4 on my machine and both Intel & Nvidia GPUs seem to function fine. I wonder if somehow the Intel side did not install properly, or if something else could be causing the issue. To check the actual version of the drivers installed open "Device Manager" open "Mobile Intel(R) 4 Series..." then click the "Driver" tab and click "Driver Details" and see the actual file versions of the drivers installed. I don't ever trust the version it reports elsewhere because that is taken from the INF and not the drivers themselves.

Again first time I have heard of an issue like this one but I will look into it further.
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The Hybrid Power auto-switching (My term not Nvidias) can be configured through "Power Options" in the control panel. When there click "Change plan settings" under the power option you want to configure and then "Change advanced power settings" under "Advanced settings" there should be "GPU Settings" where you can configure it. If it doesn't work after adjusting the settings there let me know and I have a registry patch that may fix it for you.
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It sounds like the drivers did not install properly. You can do what I suggested to tbob22 and check the actual file versions of the drivers installed under the control panel. Don't forget if you are using a 64bit OS the drivers will need to be signed and testmode enabled in order for them to work.
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I am currently playing with some EDID settings in the drivers to see if it will fix any of the issues reported. I really appreciate everyone taking the time to explain the problems they are having.

 

Hey Nautis, yeah I know thats they way it usually works, however I have it set up for the auto power options and it doesn't work. This may be because with the Benq drivers the options are on battery use integrated and on plugged in use discrete.

However with yours it says on battery save power (motherboard gpu) and plugged in boost performance (multiple gpu). Of course I can't use multiple gpu. Both the reg keys in the first post don't exist and creating them does nothing either.

Thanks for your help.

 

I'm reading through this thread and thinking: holy crap there is a lot of stuff to fix. This would drive a lesser person absolutely nuts with the amount of posts and bugs to iron out. Why aren't you working for a hardware company as a software engineer or something nautis?

I gotta hand it to you, fantastic freakin' work. It takes real dedication to do what you are doing, and I can speak for everyone when I say we all REALLY appreciate the work you are putting into this.

 

First off, thanks a lot of answering my questions.

I found that the brightness usually stops working if i switch Intel>Nvidia>Intel or Nvidia>Intel>Nvidia>Intel,...

I also noticed if the brightness control is not working, putting it to sleep and waking it back up sometimes fixes it (when on the Intel of course)

I did reinstall about 4-5 times (using both your drivers and Dox's), still no luck.. The original drivers do seem to work fine though.

The driver it is reporting is 8.15.11.9038

I did more extensive testing.. After rebooting the Intel shows the profile for a second then switches back to the original colors, the Nvidia will keep the profile all the time until I switch to the Intel and then it seems to lose it until I go to the profile manager and select it again.

OT, I just undervolted my CPU from 1.1620v to 0.9750 (2.4ghz). Full load temps went down from 87c (HOT!!) to 65c. Idle temp is about the same (35-40c).

 

Lt. Glare I thank you for the kind words, they help make this hobby of mine seem not so tedious. It is nice when people recognize the effort. The driver developers at nvidia are the ones that really deserve most of the praise though. I just take their fantastic hard work and try to get it to function, the best I can, for a specific subset of notebooks. Without the functionality already in the drivers none of this would be possible. For me this is just a fun and challenging hobby, if it helps others achieve getting a little more out of their purchase I am happy. Again, I very much do appreciate the praise though.

Yeah I can confirm the same thing. The broken brightness on the Nvidia side seems to stick in place when switching to the Intel.

Ok, interesting stuff. I will see if I can trigger this issue.

I have noticed numerous issues all seeming to stem from WDDM 1.1. I have a feeling we won't be seeing fixes for most of these issues until Nvidia fixes these issues themselves. I am going to continue to play with settings to see if I can fix or workaround some of these issues though.

EDID is one place I am looking that may fix a few of these issues. The Nvidia drivers seem to stick to EDID much stricter with WDDM 1.1 then they ever have in the past.

With the above said about WDDM 1.1, and just because I am sure some people would like them, I am also going to post the last official based Hybrid Graphics driver that I have found which is 185.77/1624 from ASUS. I of course need to modify the INF to add support for GPUs other than the one in the ASUS.

Lots to do, and I am still trying to get these darn 190.56s out the door, sorry for the delays everyone. I have been doing quite a bit of INF editing so I am going to rebuild the INFs again from scratch before I post.

 

Any luck with the auto power settings Nautis, looking forward to the .56 as well.

Everyone really does appreciate your work, especially since it is so far above my head.

 

Sorry kulprit, the power settings that I was thinking of are specific to Fujitsu not BenQ. I mixed them up. Nothing new on that front yet.

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BTW to further explain my hunch about WDDM1.1 I have found the following:
From "Working With The Windows 7 Graphics Architecture"

I have seen complaints about issues relating to all three things listed above. With EDID causing the 59Hz problem and maybe some others, polling hot plug potentially causing issues with switching and other things not working correctly in hybrid graphics, and people reporting overscan issues.

Also, from the "Graphics Guide for Windows 7":

Which may be contributing to your problems tbob22.

 

What I really don't get is why some laptops are reported to have brightness issues, but I have experienced nothing of the sort.. yet (W7 64-bit, 190.38, 9600M GT/4500MHD)

 

So you can change brightness in Speed/Stamina mode and vice versa?

I noticed that I cannot change brithness at all after I switched to speed and back... after that I need to do a reboot to change brightness (even in Stamina mode).

 

Sorry, didn't mention that I have a BenQ Joybook S42, and not a Vaio, but my brightness controls are fine. :sweats like hell:

 

maybe its due to VAIO Event Services i guess.

 

tried the latest release - switching between the intel/nv did not work at all. Running w7 rtm, fresh install. Previous release worked.

 

Miyabi, did you try it on Vaio Z or where did you get 9600M GT video on Z?

 

See now I am jealous. I have been trying to figure out this brightness issue on my Vaio under W7 for some time. I may have some questions for you if ya don't mind.

Could very well be, the VAIO software is all made for Vista. I have seen some other similar issues with the VAIO Event Services.

I hope you mean previous release of the drivers and not W7, I would hate to think they broke something with the RTM. Hopefully the new set (releasing sometime this decade) will work ok for you.

Miyabi was just quoting namaiki with "9600M GT" as that is what the BenQ has. All Vaio Zs have 9300M GS and there is no way to switch to anything else.
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With that in mind the Hybrid Graphics notebooks are:

Code:

; Device ID            Name                     Brand    Model
; -------------------  -----------------------  -------  -------------
; 10DE.0649.0597.17FF  NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT  BenQ     Joybook S42
; 10DE.0649.1148.1734  NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT .Fujitsu  Amilo XI 3650
; 10DE.0649.2F1D.1509  NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT .Fujitsu  Amilo XI 3650
; 10DE.06E5.9025.104D  NVIDIA GeForce 9300M GS  Sony     Vaio Z
; 10DE.06E9.9025.104D  NVIDIA GeForce 9300M GS  Sony     Vaio Z
; 10DE.06F1.1AB2.1043  NVIDIA GeForce G105M     Asus     UX50V
; -------------------------------------------------------------------
; All have Intel GMA 4500MHD

 

Using Nvidia Version: 190.38 | Intel Version: 1825 from your sig, and W7 RTM...no worky ;(

 

One thing that is very curious is that the Intel card is always \\.\DISPLAY1 but the nVidia card is an odd number, for example \\.\DISPLAY31 and say I switch back to Intel, then to nVidia again, it goes \\.\DISPLAY1 -> \\.\DISPLAY33



(Running W7 RTM)

Also, what happens if you run the computer without VAIO Event Services? Can you still control your brightness in Windows Mobility Center?

@brody_ are you running 32-bit or 64-bit? and which card are you stuck on, or can you still switch at boot?

 

64b, sticks to the card i boot with...

 

Otherwise, do the graphics cards function as normal? Also, did you mention that an older version of Nautis' driver was working?

 

in terms of screen rez etc yeah all looks fine. I had 190.15 working under RC 7229...tested that, same problem with switching under rtm. Rebuilding again.

 

all working now, think i may have missed 1 of sonys drivers/shared dlls.

 

Maybe a dumb question.

But why are so many using the hybrid driver with Win 7?

One of the new features of WDDM 1.1 is the possibilty to install two graphics drivers at the same time. So there should be no need for a hack like in Vista ( which allowed only one graphic driver).

Has anybody tried just to install Intel and the NVidia drivers, which support WDDM 1.1?

TDO

 

I am guessing here but multiple drivers with WDDM 1.1 is for two (or more) adapters outputting to different displays. What happens when both are outputting to the same built-in LCD?

On the other hand... I considered turning this dynamic stamina/speed switch off in BIOS, i.e. making it work the same way as with Windows XP. I do not need to switch in the middle of my work. It is sufficient if the active adapter is determined by switch during boot. Then I can install whatever latest drivers from Intel and Nvidia. Tempting... Perhaps other things like brightness control get fixed that way.

 

Regarding brightness issue. I downloaded several versions of drivers from ftp.vaio-link.com and looked at INF files. It appears that different versions (they also named differently like ALBATROSS, RAICHO, ALEXANDER, BLAST) use differently named registry key to control that and even different format of values to record default brightness value. It also looks like drivers (at least some of them) install some Sony DLL. Perhaps it's that DLL that actually uses these registry keys and controls brightness. It is incredibly complicated.

 

I am quoting you backwards.

Yeah, I have tried almost every combination of brightness settings I could find with no luck so far. I fear that the brightness issue may be deeper than just a settings thing, though I could be wrong.

The only Sony dll I have found referenced is the PVSonyDll.dll which is a Sony specific PureVideo dll file. Not sure what makes it special and I doubt it will have any affect on backlight control but it piqued my interest also.

I have noticed people with other Sony model notebooks complaining of brightness control issues on Windows 7.

Namaiki reported, a little back in this thread, being able to control the brightness fine on the BenQ (another Hybrid Graphics notebook).

This also may be somewhat what is causing the backlight issues.

If you do this let me know how it works. I was also going to start experimenting around with that setting but was a bit scared. Don't want to switch a bios setting which could potentially FUBAR the system.

 

Hello All,

I have a VGN-Z48GD ( http://www.sony.com.au/product/vgn-z48gd). Although it is impressively fast it has some maddening behaviours that I have not experienced before on any previous notebook.

I use the machine 50/50 in the office with an external monitor and out of the office using the inbuilt screen.

If I reboot in the office with the external monitor it looses the screen settings and I manually need to go into the NVIDIVA control panel and adjust every time. I drives me nuts!

Do you think the new driver refered into in the first Nautis post would help? Also the page that is linked in the Nautis post ( http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/topic/24003-forceware-185-85/) states that I must uninstall the previous driver before installing.

This may sound terribly silly to you but how do I do that? This machine has Vista 64 (if that helps).

Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

Hi daft1024,

I had similar issues and after mucking around with a lot of different solutions eventually bit the bullet and purchased 'Ultramon' which has worked perfectly remembering settings and providing additional functionality (like hot keys to move programs between primary and secondary screens). Ultramon has worked with all of the Nautis nvidia updates so far.

Gibbo

 

Or you can use DI manager which does the same (maybe w/o some features) for free.

 

Hi Nautis,

Thank you again for all of your hard work. Any luck using the lastest ASUS drivers for hybrid graphics?

Take care,
Sumster

 

Hello Gibbo and Base,

Thanks for the suggestions.

Gibbo is this the solution you recommended? http://www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon/

Base could you please provide a link to the DI manager page. I have tried Googling and can't seem to find it.

Thanks in advance

 

That's the right one daft1024.

I am running 3.0.7 beta and it works a treat.

Gibbo

 

Just Enter DIManager into Google:

Click

 

Hi all, and Nautis in particular. of late I have noticed some unusual behaviour from my graphics set. The recent upgrade to 190.38, when matched with large DPI (my preferred setting, to increase the font size) now results in some screen fonts being 'fuzzy' or soft looking and some maintaining their normal sharp, straight edge. I am guessing it is a result of the driver change from 190.15, as it worked well with that driver.

An additional problem, which is minor as I don't use the feature much, is displaying via HDMI. I use HDMI to connect to a 22" display in another office and to connect to my 32" 1080p LCD at home. In both cases the default resolution displays the pages with about 1cm of the edges missing. I can adjust this using nvidia control panel ('adjust desktop size and position), however I didn't need to do this in the past and am guessing again that this is related to the nvidia drivers. The 32" LCD also renders the image really poorly now, very jagged and fuzzy, where-as in the past it was very sharp as you would expect from a 1080p monitor.

Any thoughts and tips welcome.

Thanks!
Gibbo