help understanding updatind drivers for dv6 6c02tx

[death_relic0]

hey guys..
so i just got a dv6 6c02tx (i5 2450m, 7690m xt) laptop AlhamdulillALlah, and after viewing some youtube videos, and comparing the fps with what im getting, it seems im getting a little low fps compared to ppl...

in forums and the comments on the videos i saw, people mention their driver being something like 11.xx , but when i go to my driver it says 8.882.2.3000 ...

any ways i want to update my driver but i cant figure out what to download, where to download from, etc... specially since i want to play rage and when i turn on rage fraps says im getting 1 fps :/

also can someone explain to me the difference between amd drivers and amd catalyst? i dont think i have catalyst installed. do i need it?

thanks in advance..

[TarballX]

8.882.2.3000 is the Intel integrated graphics driver. 11.x (and now 12.x) are the AMD GPU drivers. Right click on your desktop and go to Configure Switchable Graphics, and make sure Rage is set to run on the high performance (AMD) GPU. If that doesn't help, you can go into BIOS and set the graphics card to fixed mode, which means you'll have to manually switch between the two GPUs, but when on the AMD card, games will run with full performance.

Edit: Apparently Rage uses OpenGL, which means it will ONLY run on the integrated card when on switchable mode. So changing the GPU mode to fixed in BIOS and manually switching it should work.

Edit 2: Well I was wrong, those 8.882 drivers are AMD drivers, not Intel. Sorry!

[DjSweetBazz]

try these, they have been working great for me
leshcat blog IT Tips & Tricks: Catalyst 12.3 WHQL UnifL for Switchable Graphics

[prebuss]

If you will use leshcat's drivers, you will get higher idle temperatures (2nd fan speed all the time if AMD GPU is being used). The same heating problem occurs to many newest drivers, AMD official as well.

[xAcid9]

If you want to use Leshcat driver, the best one would be 12.2 WHQL UP5.

Higher idle temperature was caused by Catalyst 12.3 WHQL itself because it suffered from sticky 3D clock and in 12.4 WHQL you will get sticky Idle clock. I still use Leshcat 12.2 WHQL UP5 and it works great on all the games i play. (No BF3 and Rage though)

To OP, v8.882.2.3000 in HP driver was old Catalyst 11.8/11.9 released on September last year. Latest Catalyst driver is 12.4 but i wouldn't recommend you to update to 12.4 or 12.3 because of sticky clock bug. I suggest Leshcat 12.2 WHQL UP5 driver because of it stability.

Now, the difference between AMD driver you get from HP and AMD Catalyst from AMD website it that in HP driver you will get an extra package for switchable graphic, without that you will not have a working graphic in Windows so if u're planning to install AMD Catalyst from AMD website you must install/overwrite it on top of HP driver.

What is Leshcat driver? Leshcat's driver is similar to HP driver, it have extra component for switchable graphic so if you want to install it, you don't need to have HP driver preinstalled in your system. Leshcat's driver give u newer/latest release from AMD and Intel hence better performance or compatibility for games.

FYI, you can change in BIOS whether you want a Dynamic switching or Fixed switching. For Dynamic switching you need to set which application/.exe to use for High-Performance GPU or Power-Saving GPU.. similar to Nvidia Optimus. This can be set in Catalyst Control Center. One flaw in Dynamic switching is that you can't switch to HD6770M in OpenGL application/game so game like Rage or Minecraft is out. You need Fixed switching for that. Fixed switching let you to manually choose between High-Performance GPU(AMD HD6770M) and Power-Saving GPU(Intel HD3000).

Btw, congratz on your purchase.

[death_relic0]

thanks all of u,especially x acid, since im a complete novice when it comes to drivers, etc, and so really needed a complete explanation ... anyways, have got loads of projects from uni atm, so its better if i give the leshcat drivers a try in a week... hopefully they will work, otherwise i will be back bothering ppl in this forum ....