graphics performance from T41p nothing special.

[Jonathan Cordery]

The T41p is equipped with aN ATI mobility fire gl t2 graphics chip but does not seem to perform any faster than laptops that have lower specification chips.

I use many gis-like software packages and one of the reasons I bought this computer was for its graphics capability. Do I have to configure it to fit with the particular graphics package I am using or can I tweak it to perform faster?

[Jonathan Cordery]

It's a 2373GGG by the way.

[Torque]

I have a 2374-GGG. It runs every CAD application I can throw at it. Along with some 3D games: Half-Life 2, World of Warcraft, NFSU2 etc.

The 9600 mobility and FirGL T2 are quite alike performanc wise. Only real difference is, that the fireGL is CAD certified.

What are you comparing the T41p's graphics chipset with?

[holr]

this is kind of off topic, but as torque said, the firegl t2 is like a 9600. Torque, what, if any, could you compare the ATI Mobility FireGL V3200 in the t43p to for comparisons sake?

[Jonathan Cordery]

Yes my T41p runs high end 3d GIS software, of course it does, just no faster than other lower specification machines. A colleague of mine has a HP 1.4 gigahertz p4 processor laptop with an ATI graphics chip (my T41p has a 1.7 gigahertz processor) and his machine runs identical software lightning fast compared to mine.

[ragefury32]

Yes my T41p runs high end 3d GIS software, of course it does, just no faster than other lower specification machines. A colleague of mine has a HP 1.4 gigahertz p4 processor laptop with an ATI graphics chip (my T41p has a 1.7 gigahertz processor) and his machine runs identical software lightning fast compared to mine.

That can be due to a variety of reasons. Does your collegue have more memory? A better formatted dataset? Is the software compiled/tuned/optimized to run faster on NetBurst architecture CPUs? (The P4/P4ms are NetBurst. The Pentium-Ms are not) Don't assume it's all your video chipset's fault.

[tom2517]

what ATI graphic chip does your friend have? A Pentium-M 1.7 should be faster than a P4 1.4, if you were just comparing cpu.

[Steve007]

what ATI graphic chip does your friend have? A Pentium-M 1.7 should be faster than a P4 1.4, if you were just comparing cpu.

Yes in theory, but P4's have a lot of raw power and are great number crunchers.

[Jonathan Cordery]

Both my and my friends laptop have 512 mb RAM.

[Jonathan Cordery]

... and the graphic chip is a lower specification than mine. I can't remember the exact model number but i remember it has being lower than the one in my machine, they are both FIRE GL T2 though.

[Jonathan Cordery]

Sorry, my mistake, his is a 9600 mobility and mine is a FIRE GL T2.

[K. Eng]

This makes no sense. A 1.4 GHz Pentium 4 was never available for notebooks. My guess is that it is a 2.6 GHz Pentium 4-M that scales down to 1.4 GHz at idle.

It is pretty much impossible for us to figure out the reason for the performance difference without knowing the exact configuration of the machines and without knowing what a "lighting" fast difference means. We need numbers - like 30 seconds faster at task x, etc.

Pentium 4 generally has very fast SSE2 floating point performance due to its high clockspeed and the fact that FP code generally has few branches. Pentium 4-M generally has poor real-world integer performance relative to Pentium M because of its smaller cache, longer pipelines, and inferior branch prediction unit.

what ATI graphic chip does your friend have? A Pentium-M 1.7 should be faster than a P4 1.4, if you were just comparing cpu.

Yes in theory, but P4's have a lot of raw power and are great number crunchers.

[Jonathan Cordery]

K. Eng, the exact word i used was 'lightNing fast'.

I can`t tell you exactly how much faster it was because i don't have the software or the knowledge to do that. The fact that i can easily tell the difference between the performance between my computer (which cost me over $6,000!!) and my friends (which would have cost at the most $1,500) on exactly the same datasets is more than enough.

The chip in my friends laptop is 1.4 GHZ, I know this because we checked it in the system option on control panel, this is about the limit to my knowledge of computer hardware research by the way! The sticker on the laptop said pentium 4. I didn't know there was such a subtle difference between P4's and P4m's but that is just my ingorance and i apologise for the confusion.

Perhaps there are contributing factors such as Norton running in the background or the problems alluded to by ragefury32.

[K. Eng]

Sorry, I mistyped that word in my haste to get more information.

To find out the exact type of CPU, use the following program:

http://support.intel.com/support/processors/tools/piu/

[ragefury32]

K. Eng, the exact word i used was 'lightNing fast'.

I can`t tell you exactly how much faster it was because i don't have the software or the knowledge to do that. The fact that i can easily tell the difference between the performance between my computer (which cost me over $6,000!!) and my friends (which would have cost at the most $1,500) on exactly the same datasets is more than enough.

The chip in my friends laptop is 1.4 GHZ, I know this because we checked it in the system option on control panel, this is about the limit to my knowledge of computer hardware research by the way! The sticker on the laptop said pentium 4. I didn't know there was such a subtle difference between P4's and P4m's but that is just my ingorance and i apologise for the confusion.

Perhaps there are contributing factors such as Norton running in the background or the problems alluded to by ragefury32.

Well, just keep in mind these things:

a) Some steppings of the T4xp series are known to have thermal throttling problems, and in fact, during heavy gaming or number crunching sessions some owners either undervolt their CPU/GPU combinations to lower the heat generation (which would result in power downs and mandatory clockdowns, which is seriously bad for performance), place their machines on active cooling pads, or remove the Ultrabay slim drive to allow more ventilation. Or you could simply be running a power profile in Battery MaxiMizer that underclocks your machine over aggressively. All those angles are discussed within the pages of this forum.

b) If you are running a "corporate build" of your OS, your OS image might have certain utilities or software packages added that might rob you of some efficiency. Have a ninja techie (one that can eyeball spyware/crudware/lousy utils) eyeball your machine, and turn off the extra eye candy if you can. You can dramatically improve the snappiness of your machine rather easily sometimes by switching themes. Just remember that running XP Service Pack 2 and the latest WindowsUpdates will almost always result in you having a slightly slower machine. That's just a fact of life. But then, your machine will be more stable and less prone to trouble later on.

c) Well, there are Northwood-P4m steppings at 1400MHz, and there are Williamette P4 desktop CPUs found in certain early rushed-out-of-production P4 notebooks, so I would not be surprised at all...although if your friend has a Radeon M10 (9600 Mo) I would be surprised if that CPU isn't either a P4m, or a Pentium-M Banias just like yours. In all seriousness and due respect, I don't trust Windows System Info page too much. So yeah, if your friend does have an HP with a Pentium 4, it might be just that the software on their end is NetBurst Optimized. Or it can simply be a recently defragged file system. You can be surprised how tuning one little thing can repay you significantly.

d) I am probably not going to be the first or the last person here to admit this, but I didn't buy my Thinkpads because they are fast. Your typical IBM's performance is actually rather pedestrian, and I think most readers here will readily agree. I bought them because they have good, light, well-thought-out durable designs, their keyboard/pointers are comfortable, they have a warranty worth printing out, if anything goes wrong I know that eBay have tons of spare parts, the hardware maintenance manuals are readily available and are not difficult to figure out, and that when I call IBM/Lenovo Tech support the person on the other side will most likely not have a funny accent or are reading from a binder (IBM techs are fairly competent from my dealings with them, especially when compared to Dell Consumer (mediocre), HP (erk) or Sony ITSEL (Not worth the phone call). And oh yeah. 3 year NBD EasyServ. Worth every penny.
The difference between the IBM and the HP is not readily apparent until something goes wrong...and when it does, oh, you would be glad that Thinkpad logo is working on your side. Oh well, if you want a fast machine, there is the Dell Inspiron 9300s, but they are not OpenGL certified and their keyboard feels like glued chiclets.

[Jonathan Cordery]

Thanks Mr ragefury 32, you have raised some points that are new to me.

Don't feel the need to reply to these points I'm just noting them for the record.

a) Yes I have noticed that my machine does get slightly hot when running graphics hungry software (although I have never played games) and I'll check which battery maximiser profile I am using.

b) The OS is as shipped. There is no "corporate build". I do have XP service pack 2 and all the latest Windows Updates.

c) For quite a few months now my file system hasn't needed defragging (according to the windows defragger, anyway).

d) It is certainly news to me that IBM laptops are considered to be slower than some but there you go. Absolutely spot on about the keyboard though. I still like IBM laptops and would probably buy another one when this one conks out in about 2 years time.

I'll track down one of those "ninja techies" asap, I wonder if mexico has them. I'm sending my machine to IBM soon to get the screen replaced (a five pixel sized blob appeared in the south-central part overnight!) so perhaps they could trawl the machine for any nasties.

Gracias.

[gpvillamil]

Yes my T41p runs high end 3d GIS software, of course it does, just no faster than other lower specification machines. A colleague of mine has a HP 1.4 gigahertz p4 processor laptop with an ATI graphics chip (my T41p has a 1.7 gigahertz processor) and his machine runs identical software lightning fast compared to mine.

Does the GIS software actually use the GPU at all? For the graphics processor to make any difference, the software would have to be making Direct3D or OpenGL calls. Otherwise, it is just down to the CPU.

I use quite a lot of software that simply won't run on anything below the spec of a T41p. Some of the video processing software that I use will run 10x faster on my T41p than it will on another laptop with a faster CPU, but no ATI graphics.

[tom2517]

d) I am probably not going to be the first or the last person here to admit this, but I didn't buy my Thinkpads because they are fast. Your typical IBM's performance is actually rather pedestrian, and I think most readers here will readily agree. I bought them because they have good, light, well-thought-out durable designs, their keyboard/pointers are comfortable, they have a warranty worth printing out, if anything goes wrong I know that eBay have tons of spare parts, the hardware maintenance manuals are readily available and are not difficult to figure out, and that when I call IBM/Lenovo Tech support the person on the other side will most likely not have a funny accent or are reading from a binder (IBM techs are fairly competent from my dealings with them, especially when compared to Dell Consumer (mediocre), HP (erk) or Sony ITSEL (Not worth the phone call). And oh yeah. 3 year NBD EasyServ. Worth every penny.
The difference between the IBM and the HP is not readily apparent until something goes wrong...and when it does, oh, you would be glad that Thinkpad logo is working on your side. Oh well, if you want a fast machine, there is the Dell Inspiron 9300s, but they are not OpenGL certified and their keyboard feels like glued chiclets.[/quote]


I will second that. IBM never has the best spec. in terms of CPU and GPU. Especially the GPU part, which is why 3D performance always lag behing competition. But I didn't buy IBM for it's graphic performance, rather I bought it for stability and support, and oh yeah, the keyboard.

[STS06]

But having said that, they can still perform up to par if not above. I mean yeah we want stability and a good machine but part of what a good machine is, is its capabilities...thats the bottom line. I mean sure, you can have a lightweight tank...but if it cant perform, it utterly useless. Lets just say that the reason we get IBMs is because they balance computer power/capability, strong and lightweight build, and customer support better than the rest. Dell 9300 will outperform most IBMs (at leas thte GPU) but Dell's build nor customer support is as great as IBM's.


Funny, I have two dell desktops and i remember as far back as 1998 and 1999 calling them for help. I could reach a technician or customer support rep within 5 to 10 minutes. I called back half a week ago and it took me 45 minutes to reach em...its grown so large. This is just a note, all companies are prone to this..