My discoveries on Vaio Z’s Hybrid Graphics

I know, it was one of the last features that was added to 191.

 

zomg. I can't believe it's finally working, but it lags in full screen.. why?! oh why?!!?

MadVR by itself uses 234MB of VRAM(incl 100MB for aero though..) and CoreAVC by itself uses something like 80MB..

edit: actually, seems quite doable when I disable aero.

 

Bah... well I said working that doesn't mean well.

191.90 Release Notes: (Not sure what was added or fixed in .97)

• Added support for hardware overlays on both Clone mode displays.
Previously, the driver supported only one hardware overlay, so only one
Clone mode display could present the video overlay.

• EDID Override (for monitor manufacturers)
The graphics driver now can use Extended Display Identification Data
(EDID) overrides provided by the monitor manufacturers. These overrides
are updated EDIDs contained within the monitor INF.
Refer to the Microsoft white paper http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/
display/edid_over.mspx.

• Automatic Desktop Scaling for Analog Displays
(As of Release 185) To prevent unsupported timings from being applied to
digital displays that use the analog (VGA) connection, the Windows 7 driver
scales the desktop automatically. In a future driver release, controls will be
available in the NVIDIA Control Panel to let you select the scaling method.

CUDA Updates
• Added support for 64‐bit video encoding.
• Added support to make all GPUs within an SLI group available for CUDA
applications to use.

OpenGL Updates
• Added support for OpenGL 3.1.
• Added support for Deep Color (30‐bit color) rendering of OpenGL
applications.
Requires 10bpc‐capable DisplayPort monitor and GeForce 8 series GPUs or
later.

Bahh.. I will just post the Release Notes PDF.

 

nono, it's working perfectly if I disable Aero.

 

I will keep looking around for newer drivers that work. At least you have found somewhat a solution.

 

I downloaded http://www.nautisiandesigns.com/drivers/latest/HGMS_N19190_I1994_x32.exe

but it seems its a 64bit version. can anyone confirm and post a 32bit version link ?

thanks !

 

what is the error?

 

I got the same error message. I tried both setup.exe and going to device manager to manually update driver. Both complained about the driver being 64-bit. Ran dpinst.exe and it said there is no hardware for the driver.

Really scratching my head now. Anyone else successfully installed the 32-bit version?

 

Thanks for the link! What clock speeds have you been able to overclock up to?

 

I may have fubar'd something let me look at those 32bit drivers again.

<--Yep.. Stoopid

I will upload the full package with fixed 32bit INF as soon as I get home. Attached zip file containing fixed INF is attached.

 

is there a working older version of those 32bit ? or should i wait till you fix them ?

I used to have the ones from sony, but they kinda suck

 

Yeah I must have mixed up the OS identification strings in the inf. Fixed INF attached above ^^^^. Sorry everyone was trying to get them up before bed so I didn't have much time to double check them.

EDIT: I will be posting a version 2 of these with the only real changes being the addition of them working on VPCZ11. I will also add generic strings to make these sets more universal so it covers any Hybrid Graphics notebooks I may not know of yet.

 

Thank you so very much, Nautis. I put the INF in and everything works now. So far so good. I think the frame rate got a little better in HAWX, which is cool.

 

If you just download the INF Nautis provided on this page and overwrite the one in the unzipped 32-bit folder, you should be able to use it now. I installed mine in my Vista Home Premium 32-bit.

Prior to this, I was using the driver provided by Sorg on p.3 on this thread. There is also an official Win7 32-bit driver, which Nautis provided a link on the very first post.

 

You're welcome The same as he's using there - 700/702/1800. Going up to 91C max...

 

Hi, CherryBombaz!

I've had zero problems using MSI's AfterBurner to clock to its max on my Geforce GT 330m (Vaio Z11 series), which is 620/1364/910 MHz - no overvolting at all. It will obviously go higher, though I've never bothered, since this worked perfectly, first time. However, I've seen GPU temps up to 87C in DiRT2, so it's close to the reasonable thermal limit. Some heavier games like Battlefield 2 may well push it over that limit. Make sure you monitor temps!

Cheers!
Mark

P.S. To match Metsn's convention, this would obviously be 620/910/1364 MHz.

 

lol. At stock, my 9600M GT goes up to 97C with FurMark. :C

Sony guys, I'm just curious but what does your nVidia GPU idle at?

Mine idles at 58-70C... Sometimes I get this feeling that my GPU is passively cooled.

 

When I play vids with MPC at 1080p on my Z540, there's a big of lag (sort of low framerate). when I disable window composition (that is, disable aero), video shows perfectly.

the new drivers are better then the old buggy ones from sony (I do get a much higher index score in windows), but it hasn't solved the above issue.
anyone has this too ?

 

Yep, Namaiki has stated the same exact issue and fix.

I wonder if 191.90 has the same issue. EDIT: Uploading 191.90 64bit along with reuploading the 32bit version (fixed inf) now.

 

48-56C with stock thermal paste and not overclocked...I would really like to get somewhere the heat-sink from Z with T procs, but it seems nearly not possible...

 

OK..
Hybrid Graphics Master Set for Windows Vista/7 64bit [Nvidia: 191.90 | Intel: 1994] is up to see if it still has proper decoding and fixes the aero issue. (Note: this is 191.9 0 not 191.9 7 linked below)

Hybrid Graphics Master Set for Windows Vista/7 32bit [Nvidia: 191.90 | Intel: 1994] is up with the proper inf.

 

Mine idles around 50-60C, but goes up to 98C when its overclocked (700/702/1800). :\

 

Is this the standalone MPC-HC? All internal filters enabled?
Try, with aero enabled, View-> Renderer settings-> Reset-> default.
Or, with aero disabled, View-> Renderer settings-> Reset-> optimal.

 

Nautis, I've already posted this question on a different thread but this one seems more appropriate.

Am I correct in thinking that you are currently working on a new release of hybrid drivers which will work on the new Z11s? But the problem at the moment lies more with the old intel drivers rather than the NVIDIA drivers?

Thanks for your help, Sony really owes you a job!

 

Indeed I am and should be releasing them soon.

Yes the problem with the drivers I released is due to utilizing older Intel drivers that do not work on 'Intel HD Graphics'. My next release will include both older and newer Intel drivers to support both older and newer Hybrid Graphics notebooks.

 

Good work, Nautis. Looking forward to the new build.

 

MadVR still runs. I think it's about the same as 191.97

Also Nautis, I just want to say, probably not too many people are using MadVR, so thanks for these releases, but I definitely don't want to take up too much of your time. =)

 

No worries Namaiki you have been a tremendous help.

Didn't get much time today to work this stuff. Sorry everyone.

 

namaki, u s42 is using 32bit or 64bit?? many 32bit software can support on 64bit??

 

I'm using Windows 7 64-bit. All 32-bit software I have tried so far is running as normal.

 

are you kidding.... don`t be sorry nautis!!
i am pretty sure the whole community is thankful and looks up to new drivers. so am i

btw: will the new hybrid drivers be based on the nvidia 197.16 drivers?

cause i have read that they offer a major speed improvement!!

thx
Dave

 

Well I am working on a newer version of my latest release (191.97) with support for the new Vaio Z among other things. The Intel portion for the new Z (only) will be 2086. The new version should also have proper version information for the Intel portion of the drivers.

I have already posted a broken version of 197.16 64bit for the older Hybrid Graphics notebooks. It is frustrating because besides switching back to Nvidia from Intel it seems to be working perfectly.

I keep getting side tracked digging further and further into things trying to get these new nvidia (197 series) and intel (2000 series) working properly since we seem to be so close. I am also working Optimus which seems to be almost working fully on the new Vaio Z and M11x. Its frustrating because we are so close across the board with all of these drivers working.

A tidbit that has been interesting me recently is that the M11x seems to have the opposite problem that I am running into with these on the Nvidia side. From what I have gathered the Nvidia portion on the M11x never really shuts off completely with Hybrid Graphics. We are having the opposite issue of the Nvidia portion shutting down and never powering back up with Hybrid Graphics.

I dunno. I found myself reinstalling 197.16 on my notebook last night when I stumbled across some 197.01? drivers which seemed to have some settings that I haven't seen before. I download every driver I find to pull them apart and find the differences and anything we might be missing. Anyways ranting now. Back to work.

 

Nautis, you have my support, but don't get sidetracked too often

 

Thanks for the newer drivers, I really appreciate your work, Nautis.

BTW, I tried to use the driver for 64bits and it everything works fine.
However, I had hard time uninstalling the driver to compare w/ stock drivers(8735). what's the best method to use to completely uninstall the drivers?

One more thing, Speed Mode's brightness did not work after switching back and forth for twice. I am using 4044 bios and Z690. Am I the only one who is experiencing the issue? If i reboot it again, it works fine for once. Then, if i switch back and forth to speed, the brightness control didn't work.

Have you done any mod like the thermal paste swap? After the MOBO replacement, mine runs a bit hotter than before (SONY had to change everything including cooling fan assembly + heat sinks and pipes b/c there was gap between nvidia gpu and heat sink. I tried to reposition the heat sink onto the gpu myself, but it was impossible without more thermal paste).

Now, i got my Z690 back with the issue fixed however, I was wondering if there is a better way to reduce the increased heat in the gpu. First, I tried your homemade drivers and didn't show significant improvement in reducing the heat over 8735. Second thing i tried was undervolting the CPU and i lowered 4C from the maximum (100C) on full load.

Thanks for your effort.

There's a VAIO forum in South Korea and there are over 160,000 members.
I was wondering if it's okay to introduce this thread to the online community b/c they will be much pleased with newer drivers.

 

Just make sure to switch to speed mode first. Go into Device Manager, right click the nvidia gpu, click uninstall, and put a tick next to 'delete the driver software for this device.'

 

Apologies if this is a stupid question. Tried upgrading my drivers for the first time today. I have a Z51 series laptop. Set my laptop to Speed mode, and installed Hybrid Graphics Master Set for Windows Vista/7 64bit [Nvidia: 191.97 | Intel: 1994] driver package on top of my exisiting drivers. Rebooted and found that I had no graphics drivers installed at all according to device manager, and flicking the speed/stamina switch did nothing (though the nvidia driver appeared in add/remove programs). I uninstalled the drivers and put the original sony ones back, and then everything worked as it had originally done.

Any idea what I did wrong?

 

thx for the info nautis...sunds like you are really close to victory, even for the 197 series!! great!! keep going on.

Btw: what is the difference between the normal hybrid drivers we already have and the nvidia optimus??
performance or what?

Thanks
Dave

 

No performance differences. Just the backbone is different.

 

backbone?.....im sorry?? ^^

 

The drivers themselves are the same, but the way that they are connected is different.

 

ahhh ok, thx

 

Would these drivers improve flash video playback and cpu usage?.
The current ones playing back 1080p flash hits 70%+ cpu

Or do we need to wait for adobe and nvidia to get off their butts and say the GT330M is officially supported?

 

I for one, being a native Korean, would be keen on knowing what the Korean Vaio forum is experiencing with the newer and older Z graphics.

 

You need to first uninstall your nVidia driver, reboot, and come in with no graphics driver before you install the new one. See the installation steps on page 1 (or page 3).

 

I haven't experienced the brightness control issue. Seems like a variation of the issue that is plaguing the newer series of drivers with Hybrid Graphics.

I haven't done any thermal mods to my Vaio Z as I really don't use it to game and I haven't had too many thermal issues. I did use a copper shim and thermal paste on my old dell a while back though.

I will be posting a slightly updated Hybrid Graphics Master set to LaptopVideo2Go soon so I expect a ton of attention on this stuff.

Did you set test mode and sign the drivers?

We are very close. The only issue is that we have been close for months now without success.

I get this question a lot and am eventually going to be writing up an article on the differences between Optimus and Hybrid Graphics. Essentially Optimus is really the evolution of Hybrid Graphics. Both technologies are meant to achieve the same goal, Optimus just goes about it in a much better way. I will try to explain it more in detail at a later time.

These drivers are currently only for older Hybrid Graphics notebooks like the older model Vaio Z. I doubt you will see to much of a performance increase until we can get a newer series of drivers that properly support flash 10.1 acceleration.

Last night ozbimmer and I were testing my update for the 191.97 set on the new Vaio Z and just couldn't get it working.

 

I would like to thank you again Nautis. I didn't think that 191.XX drivers will make really any difference except CUDA 2.0...but they do. Right now I threw at my Z Borderlands and to my surprise, I'm able to play it on medium settings on 1366x768 without any problems. I'm going to exchange thermal paste soon though, hopefully it'll make the laptop a bit calmer. Good luck with 197.XX

 

Could you post a video of the Borderlands run?

 

The brightness control in speed mode works flawlessly on software switching with the newer 64 bits driver. Moreover, there is also an advantage in reducing heat under heavy load. I believe that last time it was configured weirdly..

I am looking forward to see the master set driver.
thanks, nautis.

 

the new z is out of stock everywhere since the release. I only saw about three dozens of people getting Z117 (256ssd), Z116 (128ssd), and Z115 (500hdd).

There were way too many complaints reported for the all-new S series. However, almost none for New Z.

I just linked this thread to the Korean Vaio Cafe (forum) with detailed explanation on how-to in Korean. I will see how it goes. Currently, the members are more willing to do a mod on hardware.. like installing hdd or another ssd on new Z. not much for graphic cards though...