My discoveries on Vaio Z’s Hybrid Graphics

Sorg do you have a link for those intel 1624 drivers for x64? I want to test them out to see if I get any better performance on Vista x64.

I haven't had a chance to test my Vista x64 with the new drivers as much but here is what I got so far.

Physix is working and enabled.
Stamina\Speed switch working.
Vista performance score didnt change still getting 4.4 rating on graphics.
Computer temperature is normal havent notice a increase in temperture or fan usage with new drivers.

What I am going to test soon is using HDMI playing a blueray movie through my blueray disc player at 1080p and verifying the following.

That it still works and if I still have a screen cutoff problem, sounds works through HDMI, no hickups in intel or nvidia mode during playback, and computer temperature.

 

Metsn,
if you install driver on just installed OS where neither intel nor nVidia drivers were, then simple start from Step 8 of my instruction.

To install future Sony drivers you will also have to follow whole my instruction to install drivers properly without taking garbage from previous drivers.

 

this is standard Intel 1624 driver for Vista64:
http://downloadmirror.intel.com/16957/eng/GFX_Vista64_15.11.5.64.1624_PV_Intel.exe

 

What are these drivers from Sony?

http://support.vaio.sony.it/downloa.../Updates/EP0000173097.exe&ip=EP0000173097.htm

Graphics Driver (NVIDIA) 090108_Sus - 6.14.11.7698

It a step backwards comparing to sorg package?

 

G'day Nautis and Sorg, the inability for my laptop to remember my dual screen settings at work (which I think may be related to seeing the four screens in display setup that I mentioned earlier) was causing too many problems for me, so I have reverted to the original Nautis package. To be honest I couldn't see a difference in the quality between the CUDA and non package (but I don't use games, AutoCAD or the like).

The Hybrid graphics change with Sorg's package had a nice green graphic to show what was going on ..................

Thanks again for your efforts. Do you think the new Sorg package will still produce four screens in the display settings?

Cheers, Gibbo

 

6.14.11.7698 is a downgrade xp driver

 

Gibbo,
i often use dual screen and for me my package works well. I have two screen configs:
at home is Primary 1200x1920 (portrait) and secondary is Laptop LCD (mainly to watch Video while i'm working)
at work is Single external display with 1280x1024 (landscape)

Sony Z can remember both configs well so far.
Only difference may be is that i'm using external keyboard and mouse. While i'm using single external display, laptop LCD is closed.

 

Thanks Sorg,

I have re-installed using your new package and it is great so far. I can't see four displays anymore; I have no idea why I could the first time I used your install?

I'll know more when I get back to the office, where I use dual screen.

Thanks again.
Gibbo

 

Sorry guys.. main partition on my Z went fubar so I had to go fresh. I am back up now. Nice find on the new Intel drivers Sorg. I will try to update main post tomorrow and get back in the game.

 

it doesn't wake up properly (black screen) after several hours of sleep.
SORG'S driver v3
W7 z11

 

Vovus,

in registry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\NVIDIA Corporation\Global\Hybrid
remove key "DisablePowerPolicy" and reboot.

probably it will help.

Also, make sure that in Power Settings, GPU settings you set "Sleep" for nvidia GPU to "Never" in all power schemas

 

Ok, Sorg, i'll try, thanks. One more thing, installed just fine (one reboot) all works fine, then unexpectedly the resolution change itself to 320x240 and i could see tray only. In addition i downloaded and install latest PhysX 9.09 from nvidia site and turn on it in Nvidia control pannel - prob it is the reason? but Autocad now starts noticeably faster than before with pdsetup!
P.S. Just reinstalled it second time (at first try i got no nvidia control panel), disabled physx, delete string from registry, deleted pdsetup coz it support Quadro FX only.. still works fine ... )) Thanks

 

Nice writeup. I will try this later today.

One question, and it may be a bad one, why can't you just disable signing all together? Just a simple:
Bcdedit.exe /set nointegritychecks ON

 

Because that opens up for malware installing itself in ring 0 as drivers, gaining full control over your machine?

 

no way, SORG, either not switching or not waking up
p.s. in case of normal wake up, the lock screen is 640x480 - not full screen...

 

Got to have that extra security for a Beta OS, gotcha

 

Vovus, Is the speed/stamina switch working in W7? If not, I have a hunch it may be due to that and/or the hybrid power stuff.

This is just a hunch but I believe the switch in vista works by utilizing TMM (Transient Multimon Manager.) Windows 7 beta does not have this feature as far as i can tell.

Which mode are you in when this happens btw? Speed or Stamina?

 

Oh wow... just saw this topic... looks pretty epic. I'll have to give it a more thorough readover when I've got the time!

 

Nautis,
SORG'S pack is installing ok, switching works too, but sometimes it doesn't turn on the screen after i guess 30 minutes of sleeping or it wakes up, but the lock screen is about 640x480 in size at left part of the black area of screen. When unlocked the resolution became normal again. I turned off all nvidia sleep modes in all chemes, deleted DisablePowerPolicy string from the registry and can't say exactly when, but switch has stoped working again after one of my tricks..
p.s one more thing, i'm not sure, but i start installing the driver when i have two generic cards in control panel, but it's impossible for me to permanently delete intel wddm 1.1 driver from the system - it automatically put it back every time i try to delete it, so i have to manually install generic driver for the Intel card before i start installing Sorg's..

 

Originally Posted by ZoinksS2k
"One question, and it may be a bad one, why can't you just disable signing all together? Just a simple:
Bcdedit.exe /set nointegritychecks ON"

That command was disabled or removed with SP1 of Vista.

 

SORG,
Thank you so much for the new driver set!!! Now i can measure intel performance, so it was unable to do with your old driver But if compare the performance of Windows 7 results of Intel with default W7 wddm driver and with 1624 in AERO/3D: 4.1/4.9 and 4.1/3.4 accordingly.

 

So it has. My friends over at Guru3d said this works as well: http://www.ngohq.com/home.php?page=dseo

 

It doesn't wake up after hibernate again. I just put it in a sleep, then after ~15 min it waked up itself automatically and go to hibernate. Then i turned it on, but the screen remained black...
went back to default Intel driver..
Win7 x86

 

Nice fine ZoinksS2k for http://www.ngohq.com/home.php?page=dseo.

It the same method as I posted earlier on enabling test mode and signing your own drivers but this seems to be a gui base setup unlike mines.

 

I have a couple of minor bugs and will add them here to contibute to the knowledge base (and maybe someone can suggest a work-around?)

The display settings for external display are not remembered by my PC such that when I un-dock and use the pc in laptop mode, then sleep (between home and work ) it won't go back to dual display setting; I have to enter display settings, activate the 2nd monitor and positionit correctly each time. Not a big issue, but annoying. My old toshiba tablet, running XP had nvidia profiles that I saved for each of the display configurations I used; a nice feature not availale in Vista.

My Nvidia performance settings are also a bit flaky on resume from standby; often it will change to 'Boost Perfromance' when the correct setting is 'Save Power' set by GPU in teh power control panel.

I hope this helps the cause; great work.

Gibbo

 

Thanks Gibbo, I may have a couple of things to try to fix the remembering of your external display settings. First you may want to try disabling TMM.

When it comes to the GPU settings in the power options control panel. I have noticed similar quirks. Technically those settings are meant to be for Hybrid SLI (NVIDIA + NVIDIA) rather then Hybrid Graphics (NVIDIA + INTEL) which may be where the quirks come in.

 

Hi Nautis,

Strangely enough, when I went to investigate TMM, it was disabled! I didn't do that (tat's my defence anyway) so I have enabled it to see if that changes the behaviour.

More to follow later,
Gibbo

P.S. I also updated the external display driver from 'generic PnP display' to the dell model I use and the settings were maintained after a re-start, so an improvement there. I will test un-docking, using in laptop mode, putting to 'sleep', resuming and re-docking to see if it can remember.

 

So far I really liking the updated x64 drivers for Nvida and Intel.

Tested watching blueray movies via HDMI to TV with no hiccups. After watching a full length movie my notebook is warm but not hot. No problem with HDMI playing at 1080p. (very nice picture playing back even with videos non blueray)

Tested Fallout 3 and getting about 25fps but unplayable at later stages cause FPS drops with more stuff on the screen. Drivers are faster than previous but not fast enough . Temperture seems to be the same it gets hot but heat difference is the same if not a tad better.

These drivers are a huge step forward but I think the Nvidia 9300 is just limited to what you can get out of it but watching a blueray at 1080p with no stutter is a winnner for me.

Sum it up these drivers work perfectly without problems.

Tested on z590 2.53 processor, 4 gigs ram, 500 gig 5400 rpm hardrive, Blueray with Vista x64 Business.

 

Ah ha.. good to hear Gibbo glad its working a bit better for you at least.

Thanks for the update potpeye. Which drivers are you using? 185.20/1624? I think up to this point we have really just been focused on making sure the drivers work correctly. We might be able to tweak performance a bit more later.

 

I've just been doing some extensive testing with these drivers (at least for my uses). This is probably going to be a long post, and I'm not sure of the best way to lay it all out, but here goes...

I've just started using my new laptop properly, as I'm away from my main PC, and one of the main things I use it for is running Second Life, which uses the GPU quite intensively... but with the standard Sony display drivers, the NVIDIA display driver keeps crashing (the Vista popup message saying "Display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding and has successfully recovered", which causes SL to freeze and have to be restarted). The same thing actually happened on my old SZ after I updated the driver to the one that became available from Sony on Windows Update, so in that case I reverted back to the original driver... but on the Z, it is the original driver that has the problem. So trying these drivers seems to be my only option at this point.

The crashing seems to occur (or at least occur much more frequently) when there's more stuff around to be loaded and processed by the GPU, but I'm not sure if that's just textures or some other kind of graphical data.

So first of all I tried Nautis' 175.84 drivers. I actually noticed an increase in FPS in Second Life with these drivers (which is obviously a good thing), but it still crashes (although perhaps not as often). Apart from that, there doesn't seem to be much else different from the original Sony drivers, except that it doesn't seem to have the NVIDIA Control Panel at all. I didn't try enabling the hybrid power options with these drivers though.

After finding that SL still crashed with those drivers, I decided to try Sorg's 185.20 drivers. These actually seemed to reduce the FPS, possibly to even lower than the original Sony drivers, but I couldn't make it crash at all. However, these drivers do seem to make the GPU run quite a bit hotter. Measuring the temperature with GPU-Z, the highest I've ever seen on the original drivers (in SL) is 94c, and that was rare... it's normally just below or just above 90c. With the 184.20 drivers, it was up to 96c within a few minutes of logging into SL and starting to test it out. The highest I could get it to with the 175.84 drivers, with the laptop in the exact same conditions, was 89c (although I'm pretty sure the temperatures on those drivers are about the same as on the original Sony drivers, where it once hit 94c).

The idle temperatures seem to be higher too, with nothing running (and after switching to the Intel card to allow the NVIDIA one to cool down, switching back, and then leaving it a few minutes to stabilise)... with the 185.20 drivers the GPU temperature was around 69-72c, but on the 175.84 drivers it was around 65c.

So what I'm wondering now is... is there any chance that any of you (Nautis and Sorg in particular) could create a quick guide on how to modify any NVIDIA driver version to work on the VAIO Z? (or how to modify one of these driver packages that have already been created, to change the NVIDIA driver version). I am hoping that there might be another version in between these two which doesn't crash for me, but also doesn't run slower or hotter.

As a side note... I actually quite like the extra Hybrid Power options, even if I wouldn't use them. I was wondering what would happen if I had it set to switch to the Intel graphics when I did something like unplugging it, and then did that while I was running something like Second Life... I thought it might just crash it, as the dialog warns about when moving the switch normally... but I tried it, and instead of just switching straight away like usual, a message popped up in the system tray, and clicking on that actually opened a dialog saying that I needed to close Second Life first if I wanted to switch to saving power. So it seems like it does actually detect whether anything is running which is using the 3D graphics features

Oh, and I tried refreshing my Windows Experience Index on all three drivers... and the results were exactly the same. 4.4 for Graphics, and 5.1 for Gaming graphics.

Edit: It seems like 179.28 is the recommended version for the 9300M GS on NVIDIA's site (see link below, it comes up as the recommended one on the search page even though it says Beta on the download page). So I am thinking (or perhaps hoping) that this might be the best one all round, as I have found before that newer NVIDIA drivers sometimes perform worse than the older ones on older/slower cards than the new drivers are designed to work with.

Perhaps one of you could make a driver package out of it, if that's easier than writing a guide? Not sure if this one will solve all my problems though, as it supports PhysX etc and I am wondering if perhaps I need to go back to a version without all that to avoid losing performance in SL (and perhaps the extra heat too).

http://www.nvidia.co.uk/object/geforce_notebook_winvista_179.28_beta_uk.html

 

Thanks for the fantastic report Eddy2.

Since you asked, from the writeup I started working on...
More information on the drivers:
The two critical files that allow for everything to work properly with hybrid graphics are “nvtmmhyb.dll” and “nvBridge_int.kmd.” Be sure to note the “_int” at the end of “nvBridge_int.kmd” which stands for “Intel” as this was the key file I originally overlooked. [nvBridge.kmd is not the same as nvBridge_int.kmd!] ..*snip*.. The INF on the other hand is a task in itself, I recommend using a tool like Winmerge to compare the original INF from the Sony drivers with the one from the 185.20 package to see what entries are the same and which are different. You will notice the largest difference is just in identifying and loading any new files correctly. The INF of course also includes the critical settings central to the drivers and video chipsets functioning properly. For this reason and many more I really only recommend this for people who know what they are doing!

With with that said.. I have tried combining some other NVIDIA drivers to make a hybrid set and haven't had much success beyond the 185.20 set. The INF section is a little hard to explain but most of it can be figured out by comparing the differences between the Sony, 185.20 and other NVIDIA drivers. If you need some specific help drop me a line.

 

Thanks Nautis

I was thinking of trying to compare the inf files anyway, with a program I'd used before to compare files, but I don't have that installed on here and it was only a trial version anyway... so WinMerge looks perfect, thanks

I'm a bit stuck now though... in the 179.28 drivers that I linked to, there are 24 inf files! And none of them match either the usual nv_disp.inf or the name of the inf in the Sony drivers. I can't see anything in any of them that says what the difference is, but they all have lots of differences between eachother when comparing in WinMerge. Any ideas how I might be able to figure out which inf I should start with? (I'm guessing nv_disp.inf must be the one used in the desktop display drivers, and isn't here because these are a notebook version?)

I also can't find the actual NVIDIA download for the 185.20 drivers either... notebook or desktop... I was going to try comparing the inf to Sorg's modified one, but the latest version I can find is only 181.22.

Edit: As a side question... what would happen if I simply added the necessary lines (device id, etc) to the inf to allow these drivers to install for this graphics card (although I'd still need to figure out which is the most appropriate inf first)? I know none of the hybrid graphics switching stuff will work at all, but will the NVIDIA card still work? If so, that would be much easier for testing different driver versions before trying to hybrid-ify them, and at the moment I'd rather stop it crashing even if I have to lose access to the Intel graphics for now.

 

Try http://www.laptopvideo2go.com, you will find every version of nvidia drivers.

 

tried all possible drivers in W7 incluing 174.49 - all drivers has issue with awaking

 

Is CUDA functional with the newer driver sets? Anyone try a video conversion with Baddaboom or TMPGEnc?

If so, is GPU conversion faster than normal CPU operation? The 9300 GS isn't mighty by any means, but if you can offload the processing to the GPU, it should allow you to use the laptop without much impact to normal usage.

On my GTX 295 and the 9800's before it, the CPU only hit about 15% while converting a DVD to iPOD format.

 

OK, I got fed up with the choppy performance of original drivers even with older games and installed the latest Sorg's package. So far so good. I was a bit disappointed, when at the end of driver installation dialog box came out with " Windows encountered a problem installing the driver software for your device" and in the Device manager the Nvidia card had yellow mark. But after reboot everything looks fine. What's a bit fishy, after reboot the name of Nvidia card in Device Manager is "NVIDIA GeForce 9300M GS" without Sorg's signature.

Overal performance looks better, Photoshop loads quicker (don't know why)...and while with old drivers the FlatOut game was sometimes choppy, when many things on the screen and many other problems with scenery drawing occured...now it goes flawlessly on the highest settings and resolution.

If you trust the "Windows Experience Index" (I don't), the "Gaming graphic performance" increased from 5,1 to 5,2.

At the side I really like the software switch, as it's not connected with the hardware one so it's like another switch giving me more options of power management

 

Question on PhysX. Since the processor on the sony Z seems to be faster than the GPU, wouldn't PhysX load even more instructions onto a GPU that is already running as fast as possible? Wouldn't we WANT the CPU to do the physics in game so that the GPU can render as fast as it can?

Yes, I know, the GPU is great for doing insane amounts of stuff simultaneously, but the only games I have that might take advantage of PhysX would be Garry's mod for half life 2 (lots of independent objects) or MAYBE World of Goo (which is very simplistic anyway). I mean, would PhysX really improve the speed of, say, left 4 dead?

And for that matter, since PhysX is relatively new, wouldn't it only improve on newer games that can barely run on the Z as is?

Or does PhysX use some obscure cluster of transistors on the chip that aren't used unless PhysX support is ready?

 

First point; love the Vaio Z27; best laptop I have had to date and plugging it into our LCD TV to play BD/DVD is great. 1.5kg is pretty cool too!

This isn't a deal breaker, but I am still battling with the issue of my PC remembering different display settings for different sceanrios and I hope that some of the smart folks here may be able to help.

The main issue is that when I undock from work, where I have a dual screen set-up (not clone) and use my PC in stand-alone mode, then re-dock the PC, usually after it either sleeps, hibernates re-starts or variations on all of those power states, it doesn't remember the settings.

The strange piece to this puzzle is that it does intitially get the setting correct wehn I re-dock, with my second screen positioned above the laptop in the dock, but then after a few seconds, it flashes on and off a few times and returns to a basic setup with the second screen to the right of the laptop display.

I guess there is a service running over the top of the screen setting that detects the second monitor and sets it up, even though it is already there and running fine. I have disabled TMM, so it isn't that.

Any ideas (do you need more details; I don't know if I have explained this very well).

Cheers all,
Gibbo

 

NVIDIA purchased Ageia, the maker of PhysX and the old hardware accellerator boards. They mothballed the hardware and rolled the software into the Forceware drivers.

Yours is close to my question about CUDA. Both CUDA and PhysX take advantage of the GPU's multiple cores and parallel processing power. There isn't any special hardware. The software just allows the GPU to do more than polygon rendering.

I share your interest if it, CUDA or PhysX, is practical on the 9300 GS. I imagine you'd want PhysiX off if you are playing a demanding game. PhysX in practical application adds dynamics to in-game play. Doesn't necessarily make things faster.

There are new PhysX drivers, btw. Haven't installed them on the Z because I'm still on Sony provided drivers.

http://downloads.guru3d.com/NVIDIA-PhysX-System-driver-9.09.0121-download-2164.html

 

thanks so much nautis, im really looking forward to the future of the Z. Keep up the great work!

 

So just to confirm everything before I go to install the package, all I need to do is run the "setup.exe" and that's it? Do I run this in stamina or speed mode? And lastly do I have to uninstall the original drivers before the installation?

Thanks

 

NO! All you have to do is just to follow Sorg's instructions on installing It's quite easy...

 

no driver works 100% correctly in W7 except 1590 and 1620 from WU for Intel 4 card. Sorg's V3 almost works, but has a problem with waking up, though switching is working well automatically and manually,- can't say that about the latest Sorg's driver (not autoswitchable, wake up issue)

 

Sorry for my ignorance but what is 'from WU'
Are the versions for that are 100% compatible with 7 combined drivers? If so can you point me in the right direction to a download link. I'm still running the stock sony released driver.

 

WindowsUpdate, now i'm running build 7022 x86, seems that wake up problem has been partly fixed, coz now, with stock drivers, i can wake it up or even if it doesn't - let him sleep again and it surely wake up next time..
Which graphics are you talking about, Win 7 stock drivers for Intel works correctly, Win 7 for 9300 - doesn't work at all - you could try old 174.49 or SORG'S or NAUTIS'S from this thread, it will work, - those drivers include both Intel and Nvidia in one set, but guys, as I know, didn't adapt it for normal use in Win 7.
newest x86 drivers
more x86
newest x64 drivers

 

Thanks for your reply
So I'm running 7022 with the graphics drivers from Sony support (NVIDIA 7.15W _ 7.15.11.7449). I uninstalled the WU drivers as they didn't support the Stamina/Speed switch. I'm fairly happy with the Sony NVIDIA 7.15W _ 7.15.11.7449 drivers but I'm just aware Sorg and Nautis have been working on newer versions of the combined drivers that will work with the Stamina/Speed switch.

I guess my question in a nutshell is:
Is there a better combined driver that allows the Stamina/Speed switch to work other than the one on the Sony website for Win 7(32)-7022 that is at least as stable.
Thanks.

 

nope as i know for today, btw Sony's works good, if we talking about stability, i only guess that new WDDM 1.1 driver will show better result than 4.4 for Aero and 3d with Win 7

 

Sorry everyone for disappearing for a while, I was in the hospital. I will need to catch up with some work in my professional life before I can tackle these drivers as much as I would like to again.
I have tried various other combinations of drivers with no luck thus far getting them to work. I am sure I may be missing something simple as I did with the 185.20 drivers. More soon.

 

hey, Nautis, nice to see you again, how are you now, hope doctor was experienced enough you could entrust yourself to

 

Yeah, THX very much to all here who made the modified Vista X64 Driver, it works after some install problems....
In the last line of the howto is a typing error... there miss a space char... signtool sign /v /s "igdkmd64 driver" ...

You get here a error so you must delete again the certifikate in the certmgr.msc or certmgr.exe... and recreate and reinstall again... if you had problems with the typing error...


BUT THX VERY MUCH! I had the problem with the original drivers, that my x4500 was faster in vista that the 9300...
BUT WITH THIS MODIFIED VISTA X64 185.20, IS NOW MY 9300 MUCH FASTER THAT THE X4500...

SO MY 9300 is now really more than 50% faster! and with the "test" on all edges, i can life.... thanks very much!