My discoveries on Vaio Z’s Hybrid Graphics

How thoughtful of you...
I will make sure you get fists full of feedback on those releases... If you know what I mean

 

win 7 ultimate 64bit clean install

 

Can you point me in the right direction regarding where the registry settings are located?

 

I have posted about it in the past here but I am sure it has gotten lost in the numerous posts.

its located in the registry here:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\NVIDIA Corporation\Global\Hybrid
set 'DisableUI' to 0 or delete it. Needs a reboot after.

I guess Sony assumes people will get confused with the hardware switch and the taskbar switch and other power option stuff.

I was working on a utility to make switching hybrid power options a little easier.

 

Last time I installed the latest Nvidia driver for a Desktop PCs (it was one out of the 19X-Series). Inside the Nvidia Control Panel there is an option for a simple screen calibration. It is a 4 step wizzard where you can make several adjustments. Dont know how it is called.

 

Did any one has same problem ? :

Windows 7 64bit Professional new Bios, new drivers. 24' 1920*1200 resolution. When starting to drag any window, At first is very laggy then it starts to work normally, when trying to drag same window later, it will work perfectly, but any new window, Mozilla , Explorer, iTunes. they will lag at first, and only after few sec, will work normally.


EDIT:
Scrolling web pages in IE8 is very slow. every time.


I am using docking station, VAIO Z590

 

Download GPU-z and check if the GPU core and memory speed are fluctuating (on the second page with the red bars).

Probably not related; try disable smooth scrolling under 'internet options -> advanced' as it is highly CPU intensive

 

GPU core clock varies 200-500MHz approximately . If i will just look at it. it will stay constant

 

Hmm. Does this happen on both speed and stamina?

 

Hey Nautis,

What is the last stable hybrid version of x64 driver which works with Sony Z (including switching)? Also, does it have Powermizer enabled? I tried 190.62 and powermizer is not ON - if I enable it by "force" I get very strange issues like not being able to have 1920x1200 (only 1920x1080) on HDMI and very low GPU clock (160 MHz)

I don't want to go to the latest official Win7 x64 driver as I need to flash my BIOS and the new BIOS prevents EFI boot from USB drives.

Thx!

 

Do HDMI support 1200p ? what kind of display you are using ?

Sony rocks, they disabled some features with update... strange, talking about EFI boot from USB .

 

Changed resolution of my display from 1920 to 1600/900 and lag disappeared. Seems that 9300GS need XP or windows 7 with lowered graphics performance. I think... next time I will go for a Mac, since Sony doesn't want to engineer a really god product. Hate Mac, but I think I have no choice but for a few years I will stick with Vaio Z.


btw. how is your Z sound performance, did any one tried it with external amplifier ? Mine (Vaio FE and Vaio Z) spreads some noise from speakers.(external, not Internal, powered by amplifier.)

 

Of course it supports - almost every PC monitor has 1920x1200 resolution

By the way, DVI output on Sony Z's docking station is also routed through HDMI circuitry - so if you have non-HDCP capable monitor, you will be limited to 1280x800

It is a pity, since NVidia 9300M supports dual-link DVI - if Sony didn't want to spare a few dollars, they could have routed the docking station DVI connector to 9300M dual-link port, and we would be able to connect Z directly to a 30" monitor and have 2560x1600 resolution

And EFI boot... check the thread http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=428290

It looks like Sony disabled EFI booting because installing Windows 7 / Server 2008 R2 x64 in EFI mode triggered some errors. However, disabling of EFI also rendered quick booting from USB sticks without special bootsector impossible...

 

with new video drivers i am missing advanced vaio power options (disable firewire, dvd and so on), I am the only one ?

 

You can get those to work by just installing vista's version of Vaio Power Options and that'll work fine.

 

Hey Guys!
I am trying to get my Vaio Z 520N to work properly. Everything is ok, bios update, win 7 x64, official hybrid gfx, but someway my DXVA under MPC HC is choppy, stutters a lot with killa sample. Please somebody confirm it! with regular 720p content is alright but sometimes can see a little stutter. I even tried 190.62 hybrid gfx driver, thinking it may be the problem, but no. might it be the new bios. can i downgrade to a lower to check it? Playing without DXVA is good, ofcourse with CPU power, but i want to use my 9300gfx. Under vista it was flawless. Ideas?
Thanks

 

Sounds like it might be a codec issue. Try playing it with Windows Media Player or something that may use a different codec.

 

Thanks but no. My desktop uses the exact sama codecs, with CCCP, or without, only with Haali. Everything works except DXVA, which i am putting back official vista 32 bit with 185.20 nautisus, it was working perfectly with the exact same settings. it looks to me that it stresses the gpu too much cause lover res/bitrate mkv -s do play and only stutter a little, when heated. Could someone try win7 x64 MPC HC -MPC Video Decoder, dxva, with 1080 killa sample! i would apreciate that. I tried with 190.x, and official new 187.x i guess.

 

Ahh k, I wasn't sure to what capacity you had tested it. It could very well be heat and or other problems related to the drivers stressing the GPU too much. There have been changes and/or additions to the video encoding/decoding in the drivers. I have suspected purevideo in the past as there have been others that have mentioned heat issues with video playback.

Edit: Here is an interesting piece related to this discussion.

Changing one or more of the following registry entries may help: (by default they are)
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Media Foundation\HardwareMFT]
"EnableDecoders"=dword:00000001
"EnableEncoders"=dword:00000001
"EnableVideoProcessors"=dword:00000001

change to 0 to disable and will most likely require a reboot after changing.

 

Ok! Here is some news. I put back Vista 32 from recovery. Factory driver says dxvachecker that is good, but wouldnt play dxva, i put on 185.x nautius, and it plays dxva. I tried killa sample 1080, and it was the same very choppy,stuttered playback. Question: Playing dxva wouldnt take all load to gpu? Even playing 720p content i get around 25-30 percent of CPU, but dxva off its around 40%. My desktop, which is i7+gtx260, plays with 1%cpu, even killa sample1080. So could it be that 9300M is not enough for the task? I know it is, because you can see Nvidia Ion +Atom videos running killa sample with 20 percent cpu usage. Ion=9300. So it must be driver related. Would you try out killa sample ?

Relly good guide : http://nunnally.ahmygoddess.net/watching-h264-videos-using-dxva/

UPDATE: Back to win7 x64 with official (modified inf,deleted 4 lines mentioned before), but same thing, even if i use microsoft hd video decoder. It seems with both mpc hc, and wmp12, when i apply the dxva codec, the cpu usage drops to 25-30 percent, but very stuttered,choppy picture. With ffdshow ofcourse its ok with near 100% cpu usage. I even tried modifiing the registry, those 3 values u mentioned but nothing so far! Its so annoying. So far cant really use dxva, which i use a lot. i even tried the 190.x driver. Nothing

UPDATE2: I tried CYBERLINK H264 Decoder for MPC HC, but it freezes with pixelation, and stops playing, when DXVA is enabled. There are definately some issues, because i can play it with my desktop with exact same settings. 720p videos play nice though with 15-20% cpu, 25-30% with MPC video decoder. Only this killa sample , and some 1080 stutter a bit. I give up one it for now. Maybe some new driver will fix this bugs. Please Confirm if you have the same problem with killa sample, Thank You!

 

Nautis, tell me, please, what's up with my vaio z11 after bios and official video drivers update - it's fantastic change - no more heat at all - 60" of nvidia card max!!!
p.s. no problems with overheat during hdmi connection too..

 

my video performance is BAAD (like not good bad) running the official 187.35 release

this is the case even when I'm just running 2D applications.
(Illustrator, Powerpoint). Windows are laggy when I reposition them.
any advice?

 

modified my registry to disable NVIDIA powermizer:
on speed mode I'm now getting 4.3 on windows Experience Index -- Graphics Rating (bumped up from 3.2).

Things are a lot snappier.

here's the thread I followed to do this
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=233176

 

There's a program that can do that for you. Powermiser Switch.

...I'd still recommend you keep powermiser enabled, if most of what you're going to do involves word processing or web browsing.

3.2 -> 4.3 sounds like you did the first time on stamina mode.

The number should not change if you did the test both times on speed mode, even if you disable powermiser.

You do *not* get better performance this way; generally just more heat, but it can fix stuttering issues.

 

Can people tell me what driver they are using for a Benq S42 with Windows 7 x64. Also are there any special steps I have to take? Also where is the hotkey program for x64 so that all the on screen display works?

 

Read this post. lol it's mine but not bothered to type again.



As for the OSD, no idea, but the hotkeys still work by themselves.

 

namaiki: not sure what to say. disabling powermiser has yielded noticable improvement. no screen lag on repositioning windows. I was surprised myself. I thought that for the most part powermizer would only affect 3D performance... but I dunno. could be placebo... but I doubt that. I guess I'll just have to wait for the next round of hybrid driver updates.

anyone having the situation. where illustrator is redrawing interface elements? totally killing my performance and productivity here. (this is the case whether powermizer is disabled or not).

For sure I ran Windows Experience tests on both *speed* not *stamina*.
and am finding disabling powermizer to kill window lag.

any thoughts? do I need to take my medication?

 

Download GPU-z and on the second tab you can check the core and memory clocks on your speed GPU. If powermiser is on, they will be fluctuating.. I've read about the problem, but I haven't experienced any stuttering yet.

 

Hi everyone,

I'm vaio z21wn win7 x64 with nautis 190.38. Everything works fine hdmi is good except the sound comes out of the laptop...

Anyway, I was wondering if I should update bios, uninstall nautis's drivers and install the official one, or wait a new nautis release ?

Oh and one last thing Nautis have you found the problem with the reinstallation of drivers over previous ones ? I just "fixed" the problem by doing a system restore but I assume I will reinstall the hole win7 next time...

 

Ok So i log on my vaio z after not using it for 2 months because of heat issues I and start reading about the new bios update from sony and official sony video drivers. In one forum I read a guys post that said installing these fixed his heat issues. So i do the bios update first which is the one that starts with r2something then i do a windows 7 clean install. Ran windows update to get some drivers and got the rest from 7 clean install threads. My issue is the GPU is running extremely hot. When in windows my fan is like ridiculously loud. When in games, I can last about 15-20 minutes before it just shuts off. This happens every time with every game. From Sims 3 to Borderlands. Now i downloaded GPU-z to check the temps and sure enough.. as soon as i get in game the gpu temps shoot from 67-69 all the way to 93 in just one minute. Its insane. Here is my gpuz log file

Date , GPU Core Clock [MHz] , GPU Memory Clock [MHz] , GPU Temperature [°C] ,

2009-10-29 21:58:32 , 169.0 , 100.0 , 66.0 ,

2009-10-29 21:58:33 , 169.0 , 100.0 , 66.0 ,

2009-10-29 21:58:34 , 169.0 , 100.0 , 66.0 ,

2009-10-29 21:58:35 , 169.0 , 100.0 , 66.0 ,

2009-10-29 22:01:30 , 580.0 , 702.0 , 93.0 ,

2009-10-29 22:01:31 , 580.0 , 702.0 , 92.0 ,

2009-10-29 22:01:32 , 580.0 , 702.0 , 91.0 ,

2009-10-29 22:01:33 , 580.0 , 702.0 , 91.0 ,

2009-10-29 22:01:34 , 580.0 , 702.0 , 90.0 ,

2009-10-29 22:01:36 , 580.0 , 702.0 , 90.0 ,

2009-10-29 22:08:20 , 580.0 , 702.0 , 91.0 ,

2009-10-29 22:08:21 , 580.0 , 702.0 , 91.0 ,

2009-10-29 22:08:22 , 580.0 , 702.0 , 90.0 ,

2009-10-29 22:08:23 , 580.0 , 702.0 , 90.0 ,

2009-10-29 22:08:24 , 580.0 , 702.0 , 90.0 ,

2009-10-29 22:08:25 , 580.0 , 702.0 , 89.0 ,

2009-10-29 22:08:26 , 580.0 , 702.0 , 89.0 ,

2009-10-29 22:08:27 , 580.0 , 702.0 , 89.0 ,

2009-10-29 22:08:28 , 580.0 , 702.0 , 89.0 ,

2009-10-29 22:08:29 , 500.0 , 450.0 , 88.0 ,

2009-10-29 22:08:30 , 500.0 , 450.0 , 87.0 ,

2009-10-29 22:08:31 , 500.0 , 450.0 , 87.0 ,

2009-10-29 22:08:32 , 500.0 , 450.0 , 86.0 ,

2009-10-29 22:08:33 , 500.0 , 450.0 , 86.0 ,

2009-10-29 22:08:34 , 500.0 , 450.0 , 86.0 ,

2009-10-29 22:08:36 , 500.0 , 450.0 , 85.0 ,

2009-10-29 22:08:37 , 500.0 , 450.0 , 85.0 ,

2009-10-29 22:08:38 , 500.0 , 450.0 , 85.0 ,

2009-10-29 22:08:39 , 500.0 , 450.0 , 85.0 ,

2009-10-29 22:08:40 , 500.0 , 450.0 , 85.0 ,

2009-10-29 22:08:41 , 500.0 , 450.0 , 84.0 ,

2009-10-29 22:08:42 , 500.0 , 450.0 , 84.0 ,

2009-10-29 22:08:43 , 500.0 , 450.0 , 84.0 ,


as you can see that temperature change is almost instant. Anyone have any idea why the hell this is going on. Ive been on my fw but i wanna bring my z outta retirement so my gf and i can play a little games together. It seems like when the gpu is running at its rated clock speeds thats when i get the absurd temps. is there any way to limit my clock speed and mem speed. If not what else can i do? Thanks in advance for reading my post and offering assistance

 

2009-10-29 21:58:35 , 169.0 , 100.0 , 66.0 ,

2009-10-29 22:01:30 , 580.0 , 702.0 , 93.0 ,

Looks like the GPU's thermal pad or heatsink isn't having a good contact with the GPU core. Not much you can do unless you take it into a service center or open up the thing yourself.

Are you using the laptop on a flat surface like a wooden table? (or basically just not on a couch or a bed).

 

My temperatures are much higher while gaming, sometimes arount 100 degrees. My system is running fine without problems and shutdowns. I knew this is very hot but maybe there is an other problem?

 

i have the skills to take it apart and apply the thermal grease as long as someone tells me that its possible to do. I have taken it apart before to clean the inside.. A lot of dust and other stuff caught in there. Im sure the temps probably get higher than the 90's I just posted the earliest temps from the log. SirRobin do you mean your GPU temps or your CPU temps. I will borderlands until it crashes check the log and see what it gets to I tried limiting the gpu and gpu mem to 500mhz to see if it would solve the issue. It still goes high as soon as i enter the game but doesnt go above 96 degrees. Whats funny is that if I alt tab, the temps drop immediately so for me to play I have to alt tab ever 5-10 minutes only for like 60 seconds just for the temps to drop again.

Edit: I just tested borderlands and sf4 and it definitely seems to not overheat when i underclock at 500\500 I went back to the normal settings 580 core and 702 mem just sat there in game idle waited and boom it turned off. Went from 82 to 105 which is the shutoff temp (can someone confirm this[I have no clue]) in about 18 minutes. I think its 105 because it only gets up to 104 in the log.

 

oh im using it on a raised box thats sitting on my bed.

 

Around 100 degrees is the temperature of the gpu on my z machine. The cooling system was changes 3 month ago, also the cooling pad was checked. It´s hot but i did´nt have any problems yet.

 

namaiki
No way man, it's not hardware issue, 100% drivers, i've tested vista official drivers on win7, gpu temp is just ok, and none of this overclocking happens, cooler was really steady and noisless too, but now it's something like this, little more steady..
It's overheat issue depends on driver, so heads up for Nautis's new +))
thapickle
Switch off powermizer, it will be more steady and stable clock is also not so harmless with all drivers exept official that we have yet...

 

133crazydirector hmm i think i misunderstood what you were saying. I turned of powermizer in the reg bu. I remember i pointt those are with the official latest sony drivers. where the laptop did not run this hot. Is there a certain driver release that just works better or is known to not cause heat.

I also ran the test again last night to verify. The system only shows temps in 14 minutes going from 81 to 103 then turning off. Any other ideas.

 

I've noticed the original sony drivers don't switch off Aero when on battery,
Anybody know which Registry String this is?

 

Ok i have figured some stuff out. It seems like the issue is happening because of the CPU. I ran a cpu stress test out of any game and of course the temp gradually went up on the cpu to extremely high over 200 Fahrenheit. I dont know what is causing this but i am going to try and undervolt the cpu to see if it works. Right now at idle it is running at 74-75 celsius average. Is this normal?

 

I've taken the Z apart multiple times, and on 2 different Zs. I used to have a Z590 (1st generation), and now I have a Z790 (3rd generation), and you have to be confident as well as skilled to take it apart.

I've applied IC7 Diamond Thermal Grease (Diamonds > Silver), on my CPU, x4500, and 9300m....I've also undervolted my 28TDP CPU.

My CPU when STRESSED on Orthros, runs at MAX 60C. Playing COD4, Resident Evil 5, and Devil May Cry 4, the GPU is MAX at 75C.

I do have to note, I also have no-heat producing SSDs in my system and I'm always in an Air conditioned room, with my extended battery which raises the notebook about an inch of the desk.

But yes...its possible to apply thermal grease to it. Its tricky as the heatsink/fan clamp down on the motherboard on both sides. GPU on the top side, and CPU & x4500 on the bottom side. You have to apply the grease, float the heatsink/fan over the motherboard, and press down without moving.

 

I am researching undervolting from this thread http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=235824&highlight=undervolt is there anything you can tell me about undervolting that i should know.

 

Be patient.

It takes time to closely adjust the voltages your CPU demands, otherwise you'll BSOD alot.

You'll need to spend a good 30-40 mins to finally figure out the best voltages. It running Orthros for about 5-10 mins each time to make sure the CPU doesn't crap out.


Now, if you want the easy way as well as the least work, google CPUgenie. That program has an option where you run the program for a couple of hours, and it'll figure out what the lowest voltage you can set it to. It does everything RMclock does and more. Why more? RMclock is actually a VERY old program that NEVER gets updated. Whereas CPUgenie is a new program and gets updates but costs $$$$$.

 

thapickle
75 is ok for every unofficial drivers so far, so for now - undervolting is a real way

 

Silly me, wondered why nobody ever replied to my post - just read the forum rules again and a few other posts.

Whilst I have a different view on the subject - rules are rules. Apologies!

Plus i'm 99% of the time in Windows anyway but i like to experiment.

Cheers.

 

Nautis
Have you solved the open GL issue?
I'm kinda stuck without it in adobe products, especially After effects..

 

Honestly I didn't see your original post and unfortunately don't have an answer for you, sorry.

Are you still having this issue with the official 187 drivers?

 

Nautis
Well...I'm still using your newest stable 190.38, coz i have z11, and as i can see there's no bios for win7 and 187 for this model, or am i missing something?

And as i understand this drivers still can't use PhysX and CUDA advantages?

If yes, than i'll better wait your new stables

 

yes, you are missing stable and coolest drivers so far for z11 on win7 x64
(7UPG_BIOS_SONY_M3A_R4043M3.ZIP and 187 nvidia) - works great on my z11

 

Vovus
Is there any way to get PhysX and CUDA wroking on 187?

 

As Vovus said try this bios with these drivers. Both Cuda and PhysX should work, though they both heat the thing up really quick.
--

Update for everyone: I have tried 195.39 and 187.66 and they both give the same problem of not being able to switch properly. Both of these and 191.56 also seem to have resolution issues (stuck on only 4 resolutions available in the nv control panel.)