Vaio SR ATI HD 3470 Gaming Thread

Actually, Crysis: Warhead is meant to have gotten rid of some of the problems of the original Crysis game, so it should run better on lower system requirements. I still doubt you'll get stellar results, but you should see a slight improvement at least over the original Crysis.

 

Alright, just got my Vaio SR 190 (2.4GHz, 2GB Ram, HD3470 w/ 8.9 Drivers, Vista w/ Aero Effects turned off)

First thing's first, I noticed that no matter what game I played the small screen of the SR allowed for me to be more content with lower resolutions than I would have been previously. Also the effect of the Catalyst drivers transforming some resolutions into widescreen automatically made my day. Don't be surprised if you play games at 800ish resolution with eagerness.

Bioshock - Runs about 15-30 FPS
1024x768 Full Screened w/ most settings low, keeping Shadows and High detail shaders ON. Look up the Bioshock PC review (google.com) in order to get a feel for what they do.

The framerate bounces alot, and at low resolutions you will find yourself having a hard time aiming. Still, the game is great and just as epic if you aren't used to the world of PCI-E.

Devil May Cry - ~40 FPS
1024x768 Full Screened w/ Most settings high, shadows low. (Settings in this game are off->high->super high, or low->high.) Run this game in Direct X9 in order to get a huge speed boost (~45 FPS)

The game is playable, but free up as much memory as possible -- this is a VERY timing intensive action game, so you do not want to miss a beat due to frame rate.

Lego Batman - ~20-45 FPS (Jumpy)
I found it to be very jumpy unless I turned off all the high detail shaders and bloom, but once that's done the game runs quite smooth. It looks and flows alot better than the Wii version (i notice that the wii has strange level of detail issues, where as the PC has enough power to beautifully render everything at high res).

All in all, it unlocks a world of new games for me, so I'm happy about that -- but not nearly the performance of an older 15" lappy by far. Going to test out Assassin's Creed and some DX-9 patching.

I think this thread would benefit from a huge face lift and more detailed information -- I bought my SR with regard to some of the comments in this thread and I think there could be more info from our participants.

 

just ran TF2..
they ran for around 40 fps..
at the recommended settings.. people in the server: around 16

 

@Souloni
Hey man, i'm glad that you've used this thread and i appreciate the constructive criticism. I will add your games, but just out of your curiosity, what would you like to see added in this "facelift". I will definatley rehash the thread/first page if you are looking for something particular. Don't turn off aero effects, its the only thing that makes vista look good, lol.

Also, to everyone out there, shout out what you want to see added!

 

Yeah, the Aero effects are what make Vista... well, Vista!

Regarding the 'Facelift', though this thread is really great, it never really helped me make a decision or compare the supposed graphics power of the laptop. It wasn't until I tried it myself, doing my own tweaks that I found most of the FPS reviews to be inaccurate or not detailed enough for me to know what 'low and medium' stood for. Examples (I would be honored to fully detail the following in the future myself so I can contribute to this awesome thread)...

1. Games and their FPS Ratings
ex. World of Warcraft ~60 FPS Default Settings

What's that mean? Well, by Default WoW is run at a low resolution and very low levels of detail. Anyone who really wants to know information about WoW's run speed should be able to understand the specifics that go behind it. The truth is, that default WoW is horrible, and not nearly worth 1.2k-1.4k +tax for a computer that can't even play it (i.e. good bye future proofing!). Is this all the Vaio SR is capable of? No. Not even close.

2. Common Tweaks and System Specs

We all can pretty much agree that the Vaio SR190 is bottle necked by the GPU, but that doesn't mean that we can't overcompensate for some minor performance boosts. People complain about 5% or 7% boosts being too weak and not worth it; it all depends on what you're REALLY giving up...

- I gave up transparent Vista Aero designs and customized the 'Performance settings' to my liking to increase performance further. It may not be transparent, but there's still the Vista bubbly look to it.

- UAC, I turned that crap off, and I think everyone else would want to as well...

- Vista Ready Boost... No one even mentioned this early on, perhaps deep in this thread, but that's not exactly the most accessible area if you don't know what you're looking for. Vista Ready Boost is basically turning an SD card (YAY! We get an SD card slot!) or a MSPD card (same!) into flash ram. Instead of using the HDD as a virtual memory spot, the SD card (solid state features) is prioritized. What does that mean? 2GB ram + 2GB SD card = pretty huge performance boost in Vista, and a slight performance boost in games in general (that's my setup). I haven't really tested this feature much, but if it changes my above post values i'll make sure to include it.

- Driver Modifications. If it wasn't for browsing the last few pages, I would have never learned about exactly how to do it or where to find it. Thanks to the TC i was able to get a huge boost in performance with the 8.9 catalyst. My hats off to you!

Edit: ALMOST FORGOT! Forcing DX9 is another performance booster! In case it's not common knowledge, Vista's DX9 drivers are by far better than XP's own DX9 drivers. This has been proven and also stated by M$ themselves. You will see a gain of 5-10 FPS (generally 5) and more stability if you force DX9 in games that run DX10. type -DX9 i believe after the .exe in order to force it. Google for more details!

All in all, I think that's what I can think of (or know of) for now. People come to this thread really looking at the SR to play games, or perhaps compare game performance with future computing performance -- we can offer an insane amount of additional detail (afterall, this thread ensured my purchase of an SR190 CTO).

 

I think it'd be helpful to have the results in a table, for mostly cosmetic reasons. We can use HTML on this forum, so it's definitely doable. I also think we should remove the entries that simply say "Acceptable" or "Smooth" or something like that. At the very least, let's have an average FPS value, although min & max fps information would be great too. As far as settings, if a game offers a blanket "high" "medium" or "low" settings, then I think it's fine to just have that. But more details, like resolution, shaders, etc. would be a nice bonus.

 

Need for Speed: UnderGROUND not Undercover... it's not out yet.

----------------
Now playing: Nintendo - SUPER SMASH BROS. BRAWL Main Theme
via FoxyTunes

 

I'm planning to do a full review about demanding games performances on my SR with vista, and a personnal version of xp I use.

 

That's my bad. I was actually talking about ProStreet but I must have been thinking about Undercover at the time of the writing. Underground would run even better.

 

@Wolf 04

I changed it, thanks! lol

@ Alix. G

If you could post it here as well, that would be awesome!

@Lattice & Souloni

I will be sure to revamp the front page, but give me some time. I try to maintain the thread + post on NBR when i have a free moment typically, but i will set aside some time and clean up the page for some user friendliness, in the mean time, constructive criticism/additions would be greatly appreciated!

 

Hey, no rush, man! =) I do understand that there's this pesky real-life thing outside the NBR forums. Once I stop being lazy, I'll post up some results as well. Right now, I'm just too distracted playing the games on my shiny new ATI 4850 on my desktop. XD

 

First off, I was curious if someone had tested playing something intensive with 2gb of ram vs. 3gb of ram. Something like CoD 4, Bioshock, etc would be a nice test if you bought the 3gb model and have the time ^_^

I really want to buy another stick, but I want atleast a more stable 3-5 fps boost.

I absolutely cannot wait for the Vista vs. XP review! I have been pondering this for a long time now, and I think that there are very convincing arguments for both cases...

XP
- Direct X9 (Drivers worse than in Vista however)
- Possible Gamers Only Optimizations
- Less Memory Intensive

Vista
- Direct X10
- Ready Boost (makes up for Aero lag and boot lag)

I want to know if XP really does run a game faster.

 

In regards to vista vs. xp in gaming, i think anandtech or toms hardware did a comparison already and it showed that Vista SP1 and XP SP3 perform virtually identical on games. I think an extra stick of ram will for sure bump your performance up a bit in games. If you look at 3dmark06 scores they do go up with additional ram/cpu speeds(refer to first page...)

 

The first page has more factors affecting the result than simply 1 stick of ram. Regretfully that isn't enough information for me to shell out $20.

3dmark has major references to CPU design and speed, where as many games do not utilize the CPU as well as 3dmark does. A higher score does not necessarily = FPS in this manner due to the change in CPU speed. Also the 300gb drive might be a 7200 rpm, I am unsure.

 

I have updated to the newest Catalyst Drivers using Mobility Modder and my Radeon now shows up as Radeon 3450? Is this correct? I have the Vaio FW11S, which is supposed to have the Radeon 3470.

 

This happens to all of us. Either there is no desktop 3470 or something else, but fear not, it still utlizes the GDDR3 ram and the same clock speed, so performance is not negatively affected.

In fact, if you look on the first page of this thread, most of us(including myself) have seen 3dmark06 score increases simply from upgrading to the newest catalyst drivers using mobility modder!

 

Hey,

I'm not the only tester on here, obviously. I can only post what people give me, but, the point is even with max ram/cpu, the score increase is several hundred points(not too significant). 20 dollars isnt significant for another RAM stick. But, if your looking for a nice little boost in overall performance and games performance, the ram will do it, if your looking for a more significant boost, then you need a better GPU. 4gb of ram and a 10,000 RPM HD are the MAX upgrades you could do for the SR, and even those will not give you like a 1000 point boost in 3dmark or in gaming performance. So, i'm not sure exactly what your looking for. Ram will make games run smoother, HDD will make applications load faster. Neither will make your graphics better, but the combo of a faster HDD and RAM will give you a boost in FPS(perhaps +5-10)...but nothing crazy.

 

guys, ive been playing TF2 for like an hour and the temps were @ 98 degrees celsius!!!

i even put the fan on performance mode and it wouldnt go..
the bottom left of the laptop is really really hot

 

Whoa. Is the fan simply not running or is it still running at like 100% but the notebook isn't cooling? =\ You might have to get a notebook cooler if temperatures like that continue.

 

Were you playing it on your lap or a non-hard surface? I've noticed when playing games on my lap, plugged in, that the same occurs, the notebook gets very hot.

The left side of the laptop is always hotter, cause the heat is pushed out on that side. Also, if you didnt have it on performance mode the whole time and turned it on after the fact, it will not cool down that quickly, you should always have the fans on performance mode when playing games or doing anything system intensive.

I would like to say Sony's are known for their excellent cooling systems, but with the whole TZ fiasco latley, who knows.

 

yeah, i always leave it on performance, and the fan would not running, or at least it didnt sound like running.. which was really weird..
and i was playing on a wooden table..

 

Well, these are some screen shots from the games.

First One: A Fiesta Screen shot. I think this was before I changed the settings, but this is how it looks default. Runs pretty good. Gets jittery on battery though.

Second one: Log-in screen to Maplestory with Framerates.

Third One: Marketplace Ch 1 Broa, just for a demo as a crowded place. Framerates.

 

hmmm sounds very fishy, my notebook gets hot too when i play games(spore is the only thing im playing at the moment, but even quake 4 and stuff) made the system get warm, but i did not check temps and the fans were running.

 

I'm just curious, how do you change the settings for the fan?

 

Start -> All Programs -> VAIO Control Center -> Power Mangement -> Power Options -> Thermal Control Strategy

and there are also some third-party programs that let you do so.

 

Is this SR-exclusive because the FW doesn't have this option.

 

It's not on your's??
I have no idea

 

yea the fw does not have thermal control strategy listed under power options.

 

FYI, for all those who are not aware, Catalyst Drivers 8.9 and mobility modder for 8.9 are out! Go get em!

 

I find a performance drop due to modding the desktop drivers (oddly enough), especially when using them with ATI Tools. I rolled back and got a more stable +2-5 FPS. Anyone else finding differently?

 

Is this with drivers 8.8 or 8.9?

 

Can we install the drivers straight from ATI or does Sony have to do something to them first?

 

Here's the drill:

- Go to the ATI website and download the DESKTOP catalyst 8.9 drivers.
- Then go to: http://www.driverheaven.net/modtool.php
- Follow the step-by-step instructions listed on there
- Your done!

- Keep in mind:
- After installing mobility modder, your system will recognize your card as a 3450, not a 3470, but this had no bearing on performance, if you look at the system info on you card in catalyst control center, it still sees the GDDR3 Ram and correct clock speed(which are the only difference between the 3450 and 3470). So don't worry about that.

- Also, worst case scenario, you can always uninstall the modded drivers and simply download the original OEM drivers from the sony support site.

- There has been NO reported problems with using mobility modder with desktop drivers. Aside from one poster, most of us have seen a slight/moderate boost in performance from the updated drivers, but again, if you feel that you dont like the new driver, reference right above for my suggestion.

- Good luck!

 

Both (there's no difference between 8.8 and 8.9) but with the factory drivers, you do indeed get better performance and I reported this earlier with the Trackmania Nations benchmark.

 

Booo... i guess this means back to the old drivers....who knows when, if ever sony will update their OEM drivers....

 

how much slower is it with the modded driver??

if it's not a lot, i would rather stay with the modded one..
since it probably fixed a lot of bugs or flaws that was in the one that came with the SR...
the OEM driver is extremely old...

 

Using the Trackmania Nations benchmark I did, I got 1 FPS slower on average.

 

Hi,
I'm having a weird problem. All my games run great except call of duty 4. After It auto detects, it sets all settings to maximum except the resolution, which it sets at 800x600. If I scale back all the settings and bump up the res to native it'll run good in single player, but in multiplayer the performance is much worst. The only way I can get a good frame rate is changing all settings to low or disabled (while keeping native res of 1280x800). I want to reiterate this is isolated to this game. My network connection is good, other games go online fine with good performance and there are no apps running. I have 76 processes running.

Another strange thing is I ran the ATI "what games can I run" tool and it said I have 1.5GB of video ram. directxdiag also thinks I have 1.5GB or video ram. That must be why COD4 thinks I have a screamin' system. What gives?

Vaio SR
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4Ghz
3GB RAM
ATI 3470 HD 128MB RAM
200GB 7200rpm HD
Vista Ultimate SP1

 

You have alot of shared vRam... auto-detect should recognize that. My bro has a geforce 6150(integrated) and COD4 recognizes that it is using shared memory and thus puts everything to low settings.

 

I realize that, however the point being is it's not detecting it. Auto sets it to max settings like I said...I wonder if there's a way I can change the shared vram

 

Well anywho I guess I underestimated the ability of this video card. That's quite unfortunate. The only way I can get a playable framerate at native resolution (I can't stand low resolutions on an lcd) is to set everything to the lowest or disabled setting. I'll have to stick to the older games for now and play cod4 on my ps3

 

I have another game to report:

- Test Drive Unlimited: 1280x720, high detail, no hdr, no aa: 24-25 fps, very playable (no dip in fps, so the game is constantly smooth)

Changing the detail to low yields only an increase of about 2 fps, hardly noticeable. Turning on HDR yields a drop of about 2 fps but I haven't noticed any major difference (other than this light bloom around) but having it on kinda pushes the fps boundary to 22 fps.

 

Anyone else notice you cant download the OEM video drivers on sonystyle.com? It's simply a dead link!

Anyways, instead i choose "upgrade drivers" through vista device manager...anyone else use these drivers that simply deem your GPU "Mobility Radeon HD 3400 Series"?

 

For those interested, the 'to play' requirements for Fallout 3 just came out. It looks like the SR (on paper) meets most of the minimum requirements for it, right? Though I'm not sure how much that 256 MB RAM will cause a problem for SR1s.

Minimum:

-Windows XP/Vista
-1GB System RAM (XP)/ 2GB System RAM (Vista)
-2.4 Ghz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor
-Direct X 9.0c compliant video card with 256MB RAM (NVIDIA 6800 or better/ATI X850 or better)

It meets recommended too, except when you get to the video card.

Recommended:

-Intel Core 2 Duo processor
-2 GB System RAM
-NvidiaDirect X 9.0c compliant video card with 512MB RAM (NVIDIA 8800 series, ATI 3800 series)

From here: http://fallout.bethsoft.com/eng/info/faq.html

 

What would be the best race games playable on Z?

(or is there a separate Z gaming thread?)

 

I think there WAS a seperate gaming thread for the Z, but it's not very active...

 

I occasionally play the grid on my 8400m GT with decent details. You should be able to handle low - medium settings at 1024 x 768 which still looks **** fine for a racing game

I've also seen alot of people recommending trackmania nations(which is free!) as a fun racing game. I'll have to give it a go at some stage *procrastinates*

 

You mean Race Driver Grid I suppose?

I'll also try Need for Speed - Pro street.

 

Yeah, that one. It's a good game and a little more serious than the those "boi-racer" games Although i did enjoy playing juiced 2 for a while.

 

Test Drive Unlimited is also a pretty good racing game (though you need 256 MB of vRAM) and I don't really recommend ProStreet. I found it to be very boring and frustrating but NFS Most Wanted will do.

And I would like to make a point about the amount of vRAM regarding the game. 128 MB is not enough and I don't like when people tell new buyers that it is sufficient because that's a downright lie. The fact remains that you should be looking at 256 MB of vRAM, even in a laptop. Plenty of new games (that work on low-end video cards) require at least 256 MB of vRAM.

The perfect example I can give you is Test Drive Unlimited. I installed the game on my home computer which had an nVidia 6600GT with 128 MB of vRAM and my FW with the ATI HD3470 with 256 MB of vRAM. The game ran substantially better on my laptop.

Gameplay was jerky on my computer and even though it did not lag, there were "hiccups" which greatly disrupted the gameplay. On the other hand, the game runs perfectly fine at 1280x720 with high details on my laptop with no hiccups or lag.