Thinkpads Forum

I seem to be getting poor graphics performance on my switchable T400 no matter what I do. I have checked the power profiles and they are set correctly and i have checked GPU and CPU frequencies and they are both maxed out as expected. But yet games like GTA IV and Minecraft run at mediocre speed on my laptop. I can barely ever get smooth performance.

Any tips? I heard that there are some better drivers out there but I am not sure what quite to look for. These are my specs.

Intel Core 2 Duo P8600
8 GB 1066 MHZ RAM, both are the same brands.
ATI Radeon HD 3400M
Samsung SSD 840 EVO 250 GB

Cheers

Nothing of significance. It's just not a powerful chip.

precip9 wrote:Nothing of significance. It's just not a powerful chip.

Not helpful mate. The minimum requirements for GTA IV is a ATI Radeon X1400 and a 1.8 GHZ dual core. My laptop more than surpasses it in specs.

I've uninstalled the 3rd party driver that I had and I let windows install the stock one from Windows Update. GTA IV now runs MUCH better. However Minecraft will not run due to the lack of OpenGL.

Have you tried installing the video driver from Lenovo Support? Also just curious but is your switchable graphics working while in OS or do you have to set it manually in BIOS?

What OS are we discussing here to begin with?

Windows 7 64bit

emeraldgirl08 wrote:Have you tried installing the video driver from Lenovo Support? Also just curious but is your switchable graphics working while in OS or do you have to set it manually in BIOS?

I have it manually set to dedicated graphics in the BIOS. I have tried downloading the drivers from the ATI website and they seem to work much better now. I seem to get the 80fps peaks in minecraft again (vanilla) and GTA IV is now playable in 1024x768. Maybe this resolved my issue, I can not remember what driver I had installed previously.

To get the graphics switching working and using the latest drivers, first install the Lenovo switchable graphics driver. Then use the AMD gpu driver update tool to get the ATI/AMD part of the Lenovo driver package up to date. The AMD drivers that Lenovo used as part of their switchable graphics driver are quite old.

To get more performance, overclock your GPU:
1. Install TPFanControl version .062. Setting the fan speed to maximum will let you cool off the GPU better so that you can get it clocked higher.
2. Download the latest version of GPUZ. This will tell you lots of information about your GPU and will let you make sure that it is running how you want it.
3. Download the TechPowerUp GPUTool to overclock the GPU. Set the fan speed to maximum and then you can use the program to manually determine the max GPU and RAM speeds, or you can set the program to do it automatically.

Don't worry. You can't hurt anything that a reboot can't solve. You will probably see more gains if you changed out the thermal paste for something better. By overclocking I increased the performance of my T500's HD3650 by close to 50%.

Hi, this is my first post and this is post with problem...

I upgrade driver from instruction of Qing Dao, all is good to first reboot. CCC cannot find the driver. I Doesn't upgrade the CCC but I'll do it.


EDIT: It works, but i must turn off driver signature enforcement. Little price for the best driver for this graphic card

Best Redgards!