Toshiba Satellite X205-S9359 Take Two: Displays and Drivers
by Jarred Walton on September 6, 2007 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
Gaming Resolution Scaling Charts
We've already discussed how the 163.44 drivers impact overall performance, but for those who like to see the details we've got the following graphs. We've also got our first look at Bioshock performance.
The only charts that we haven't discussed so far are the Bioshock and Company of Heroes comparing DX9 and DX10 performance results. In the case of the latter, it's quite clear that discussing DirectX 10 performance with this particular GPU in this particular game is merely an academic exercise. The GeForce 8700M GT simply doesn't have enough power to run Company of Heroes in DirectX 10 mode - not surprising considering even an 8800 GTX can struggle at higher resolutions.
Bioshock is our latest benchmark addition, and we use FRAPS to measure performance. We gather frame rate results for the sequence where you first enter Rapture in the bathysphere (not counting the time watching the "filmstrip"). Initial results indicated that DirectX 9 mode was slightly faster, but with the updated NVIDIA drivers and the latest patch applied to Bioshock we get essentially identical performance. The DirectX 10 mode supposedly provides slightly enhanced visuals, but we didn't immediately notice the difference. If you have a DirectX 10 card, we see little reason not to use the DirectX 10 mode, but we also don't see any need to upgrade operating systems and graphics cards for this particular title.
We've already discussed how the 163.44 drivers impact overall performance, but for those who like to see the details we've got the following graphs. We've also got our first look at Bioshock performance.
The only charts that we haven't discussed so far are the Bioshock and Company of Heroes comparing DX9 and DX10 performance results. In the case of the latter, it's quite clear that discussing DirectX 10 performance with this particular GPU in this particular game is merely an academic exercise. The GeForce 8700M GT simply doesn't have enough power to run Company of Heroes in DirectX 10 mode - not surprising considering even an 8800 GTX can struggle at higher resolutions.
Bioshock is our latest benchmark addition, and we use FRAPS to measure performance. We gather frame rate results for the sequence where you first enter Rapture in the bathysphere (not counting the time watching the "filmstrip"). Initial results indicated that DirectX 9 mode was slightly faster, but with the updated NVIDIA drivers and the latest patch applied to Bioshock we get essentially identical performance. The DirectX 10 mode supposedly provides slightly enhanced visuals, but we didn't immediately notice the difference. If you have a DirectX 10 card, we see little reason not to use the DirectX 10 mode, but we also don't see any need to upgrade operating systems and graphics cards for this particular title.
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johnscott - Thursday, November 29, 2007 - link
this fixes the screen from not coming back after idle and lets youDL from nvidiahttp://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&...">http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi...amp;ssPa...
Inkjammer - Saturday, September 8, 2007 - link
I remember Anandtech running an article on the 2GB issues people were running into on Vista. While the X205 comes with 2GB of memory, 256MB of that memory are taken by the graphics card by default. Between Vista's overhead and the Turbomemory, the system runs with a memory hit, which may affect games like Oblivion.I ultimately broke down and bought 4GB of memory for the laptop to make up for this "gap", as you hit memory limits faster. It's something to take into consideration on systems shipping with Turbomemory enabled gaming cards.
Inkjammer - Saturday, September 8, 2007 - link
While I had previously recommended the 164.33 drivers in the first review, I did discover something interesting: the HD-DVD drive would refuse to play video when using them. THe only way to re-instate the HD-DVD video was to revert back to the OEM drivers Toshiba ships with, which was... dissapointing.So, I guess there are pros and cons to the drivers that I hadn't noticed after all, and it went back to what you said about incompatibilities. But the HD-DVD playback was NOT a compatibility problem I'd have thought of. I've been running the 163.44 so far and have had no game problems. The HD video is the only issue thus far.
customcoms - Thursday, September 6, 2007 - link
http://anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=3085&am...">http://anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=3085&am...,I believe you are speaking about the Toshiba X205 in this sentence, as it has the lowest black level and achieves a contrast ratio of 874:1.
JarredWalton - Thursday, September 6, 2007 - link
I mean that I want the option for the brighter whites, like the ASUS G2P. I'll edit for clarity. :)SpaceRanger - Thursday, September 6, 2007 - link
Oblivion 18.19 18.01 -4.04%How is that a -4.04% reduction???
JarredWalton - Thursday, September 6, 2007 - link
It is an average of all three tested resolutions (1280x800, 1440x900, and 1680x1050). I left out the lower resolutions in the table, but they are present in the scaling charts. Here are the specifics for Oblivion:Oblivion,v101.68,v163.44,%Change
1280x800,26,24.4,-6.19%
1440x900,21.1,20.1,-4.92%
1680x1050,18.2,18,-1.01%
,,,-4.04%
(Sorry - no good way to do a table in our comments, so cut and paste that into a CSV file for proper viewing of the columns if you need to.) Basically, there was a sizable performance drop at 1280x800, which counterbalances the small drop at 1680x1050.
Take care,
Jarred