dv6t-61XX / dv7t-61XX Switchable Graphics Discussion

[lokiswarrior]

AMD's Nvidia Optimus Killer Technology Gets Detailed - Softpedia



You need the updated driver and CCC to get this to work.

I have the latest 11.5b hotfix installed (inc cc)etc....I still am able to manually switch. what gives there?(not that I particuarly want Dynamic switching)

[obscurehero]

FYI

My dv6tqe dynamic switching (bacon?) works pretty well. I installed the crysis demo and configured it to be high performance before ever playing. The opening credits were TORTUROUS...it was awful and took forever. Then, it started to come up to speed. I quickly quit out and started GPU-z logging the Radeon dGPU. Back in again and the credits played normally. I could set it to 1920x1280 on high settings with excellent frame rates and zero stuttering. Very high isn't so much playable with 1366x768 (across the board very high, that is).

Exiting the game looking at GPU-z and this time the dGPU shot right up to 100% utilization. The core and memory speeds shot up and the temperature did as well (I didn't need GPU-z to tell me that. The fans kicked into high gear and the laptop became warm to the touch.) The highest temp i recored was 73 I think.

Anyway, fears dispelled and suspicions confirmed. The dynamic switching works...it just doesn't work as well as I'd hope. It seems it needs to "learn" that a program will be high performance even when I tell it that beforehand.

All-in-all not a bad solution. The switch was seamless (no black screens) and once it DID switch, the game was quite playable.

[teotuf]

I was thinking, would it be possible to create a program that acts like a switch for the GPU's? Why not make a very small and simple program that hardly uses any system resources at all. This program can be configured in the CCC as high performance, so when it is opened, the discrete graphics are enabled. When opened, this program can just run in the background... Then the GPU can be used for real tasks such as game playing or benchmarking. When you want to go back on the integrated graphics, just close the program.

because apparently this switches on the dGPU by apps. so for example, you can run a windowed starcraft 2 with the dGPU, but still use the intel for chrome and youtube video in the back ground.

[ivann187]

Ill be getting the dv7t 6100, does it also have the switching graphic thing?

[dark rider]

FYI

My dv6tqe dynamic switching (bacon?) works pretty well. I installed the crysis demo and configured it to be high performance before ever playing. The opening credits were TORTUROUS...it was awful and took forever. Then, it started to come up to speed. I quickly quit out and started GPU-z logging the Radeon dGPU. Back in again and the credits played normally. I could set it to 1920x1280 on high settings with excellent frame rates and zero stuttering. Very high isn't so much playable with 1366x768 (across the board very high, that is).

Exiting the game looking at GPU-z and this time the dGPU shot right up to 100% utilization. The core and memory speeds shot up and the temperature did as well (I didn't need GPU-z to tell me that. The fans kicked into high gear and the laptop became warm to the touch.) The highest temp i recored was 73 I think.

Anyway, fears dispelled and suspicions confirmed. The dynamic switching works...it just doesn't work as well as I'd hope. It seems it needs to "learn" that a program will be high performance even when I tell it that beforehand.

All-in-all not a bad solution. The switch was seamless (no black screens) and once it DID switch, the game was quite playable.

That seems to summarize my experience as well. I played Crysis 2 at 1920 x 1080 with high settings, and it was beautiful and smooth like butter! No tearing, no stuttering, a real visual treat! This was with the 11.5b drivers, since they were already installed prior to my installation of the game. No overclocking, as it doesn't appear to work with either Sapphire Trixx or MSI Afterburner. The 6770m is a great card, and I hope for more refinement of the switching, but it's very usable as is. I wouldn't let the fully automated switching disuade you from purchasing, if you're on the fence. I have yet to have problems with a single game.

[dark rider]

because apparently this switches on the dGPU by apps. so for example, you can run a windowed starcraft 2 with the dGPU, but still use the intel for chrome and youtube video in the back ground.

That might also explain why this thing is such a multi-tasking behemoth! I was trying to bog it down with multiple concurrent tasks. I had Photoshop batch processing, 3 separate videos running, SC2 windowed, Outlook, and several IE windows open, and for the life of me I couldn't get it to noticeably slow down! I have been very impressed with the switchable gpu solution combined with the power and energy efficiency of the new Sandy Bridge i7's.

Ill be getting the dv7t 6100, does it also have the switching graphic thing?

Yes, both the new DV6T and DV7T have the new autoswitching graphics, if you upgrade to the 6770m.

[Falco152]

I have the latest 11.5b hotfix installed (inc cc)etc....I still am able to manually switch. what gives there?(not that I particuarly want Dynamic switching)

The driver only contains parts of it to get it to work. HP is using a forked version CCC which contains the preview of BACON, which may have yet pushed on the trunk.
It won't be for quite some time.

[obscurehero]

Can someone explain how to update (and what) for the Radeon and HD 3000?

For the IGP:

The HP driver for the Intel HD 3000 won't install. I'm using the MSI stock drivers.

For the Radeon:

I tried installing everything from the first driver update, then the CCC (11.5 - 5/11) upgrade, then the Hydravision package, then AMD Media Codec package. I, of course, uninstalled the older CCC before installing the newer one. Then I downloaded the 11.5b hotfix and installed that completely. After restart, the CCC wouldn't load. I couldn't access the CCC panel despite all the drivers being there as well as software solutions. I uninstalled EVERYTHING out of frustration (anything ATI). Then I reinstalled just the CCC and display driver from the 11.5b hotfix package. After restart, the CCC and the display driver show the latest version and the CCC control panel loads. Switchable graphics works...

Did I do the right thing? I'm TIRED of this driver dance. Do I uninstall first and then install? Is every component necessary...etc. etc. I just want the dang thing to work!

So, suggestions are MORE than welcome.

EDIT: New Idea. Let me know if its a good one! Uninstall everything Radeon. Let windows update install the Radeon driver or install it from swsetup. Then install 11.5a on top of this. Restart. Install 11.5b on top of this. Good? What is the advantage of installing over the old drivers? on AMD's website they always instruct you to remove the old driver or software first before installing the new driver/software...even the hotfix.

[teotuf]

Can someone explain how to update (and what) for the Radeon and HD 3000?

For the IGP:

The HP driver for the Intel HD 3000 won't install. I'm using the MSI stock drivers.

For the Radeon:

I tried installing everything from the first driver update, then the CCC (11.5 - 5/11) upgrade, then the Hydravision package, then AMD Media Codec package. I, of course, uninstalled the older CCC before installing the newer one. Then I downloaded the 11.5b hotfix and installed that completely. After restart, the CCC wouldn't load. I couldn't access the CCC panel despite all the drivers being there as well as software solutions. I uninstalled EVERYTHING out of frustration (anything ATI). Then I reinstalled just the CCC and display driver from the 11.5b hotfix package. After restart, the CCC and the display driver show the latest version and the CCC control panel loads. Switchable graphics works...

Did I do the right thing? I'm TIRED of this driver dance. Do I uninstall first and then install? Is every component necessary...etc. etc. I just want the dang thing to work!

So, suggestions are MORE than welcome.

EDIT: New Idea. Let me know if its a good one! Uninstall everything Radeon. Let windows update install the Radeon driver or install it from swsetup. Then install 11.5a on top of this. Restart. Install 11.5b on top of this. Good? What is the advantage of installing over the old drivers? on AMD's website they always instruct you to remove the old driver or software first before installing the new driver/software...even the hotfix.

what exactly are you trying to do right now? are you trying to update the ATI driver to 11.5b? or are you trying to get manual switching instead of automatic switching? hydravision and codec (and those kind of stuff) are not necessary at all for the things you are looking for. hydravision is like spaces for mac or compiz for ubuntu.

let me put it this way. you cannot install any driver from AMD's website on a clean slate -> you have to overwrite the existing HP driver.
e.g. you can do things like wipe -> HP drivers -> 11.5b, or you can do things like HP drivers -> 11.5b. but you can't do wipe -> 11.5b. HP drivers has to be there already any time you try to install a driver directly from AMD.

again, the reason is that the HP driver contains the information about how the two gfx cards should communicate with each other and the display, the AMD drivers only pertains to the 6770m card, and not the HD3000 (and the driver from intel vice versa). so generally, you need the HP driver to tell the computer what parts are there and how they should interact, then put the AMD driver on top of it to tell the 6770m how to do its own thing once stuff gets loaded onto that GPU. If you have only the AMD part, and nothing from HP, the computer wouldn't know what to do with any of it.

[brnkcv]

Hey, can somebody confirm if they can get the dGPU to kick in with firefox? I'm gonna want to stress test my comp when I get it by running like 10 1080p streams. I want to compare IGP with dGPU. Would be a shame if I can't do that in my browser of choice, or any browser for that matter.

Also, can someone confirm that you can infact stop the 6770 from kicking in on firefox (if you can get it to kick in the in first place), perhaps by taking it off the high performance list, so the IGP can be tested like I want to test it? I'm wondering, even if a certain application is not on the high performance list, maybe the dynamic will pick up on the need for it and turn on the dGPU on its own.

Thanks!