Sony Z11 - NVIDIA Optimus

Yeah it does and even when playing youtube video's which did surprise me.

 

Have being playing around with the latest Asus U30J drivers for Nvidia + Intel as this seems 'closest' to the Z.

Like Nautis the boot time is much longer with 189.xx drivers (I am testing 189.64 from Asus) and when I launch 3dmark 06 it always defaults to the Intel card even when I set it to use the Nvidia within the control panel.

One thing to note is if you use chrome on 197.16 and above using optimus with the Nvidia set as default you will always get a avutil-50.dll issue which does not occur on the 189 set of drivers.

A positive note is with the Asus drivers playing back a 1080p flash video of Transformers resulted in CPU activity going down from a peak of around 20% to around 7-15% so a nice decrease in CPU usage.

Has anyone else had any luck in improving the boot times?

 

I did another round of testing last night. No luck here on boot times.

It almost has to be hardware. I get the same behaviour with a clean Win7 install. I haven't tried with x86 vs x64 yet either. Might be easier with 32 bit drivers to avoid some of the signing issues.

To that end, when I try again, I'm going to see if the tri-selector can be conveniently unplugged. I don't think it will do anything, but I'll be inside the chassis anyway.

I'll also feature enable the BIOS to see if there is some setting in the advanced options that will help.

 

There is a setting in advanced BIOS to let OS handle graphics switching on the fly or to force OS to just stick to whatever was selected with switch during boot time. That's it for switching. There are several Intel graphics settings though, which I am unfamiliar with and would not change lightly.

 

That may be the setting we need to change.

Thanks for the info.

 

Daleski ran across this little bit of fun while we were trying to get new Hybrid Graphics drivers working.

I downloaded those drivers and can confirm that they seem to be setup for Optimus. So I guess Microsoft is now the official distributor of Nautis optimus drivers. No in reality the INF just has to be setup for it and not have a SUBSYSID which is what the ones on windows update have. I am going to use them as a base and build a new 197.45 set for Optimus.

Daleski did mention boot times seeming much quicker than even with HG (I think) so the proper settings to eliminate the boot/sleep/hibernate delay may be there. Im sure daleski will stop by here and fill in more details. In the mean time a building I will go.

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Glad to see you are still on it ZoinksS2k. I have been waiting for more Optimus stuff like the above to be released so I can have something to compare to. I am hoping we can at the very least tackle the delay issues so the Vaio Z11, M11x_ & UL3/5/80VT users are all on the same page. With these drivers being the way they are on Windows Update it may force Nvidia to do something on the Optimus on Hybrid Graphics front.

 

Interesting.

I'll give her a go this evening.

 

Doing some more testing will post the results later if it is good news

 

That BIOS option looks like exactly what was needed for Optimus to perform as intended. Unless it switches off the discrete GPU altogether, if the multiplexer is permanently switched to the IGP that should do the job.

 

Indeed that would be great. I have to assume the bios option completely disables the Nvidia part though. The roof will be in the testing I guess.

Someone really needs to get a hold of that reviewer test tool that they were using to show optimus as working or not. It is a pain to have to run a benchmark or 3d app and try to guesstimate.

I have found a person who says they are going to test my newer optimus package on their optimus notebook. I may see if I can get some proper registry exports and things from them.

 

Here are some screen caps of the advanced bios options. The first one is the one I'm going to mess with. The second one is for ASPM options.




ZugZug, did you try the optimus drivers when you set set the VGA Switching Policy to <Static> IRX-3890?

 

Be careful flubbing with the bios.

 

Always.

I'm pretty comfortable with BIOS settings, tons of experience.

I'm doing an install now.

 

Almost forgot.
Download 197.45 from LV2G
Download Optimus Patch for 197.45
Extract both to the same folder.
Install.

 

Are these the packages that worked on the M11X?

 

No that was this one I think there may be a messup on it though for the part that installs for the Z.

[Section070]
AddReg = nv_miscBase_addreg

should be

[Section070]
AddReg = nv_miscBase_addreg__60

I am double checking that now. EDIT: Nope nevermind it looks ok. This one is 197.16 and its a full package. The 197.45 has different settings that may get rid of the boot delay problem.

 

Just did a few more installs with changes to the VGA Switching Policy in the BIOS.

lackofcheese, you were correct. If you change the policy to Static, the machine will only utilize the GPU you have the tri-selector set on. Auto defaults to Nvidia.

I ended up doing the diver installs as I detailed in the first post in this thread ( Nvidia driver 189.42 and the simple NVRAM.INI modification).

I don't know if this is significant, but after getting Optimus working, I changed the Policy setting to Static again. While the machine will only see the Intel under Stamina and the Nvidia under Speed, reboot times were normal and Optimus didn't work. I switched the Policy setting back to Dynamic and Optimus worked again with slow boot time.

Simple Chart:

 

Which one do you specifically recommend? Link?

 

Damn. Looks like the Sony drivers just aren't willing to relinquish control. It ought to be possible, but it looks like it would require significant effort.
Nvidia really should have released their Optimus test tool, it would've been handy for a lot of people.

 

What about vga swiching policy : dynamic in bios menu.

 

That's the setting I played with. Auto and Dynamic are basically the same thing if you are using Windows.

 

I'm not experimenting with drivers, sorry. I am OK with Sony driver for now and just hope that Nvidia will release Optimus with Sony laptops support eventually.

But I try to keep in touch with what others are doing to Z.

 

Are these 197.45 drivers for the VPC-Z11 or the older model or both?

 

This is intended for the Z11. The old VPCZ cannot use Optimus.

 

I was slumming around on my machine today and saw that the Optimus drivers appear to setup new profiles.



I'm unsure why Updatus would need a new profile. Also, my main administrator account did not have access to the directories.

Any thoughts?

I'm going to try some more stuff this weekend, including modifying the file permissions. Who knows, this may be why boots are slow.

EDIT: Also, there were 4 "Account Unknown" entries under the advanced profiles tab. I deleted all 4 and it left the main Updatus profile directory. I'm pretty sure there were duplicates due to multiple installation attempts. The UpdatusUser account is gone, but it may have been deleted as part of the driver uninstaller routine.

 

No Idea. Could be something to do with it not knowing what the profile name would be so it creates one it knows. Could be it needs a certain configuration profile that it cannot guarantee the default will have.

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I am putting together another INF or full driver package to try.

 

Windows is known to run into timeout problems with networking during boot. Maybe this is Optimus trying to fetch updates or something similar.

 

nTersect Blog - NVIDIA Verde Notebook Drivers ? Redefining the Notebook PC Experience

summing up this news: next driver version 256, still no out-of-the-box support for hybrid graphics.

 

Yeah, I saw that. Engadget says the same thing: they are for Nvidia-only devices. I imagine Intel wouldn't like Nvidia bundling their drivers for internet consumption.


NVIDIA Verde to sync up desktop and laptop GPU driver releases, generate smiles galore -- Engadget

 

It's a shame they cannot do a licensing agreement for Nvidia to bundle Intel approved drivers with their package instead of forcing everyone to wait on oem's to deliver the drivers.

Also does anyone know if officially supported laptop's such as the N82J with optimus have the same Nvidia Confidential overlay issue?

 

imho the way sony (and the others) implemented the hybrid graphics system is defective-by-design anyways. as we can see with optimus windows 7 can handle two different graphics card drivers very well - so all they had to do is implementing a nifty driver for their gpu switch which does the actual switching. i still don't see a need for modified drivers (both, igp and dedicated).

 

We at least know that the requisite hardware is available to facilitate Optimus since switching works, albeit with the overlay and slow boot. It almost has to be software.

Could be worse:
First wave of Ion 2 ASUS Eee PC 1201PNs lack NVIDIA Optimus -- Engadget

 

If you delete the Sony/Intel oem inf files from windows and do a windows update it install's the optimus drivers without the slowboot issue but unfortunately it still has the overlay issue.

 

I'll give her a go and report back.

I'm reverting to the Sony build from a clean install. I didn't see any performance gain from the clean install, so back to the original image go I.

 

hi people...I really need your help.
I have sony vaio Z11VRN, windows 7 ultimate installed...with all the official sony drivers... everything is working just great...until I wanted to connect my laptop to my new philips tv via HDMI.. (before I was doing that all the time with Toshiba TV with no issues at all!)... so no I have no sound.

To cut the long story short....it is not an issue with sound card (playback devices selected HDMI one...and the equalizer actually moves...), the TV has no issues since it works perfectly with dvd using the same cable.

I found out that it has to do with nvidia drivers. Only once I managed to update to a newer version and then the problem was solved at the same time. But when I restarted later on the laptop...I had issues with chipset graphic card (yellow sign in device manager). I tried all kind of drivers...official, modified .inf... different versions....NOTHING!! Some won't even install...other install but at the same time the computer switches to stamina mode (at least the light is turned on on stamina without moving physically the switch there) and moreover the intel chipset has a yellow sign in device manager....

PLEASE HELP me with that...cause I mostly watch tv using my laptop....

Looking forward for you replies!

 

Audio via HDMI only works off the Nvidia or Speed setting. It won't work in Stamina or auto when it defaults to the Intel GPU.

Uninstall all Nvidia drivers. If you see an Intel display entry in Add/Remove Programs, uninstall it as well. Reboot whenever it asks.

Reinstall the Nvidia drivers from the Sony site. They include the Nvidia GPU, HDMI audio and Intel GPU drivers. I've munged-up my drivers pretty badly, uninstall/reinstall has worked to restore function each time.

Worst case, reinstall Windows. This shouldn't be necessary

 

Double posts man...

Double what Zoinks says... Deviating from Sony's drivers with the hybrid graphics system will likely cause headaches. After you uninstall all your drivers I would also recommend 2 others:

1. Go into device manager and delete the corresponding device and if there is a check box to "delete" the driver check it
2. Use a driver cleaner to get rid of any last pieces.

 

I've done it already many times.... moreover... I have it always on SPEED settings!!

I also tried to delete the device from device manager...and after that cleaned the drivers.... nothing really helps...

Is there any way to install nvidia drivers (not sony drivers)??

 

@streetball a lot of us are working on getting stock nvidia drivers working under optimus and hybrid.

however this is turning out to be a long process so currently there is no way to get a fully working laptop with the latest nvidia drivers

the closest you will get is optimus but you will always have a nvidia confidential overlay on any game etc.

 

for the moment I really care to update to a newer version (from the sony drivers) in order to be able to connect my laptop to TV via HDMI. At the moment...I have no sound with current drivers.... so games are not an issue...

Can you give me a link which drivers to try (optumus) since I'm new in here?

Thanks in advance.

 

From the VAIO Z manual:

To hear sound from the device connected to the HDMI output port, you need to change the device for sound output. For detailed instructions, see How
do I change the sound output device? (page 197).

If you do not hear sound from the device connected to a port, such as the USB port, HDMI output port, optical output port, or
headphones jack, you need to change the device for sound output.
!
When you use the HDMI output port on your computer, select the SPEED or AUTO mode with the performance selector switch. See Selecting
Performance Modes (page 120) for mode selection.
1 Close all open programs.
2 Click Start and Control Panel.
3 Click Hardware and Sound.
4 Click Manage audio devices under Sound.
5 On the Playback tab, select your desired device for sound output and click Set Default.

What should I do if I do not hear the sound from the sound output device connected to the
HDMI output port, optical output port, or headphones jack?
!
When you use the HDMI output port on your computer, select the SPEED or AUTO mode with the performance selector switch. See Selecting
Performance Modes (page 120) for mode selection.
❑ You need to change the sound output device if you want to hear sound from the device connected to a port, such as the
HDMI output port, optical output port, or headphones jack. For the detailed procedure, see How do I change the sound
output device? (page 197).
❑ If you still hear no sound from the sound output device, follow these steps:
1 Follow steps 1 to 4 in How do I change the sound output device? (page 197).
2 On the Playback tab, select the HDMI or S/PDIF icon and click Properties.
3 Click the Advanced tab.
4 Select the sample rate and bit depth (for example, 48000 Hz, 16 bit) which the device supports.
5 Click OK.

 

thanks for the advice...but I've done it many times....nothing helps.

The HDMI device is selected by default and I can see from the equalizer next to it that it actually sends the sound.

As I already mentioned, once when I managed to update the nvidia drivers..the sound was ok (until I restarted the pc where I had again issues with graphic cards).

 

Fact of the matter is that Sony's implementation of Nvidia drivers is proprietary. If you shoe-horn in update, things may not work correctly.

I'm not saying I like it, just that it is the nature of the beast.

 

Apparently streetball has the old Z and the sound issue has been discussed somewhere in the forum (5ushiMonster has kindly redirected him/her to the relevant info).

 

The topics I was redirected to are actually standard procedures...things that I've already done...

 

So what is the consensus on this? Do those drivers fix the slowboot issue? What version are those drivers?

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All of the possible Optimus specific settings I can find so far are:
CurrentDefaultGPU
DefaultGPU
NvElevateLaunchAppOnCoproc
NvCoProcBalloonPopup
CoProcManager
NotifyBalloon
NvCoprocOverride
ForceIGPUPowerPlan
OptimusEnhancements
EnableCoprocPowerControl
HDAudioCoprocDynamic
EnableCoprocStatistics
CoprocPowerState
PreferCoprocOverHybrid
EnableCoproc
ShowContextMenu
NvCplApiCoProcStatus
NvCplApiIsIntelHybrid
NvCplApiGetHybridMode
NvCplSetOptimusOverlayRegistry
DisableHybridMux

Not sure where all of these settings go or what values do what for them.

 

How do you get rid of the sign telling you when are you gaming that it is not for game distribution? This looks very promising but only if the sign can be taken off.

 

The just released 257.15 Verde Beta drivers say they include Optimus support. I will put together an INF for the Z11 Vaio Z and we can see if it works.

 

Great! Please let us know how it was.

 

Fantastic. I will try tonight with the simple INF modification if you don't beat me to it.