Official VAIO E Series Owners Thread

[Mythdat]

so now, what about the battery?
take it off completely or leave it on with battery care function

With battery care on it doesn't make a lot of difference. Technically it's better for the battery if it's taken out for heat issues, but I just leave it in.

Hmm it really does seem to be peoples set ups that effect whether it plays well, as some people are saying you really can't play new games at native res with the HD screen. You have quite high specs though Mythdat - maybe that contributes, as not everyone is able to achieve this. How far does the hard drive you have contribute to its performance?

I'm going to stick with the low res for now - if I fancy a better screen down the line I guess it can be replaced without any probs.

I don't think it's so much people's setups, my CPU will probably give 1 or 2 fps at the most over a 430M, and my SSD gives close to zero performance in games, other than quicker loading times. I think it's more to do with people's perceptions and expectations of what "playable" is. To me, a consistent 30+ fps is playable, whereas other people for some reason seem to think anything less than 60 is completely unplayable.

[cassiem1012]

I don't think it's so much people's setups, my CPU will probably give 1 or 2 fps at the most over a 430M, and my SSD gives close to zero performance in games, other than quicker loading times. I think it's more to do with people's perceptions and expectations of what "playable" is. To me, a consistent 30+ fps is playable, whereas other people for some reason seem to think anything less than 60 is completely unplayable.

This is true, ah I wish you could test run laptops against all your needs before buying them!

I've ordered mine now so no changing the screen - I think I'll be happy with the extra fps though so its not a prob.

Although is it easy to change the screen on these things - like to the HD, as I may be doing a bit of graphic design on it in the future and less gaming, so it would suit my needs more at a later date. I know you can sometimes do it yourself, does anyone know if it is possible on these laptops?

[ravenperch]

50 and 60 frame rates are used by the hdtv decoder in my TV. The resolution is in HD and has a specifically designed processor. people who say that anything below 60 is unplayable make me feel that they are wrong because I highly doubt they are playing at HDTV broadcast quality. besides can the human eye even see above(i'm not sure) 28 fps?

[Mythdat]

This is true, ah I wish you could test run laptops against all your needs before buying them!

I've ordered mine now so no changing the screen - I think I'll be happy with the extra fps though so its not a prob.

Although is it easy to change the screen on these things - like to the HD, as I may be doing a bit of graphic design on it in the future and less gaming, so it would suit my needs more at a later date. I know you can sometimes do it yourself, does anyone know if it is possible on these laptops?

I'm sure you can replace the screen, but I dont think it'd be an easy job, probably a bit fiddly!

50 and 60 frame rates are used by the hdtv decoder in my TV. The resolution is in HD and has a specifically designed processor. people who say that anything below 60 is unplayable make me feel that they are wrong because I highly doubt they are playing at HDTV broadcast quality. besides can the human eye even see above(i'm not sure) 28 fps?

The human eye not being able to see above 24/28/30 is a bit of a myth - we can't see the individual frames beyond that level, but there is still an improvement in terms of smoothness and responsiveness, especially when there's no smoothing to blend the frames together. But still, the idea that you need 60+ fps for something to be playable is just silly.

[Cakefish]

Laptop came back from "repair" and issue still is there! For some reason they decided to replace the hdd when the problem is with the wireless! It's a very minor problem and they've checked it all over so I guess it can't be hardware related fault. It probably isn't a fault at all. Wierd that it didn't happen with my old laptop or with my brother's one though. Just glad to have it back and I got some benefit - a complimentary cleaning cloth! Yay!

[zakoh]

With battery care on it doesn't make a lot of difference. Technically it's better for the battery if it's taken out for heat issues, but I just leave it in.



I don't think it's so much people's setups, my CPU will probably give 1 or 2 fps at the most over a 430M, and my SSD gives close to zero performance in games, other than quicker loading times. I think it's more to do with people's perceptions and expectations of what "playable" is. To me, a consistent 30+ fps is playable, whereas other people for some reason seem to think anything less than 60 is completely unplayable.

Well, I play only multiplayer first person shooters. I also enjoy sometimes to play on servers with small maps and +20 players. So it's guaranteed that in Urban Terror for example, half of such map will be covered in smoke and explosions (which shake whole screen). Smooth operation is essential there. If I play at 90fps but then there is a sudden firefight, the fps may easily drop to 60 fps, and I notice that and also adverse effects. But if normal fps is only 45 which may seem ok at first, if that drops to 25 in a firefight, the game can become borderline unplayable. So, for the games I play, I prefer to make sure that game runs at 100 fps without any players, then limit fps at around 83. Then the multilayer FPS oscillates around 65-83 resulting in a relatively smooth game play.

Maybe you're right about other 3D games. If there are no wild fluctuations in FPS during the game, then 35-40FPS is enough to play a game.

[ravenperch]

aww man, i'm such a retard, feel so miserable because i screwed up my (not even delivered) laptop configuration. I hope the hd5470 isnt like an integrated gpu, even though i wont really be playing games....dammet...say...

I tried something today, i turned off page filing on all of my hard drives and got a performance boost that you can actually see, stuff started working much quicker, i dont get it, if this is possible, then why the hell dosent the os use more ram even though its at 15% util?

[tausif]

Hi

Is a replacement keyboard available for the E series but with backlighting ?

[zakoh]

I searched the thread but the graphics software situation is still not clear to me. It seems like it is not possible to download from AMD and install the latest Radeon HD software suite (Control Center, driver, etc). So how do we go about getting the latest graphics driver and utilities. Does Sony provide them?


Also, somewhat related question. What kind of memory is sold with Vaios that have 5470 graphics with 512MB of ram? All I see in Catalyst is that it has 512MB and runs at 790Mhz.

[ravenperch]

I searched the thread but the graphics software situation is still not clear to me. It seems like it is not possible to download from AMD and install the latest Radeon HD software suite (Control Center, driver, etc). So how do we go about getting the latest graphics driver and utilities. Does Sony provide them?


Also, somewhat related question. What kind of memory is sold with Vaios that have 5470 graphics with 512MB of ram? All I see in Catalyst is that it has 512MB and runs at 790Mhz.

Download GPU-Z and run it. It should tell you everything. I hope you can reply back with what kind it is because I really hope Sony are giving out GDDR5 and I'm sure people with the 5470 would like to know.

Drivers:
The one at the AMD site is this one. its 10.6, which one are you looking for?