Gaming Performance
...And after only a few moments of attempting to run games on the X3100, we were left very disappointed. So disappointed, in fact, that there will be no charts on this page -- and you know how much we love charts! Driver support is definitely lacking right now, and Intel is apparently only now reaching the beta level with their drivers, at least in terms of gaming support. The latest nonpublic drivers apparently support Battlefield 2 among other things, but with the public drivers on pretty much every game we loaded we had to reduce the detail levels to the absolute minimum in order to get acceptable performance. Once that was done, though, quite a few games became playable.
Company of Heroes was one of the surprises, as we could enable all of the graphics options and the game still worked. It averaged about 3 FPS at 1280x800 (and as much as 7 FPS at 800x600) but with many of the more recent titles refusing to run at all we were surprised we got that far. Dropping Company of Heroes to minimum details allowed barely acceptable performance at 1024x768 (24 FPS).
We also managed to run Quake 4, even at high detail settings... but with average frame rates hovering around 2 FPS. Setting all detail levels to the minimum and running at 640x480 resulted in the game almost being playable -- frame rates reached 15 FPS! The same goes for Far Cry: we could run it at all of the various detail settings, but performance was terrible unless we used minimum detail levels. At minimum details, however, frame rates reached almost 25 FPS (even at 1280x800) and you could at least struggle through the game that way if you were desperate.
The list of titles that didn't work properly is quite a bit longer. Oblivion, Supreme Commander, Battlefield 2, Battlefield 2142, F.E.A.R. all failed to run at all. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. actually worked, and at minimum details it could choke out frame rates in the low teens, but it didn't appear to be fully stable and it certainly wasn't what we would consider playable. The Half-Life 2 engine games had some strange behavior where they defaulted to software-based DX9 rendering and they wouldn't let us change the rendering mode.
Long story short, the drivers definitely need more work to even run many games at very low detail settings. Titles that don't leverage any pixel/vertex shaders generally fared better, and of course Windows Vista did manage to run the Aero Glass theme without any difficulties. The bottom line, however, is that the graphics are more suited to business work than anything else. And, honestly, there's nothing wrong with that; as long as people don't go into the purchase expecting GMA X3100 graphics to provide a great DirectX 9 experience, they should be okay. If you want even basic gaming support, you really should spend the extra money for the GeForce 8400M upgrade.
...And after only a few moments of attempting to run games on the X3100, we were left very disappointed. So disappointed, in fact, that there will be no charts on this page -- and you know how much we love charts! Driver support is definitely lacking right now, and Intel is apparently only now reaching the beta level with their drivers, at least in terms of gaming support. The latest nonpublic drivers apparently support Battlefield 2 among other things, but with the public drivers on pretty much every game we loaded we had to reduce the detail levels to the absolute minimum in order to get acceptable performance. Once that was done, though, quite a few games became playable.
Company of Heroes was one of the surprises, as we could enable all of the graphics options and the game still worked. It averaged about 3 FPS at 1280x800 (and as much as 7 FPS at 800x600) but with many of the more recent titles refusing to run at all we were surprised we got that far. Dropping Company of Heroes to minimum details allowed barely acceptable performance at 1024x768 (24 FPS).
We also managed to run Quake 4, even at high detail settings... but with average frame rates hovering around 2 FPS. Setting all detail levels to the minimum and running at 640x480 resulted in the game almost being playable -- frame rates reached 15 FPS! The same goes for Far Cry: we could run it at all of the various detail settings, but performance was terrible unless we used minimum detail levels. At minimum details, however, frame rates reached almost 25 FPS (even at 1280x800) and you could at least struggle through the game that way if you were desperate.
The list of titles that didn't work properly is quite a bit longer. Oblivion, Supreme Commander, Battlefield 2, Battlefield 2142, F.E.A.R. all failed to run at all. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. actually worked, and at minimum details it could choke out frame rates in the low teens, but it didn't appear to be fully stable and it certainly wasn't what we would consider playable. The Half-Life 2 engine games had some strange behavior where they defaulted to software-based DX9 rendering and they wouldn't let us change the rendering mode.
Long story short, the drivers definitely need more work to even run many games at very low detail settings. Titles that don't leverage any pixel/vertex shaders generally fared better, and of course Windows Vista did manage to run the Aero Glass theme without any difficulties. The bottom line, however, is that the graphics are more suited to business work than anything else. And, honestly, there's nothing wrong with that; as long as people don't go into the purchase expecting GMA X3100 graphics to provide a great DirectX 9 experience, they should be okay. If you want even basic gaming support, you really should spend the extra money for the GeForce 8400M upgrade.
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JarredWalton - Friday, June 22, 2007 - link
They shipped the notebook with an ABG adapter (test setup on page 7). Of course, I don't have an N network right now anyway... GbE all the way, baby!nsparadox - Friday, June 22, 2007 - link
Hey Jarred,You wrote the entire article in the passive voice. Could you please try to write in the active voice?
crimson117 - Friday, June 22, 2007 - link
I would prefer the future perfect voice.JarredWalton - Friday, June 22, 2007 - link
Can't say I was necessarily 100% awake while writing it. Sorry if it was too passive for you. Perhaps in a perfect future I will manage to rewrite things better, maybe?bldckstark - Friday, June 22, 2007 - link
Thanks for the article guys, I am sure many other AT readers appreciate the work you hav put in on notebooks recently.I would like to see some more tests done on what I like to call "real world" notebooks. The ones I see most people buying for mobility purposes. These usually have 10 - 13" screens and have everything this HP has except the horrid battery life.
I just bought my wife a Lenovo notebook with a Vista business, Intel C2D, 2GB ram, DVD burner, 3 USB 2.0, 1 Firewire, Express card slot, flash memory reader, webcam, fingerprint reader, 6 cell battery and a 12.1" screen for only $1250 after rebate. This one gets 255 minutes of battery life and weighs only 4.4lbs with the 6 cell.
A friend at work has a 10" screen notebook that gets over 8 hours of battery life. He carries it around like a pad of paper all day.
I know several people with convertibles that love them, and they all have 12.1" screens.
My point is that if it has a 15.4" screen it is really a DTR, and should be outfitted like one. Not like a high mobility at the same price, worse battery life, and 50% weight increase. Please try to squeeze some of these into your testing in the future.
JarredWalton - Friday, June 22, 2007 - link
We actually have a smaller Tablet PC that we're in the process of reviewing. I think part of the problem is that companies are afraid we'll tear into the lappys that don't have great gaming performance or whatever. Hopefully, we'll be able to do more ultraportable laptop reviews in the future....