Sony Z11 - NVIDIA Optimus

Hahaha.. well news was bound to get out. Funny how they got the details wrong though.

"Notebook Review's own igorstef started digging deeper within the laptop's switchable GPU setup, and lo and behold, it sure looks as if Optimus is underneath. He went through the painstaking process of installing a slew of new drivers and tweaking some code within select .inf files, and in the end he seemingly found a way to get Optimus drivers working on the new rig."

 

Way to go igorstef, stealing all the credit

 

Well in the end I guess it all only really benefits Sony with new sales. Lets see if we can get it working properly now.

 

Well, they probably didn't even read my first post or any of the posts in the thread, they just saw interesting title, number of pages and me as the owner. They are like some Tabloid newspaper. Paparazzi took the photo and engadget rushed to break the news without checking the photo

If you guys manage to make it work I will go to "Terazije kod Konja" in Belgrade (something like Manhattan in NY under the Christmas tree) and yell "IT WASN'T ME, ZOINKS AND NAUTIS DID IT"

 

Its all good. If anything, we may get some fresh eyes on the "project."

 

Indeed.

I am also posting the news to LaptopVideo2Go. I have a hunch that some of the other newer Hybrid Graphics notebooks released recently may also work with Optimus. Since I now have my very own section in the forums there I have posted the more detailed instructions and and a custom INF there. As soon as it is confirmed working on other newer Hybrid Graphics notebooks this project will get that much bigger.

 

Sooo when this will work, the optimus driver will work better then sony's driver?

 

I stumbled upon something interesting today. On a default sony install, the original driver for intel graphics media accelerator hd is actually provided by nvdia, not intel. This can be seen from the device manager. I thought this is rather odd. Perhaps we do have some sort of early implementation of optimus from the get go.

 

I think, not that many laptops will be on your list. Not that many have capable NVIDIA GPU and IGP, not even old Z.

As for new laptops soon to be released, problem or rather good thing is if they have IGP and capable NVIDA GPU they will use Optimus by default so custom INF want be necessary.

Sony probably didn't use it because they just can't resist the urge to be in complete control

I think we will end up searching for solution mostly for new Z

 

Not really. What you see here is actually due to the (bad) way the Hybrid Graphics drivers are put together.

An INF is meant to install drivers for only one device but the Hybrid Graphics INF installs both Intel and Nvidia drivers. Since the main technology here is Hybrid Graphics of course the info for the Nvidia part was used.

This is actually one of my big peeves about Hybrid Graphics. You really don't know what version of Intel drivers are installed unless you look in the right place. It is very sloppy and not very well done IMHO. This is also one of the reasons I think Microsoft choose not to include default support for it in Windows 7.

You can find the area that that information is pulled from at the top of the INF:

Code:

[Version]
Signature   = "$Windows NT$"
[COLOR="Red"]Provider    = %NVIDIA%[/COLOR]
ClassGUID   = {4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
Class       = Display
[COLOR="Red"]DriverVer   = 12/22/2009, 8.16.11.8849[/COLOR]
CatalogFile = NVMVSZ.CAT

; Intel DriverVer=12/14/2009,8.15.10.2021

.
.
.

[Strings]
NVIDIA = "NVIDIA"

You will notice the DriverVer for the Intel portion is there but commented out so it isn't used (because it cant be.)

 

Thanks for the explanation. I sort of felt something was off when the manufacturer box also said nvidia.

 

Agreed. As has been proven the only thing that needs to be done is to just add the proper device id strings to the optimus INF. Assuming these strings will be included in the default optimus INF no mods will be needed. And yes Hybrid Graphics is an old technology that I would assume Nvidia will be quickly trying to phase out now that they have Optimus. The fact that the new Vaio Z utilizes Hybrid Graphics over Optimus was a very bad decision on Sonys part IMHO. I sort of consider Hybrid Graphics as the beta test for Optimus.

 

By the by, we also tried the Intel/Nvidia driver packs from Asus for their N71Jv model which supports Optimus. No joy.

 

Ha, was combing Asus' website just now to pull a few drivers. Thanks for saving me the effort.

 

AFAIK 189.42 are the latest optimus drivers available. 196.75 may work but it was the one Nvidia pulled due to fan issues with certain systems. The newer drivers seem to be missing a few files that are key to optimus working. That is unless they built these files into other driver files.

 

I tried another round of installs tonight. The laptop goes back to Sony tomorrow.

I did a clean Win7 install hoping there was some Sony app causing the slow boot issue.

No luck, the issue remains.

 

Thanks for doing a final test ZoinksS2k. Wish more would jump on the testing bandwagon but I understand why.

Optimus may very well be working on Alienware M11x also.

 

Right now I am unable to tamper with my laptop as I have a conference deadline coming up and can't risk any sort of weirdness happening to my Z. I will join in on the testing after April 1rst!

 

I am still waiting for my Z from conics and will have it somewhere in the middle of April (I placed my order at the end of February). Unforchantly in my country Sony is not even selling Vaios. By the time I get it you guys will probably find solution

Otherwise I would gladly help, especially since even with just windows backup image all you need is 15 minutes to restore system to previous state. Without laptop I can't help much

 

No worries. Thanks guys. My frustration is really due to the fact that I can't test it myself or I would probably have it all fixed by now. I have been burnt out so long with Hybrid Graphics drivers not working right that I am excited to see something working.

 

I will be glad to help out with the testing when I get mine tomorrow.

 

Huzzah, the VPCZ11FHX/XQ ships 3/29.

 

Same for me zoinks but my cc was declined. Had to reorder again would you pray for me for a sec b4 you open your order

Congrats on finally getting it

 

Hi Nautis,

I received my Z yesterday and do not need to do the switch to it right away so can I help you with more tests? It is the Z11FHX with the HD screen (not that it matters I'm sure...)

Please let me know if you want me to try something. I think it is a good test too for the process of "how to do install the Optimus drivers on the Z straight out of the box"

Thanks

 

Well you can check the first post for instructions. You can also see my post over on LaptopVideo2Go for instructions & and INF. Make note of the overlay and the 30 second to 1 minute delay when booting or coming out of sleep/hibernate. (These are the issues we are trying to fix for everyday use.)

After you get it working I will post a couple of things to try.

 

Looks like the new 197.16 drivers may feature Optimus support. I am going to work on a new modded INF.

 

Great! Happy to give it a try once you have posted the modified INF

 

I have my new machine, so good timing.

Game on

 

Nice. I haven't been able to look at the drivers fully yet. I assume this means all verde notebook drivers will have Optimus built in.

As usual there are a bunch of notebook INFs included for me to look at, and I saw some new Optimus settings when I glanced. I am at the office now so give me a few hours and I will have new modified INFs up. Who knows maybe they were nice and included Optimus support by default with it.

 

This seems to indicate that support should be native for the GT 330M...

 

Support for the GT 330M does not mean support for the Optimus on the GT 330M though.

I don't like assuming a GPU in a laptop is supported even if it is listed on the supported devices list. The reason for this is because of how INFs work to identify devices.

INFs use a sting like this:
PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A2B&SUBSYS_905A104D

if you break that string down a bit further it is:
VEN_10DE
DEV_0A2B
SUBSYS_905A104D

VEN = Vendor - In this case "Nvidia"
DEV = Device - In this case the "GeForce 330 M"
SUBSYS = SubSystem (think specific computer model) - In this case the "Sony Vaio Z (VPCZ11)"

So we can see in the above example that each piece of that string limits the identification down step by step.

If you have an INF that lists:
PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A2B

This identifies ALL GeForce 330 Ms since it is missing the subsys. The reason I mention the above in detail is because if the driver lists support for a GPU like the GeForce 330 M but is restricted by the subsys in the INF then it will not install for your GeForce 330 M.

Not sure if this makes any sense to anyone here, it is sort of modding 101. This is one of my pet peves about people saying "but it says it will work".

 

Yep - makes perfect sense. Have been following the thread on the drivers for the previous Z series so have an understanding of how this works to some degree....

 

Hello Guys,

I just wanted to let you know that the Nvidia Optimus drivers also work on Asus UL80VT with Windows 7 64bit.

However there are still two issues:

1.) the overlay text displayed in 3D and
2.) the turning off the unused graphic card probably does not work...so the battery life suffers

I will let you know if also Asus has the "long boot" problem.

 

Seems like exact same problems like on new Z. Thanks for the info.

 

You are welcome

BTW, the "long boot" problem does not apply to Asus, I tried to reboot, put the laptop to sleep or hibernate, but did not notice any longer delays...

 

Welcome Sedlo glad ya got it working on your own on the UL80VT as I said on LV2G I will be adding it to the new INF. Will have to add it to the partial success list for the Optimus.

My very well be. Does the battery life seem to be suffering with Optimus on the new Vaio Z with Optimus?

Hmm.. so this may be a problem specific to the Vaio Z with Optimus. Did you just change the INF using the deviceid strings listed in the first post? (Using Section70)

 

I know its stupid but is the driver really causing the problem? I haven't really done my research on this subject but it could be that the motherboard is set up in a way.

 

Absolutely it could be some system specific hardware issue. Unless it was overlooked I have not seen any mention of anything that would be causing such issues though. Optimus as I understand it is pretty much just a Software & GPU tech.

We are in completely new territory here so it is all rather up in the air at this point. If I had access to each of these notebooks I would test all of these issues and configurations myself. As it is right now though its all trial and error to learn what issues there may be and any fixes if they exist.

 

I don't know, zoinks didn't manage to test it. As you know we didn't even have good way to check which card was currently active.

 

I checked the Hardware IDs and found out that Asus UL80VT has the same as Asus UL30VT that was already in the file

So I did not change anything just followed the guide...

 

Do you have any suggestion how to find out which GPU is active and which is turned off?

I am a volunteer for testing

 

If there is no "Easy" software method and if you have access to a "watts-up" or "Kill-a-watt" power meter you can put your laptop on it.

Create a baseline power usage at idle with the Intel graphics running and then one with the Nvidia GPU running. That should give you a good indication of which GPU is in use.

Lower usage == Intel GPU
Higher Usage == Nvidia GPU.

Ideally, this should change dynamically.

Riley

 

People that were demoing Optimus, on some systems natively supporting it, had an application showing currently active card. Unfortunately we don't have it

 

On the "SUPPORTED PRODUCTS" tab there is a glint of hope though:
"3. Sony VAIO notebooks – support will be added in a later release."

 

Well the overlay is one way to tell Optimus is working. Another thing that you can do is run a 3d application or benchmark in both integrated graphics and performance by right clicking the icon and choosing the mode before launching it.

I have attached a 197.13 alpha INF for Win7 64bit on my LV2G thread. Might not work right off the bat.

 

Would Optimus add significantly to the price?

 

Have just tried this on my Z11. The Nvidia driver itself will not install at all - either through running the setup.exe or via the device manager...

 

I did a simple test to see if the switching worked.

1. Add the context option as detailed here
2. Run 3dmark06 by right clicking the icon and selecting "Integrated Graphics"
3. Run 3dmark06 by right clicking the icon and selecting "High-Performance"

You will be able to immediately tell if it is switching by the frame rates.

 

Not that I will immediately be able to contribute to anything, but in general for 'older hybrid graphics notebooks';

when switching from integrated to discrete, and then back to integrated, the discrete card will still be powered on, decreasing battery life. Only a reboot seems to really disable the discrete card.

Now, I notice that people observe the same kind of behavior with these Optimus drivers. So, can one conclude that there must be some kind of limitation with the hardware here, since the drivers are unable to power down the card? So it could really be true that new revisions of the motherboards are needed in order to really support power off/on on the fly of the both cards.

It's a bit strange though, not making perfect sense.

 

Hi, maybe you cannot install driver because it is not signed.
You first have to apply one of workarounds mentioned here
and then try to install drivers:
http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/topic/24041-install-procedure-for-hybrid-graphics-x64/