Notebook nVidia SLI users being short changed?

[Guyver1]

Love your gaming?, love going to LAN partiess to meet your online buddies for gaming and socialising fun and games?

Tired of having to strip down your cumbersome desktop rig, pack it into the car with cushions and blankets for padding?

Thinking of buying a premium SLI gaming laptop to get all the benefits of the powerful SLI format but gain the portability of a notebook solution?

STOP!!!

Things are not as rosey as the manufacturers/nvidia make out, read on to find out why...

I myself was in this very situation not 6 months ago, I wanted the portability, but didn't want my framerates dropping of the face of the earth.

(I've been clan leader of probably the longest running Unreal clan in europe [DOA], the clan has been in competitive gaming since 1999)

I waited a few months as the Alienware m9750 was on the horizon and due for release. While i was killing time i searched and researched all i could on other laptop manufacturers who produced SLI notebooks.

I was in the fortunate position of money not being an obstacle so it merely came down to spec/gaming performance.

The m9750 clinched the deal on those 2 factors, and was ordered on UK release day with XP Pro, costing £2324.

Having previously owned an Acer 9303 laptop i was already familiar with the LaptopVideo2Go website and their modded INF files that allow laptop owners to install the latest nvidia forceware drivers.

Nothing was to prepare for the sheer frustration and annoyance of owning a SLI laptop....

Firstly from research ALL SLI laptop vendors GPU drivers are woefully out of date. To Alienware's credit they do use the most upto date (v94.23)

Fine i thought, I'll just pop along to LaptopVideo2Go and get the latest drivers. Off i pop, download, install... no SLI. hmmm, tried some other versions, still the same, either i got a black screen after installation or the SLI section in the control panel told me that although i had 2 cards installed i needed to install a second PCI express lane of 4x speed or more.

What was going on? Google is your friend, reading around and digging deeper into the hardware showed up that to get SLI to work on non nVidia nForce chipsets requires 2 things, in the case of the m9750, a special nForce n100 chip and some 'unlocked' drivers from nvidia.

You see it turns out that nVidia appears to keep to maintaining a monopoly on what hardware you can actually run SLI successfully on, they wont allow SLI to work on desktop chipsets that arent their own nForce SLI chipsets. They do this by 'locking' their ForceWare drivers. How does this apply to laptop users? Well, nVidia dont produce a suitable chipset for the notebook market currently, so 'begrudgingly' they allow other chipset manufacturers SLI access through a special chip and special 'unlocked' drivers.

As is obvious to anyone who has owned a laptop for any length of time, nVidia are notorious for contradiction, on the one hand they tout their ForceWare drivers as this wonderful 'unified driver architecture', one driver package for all our hardware, then, underhandedly, 'lock' their drivers to not allow certain hardware and all laptop GPUs access to the installation process (thankfully the mobile GPU's lockout is a simple .INF fix).

I have emailed both nVidia and Alienware asking for help on updating my GPU drivers to allow me to play the latest titles such as Bioshock, UT3, COD4, Crysis etc with improved performance and bug fixes, SLI profiles etc.

Nvidia stonewalled me with a vague response, Alienware tech support have told me that they have uprated my request to the driver team, but I've been told that they dont update drivers unless certain applications crash, have noticable bugs... Absolutely no recognition that poor framerates, stuttering is a bug in itself and reason enough to update your driver package.

I have asked Alienware why do they not update their drivers in sequence with new nvidia forceware releases (i am awaiting a response). While this is not really relevant to the majority of the laptop market, when you spend £2000+ for a premium 'gaming' laptop you expect to be able to get drivers that improve performance on the new games as they become released. Nvidia themselves have released 2 driver packages specifically targeting improving performance in new titles (the 'bioshock' drivers and the new 'timeshift' drivers).

If you own a SLI laptop it is worth a recap:

1. only vendor supplied drivers work proplery as they are special 'unlocked' drivers supplied by nvidia. (im not 100% on this, but from my own experience and research this appears to be the case, feel free to let me know if you've got non vendor supplied drivers to work on a SLI lappy)

2. SLI only works because nVidia provide a special chip to allow a non nVidia nForce chipset to access SLI

So who is responsible? Ultimately nVidia make the GPUs. They provide the drivers and code to make them work in the OS, yet email (if you can find an email address on their website these days) them and they will more than likely tell you that it's nothing to do with them and you should contact your vendor. Contact your vendor and they will tell that they only update drivers when an application doesn't work or crashes forcing them to update.

As a customer who paid a substantial sum of money for a 'premium gaming' product I am really dissapointed and frustrated.

In an effort to gain greater knowledge I started a thread for GeForce Go 7950 GTX SLI users HERE.

In it it outlines everything i have discovered so far, what drivers work, which dont, hardware reasons, driver 'locking' and also helping some people with various other 'issues'.

If you have any comments, if you own a SLI laptop and have your own experiences, if you've found any workarounds, then please contribute to the above forum thread.

What happens now?

If you own a SLI laptop I ask every one of you to email, write to both nVidia and your vendor to complain about this situation. It is a situation that denies the customer the one thing they bought the laptop for in the first place... performance!

As a customer it is apparent to me that if you sell and advertise a 'premium gaming SLI' laptop that your market will be hardcore gamers willing to spend upwards of £1500. These customers demand the best performance by their very nature of being serious enough about gaming to buy a £2000 laptop! Personally i find it incredibly bad business to take someones money and then provide no driver updates/support for the most crucial piece of hardware in the item sold. It is time that nVidia realised that they need to provide MORE support for the mobile SLI market and start adding hardware they themselves have allowed to use SLI into their normal forceware drivers. SLI laptops are more 'desktop replacement' than laptop.

Thank you for reading.

Leon.

[RangerXML]

Yup and now all kinds of love is going out to the 8x00M crowed aswell. The most up to date drivers that will allow me to use the full range of features including powermizer are 101.17 and this is for a single card, not SLi. The 163.xx drivers have all the love, but Nvidia is no sharing it.

[®®®]

156.xx doesn't make your day?

[RangerXML]

nope, same preformenc as the 101.17, but 156.xx will actually play BF1942 in Vista. 163.xx tends to have about the same preformence as 101.17 and 156.xx OCed.

Actually @@@, you've really been helping me out as of late so I'm gonna check into 156.xx, I might be confusing 'em with 158.xx. I'll report back, but I'd really like 163.xx love here, they really do preform better then any other drivers I've used, something I've even noticed on my desktop 8800GTX.

No OC or Mizer love (156.65)! I haven't checked preformence.

Edited October 18, 2007 by RangerXML

[muddymind]

Same problem here :)

I'm going back to 101.XX and wait for decent drivers...

[]

[RangerXML]

Lol, an Asus notebook. Is anyone having this problem with 8X00M that isn't an Asus.

[whitetigerx7]

All I can tell you is... welcome to the craptacular world of Alienware under the management of Dell.

This is why I have avoided Alienware and Dell since their merger. I learned my lesson with my m5500's poor software support and even poorer customer care. it's just not worth the trouble anymore. Reason I went HP/Compaq. way better support.

As for SLI products... you really have to go with NForce products all the way. Same goes with ATi and CrossFire. None of the 3rd party chipset vendors have proper support. ULi did but they had their SLI hacked and forced.

As for the usefulness of SLI currently, I find it to be really less than useful. Most single GPUs still work way better than SLI models.

If you want a good GPU for a laptop look into models with the 8600 GS. It's mid range in the 8x00 lineup but has more than enough power to do work in many games out on the market.

[mobilenvidia]

Yes, SLI is not all that it's supposed to be.

On paper it looks great, but in real life the promises are not delivered

So Alienware users will be forever stuck with 94.23 ?

Very interesting about the chip that controls the SLI and chipset.

nVidia must be so worried about someone stealing their design that end user support has to suffer regardless.

SLI has always had it's problems.

Getting one Video card to work good is hard enough and why the forums have 1000's of users looking for answers to problems.

Then try and add another GPU get them to work in synchro, you end up with probably more than twice the single GPU problems.

SLI in notebooks to me is to be avoided, there is so very little gain for so many headaches that follow.

The 2nd GPU hardly gets used, and in the end is only useful should the 1st one die and you have an onboard spare GPU

It's a nice thing to brag about to your friends, then end up embarrassed as you try to get them to work in a new game where 94.23 is too old

So the SLI tweaks I've added to the modded iNFs for ages don't actually do anything unless the driver itself has the code to detect the chip.

[whitetigerx7]

You aren't "stuck" with the 94.23s per say. The thing is most drivers released that are for SLI have a special registry setting (which I think is in my INF somewhere) that enables the SLI features on non-nForce hardware on all drivers. It's basically one special registry setting and nothing more. Either it's enabled or disabled. I think it's even in the LTV2G master INF.

Yes SLI is to be avoided for now. More or less it needs to stay on the desktop PC. Laptops were meant for portability and even the most powerful GPUs for laptops can do just as much as a desktop GPU can.

If anything here's a tip for the price wary gamer who goes to the LAN parties...

Don't break your bank to get the best laptop that was advertised in the back of a gaming magazine. 9 out of 10 times, those ads are overhyped. Plenty of vendors like Toshiba, HP (personal recommendation), Sony, and Dell (though I would never buy from them again) make great laptops that contain very powerful gaming level hardware that won't break your bank and leave you underpowered at the party.

If anything the Core Duos and TurionX2s pared with various chipsets and placed alongside the latest GeForce 8x00 series or latest ATI Radeon HD can more than willingly give you plenty of power to deal some damage at your LAN party and still leave you ahead of the game.

So word of advice... get the facts, shop around, and look for mid range level hardware. Your wallet will thank you.

[Guyver1]

Im sorry but thats inaccurate. Theres not a single mobile 8x00 gpu that can touch the 7950 GTX for speed/framerates. Only a Go 8800 GT part will finally surpass the 7950 GTX in terms of raw power. Plus ask any serious gamer who plays FPS'ers and they laugh if you put a HP, Toshiba or any other 'normal' laptop make in front of them, Im sorry but to play a FPS'er to any level of skill requires a rock solid smooth framerate of at least 60+. I've been competitive gaming for 8 years and know exactly what unstable/low framerates do to accuracy, movement, etc. Its the very reason competitive gamers drop detail/texture settings, not to deliberately make the game look ugly, but to ensure a stable/smooth framerate.

To say SLI doesnt belong on notebooks is very narrow minded and backward thinking. PC's are about advancement in technology. What actually needs to be done is for manufacturers to take more responsibility for the devices they produce. nVidia produce high powered mobile SLI parts for a specific market, yet they seem to think its ok not to support those very parts they manufacture. If nVidia bothered to support ALL their customer base equally then we wouldn't be having this conversation and I'd be running the latest drivers happy as a pig in s**t.

It would be like buying a car that you had no way of reparing. if it ever got even the smallest problem, that would be it, you couldnt fix it and there's nothing you could do about it, and the car would eventually just die way before it's due to.

I have to wonder whether nVidia are being unlawful in 'locking' their drivers. Its obvious that SLI DOES work on other chipsets, but nVidia 'lock' their drivers to stop other companies hardware using it. Surely there should be some legal presidence there?

[Guest Ed C]

I bought an Alienware Aurora m9700 in June and spent nearly $4000. They still have yet to release an SLI driver for Vista, and Bioshock is totally unplayable (there are also numerous other known bugs like sleep mode crashes etc. that have been attributed to N'Vidia cards). I truly regret buying this laptop. I should have just bought an X-Box 360 (EVERY game that is released for the PC is also released for the X-Box anyway), and an $800 laptop for office applications. I tried reaching out to Alienware and pretty much got the run around, they gave me the old "don't call us, we'll call you" when it's ready. As a consumer, it is annoying to be left in the cold, especially given the very high cost of the product, and the way that it is marketed as being the ultimate gaming machine. I consider myself to be a reasonable person, and I understand that the process of developing and releasing new drives must be a lot of work, but I have had the laptop for almost 5 months, and I imagine that it has been on the market for close to a year; in all that time there have been no development reports, no betas, no nothing. The tech support guy tells me that they are working on a driver, but I can't shake the feeling that he is just telling me that to shut me up.

After this experience, I can honestly say that I will never buy another Alienware product. I got caught up in the hype of "the ultimate gaming machine"; next time I will try to be more conscientious and do my homework a little beter before buying a PC.

-Ed

[whitetigerx7]

Im sorry but thats inaccurate. Theres not a single mobile 8x00 gpu that can touch the 7950 GTX for speed/framerates. Only a Go 8800 GT part will finally surpass the 7950 GTX in terms of raw power. Plus ask any serious gamer who plays FPS'ers and they laugh if you put a HP, Toshiba or any other 'normal' laptop make in front of them, Im sorry but to play a FPS'er to any level of skill requires a rock solid smooth framerate of at least 60+. I've been competitive gaming for 8 years and know exactly what unstable/low framerates do to accuracy, movement, etc. Its the very reason competitive gamers drop detail/texture settings, not to deliberately make the game look ugly, but to ensure a stable/smooth framerate.

To say SLI doesnt belong on notebooks is very narrow minded and backward thinking. PC's are about advancement in technology. What actually needs to be done is for manufacturers to take more responsibility for the devices they produce. nVidia produce high powered mobile SLI parts for a specific market, yet they seem to think its ok not to support those very parts they manufacture. If nVidia bothered to support ALL their customer base equally then we wouldn't be having this conversation and I'd be running the latest drivers happy as a pig in s**t.

It would be like buying a car that you had no way of reparing. if it ever got even the smallest problem, that would be it, you couldnt fix it and there's nothing you could do about it, and the car would eventually just die way before it's due to.

I have to wonder whether nVidia are being unlawful in 'locking' their drivers. Its obvious that SLI DOES work on other chipsets, but nVidia 'lock' their drivers to stop other companies hardware using it. Surely there should be some legal presidence there?

Actually you are wrong too. You said gamers of FPS games want speeds of 60+ FPS. Well, you can only get 60+ FPS on CRT monitors. LCD monitors, especially on Laptops, are locked at 60 FPS due to design. 60 FPS is an NTSC-U/C/J standard.

Actually I have put my Compaq in front of some guys once who laughed at me and later were crying when they got their butts handed back to them with a few rounds of Quake 4. My GeForce Go 6150 with it's measly 128mb of Allocated RAM was more than enough power. BTW, who really plays with the details set to max anyway? Nobody who's worth their salt anyway. Only noobs, from experience, crank up the visuals to look at the details. Serious pro gamers just play. We could care less how shiny a texture or how bright light source is. You have no clue how many times I've walked up on noobs starring off into space or looking at how nice something looked and was able to get a free or easy kill off their absent mindedness. At most all my detail settings in the Nvidia Controls are at Optimal, Disabled, or Application Controlled.

The 8x00 also doesn't have to top the 7950 GTX in sheer speed. Speed isn't everything. The 8x00 has a better design as far as architecture goes so even if it's not faster it's certainly more system efficient.

Laptops are normally "as-is" purchases with minimal upgradability. At most some allow CPU, RAM, HDD, and maybe Wi-FI upgrades. Fewer have GPU upgrades. MXM isn't even really a standard. Ask "Ice Tea" about this in the MXM forum. If you want upgrades stick to desktops.

As far as Nvidia "locking" their drivers as I said, it's an INF setting. Find the setting, and it can be turned on and off. As far as it being "legal" it's perfectly legal. Nvidia owns all rights to SLI technology. They can do with it through licensing as they see fit. If you want SLI on your chipset but won't fork over the cash for the license you probably won't get it. Nvidia doesn't have to support anything. They provide a vanilla driver to OEM manufacturers to set with tweaks and product support as they see fit. Remember Nvidia doesn't make any PCB based solutions at all.

SLI still isn't stable either. Never has been and probably never will be. Read up on it more before you say it's "ground breaking". If anything SLI and MAXX (two earlier forms of SLI and CrossFire from 3Dfx and ATi) were never perfected either. Even they as well as ATI/AMD and Nvidia stated that even if both graphics chips or graphics cards were equally setup, rendering would still have issues due to bandwidth limitations and timing issues across the PCI/AGP/PCIe bus and even between the cards themselves as no two video cards have the same exact settings and timings.

BTW Nvidia and Microsoft have even stated on Vista that SLI utilizes the now missing HAL. This is why it works on XP but not Vista. Some newer NForce chips have a built-in SLI controller to force it enabled on Vista. This is why on non-Nvidia chipsets it simply will probably not work unless the manufacturrer forces it through the motherboard chipset and BIOS.

Edited October 19, 2007 by whitetigerx7

[mobilenvidia]

The 8x00M series GPU's were designed for Dx10 and will do better here, if there this is ever adapted by SW houses.

DX9 is the domain of go7x00 GPU's, DX10 it will not have the edge as the 8x00 will have HW acceleration just for it.

But it looks like the 8x00 (G8x) series was a bit of a flop and the G9x series GPU's are not all that far away.

Hopefully nV has act together, die shrink and a decent GPU with better performance.

We should see the 8800M finally come to fruition, and arse's should be getting kicked again

[megs8888]

I am about to make a 4 grand plus outlay for a gaming notebook so far I have been looking at the Dell M1730 Quote and Specs attached being a newbie to all the jargon with Notebooks I am after some help.

1. Is this a good system ( refer specs below)??

2. Want reliability!!

3. Have to play new CRYSIS pc game amongst others, but the game minimum requirements are 3.0ghz processor, so does that mean the dell $4000 NB with my specs (below) wont play it???!!!!.

3. Can the procesor be overclocked??!! HOW?? DOES it harm the system??

4. Have 4500 budget!

5. Any suggestions on other Laptops.

6. Basically if i spend 4500 i want to be able to play all latest games etc.

I AM INTERESTED IN YOUR OPINION ON NVIDIA AS THIS HAS 2 CARDS AS YOU CAN SEE SOME ADVICE ON WHAT TO DO WOULD BE APPRECIATED THANKS.

1 Q541019N Q541019N - Dell XPS M1730 Notebook 1 3,827.00 3,827.00

HU867 -Intel® Core2 Duo Processor T7700 1

BRM-051 -2.4GHz, 4MB Cache, 800 MHz FSB 1

DX476 -Label (Dual Core & Intel Wireless) 1

FOS-I501 -Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium - with 1

AERO experience

FY892 -System Driver DVD Kit 1

CW774 -Microsoft® Windows® Software Driver 1

UN078 -Vista® HTML Guide Included 1

XM544 -Dell PC-Restore Included 1

DMN-025 -PC Restore will occupy some HDD capacity. 1

DMN-026 -The capacity varies with preloaded material 1

and operating environment.

WX790 -Dell Wireless 355 Bluetooth Module 1

DT-L-NOT-506 -Free Upgrade Bluetooth WirelessHeadset 1

DT-L-MOU-502 -Free Bluetooth Travel Mouse 1

WX548 -17.0" UltraSharp Widescreen WUXGA (1920x 1

1200) TFT Display with TrueLife

RR009 -Sapphire Blue LCD display with Integrated 2. 1

0 mega pixel web cam

TC714 -4GB (2x2GB) 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM 1

UU020 -200GB SATA 7200RPM Performance Hard Drive 1

PK017 -200GB SATA 7200RPM Performance 2nd Hard Driv 1

e

CU030 -Internal 8X DVD+/-RW Combination Drive with 1

dual layer write capabilities

XM387 -Roxio Creator 9.0 1

HR105 -Dual NVIDIA® GeForce® 8700M GT graphics 1

with NVIDIA SLI Technology

FT348 -Base Assembly (Discrete) 1

GW010 -DVI to HDMI Cable 1

BSC-012 -Integrated Stereo Sound 1

YY220 -Intel® 4965AGN Wireless-N Mini-Card 1

XG509 -9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery 1

YR201 -Dell XPS M1730 Nylon Backpack 1

WX695 -230W Primary AC Adapter 1

0F642 -Power Cord, 2m, 250V AUS (Australia, New Zea 1

land)

FW442 -Dell Bluetooth Travel Mouse 1

WY896 -Dell Bluetooth Wireless Headset 1

HU144 -AGEIA PhysX Mobile Technology 1

RX386 -Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter Software 1

PN175 -Microsoft® Works 8.5 (Does Not Include Mic 1

rosoft® Office 2003/2007 Software)

BSW-D041 -OEM-Word Processor/Spreadsheet/Database/Cal­ e 1

ndar/Powerpoint viewer/Email Tools

CM196 -McAfee® Security Center - 15 Months OE 1

M (English)

PACK-CL-CARE3 -Dell Care Premium 1

WXPH113-INX -3 Years Priority PC User 24x7 Support (Round 1

-The-Clock Technical Assistance)

WXPV113-INX(1) -3 Years Complete Cover Accidental Damage Pro 1

tection

WXPN913-IN -3 Yrs Value Night & Weekend Onsite Service ( 1

M-F:0800-2100, Sat-Sun:0900-1700)

BRM-005 -1 ExpressCard Slot, (DOES NOT SUPPORT PCMCIA 1

CARDS)

BMC-011 -8-in-1 media card reader 1

RW477 -Dell Backlit Keyboard with Touchpad and 10-n 1

umeric key

BNC-017 -Integrated Fast Ethernet 10/100/1000 1

BOT-500 -LightFX perimeter lighting 1

BDI-500 -Logitech GamePanel 1

MR589 -Dell Media Direct 1

DMN-048 -Approx. 2.0GB of HDD space will be allocated 1

to Dell Media Direct.

BMC-003 -NO 56K MODEM

FU690 -Binder KIT 1

[mobilenvidia]

Any chance of editing the list to what actually matter, don't care to know your getting a 2m long AC cable :)

Will make it easier to comment on.

You have a big budget and looks like you can afford the best.

I would personally for bang for buck sake not go the SLI path.

It's something of a luxury not a necessity, I would get it if the money had nothing better to be spent on.

The setup you have described should run anything just fine with just 1 GPU.

I cannot guarantee SLI usability with drivers, nVidia might sort it, they might not.

You'll always will be carrying a hardly used GPU as a spare should SLI support get no better :)

BTW, NZ/Aussie power adaptor where yah from ?

[Guest trias10]

Leon, I completely agree with you. I am in the exact same situation as you as I have the exact same laptop as you with the exact same config. And I firmly believe Nvidia and/or Alienware needs to get off its arse and release some updated unlocked drivers, however, in all honesty, I am having zero problems in my gaming experience with the 94.23 drivers AND the latest 163.71 NvApps.xml file (I originally posted this hack in the forums about a month ago). I played Bioshock just fine, with all settings maxed out and it ran great; I play World In Conflict with no problems; I'm playing the Hellgate: London beta and it runs super-fine with all options maxed and a res of 1440x900. I also play the demos of UT3 and Call of Duty 4 and they run amazingly well (I run them both at 1280x800).

I think you may want to try the NvApps hack too. Because it may be a long time before Nvidia or Alienware do something, but you could be playing all the latest games right now with little or no problems.

[Guyver1]

im already usng the nvapps file from the latest 163.76's

[eguydv]

The drivers you need can be downloaded from DV Nation without BS driver detective or any crap. These drivers work great! They are for the Clevo D900 and D901C with dual nVidia 8700M GT SLI graphics cards. This notebook is used by Sager, Alienware, Dell, Falcon Nortwest, Maingear, Smooth Creations, DV Nation (who uses screamin MTRON solid state disks in theirs, quad core, etc), and any other maker that uses a 17" notebook with 3 SATA drive slots. link:

http://www.dvnation.com/Clevo-D900C-D901C-...00M-GT-SLI.html

[Guest jon w]

I wouldn't buy it just yet if I were you.

Dell will be offering the same laptop with dual 8800m gt video cards mid to late November. They will offer much, much better performance.

They say your laptop will have upgradeable video cards, it would be a shame to buy it only to upgrade it immediately.

[Redeemer]

Did you buy it? I hope not. The new mALX lappies are coming with 8800 GTXs for the mobile...

[TES_Master]

ah...omg...thats not the last thread that i read about this theme^^

I also bought (buy?----bad english^^) me a """""""gaming-laptop""""""" from toshiba (it sucks!!!) with the """"""powerfull""""""SLI- GPU...LOOOOOOOL

I REGRET IT TILL' I DIE! I pay 1300 pounds (1700 euro), for a laptop, which is worse than my old one, with only one graphic-card, and 1.6 GHz...i dont know, where my fuckin' promised power is!!!

but fine, i accept it. the next pc... is no one...i never buy me so expensive hardware again!

What can i do, to push my """"""gaming-laptop""""" a little bit? (i already have the newest driver--- the 171. idontknow...)