Gateway E-155-C: A Lightweight Convertible
by Jarred Walton on July 4, 2007 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
Synthetic Graphics and Gaming Performance
We don't place a lot of stock in the performance results generated by Futuremark's 3DMark applications, and the Gateway E-155-C isn't designed with gaming or graphics performance in mind. About the best we can say is that the Intel GMA950 GPU manages to run Vista Aero Glass more or less acceptably. The system scores a 3.1 on the Windows Experience Index, and unlike the new X3100 graphics core SM3.0 is not supported. As a rough estimate of gaming performance, we're presenting the 3DMark results, and we will follow with a brief discussion of actual gaming tests.
We'll let the charts speak for themselves here. Basically, you get CPU performance that's about half as fast as your typical desktop system these days, and integrated graphics performance that was already slow when the GMA950 first launched last year. It's somewhat entertaining to use the tablet PC interface to play solitaire, but anything beyond casual gaming most likely won't run properly (if at all).
Taking a quick look at actual gaming performance, we loaded up Quake 4 and turned off all of the graphical details after selecting low-quality defaults. That means we disabled bump-mapping, detailed textures, shadows, etc. At 640x480, the system managed to average 7.0 FPS. To its credit, frame rates didn't drop a whole lot as we increased resolution up to the native 1280x800, but regardless of resolution Quake 4 remained unplayable. Far Cry at minimum graphics detail settings didn't fare much better: 14 FPS at 640x480, and decreasing performance from there. At that point we decided to call it quits on any further graphics tests.
Something else that we should mention in regards to graphics concerns the drivers. The system shipped with drivers that were over one month old (the driver file from Intel's web site was named winvista_154.exe), and Intel recently updated all of their graphics drivers. Using the latest "winvista_1543.exe" drivers, we experienced problems with Vista whenever the system dropped out of Aero Glass mode into Vista Basic mode.
It appears that vsync isn't working in the latest drivers in Vista Basic mode, so when the Windows login screen first appears up until the time the graphics drivers are fully initialized, we experienced intense flickering. This also occurred with a few applications that forced the graphics to run in Vista Basic mode - 3DMark03/05 and Xmpeg both cause this to occur. You can see a horizontal dark area that extends the width of the screen in the above image; when you're actually sitting in front of the computer, this black area flickers around the entire screen rapidly. Long story short, stick with the older Intel drivers for now and don't worry too much about graphics performance.
We don't place a lot of stock in the performance results generated by Futuremark's 3DMark applications, and the Gateway E-155-C isn't designed with gaming or graphics performance in mind. About the best we can say is that the Intel GMA950 GPU manages to run Vista Aero Glass more or less acceptably. The system scores a 3.1 on the Windows Experience Index, and unlike the new X3100 graphics core SM3.0 is not supported. As a rough estimate of gaming performance, we're presenting the 3DMark results, and we will follow with a brief discussion of actual gaming tests.
We'll let the charts speak for themselves here. Basically, you get CPU performance that's about half as fast as your typical desktop system these days, and integrated graphics performance that was already slow when the GMA950 first launched last year. It's somewhat entertaining to use the tablet PC interface to play solitaire, but anything beyond casual gaming most likely won't run properly (if at all).
Taking a quick look at actual gaming performance, we loaded up Quake 4 and turned off all of the graphical details after selecting low-quality defaults. That means we disabled bump-mapping, detailed textures, shadows, etc. At 640x480, the system managed to average 7.0 FPS. To its credit, frame rates didn't drop a whole lot as we increased resolution up to the native 1280x800, but regardless of resolution Quake 4 remained unplayable. Far Cry at minimum graphics detail settings didn't fare much better: 14 FPS at 640x480, and decreasing performance from there. At that point we decided to call it quits on any further graphics tests.
Something else that we should mention in regards to graphics concerns the drivers. The system shipped with drivers that were over one month old (the driver file from Intel's web site was named winvista_154.exe), and Intel recently updated all of their graphics drivers. Using the latest "winvista_1543.exe" drivers, we experienced problems with Vista whenever the system dropped out of Aero Glass mode into Vista Basic mode.
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It appears that vsync isn't working in the latest drivers in Vista Basic mode, so when the Windows login screen first appears up until the time the graphics drivers are fully initialized, we experienced intense flickering. This also occurred with a few applications that forced the graphics to run in Vista Basic mode - 3DMark03/05 and Xmpeg both cause this to occur. You can see a horizontal dark area that extends the width of the screen in the above image; when you're actually sitting in front of the computer, this black area flickers around the entire screen rapidly. Long story short, stick with the older Intel drivers for now and don't worry too much about graphics performance.
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JarredWalton - Wednesday, July 4, 2007 - link
13-15" screens, discrete graphics, and faster CPUs all generate more heat, which requires better cooling, which makes them quite a bit heavier. And there's still plenty you can do with a laptop that you can't do with a PDA... even if you get a keyboard attachment (which pretty much makes your PDA heavier and less portable). As stated, this laptop certainly isn't for everyone, but it does serve a purpose. It was quite a bit easier to use on an airplane than even a slightly larger laptop, and forget about trying to use a 17" DTR if you're sitting in coach!gigahertz20 - Wednesday, July 4, 2007 - link
Sorry to have to ask this question here but I was wondering when the P35 roundup article will be released? Gary Key promised it would come at the end of June yet here it is July and nothing. Will this roundup be delayed until the end of summer or is it cancelled.Thanks for any response.
Gary Key - Wednesday, July 4, 2007 - link
Sorry about the delay, it will go up right after the m-ATX roundup (which is upside down after NV and AMD had a driver war for IGP solutions this month) that finally starts this week. I have been trying to keep people updated on changes to each board with the short articles. We just received P35 boards from abit, Foxconn,and Biostar that have made it through the first test passes. Please email me if you have any questions about the boards or need further information. I will be glad to provide opinions on the eight boards we have now and an educated guess on the three coming next week.
FireTech - Saturday, July 7, 2007 - link
Sorry Gary, but another update in the µATX review update thread you started would be much preferable to this particular comment hidden in a totally unrelated review.There are a bunch of guys waiting to hear from you about this and currently feel very let-down.
najames - Wednesday, July 4, 2007 - link
It will happen right after the mATX roundup.