Acer Aspire 5740G Owners Lounge

[sshadowww]

So to change the subject a bit and make use of the GPU that actually works I've downloaded Mafia II demo and run included benchmark.

Settings set to default High which includes 16xAF and 0xAA and 1366x768
Catalyst 10.7 (8.753.2.0)
Core i5 430M
Mobility Radeon HD5650 OC @ 670MHz core & 900MHz memory

Average framerate: 42.3 fps

Notebookcheck tested this on TravelMate 7740G-434G50Mnss that is Core i5 430M and Mobility Radeon HD5650 @ core 550MHz & memory 800MHz with the same settings and resolution they achieved the average framerate of 36.8 fps with 8.712.0.0 driver

The benchmark looks good but it clearly shows that someone from nVidia dropped by with a "spare" briefcase of $$$ that they forgot to take with them when saying good bye to the developers.
It's either that or every single shooter in the game simply loves shooting at cars, walls, pillars and so on no one is aiming at opponents. PhysiX anyone...
The benchmark is in close quarters so I'm gonna see if I can confirm how is the framerate outdoors.

On an unrelated note: Lost Planet 2 benchmark is out- and supposedly doesn't work on ATI with DX11. I'll see if it's true or not and post later.
Also Catalyst 10.8 is due in the middle of next week and may change Mafia II score and may be able to make Lost Planet to actually work.

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EDIT:


This one is more than funny.
All tests on OCed card 670/900 and in native resolution (almost as the game supports 1360x768)

DX 11 settings high
Test 1: 14.6 fps
Test 2: 11.7 fps

DX 11 settings medium
Test 1: 28,5 fps
Test 2: 13.7 fps

DX 11 settings medium with DX11 effects turned off (whatever that means)
Test 1: 42.4 fps
Test 2: 35.9 fps

Now the funny part- the game looks best with DX11 effects turned off. If you leave them on it's out of focus, kinda blurry (even with motion blur disabled) So switching off DX11 effects gives you additional 14 fps in test 1 and 22 fps in test 2 and makes the game look better. With DX11 effects on it looks like you had one too many on Friday night or forgot your glasses/contact lenses.
Another thing- if you wanted to buy this game- download the benchmark and see how it looks and what the gameplay is. In my opinion not worth a penny...

Hi downloads, do you have ideas, why I cannot OC my hd 5650 more than 640 and 900 within getting crash? My benchmarks are lower than yours, I have same 5740g i5 4gb 5650 only with 640gb. Anyone, any ideas please?

[downloads]

Hi downloads, do you have ideas, why I cannot OC my hd 5650 more than 640 and 900 within getting crash? My benchmarks are lower than yours, I have same 5740g i5 4gb 5650 only with 640gb. Anyone, any ideas please?

OC is always unit-specific. I'm half-lucky my core overclock of 670MHz is rather good but memory not so much. I've seen others OC their memory to 1000MHz or 1100MHz in some cases. That said the same people also couldn't above 640-650MHz for core. The lucky ones on the other hand could go up to 700MHz for core and 1000MHz for memory at the same time. You are just a bit unlucky.
Nothing can be done about that unless someone finds a method of overvolting core from 1.0V to 1.1V that HD5730 uses. That would result with higher temps but also higher OC.

[sshadowww]

OC is always unit-specific. I'm half-lucky my core overclock of 670MHz is rather good but memory not so much. I've seen others OC their memory to 1000MHz or 1100MHz in some cases. That said the same people also couldn't above 640-650MHz for core. The lucky ones on the other hand could go up to 700MHz for core and 1000MHz for memory at the same time. You are just a bit unlucky.
Nothing can be done about that unless someone finds a method of overvolting core from 1.0V to 1.1V that HD5730 uses. That would result with higher temps but also higher OC.

Yeah, but really strange thing that same laptops so different handle with overclocking, hardware is same, but some people get high result and others are not. How can it possible be, is acer put not good graphic cars or what?

[downloads]

Yeah, but really strange thing that same laptops so different handle with overclocking, hardware is same, but some people get high result and others are not. How can it possible be, is acer put not good graphic cars or what?

The card is meant to work @550MHz with given voltage and it is. If you get more of this you're lucky but you cannot say cards are not good just because they don't exceed the specification by a big margin. Keep in mind that according to ATI specs increase of 100MHz in these cards require 0.1V increase in voltage. You got 90MHz without any increase in voltage.
The same thing goes for CPU- some units overclock better than others. It may depend on many things starting from the silicon wafer and where your chip was on it all the way to capacitors and the voltage they provide.
My previous card would allow OC of a whooping 17MHz- more or less 5% of the original value- yours allows 90MHz and that is roughly 16%. That's not bad.

[sshadowww]

The card is meant to work @550MHz with given voltage and it is. If you get more of this you're lucky but you cannot say cards are not good just because they don't exceed the specification by a big margin. Keep in mind that according to ATI specs increase of 100MHz in these cards require 0.1V increase in voltage. You got 90MHz without any increase in voltage.
The same thing goes for CPU- some units overclock better than others. It may depend on many things starting from the silicon wafer and where your chip was on it all the way to capacitors and the voltage they provide.
My previous card would allow OC of a whooping 17MHz- more or less 5% of the original value- yours allows 90MHz and that is roughly 16%. That's not bad.

Yeah, maybe you are right. Anyway, when I was buying this laptop I expected better performance, because I can't play most new games in high settings without lag (gta 4, stalker, crysis). Maybe I expected too much from laptop, I don't know. But I think you should done all benchmarks with the default clocks, because people who will buy this laptop could not to get so high oc and get worse results, in that way will be dissapointed.

[downloads]

Yeah, maybe you are right. Anyway, when I was buying this laptop I expected better performance, because I can't play most new games in high settings without lag (gta 4, stalker, crysis). Maybe I expected too much from laptop, I don't know. But I think you should done all benchmarks with the default clocks, because people who will buy this laptop could not to get so high oc and get worse results, in that way will be dissapointed.

Yes you do have a point here. Maybe I should have. My reasoning was that I bought this laptop specifically for overclocking- bought this instead of something with HD5730 and made it into 5730 myself.
The other thing is that I bought it relatively early and all I could compare my scores to were people who managed even more OC than I did- so at that time I thought I was unlucky.
That said I don’t think there's much difference between my performance and yours in real gaming situations. Just take a look at Mafia II- I got 5.5fps more than TravelMate 7740G with no OC. 120MHz core equals 5.5fps- you've managed 90MHz so you would probably get 4fps gain- so you are some 1.5 fps slower than me. That is not something that makes a difference.
The games you used as examples are very tricky- I wasn't able to play GTA IV on high settings either but what's important even more than settings is what patch are you using. GTA IV is a dreadful console port anyway.
Playing Crysis on high is something very few can do- I scored 30fps in benchmark but I haven't played the game so I don't know how it really works.
But again I would be no more than 1fps faster than you.
Stalker has a terrible engine too- caused many problems in the beginning and only later versions became stable and pretty consistent.
In each of these games game settings and patch version make a lot more difference than 30MHz of core OC that separates us.
Work on those settings a bit- I got 3fps increase in Crysis without changing GPU clocks (from 27 to 30fps by setting the game to 64bit and something else- may be setting it to DX10)

[lacienega]

Is the mafia2 demo worth downloading?
I played the Kane and Lynch demo...it's a huge download but very short demo..

[sshadowww]

Yes you do have a point here. Maybe I should have. My reasoning was that I bought this laptop specifically for overclocking- bought this instead of something with HD5730 and made it into 5730 myself.
The other thing is that I bought it relatively early and all I could compare my scores to were people who managed even more OC than I did- so at that time I thought I was unlucky.
That said I don’t think there's much difference between my performance and yours in real gaming situations. Just take a look at Mafia II- I got 5.5fps more than TravelMate 7740G with no OC. 120MHz core equals 5.5fps- you've managed 90MHz so you would probably get 4fps gain- so you are some 1.5 fps slower than me. That is not something that makes a difference.
The games you used as examples are very tricky- I wasn't able to play GTA IV on high settings either but what's important even more than settings is what patch are you using. GTA IV is a dreadful console port anyway.
Playing Crysis on high is something very few can do- I scored 30fps in benchmark but I haven't played the game so I don't know how it really works.
But again I would be no more than 1fps faster than you.
Stalker has a terrible engine too- caused many problems in the beginning and only later versions became stable and pretty consistent.
In each of these games game settings and patch version make a lot more difference than 30MHz of core OC that separates us.
Work on those settings a bit- I got 3fps increase in Crysis without changing GPU clocks (from 27 to 30fps by setting the game to 64bit and something else- may be setting it to DX10)

I am downloading mafia 2 demo, soon will write my benchmark results and will compare, is 35 mhz of core makes difference. For now I am running 650 and 900, but I bet when launch and play game will crash. Here is my stalker call of pripyat benchamark results with 640 core and 900 memory:

Preset: High
Renderer: Enchan. full. dyn. lighting (DX11)
Video mode: 1366x768

Day: 24.2 / 31.5 / 42.4

Night: 6.7 / 38.9 / 62.3

Rain: 33.4 / 43.9 / 64.0

Sun Shafts: 4.4 / 26.6 / 34.4

So your results a bit better in this resolution and settings as mine.
But funny thing is about this stalker benchmark it runs in small window instead of full screen most times, but sometimes it run in full screen, like in Rain mode or which other. I don't think it supposed to happen.

Will see more from mafia benchmark soon.

[downloads]

Is the mafia2 demo worth downloading?
I played the Kane and Lynch demo...it's a huge download but very short demo..

No not worth a download because you are limited to 10 min driving around the city. So you have 10min to get where you need to and one shoot-out there and that's all.
It's gonna work fine on your notebook as you see from my benchmark so if you want to play it just buy it when it comes out and if you want to see how it looks just watch a HD-clip on youtube. The trailer is actually the demo mission.

EDIT:

Call Of Pripyat Benchmark
Cats 10.7 Freqs: 670/900
Preset: High
Renderer: Enchan. full. dyn. lighting (DX11)
Video mode: 1360x768 (I know- I'm cheating by 6 pixels)

Average scores:
Day: your score: 31.5 my score: 40.0 (127% of yours)
Night: your score: 38.9 my score: 40.0 (103% of yours)
Rain: your score 43.9 my score: 44.0 (100% of yours)
Sun Shafts: your score 26.6 my score: 22.0 ( 83% of yours)

It's pretty even if you ask me but you should retest so that all your scores were taken from fullscreen tests.

[sshadowww]

I finished mafia 2 benchmark with @ 640 and 900. Got 35.3 average fps on medium settings with antialiasing 1x and vsync off. Not found where to change in dx11 mode, maybe it set to default. Done twice and get +-2fps. So it is even worse than default hd 5650 with 550 core from here Notebookcheck: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 ;/

P.S funny thing when turned off mafia demo screen become not bright but in settings set maximum brightness

About stalker bench, I can't get fullscreen somehow, benchmark runs windowed. I thought I'm good in computers before I bought this laptop, actually a lot of strange things happened with it. And downloads, do you never regret for buying this acer? When looking for laptop I choose between this and msi (don't remember model, with better gpu but old dual core processor). Sometimes thinking that should picked msi.