AVADirect M570RU: SLI, Drivers, and 8800M GTX Performance
by Jarred Walton on March 14, 2008 6:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
The Matrix: Resolutions
Other than gaming support, there's one other reason to look for hacked drivers: resolution support. We find it absolutely shocking that many laptops we've tested with 1920x1200 LCDs don't include other common widescreen resolutions. The AVADirect/Clevo laptops for instance only support 1280x800 and 1920x1200 16:10 resolutions with the current drivers. What's more, the custom resolution option in the drivers is missing (at the request of the notebook ODM in this case). Ever heard of 1680x1050 or 1440x900? Thankfully, we did manage to figure out a workaround -- although it does appear to have impacted performance slightly (less than 10%, and often less than 5%).
If you scan through your registry and search for "NV_Modes", you'll find several registry strings that list all of the supported resolutions. We were able to add in 1440x900 and 1680x1050 (and remove several resolutions we didn't feel the need to use) by modifying all of these registry keys -- there were about eight -- and rebooting. Given that we were so frustrated with the lack of resolution support, we figure there are probably other users out there in the same boat, so we're providing our solution. On our test system, we changed the contents of the keys to the following (Ed: Use at your own risk):
{*}S
320x200 320x240 400x300 480x360 512x384 640x350 640x400 640x480 720x400 720x480
720x576 768x576 852x480 853x480 854x480 864x480=1FFF;
SHV 800x600 1024x768 1152x864 1280x720 1280x800 1280x960 1280x1024 1400x1050
1440x900 1600x1200 1680x1050 1920x1080 1920x1200x8,16,32,64=1F;
Given that most of the resolutions we tested do not overlap with the default resolutions that were available, the only area where we could compare performance was at 1920x1200. We saw 3%-10% drop in the six games we tested after applying our hack. However, it's also possible that the performance drop was caused by something else, as we installed a variety of other software in between our initial tests and our tests with the hacked resolutions.
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docjon - Monday, March 17, 2008 - link
So let me see if I understand this correctly, Nvidia will not be offering mobile drivers to the public but will make them available to the vendor who can validate them and then offer them to their customers on their web site? ie through Dell?JarredWalton - Monday, March 17, 2008 - link
See above. There will still be official driver updates from the vendors after validation, presumably - or at least, they'll come as often as they have in the past. :)docjon - Saturday, March 15, 2008 - link
Jared,How about a link to the beta drivers? I checked the nvidia web site and can't find the 174.20 drivers you used.
JarredWalton - Saturday, March 15, 2008 - link
The 174.20 drivers were directly from NVIDIA but they are still undergoing testing and validation. The plan was to hopefully have those available (well, an updated version that addresses a few things probably) within the next month. Note that the LaptopVideo2Go 174.xx drivers are not the same, as those are based off the desktop parts and lack mobile optimizations as far as I can see.ap90033 - Saturday, March 15, 2008 - link
When they finally are on Nvidia's website, will they only work for 8800M GTX's or will they also work for 8800M GTS's? I have a P6831FX Gateway and would love some newer drivers. :)JarredWalton - Saturday, March 15, 2008 - link
My understanding is that the next "Mobile Driver Update" from NVIDIA will cover all GeForce M chips on Vista 32-bit/64-bit for participating vendors. So that means the Gateway FX, Toshiba X205, Dell XPS, and various Clevo notebooks should all work with the beta driver. Probably some others as well. I *hope* that they get GeForce Go support on Vista as well with the next driver, and likewise I would appreciate seeing new XP drivers for both Go and M series cards.docjon - Monday, March 17, 2008 - link
So these drivers will not be offered by nvidia to the general public but will be made available to dell to offer after they validate them?JarredWalton - Monday, March 17, 2008 - link
No, the "Mobile Gaming Drivers" or whatever you want to call it are going to be available from NVIDIA. The last release came just before 8800M launched, so it only supports up through the 8700M. They also didn't cover all GPUs on all OSes - so 8400-8700M got Vista drivers and GeForce Go 7xxx got XP drivers.The laptop vendors do have to agree to participate - so Dell pretty much tells NVIDIA it's okay if they release a driver that will work with the XPS laptops, as an example. Note that this is not just a vendor decision; it's a model decision as well. So while Dell is okay with "beta" drivers direct from NVIDIA for their XPS (gaming) laptops, they don't want beta drivers for Inspiron or Latitude laptops.
Normally, notebook vendors do not allow manufacturers to release "reference" updated drivers that support the mobile chipsets, which is why we see stuff like LaptopVideo2Go.com. Well, this is a step back from that stance, but only for laptops where updated video drivers are a major concern. Thus, the vendors still have to give NVIDIA permission to release the drivers to the public. Make sense?
builtone2many - Friday, March 14, 2008 - link
Great article. Kind of curious about the casing in the pictures. The latest version from Clevo for systems with X9000 processors has a slightly different casing, labled "Extreme Edition", with an additional molded section on the bottom to provide for better ventilation around the CPU. Wonder if AVA is shipping old case versions?JarredWalton - Saturday, March 15, 2008 - link
Thanks for the comments. I've had this system for about a month, and it's pre-release. It could be that the final shipping models will cool the CPU better, have a working overclock for X9000, and not be as loud at idle. I can only hope so.