Mobile GPU Faceoff: AMD Dynamic Switchable Graphics vs. NVIDIA Optimus Technology
by Jarred Walton on September 20, 2011 6:40 AM ESTVideo Demonstrations
With all of the discussion of problems and UI issues, I felt the inclusion of some videos showing exactly what I experienced were in order. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then an 11 minute video ought to speak volumes, right? I’ve already covered most of the material, but I put together two videos, one showing various games and UI interactions on the Sony VAIO C and the second demonstrating similar use of the Acer TimelineX 3830TG. The first and likely more interesting video shows the gaming experience on the Sony laptop.
[Note: I’m still working on the Acer video; it should go up some time today, but there’s not a lot to see—the games I tested all run as expected.]
Again, without a different laptop, we can’t say how many of our complaints are specific to the Sony VAIO C and how many apply to AMD’s Dynamic Switchable Graphics in general. There haven’t been any major UI changes to AMD’s Catalyst Control Center lately, but there are almost certainly some performance, compatibility, and stability changes. Take the above video as a demonstration of what the Sony VAIO C delivers, and hopefully we’ll be able to test a more recent AMD driver in the near future.
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tipoo - Tuesday, September 20, 2011 - link
"The bigger issue of course is that AMD needs to get their laptop partners—Sony in this case—to release regular driver updates, and to use up-to-date driver builds when laptops launch."AMD now lets you get laptop drivers from their own site, and they are always as up to date as the desktop ones. Unless Sony opted out of that for whatever reason?
OCedHrt - Tuesday, September 20, 2011 - link
These drivers do not work for switchable graphics. nVidia had the same issue before Optimus.orangpelupa - Wednesday, September 21, 2011 - link
the driver is work for switchable graphic.my acer laptop with switchable intel + HD Mobility 5650 is updateable.
use the 11-8_mobility_vista_win7_64_dd_ccc.exe
not the a few KB .exe auto detector from ATi. This app is useless.
but if failed to install using the main almost 100MB .exe, usually it stil can be isntalled using modded .inf.
just make sure to Switch to dGPU mode before running any installation driver.
orangpelupa - Wednesday, September 21, 2011 - link
modded inf and the download link for mobility 11.8 generic ATihttp://wp.me/pyhfN-m1
The0ne - Wednesday, September 21, 2011 - link
I wouldn't say useless as the full package download refuses to installed properly on my M17xR2 and the only way for the driver to work is for me to use their auto detector and downloader. This for some reason downloads a slightly different package (size is less I believe) but it works.mfenn - Tuesday, September 20, 2011 - link
Did you even read the article? Jarred mentioned that they did on several occasions. Hell, he even devoted an entire page to the issue!mczak - Tuesday, September 20, 2011 - link
I'm wondering if you can still "make your own driver". This is exactly what I did for a Thinkpad T400 with switchable graphics, since the provided driver was so old and buggy. The "monolithic" driver isn't really all that monolithic, it basically consists of a standard AMD mobility driver (which you just can download if you have the real download link) plus a standard intel driver in the same package. Though the .inf file needs to be hacked up.(So I used an old switchable driver to see what the .inf looked like, plus a new intel and amd mobility driver to make up the new version - worked quite ok except some driver signing warnings, and some bogus mux-switching upon suspend/resume with multimon though I don't think this worked before neither.)
I'd venture a guess and suspect this would still work with the muxless solutions, but it's a huge pain in the ass obviously and AMD really needs to fix this and just have drivers which work on all mobile gpus, the OEMs will NEVER get it right otherwise, they won't care if AMD gives them new drivers monthly or not they will simply not bother to supply updated drivers.
bjacobson - Tuesday, September 20, 2011 - link
even if they up to date, that's no guarantee that they're going to work for the first 6 or so months. I've never had much luck getting everything on AMD to work the first time-- crossfire with dual monitors doesn't work on 2x 5770 with Quake Wars : Enemy Territory (had to disable the 2nd display); alt-tab still doesn't work in Unreal Tournament 3 without crashing the game (not in crossfire, just 1x4890); and it took them several months after switching their user interface to that new one to package back in the under/overscan ability on the embedded graphics that came on the motherboard we used for our HTPC...just lots of stuff that's always 95% complete with 5% broken that ends up being really annoying.IE, I wouldn't be surprised if somewhere in between suspend, hibernate, plugging in an external monitor, and this dynamic GPU solution, that something won't work quite right for about 6 months...but that's just my gut speaking judging by what I've seen before. I'm a big fan of underdogs and still cheer for AMD, but I do have to say Nvidia's drivers (since about 8800GT which is as early as my experience goes) have simply worked with all those quirky setups we needed and didn't end up breaking later when installing an updated driver.
OCedHrt - Wednesday, September 21, 2011 - link
I've always had to overscan/underscan available as an option for integrated graphics for the last 2 years+. Yet I've always had problems with nVidia, especially on stability. I don't think the stability is always tied directly to the gpu and drivers.Aloonatic - Tuesday, September 20, 2011 - link
Is that just for more recent mobility radeon systems?Just the other day, I was looking to update a laptop with a 4570, but it wouldn't update anything other than the good old CCC.
(I was a Dell Studio 17, by the way :o) )