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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fynamo - Wednesday, September 21, 2011 - link
Tried all of the driver tweaks, forced browsers hw accel, all to no avail. Firefox and Chrome both will use only IGP despite forcing them in NVIDIA control panel.In reality, most people aren't going to notice CSS3 sluggishness because very few sites actually employ CSS3 currently. But as a developer of bleeding-edge apps that are indeed using CSS3, and which we are also developing for mobile, I am HIGHLY sensitive to performance.
As stated - on Optimus, css3 performance sucks. On AMD, css3 performance is orders of magnitude better.
The other issue is with resizing and dragging windows. I noticed that the "SYSTEM" process in Task Manager (Windows 7 64) spikes to use a single full CPU core while resizing or dragging a window, and the drag / move animation slows to ~10 FPS or less. I did NOT have this problem on my "old" Radeon 3670 machine.
The same tests on a desktop, also with Windows 7 64 and with a Radeon 6850 (no IGP), show liquid-smooth and no CPU spike.
I've tested multiple Optimus systems and all have this problem, but my tests with AMD systems have yielded good results each time.
Spazweasel - Tuesday, September 20, 2011 - link
When people ask why I stick with nVidia graphics cards, this article sums up all my reasons well:1. nVidia for many years has done a much better job of delivering timely driver updates, better driver stability, and multi-GPU scaling. SLI "just works". Crossfire is a crapshoot.
2. I have never had a problem with a game that was related to an nVidia driver. I cannot say the same of AMD.
3. AMD certainly has somewhat faster hardware at a given price point, but that doesn't matter if the games crash, if the driver UI sucks, or they can't get their partners to deliver what few driver updates there are.
4. I have many friends and acquaintances in the gaming industry. Without exception, they have reported that nVidia is much, much easier to deal with and is more responsive to the concerns of game developers than AMD. nVidia will often give you some of their own engineer-time to help you work through a problem, while AMD's response is "RTFM, go away, stop bothering us". This is likely why games have fewer driver-related issues upon initial release with nVidia than AMD; nVidia will help you before your game is on the market (and include the necessary changes to their drivers in advance of the game's release), while AMD is unresponsive during development, and often well into retail.
Secondarily, never buy a Sony computing product. You'd better be happy with the drivers that come with it, because you're not going to see new ones. Over the years I've had two laptops made by Sony, and both were orphaned within 18 months of purchase (driver updates on OSs which were current when the product was new stopped, and newer OSs never got a driver at all). Sony is terrible at ongoing driver support, regardless of what the hardware category (video, audio, input device, peripheral connection hardware) is. I've come to the conclusion that there is nothing software-related which Sony can get right, on either a technical nor ethical basis, and that planned obsolescence through early termination of software support is explicitly part of their business strategy.
My most recent AMD experience is a 4870, which was (and is) fast, loud, and unstable. I've thought about a 6570 for an HTPC, mostly for thermal reasons and packaging reasons (if you want a quiet, cool video card capable of moderate detail-level gaming to feed a 720p TV that is low-profile, you're pretty much limited to AMD), so it's about time for me to see if anything's changed. In the meantime, for my heavy-duty gaming machine, it's nVidia and will remain so until AMD's driver team gets its act together, regardless of how nice AMD's hardware is. Seriously, the hardware team at AMD needs to put the beat-down on the Catalyst guys; the driver team is making everyone look bad.
tecknurd - Wednesday, September 21, 2011 - link
I completely agree. ATI never wrote reliable and stable drivers. Also they gave me a run-around by saying to update to the latest drivers which I did at the time, but the graphic drivers still crashed my setup. Now AMD owns ATI and they have the same faults as ATI. People say that Radeon graphics is good, but this article shows they do not care for reliability and stability which are require for GUI.I switched to nVidia because of poor driver support from ATI. Also poor driver support in Linux for Radeon graphics. IMHO, the open source community does a better job writing drivers for Radeon graphics compared to AMD.
I would buy AMD for their CPU but not for their graphics.
chinedooo - Wednesday, September 21, 2011 - link
haha the dv6t with a 6770m would kill all these other laptops. And it switches perfectly too. I get like 6-7 hrs web browsing on mine.chinedooo - Wednesday, September 21, 2011 - link
Another difference between the two is the vram. the 6700 series uses gddr5. makes a world of difference.Hrel - Wednesday, September 21, 2011 - link
"and the user can add their own custom apps". Does this mean we can pick and choose if the dgpu is on or off on a per app basis? I spoke to Nvidia and they said you CAN do that in the Nvidia control panel. I just don't know how. I have the Clevo P151HM laptop, so maybe the option isn't even there on mine. I'd still like you guys to tell us how to do this, assuming it's possible.Side note, I'm annoyed this laptop only accepts drivers from Clevo, and not from Nvidia.
tanjo - Wednesday, September 21, 2011 - link
3 years and it's still not working properly???The best solution is to add ultra low power 2D power state on dGPUs.
orangpelupa - Wednesday, September 21, 2011 - link
actually you can install GENERIC driver from ATi to update the laptop with switchable graphic.just dont use the auto detect app from ATi. it useless. always decline to download the driver....
i have been long time using Acer with Intel + Radeon HD 5650. i can always update the ATi driver using generic from ati website.
for acer i just install the 11-8_mobility_vista_win7_64_dd_ccc.exe
but if the installer decline to install, you can update while using modded inf
http://game.bramantya.org/modded-inf-ati-mobility-... (sorry have not uploaded the 11.8 modded inf)
if still failed, can update manually from device manager.
just make sure before doing any update with "generic" driver is graphic switched to dGPU mode from the shortcut in right click menu in desktop.
that updating generic, work old laptop with "screen flicker when switch graphic". so i dont know if its work with the new dynamic switching ATi.
Anyone with this new DYNAMIC switching want to try?
my2cents - Wednesday, September 21, 2011 - link
Just my 2 cents. I was searching around web and found site, some blog, where some dude is creating ATI + Intel switchable graphics. I own myself a Vaio VPC-SA2S9R. Just google "leshcat_dot_blogspot_dot_com". Works good so far.RenderB - Wednesday, September 21, 2011 - link
Sadly the nvidia tool isn't doing much better. Have the same optimus config as tested, but from asus. The auto detect will always tell me to go get drivers from clearcube.