Radeon Xpress 200 problem

TerrorFirmer

Hi,

I recently got a Laptop with a Radeon Xpress 200 integrated solution. Obviously it's not designed for new games but I didn't mind as I only wanted to play older games anyway.

But I have encountered a strange problem....

I played Wolfenstein, Quake III, Sof2, all games on the QIII engine using dx8. They work perfectly on highest settings. Then I try Call of Duty, and it runs like crap, even though it too runs on the QIII engine, but with DX9. However the strangest thing about this is that the game is choppy on 800x600 all options on low - but its the exact same if I put it on 1280z1024 with all options on!

I also tried Battlefield 1942, and same story - its not jumpy, just choppy, sort of like my Frames per second is too low, but it doesn't matter if the game is on high or low settings, its still choppy. I tried it on all low, and all high, and they run the exact same.

Therefore I'm almost positive its not the xpress 200's abilitys, but something else is wrong....anyone know what it might be? I inititally thought it was just the cards poor ability but as I said, reducing the resolution doesn't solve it.

Ps - before anyone comes on saying that the xpress 200 is just a crap card, I know it is, but in tests all over the net its been reported as running Far Cry on 800x600 all options on no problems, and Battlefield 2 at 800x600 smoothly - it runs bf2 at 10fps for me, even on 800x600 (totally unplayable).

Furthermore, tests on various sites report card running UT2K4 at 1024x768 at 45FPS no problems. I tried it, and its still choppy on the lowest settings, and still only running at 20fps. I also tried Half Life 2, which sites are reporting as working fine on 800x600 at 30FPS with options on medium. Again, I ran it at 800x600, all options on low - still only getting 20fps.

Very annoyed and confused...

ps - Drivers are fairly recent and in setup the card is allocated 128mb memory, so its not that. Other specs are 1gig of ram and sempron 3000 at 1.8ghz

TerrorFirmer

Never mind, latest Omega drivers cleared this up, happily running CoD at 1024x768 on high settings

Cochise

i have this card in my laptop as well and find it more than capable of the newest games even on high settings. Is it by any chance a hp pavilion laptop?

TerrorFirmer

I'd say you have an xpress 200m motherboard with a seperate card - theres absolutely no way an x200m could play any new game on high settings

It's basically a weaker version of the x300 card....which is bottom of the gfx pile alongside nvidias 6200 and other crappy cards

Cochise

my bad i forgot about that ya its 200m express. glad to see u sorted your probelm out anyway

TerrorFirmer

I played Wolfenstein, Quake III, Sof2, all games on the QIII engine using dx8. They work perfectly on highest settings. Then I try Call of Duty, and it runs like crap, even though it too runs on the QIII engine, but with DX9. However the strangest thing about this is that the game is choppy on 800x600 all options on low - but its the exact same if I put it on 1280x1024 with all options on!

The other games are working now but I still have the above problem.

Can anyone help me out - even on 640x480 I only get 5 frames a second in outdoor levels in Call of Duty which is ridiculous!! I get 50fps in indoor areas, just the second I look outside I'm crippled, even on the lowest settings.

I wouldn't care other then the fact its the only fuppin game I really want to play....I have the latest drivers, latest version of directx, just haven't a clue where to look next...I have 4x the minimum requirements so I really don't know whats wrong.

gamer

knockoff vsync,aa, advanced details like,shadows,sky,reduce textures to medium or small,go to advanced graphics settings, google search cod grahics tweak guide,
reduce specular map resolution to,low,or medium.play at 800x600 ,16bit resolution,not 32bit, try playing in windowed mode.reduce sound quality to lowest setting.theres advanced tweaking like draw decals,

TerrorFirmer

gamer wrote:

knockoff vsync,aa, advanced details like,shadows,sky,reduce textures to medium or small,go to advanced graphics settings, google search cod grahics tweak guide,
reduce specular map resolution to,low,or medium.play at 800x600 ,16bit resolution,not 32bit, try playing in windowed mode.reduce sound quality to lowest setting.theres advanced tweaking like draw decals,

Returned laptop but even so I found out the problem was completely substandard OpenGL support - the card can run Direct3D games no problems but struggles with even 8 year old OpenGL based games.

Reducing the resolution, turning off decals, sky effects, textures - did not add more then about 2 frames a second to performance in any openGL based game. So it was clearly not the cards abilities, just its crappy openGL support....in theory the x200 should be able to run Call of Duty on 1280x1024 with all options on no problems.