W500 vs T500 (V5700 vs. 3650)

[4ckatro]

Hi there!

I had these two laptop:

Thinkpad W500 4058-cto Full HD display, V5700+GMA, 6GB DDR3 ram, 2 GB turbocache, D2C T9400 6MB cache

Thinkpad T500 2055-cto 1680x1050, Ati 3650+GMA, 4GB DDR2 ram, D2C P8600 3MB cache

And i had a problem. My first laptop was the T500 and i had a chance to buy a w500 on a discount price. So i bought it. And when i got it i though it would be a minimal better than the T500 but first run it wouldnt. I played UT3 on T500 and every option was on max (res 1680x1050). Then i tried this game on the w500 and i found it significantly slower on the same setting.

What should be the problem?

Theoretically the V5700 card has 512 MB of ram which is the double than ATI 3650. And it has a better CPU and + 2GB ram so i do not know why is it slower.

I think it would be a driver problem what do you think? (i used 2011.04.xx offical switchable driver)

I found an article and it wrote the W500 driver is optimized to openGL is it true?
If yes are there any modded driver ( forced 3650 driver) to V5700?

Thanks for any reply.

Best regards,

Robert

[dr_st]

The V5700 is exactly the same GPU as 3650, and with double the RAM it should be at minimum not worse.

First of all make sure you are also using the same resolution and the same video settings (and didn't accidentally bumped it to 1920x1200 which the W500 display supports).

Assuming the resolution is the same, then I think you are right on the money with the driver being the culprit.

FireGL drivers are optimized for CAM/CAD and other professional graphics applications, and not for games, and they are optimized for stability instead of performance.

Try installing a Radeon driver.

[4ckatro]

I used the same resolution (1680x1050).

Which Radeon driver what you recommend?

[richk]

Is the W500 really a UXGA display (1920X1600)? Forcing WSXGA+ on a UXGA screen will require a lot of extra mapping.

[dr_st]

Forcing WSXGA+ on a UXGA screen will require a lot of extra mapping.

This mapping is done by the screen itself, not by the GPU.

[4ckatro]

The win7 recognize 1900x1200 max resolution so i think this is the manufacture res. Isnt this?

And as i write i used the same resolution on UT3 with T500 and with w500. Every option was same so that is why i asked why slower the w500 than t500.

I cant find any newer driver for the v5700. With ATI mobility 3650 driver the windows gets error. Any other recommendation?

[4ckatro]

Issue solved!

Power play was on while i tried the W500. That cause the preformance throw-back.
The V5700 is much more better than 3650.

[JohnD.]

Dear 4ckatro,

I am happy that you solved your issue. Can you help me understand what you did to solve the issue?

Thank you,
John

[4ckatro]

I tested the T500 and W500 with the Unreal Tournament 3 game.
First the W500 proved to be slower than T500.
But yesterday i found a PowerPlay option on ATI Catalyst Control Center and it was switched to battery maximization (on charge) which is underclock the GPU frequency.
When i switched to Performance Maximization the game runs faster and smoother.
Then i tried Starcraft 2 and i can got a High-Ultra High game settings with good framerates.
With T500 i can got only Mid-High game settings for playable framerates.

[JohnD.]

Dear 4ckatro,

Thank you for responding.

Can you post a link to the version of the ATI Catalyst Control Center software that you installed on your w500 machine?

Thank you for your help and time,
John

[4ckatro]

I used the newes Switchable driver form lenovo site:

http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc ... d618ww.exe

And it is installing the version of CCC 2011.1127.2242.40657.
Its works well.

I had an other issue with the resolution. If i change the res below the native res i got black cover around the display. The scaling option isnt work so i serach after this problem and i found i should install a 3650 driver.
So i forced a 3650 driver to V5700.
I choosed this driver:

10-8_mobility_vista_win7_64_dd_ccc
2010.08.03
8.762.0.0

But if you dont have any scale problem you should use the 2011 V5700 driver.

[JohnD.]

Dear 4ckatro,

Thank you for the link!

I installed the software this morning and it's running good. It's interesting that it was not part of the Rescue and Recovery (or Installation Disk) when I re-installed Vista then upgraded to Win7 Pro.

Thanks again and have a great day my friend.

John