ati radeon igp 345m

Marc-Alexandre · Mar 14, 2003, 09:55 PM

Hello All
I've purchased a compaq presario 2500 laptop which includes an ati radeon igp 345m.
The machine is new and I didn't install heavy stuff for now.
Nevertheless, I'm a bit disapointed by this computer :
It's a P4 2.5 mhz, 512 RAM memory (well 448, 64 are for the ati) and I have poor performance in game like quake3 when I compare the same demo with other friends laptop.

A friend of mine told me it could be the driver of the ati which are not up to date...After searching on the web (this kind of ati seems to be forgotten by the market) I found this web site and I try the tweaked driver...with no more success.

What could I do ? Could you help me ?
Bye

ToshiroOC · Mar 15, 2003, 12:06 AM

Well, a couple questions to start - first, what exactly is the problem? Are the two laptops exactly the same? Is performance bad in only a couple programs? Is performance consistently bad? Have you tried the Catalyst 3.2 Drivers? (Find them HERE)?

Marc-Alexandre · Mar 15, 2003, 07:10 PM

First, thank you very much for spending your time for my problem, it's really nice!

The problem is that I think I have poor graphical performance with my laptop.
Mine is a Presario 2500 with the specs already given. My friend's is an evo n8000c, 1.74MHZ P4 256RAM memory and a unknown graphical card (probably an ati). The first is aimed for public whereas the other for professional (change in motherboard maybe?)
We’ve just tested quake3 on the map "four" with timedemo 1. The difference is big; there's tree times more fps in his computer than in mine. While playing by myself in this game, I can feel slow down (when there's explosions or equivalent).

I’ve tested the catalyst 3.2 drivers.
First my graphic card is embedded with Compaq technology, so the install software could not detect my ati card. I tried to "force" to use this driver but there's an another problem : I don't see any igp 345m. It goes only until 340...

Nevertheless, I forced the installation of 340...it works in the way it's recognized but nothing has really changed.

Please help

Marc-Alexandre · Mar 15, 2003, 07:33 PM

I've used omega driver based on catys 3.1, the card is well recognized but the problem remain the same...

ToshiroOC · Mar 15, 2003, 08:24 PM

Interesting situation... my first question is whether both computers are plugged into AC current at the time of benchmarking. This may seem somewhat irrelevant, but the Speedstepping technology in the Pentium 4s tends to reduce the processor speed severely when away from AC power, and so if your computer was running on battery power while your friends' computer was on wall current, his processor might be running almost twice the speed of yours.

Marc-Alexandre · Mar 16, 2003, 09:01 AM

Good remark but both mine and his were plugged. I've downloaded and runned 3DMARK03 and I've got a score of 90... I don't really really know what it means but other computer which got the same score has generaly amd based computer and geforce2 video card...

I'm cursed

Marc-Alexandre · Mar 16, 2003, 01:36 PM

Hi,
I think I know now what is the problem :
The Ati radeaon has his memory shared with the RAM. And a friend told that this kind of system is disastrous for high-end perfomance.

The fact is compaq never told in his commercials that it was shared memory, why ?

What do you think about it ?

ToshiroOC · Mar 16, 2003, 02:37 PM

Ah, I was under the impression that your friend had a similar sort of video card system, including a shared memory bus. Compaq is a terribly company overall, and I don't trust em further than I can RMA em... but the way that works is it has to share bandwidth with the system memory, which is really not a good way to do things... but unfortuantely one often done to both save on VRAM costs (since you have no dedicated VRAM) and also to reduce power, since you only need the main system RAM... Next time, make sure that the video card in your laptop doesn't share RAM with the system - not too many high-end ones nowadays do, but I'm sure there are still some out there...

Marc-Alexandre · Mar 17, 2003, 08:40 PM

Well, I will call compaq to have some explainations. I hope to have a little compensation...but I won't even bet on it.
Thank you anyway for your help. Your web-site is great !

ToshiroOC · Mar 18, 2003, 01:19 AM

You're welcome, and welcome to Driverheaven

Marc-Alexandre · Mar 19, 2003, 03:39 PM

Epilog :
I saw the reseller who was enough kind to change my laptop. So now I have a toshiba with a gf4 32 not shared and I will never ever choose shared memory nor Compaq/HP products !

xuesen · Mar 22, 2003, 11:26 PM

Hello Marc,
I just bought a compaq presario 2500 too. How did you force installation of display driver of IGP 340m on presario 2500(which has IGP 345m).

One software I used can only be installed on win2000. So right now, I have installed win2000 on my notebook. But I desperately need a display driver in order to install the software(win2k install doesn't have the display driver. so I only get a 600X800 resolution and 75% of the LCD area and 16 colors). I tried patje's display driver. But, as you know, it only goes up to 340m. How do I force it on a 345m?

your advice is highly appreciated!

xuesen

Marc-Alexandre · Mar 23, 2003, 10:12 AM

Hi xuesen,
Modified Catlyst 3.1 drivers supports igp 345m so you don't even have to do something to force 340 driver installs. They can be found in this web site : http://www.omegacorner.com/

Bye