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Just got my new build, based on a GA-880GMA-UD2H with integrated Radeon 4250. I tried playing some lower-end 3D games just to see how far the IGP could take me, and it totally choked on pretty much everything. Even Stalker on the lowest settings which I was able to play with my last IGP. Fine, maybe the IGP just sucks. Then I was watching a movies and in a few scenes where the camera pans a lot it got really slow, to the point where I could actually see the frame changes, and it burned my eyes. I expected it to at least be able to handle movies, so now I think that there's something wrong.

I got all the drivers from the gigabyte website. The AMD SATA RAID Driver and AMD SATA ACHI Driver gave me error messages and didn't install, but everything else did. I don't think I've changed any of the settings on my monitor since my last computer, so I don't think its a problem there. What is everyone else's experience with this IGP? And if this is not normal, how can I fix it?

Monitor: W2043T
Processor: AMD Athlon II X4 465
Mobo: GA-880GMA-UD2H
Memory: Corsair 4GB DDR3
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB
Optical: LG GH22NS50 Black 22X SATA DVD Writer
PSU: Antec Earthwatts Green 420W
OS: Windows 7

Have you installed the latest drivers from http://www.ati.com? If not, do so, restart and try again.

I have found that with most IGP's, you will be happier with older games rather than just going with lower settings.

BlackStar wrote:

Have you installed the latest drivers from http://www.ati.com? If not, do so, restart and try again.

thanks, do i need to uninstall my vga driver from gigabyte first?

showoffsg wrote:

The AMD SATA RAID Driver and AMD SATA ACHI Driver gave me error messages and didn't install.

You wont need those unless you changed options under the Integrated Peripherals section of the BIOS. Specifically, the SATA and G-SATA device mode setting. These are in IDE compatability mode by default. ACHI is prefered under W7, but changing it now usually causes your system to stop booting correctly so you can either leave it, or re-install. Ignore RAID completly as you wont be able to use that unless you have at least 2 hard drives. It can also be a minefield to the un-informed and is best left for discussion in another thread

showoffsg wrote:

BlackStar wrote:

do i need to uninstall my vga driver from gigabyte first?

Nope. The VGA drivers Gigabyte provide is from ATI anyway, usually with no changes to the actual drivers contained within it. The packager will have Gigabytes logo all over it, thats about it. Just download new Radoen Drivers and run the installer to see if it helps.

32-Bit Windows 7:
http://sites.amd.com/us/game/downloads/ ... n7-32.aspx

64-Bit Windows 7:
http://sites.amd.com/us/game/downloads/ ... n7-64.aspx

rcs2k4 wrote:

showoffsg wrote:

The AMD SATA RAID Driver and AMD SATA ACHI Driver gave me error messages and didn't install.

You wont need those unless you changed options under the Integrated Peripherals section of the BIOS. Specifically, the SATA and G-SATA device mode setting. These are in IDE compatability mode by default. ACHI is prefered under W7, but changing it now usually causes your system to stop booting correctly so you can either leave it, or re-install. Ignore RAID completly as you wont be able to use that unless you have at least 2 hard drives. It can also be a minefield to the un-informed and is best left for discussion in another thread

showoffsg wrote:

BlackStar wrote:

do i need to uninstall my vga driver from gigabyte first?

Nope. The VGA drivers Gigabyte provide is from ATI anyway, usually with no changes to the actual drivers contained within it. The packager will have Gigabytes logo all over it, thats about it. Just download new Radoen Drivers and run the installer to see if it helps.

32-Bit Windows 7:
http://sites.amd.com/us/game/downloads/ ... n7-32.aspx

64-Bit Windows 7:
http://sites.amd.com/us/game/downloads/ ... n7-64.aspx

that was very helpful, thanks. i will try that as soon as i get home. is there some sort of stress test or benchmarking program i could/should run to make sure everything is 100%? thanks again.

No problem

There's a host of software for testing and benchmarking you can use. There isn't an all-in-one porgram for everything, but try these (the program name is in brackets):

ATI Atrifact / Stress Test (Furmark):
http://www.ozone3d.net/benchmarks/fur/

Benchmark - Gameplay / General 3D Graphics (3DMark, various versions):
DirectX 9: http://www.futuremark.com/download/3dmark06/
DirectX 10: http://www.futuremark.com/benchmarks/3d ... /download/
DirectX 11 (this wont work, but for reference if you upgrade): http://www.3dmark.com/3dmark11/download/

Benchmark - General 3D Graphics (Unigine Heaven 2.1):
http://unigine.com/products/heaven/

CPU Stress Test (Prime95):
http://www.majorgeeks.com/Prime95_d4363.html

3DMark and Heaven are the only ones you can use to compare your system to others. You will find Furmark very usefull too, as it can put the IGP under stress and check for artifacting (caused by overheating). Take Prime95 for a spin if you want to see that Athlon II break a sweat. It's mainly used to test if an overclock will run stable, but if your having issues staying stable at stock settings, it may not hurt to try it.

Don't expect smooth framerates in any of the benchmarking software that focuses on graphics btw - An IGP won't cut it. Maybe consider raiding the piggy bank for a Radeon HD 6850 or something like it if you feel you may use it for more games in the future.

Alright, I installed the ATI driver and the video is a bit smoother now. Thanks a lot, I will try those tests when I have time.

If you've got Cool 'n' Quiet enabled, try disabling it. I've found that it can have a noticeable negative impact, especially on video playback.

just brew it! wrote:

If you've got Cool 'n' Quiet enabled, try disabling it. I've found that it can have a noticeable negative impact, especially on video playback.

Worth a try, maybe, but if this doesn't help please re-enable Cool 'n' Quiet. It should always be enabled except in very specific circumstances.

BlackStar wrote:

Worth a try, maybe, but if this doesn't help please re-enable Cool 'n' Quiet. It should always be enabled except in very specific circumstances.

I'm with JBI on this one - It's a bit hit and miss with AMD compared to Intel's Speedstep tech. I don't know if it's buggy drivers, the motherboard or the CPU itself, but the clock generator (where ever that resides in AMD's world) is sometimes a bit slow to set the CPU to it's full speed when a program is called up that will want to use it. Take iTunes as an example - When it rips CD's into ACC files it will pull all 4 threads, but the CPU clock sits at 800 Mhz sometimes! Encoding and transcoding is a touch faster when the CPU runs at 3.75 Ghz as per the overclock I am running.

Turning it off only causes a slight power consumption increase on a modern day CPU, so it's not as bad as it used to be. The CPU's also dont run at crazy hot temperatures these days neither (at least mine dont, even overclocked). Only exception may be on some of those 140W Phenom II CPU's, but most users dont have them.

I had horrible stuttering on streaming video (Hulu) until I turned off Cool 'n' Quiet.

Check your VRAM allocated to the IGP. In my experience, 128MB of Sideport was never enough for the IGP - whenever playing something with EVR advanced presentation in MPC-HC, which allows for subtitles to be rendered later on in the video pipeline, it would visibly lag, especially with 1080p. There were some other weird slowdowns too, which I didn't know were related to the lack of VRAM. Adding 256MB of system RAM to the VRAM pool fixed most, but still didn't let me play videos with EVR advanced.

Also I could only play CoD MW2 in 720x480 LQ while other review sites like Anandtech were playing it at 1024x768. 256MB of system RAM + 128MB sideport isn't going to cut it. I think you should allocate 512MB for the IGP in total. Then you shouldn't have any weird slowdowns.

In case you're wondering how I came to this conclusion, I installed a GTX470 a month ago and found no more slowdowns in EVR advanced presentation. You might think that it's because it's one heck of a discrete card, but GPU-Z reported that with Aero enabled, Firefox and one HD video playing with EVR advanced presentation, total VRAM usage was above the 384MB VRAM I allocated to the 880G before (I don't remember the exact number). Using normal EVR would decrease the amount of used VRAM below 384MB. Turning off Aero would bring the total VRAM usage down to around 110MB - still filling up Sideport.

You might not be able to find VRAM usage numbers while running a IGP. I didn't see anything in GPU-Z's sensors tab when I was running on the integrated 880G.

My little laptop has a 4200 in it with 128 meg of built in ram and 256 meg shared.... it plays fallout new vegas just fine medium settings 1366/ res

It also mplays alot of other games rather well.... But be sure your turning off aa in your game it doesnt like that at all.

as for vid playback mine is smooth all the time.. but that can also be your vid player itself.