Cursor lag on 8770m

[gir489]

So after a while of starting and closing FTL, eventually the cursor just becomes so laggy it's unplayable and I have to restart the machine. I googled for a fix and saw one of the devs said to update the drivers, but I can't.

Unfortunately Samsung sucks a massive dick and won't fucking update my driver. The driver is time stamped 12/4/2012 and it was shipped with the 8770m which is basically just a 7770 on a smaller chip.

ATi said to get the drivers from Samsung, but when I asked Samsung, they said to get the drivers from ATi. They just love playing the blame game.

Here's the support page for my laptop: http://www.samsung.com/us/support/owner ... 0Z5E-S01UB?

They didn't even post the drivers that ship with the laptop on the support page.

If you'd like a yuck and are willing to read a wall of text (I'm sure you are if you play FTL) then have a read at this chat log I had with a Samsung retard aka customer support agent.

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Please wait for a Samsung Agent to respond.

You are now chatting with 'Arnold'. There will be a brief survey at the end of our chat to share feedback on my performance today.

 
 Your Issue ID for this chat is AVA4XDWA1R39P.

Arnold: Hi, thanks for reaching out to Samsung Technical Support. How can I help you today?

You: I have an NP780 for at least 5 months now.

Arnold: : Thank you for your interest in our products. I would be glad to answer your queries for today.

You: But Samsung hasn't released an update for the switchable graphics driver yet.

You: The ATi driver that comes with the computer is from 2012. Most of the games I run, I get compareable FPS to my Core2 Duo PC using a 4850

You: I already set the switchable interface to high performance.

You: I thought with a gen 3 i7 and an 8770, I'd be getting double the FPS I got on my desktop. But that doesn't seem to be the case.

You: Most games like GTA IV and Fallout New Vegas are unplayable because I get at best 30FPS.

You: The support site for the NP780 don't list anything but manuals, and they haven't since I bought the laptop in March.

Arnold: I understand your concern. Let's look at getting that addressed right away.

Arnold: Please allow me to pull up my resources for you. Please hold for 1-2 minutes. Is that okay with you?

You: That's fine.

Arnold: Thanks.

Arnold: Thank you for waiting.

Arnold: Upon checking, Samsung still didn't released any switchable graphics. You can upgrade the graphics , but take note it will void the warranty of the unit.

You: How will that take it out of warranty.

You: The laptop came with a switchable graphics driver.

You: And ATi said that Samsung has to make the driver for the laptop, since they made the hardware.

You: I keep getting the runaround all the time from major companies.

You: THey always blame someone else for a problem so they can claim the problem is not their fault.

You: ATi said Samsung is responsible for the driver.

You: You're telling me ATi is responsible.

You: This is nonsense.

Arnold: I understand that. I am not telling that ATi is responsible, at the moment we still don't release any graphics drivers.

Arnold: If there were a release it will be posted on the website.

You: OK. When? It's been 5 months since this laptop came out in Feburary.

You: I've seen nothing from Samsung to support this laptop at all.

You: The Driver that shipped with the laptop has a compile date of December 2012.

You: So the driver itself is actually 8 months old.

You: And quite frankly, I believe it's still a beta driver.

You: Since I get such horrible results out of it.

You: Not one game I've played surpassed my Core 2/HD4850 combo. Even at playing at lower resolution. I always get garbage FPS.

You: For $1,200 I could've bought a comparable desktop and at least had ATi driver support.

Arnold: I understand your concern. At the moment there are no drivers available, our technicians are working very hard to develop the drivers to satisfy your experience.

You: OK. Again with the generic ignorant response. WHEN ARE THEY RELEASING IT?

You: I've asked you this like three times.

Arnold: Okay, just to clarify your inquiry is specific to the ATI graphics card driver that may address the switching issue, is that correct?

You: The issue is I get terrible gameplay experience. The hardware is not the problem. It should be well more than capable to play what I throw at it. But I'm getting awful Frame Per Second, benchmarks below standard of video cards that came out 4 years ago, and the processing power equivalent of my desktop I bought in 2008.

You: So the only thing I could think of why it's generating such awful results, is the driver is not up to par with where the hardware is.

Arnold: Okay, with the Series 7 models that have AMD/ATI switching graphics.

You: Yes, it has an HD8770M inside.

Arnold: Applications using DirectX will switch to the dedicated card, but anything rending in OpenGL will not switch from the integrated Intel card.

Arnold: This is a result of the Series 7 being launched when AMD's PowerXpress, which is the technology underlying AMD/ATI's graphics switching, was at version 4.0. PowerXpress 4.0 was not designed to support OpenGL rendering on the dedicated card.

You: Yes. I know. I discovered that when I tried to play RAGE, which is the only OGL game I tried.

You: But all the games I use, use at least DX9. Some use DX10, and one game used DX11.

You: I know how DirectX works and how the driver detects the use of the DX hardware, because I've used the DX SDK.

You: I can tell the layers are being sent to the HD8770, because the return codes are of ATI hardware and not Intel.

You: Intel usually returns with just Frame Rendered but ATi gives a more spefific result.

You: That still doesn't explain the awful performance.

Arnold: I understand, the information I provided you is the information we had. For further details and assistance with the drivers, I suggest to contact ATi.

You: I already told you I did.

You: They said they can't make the driver for a switchable card because it was made by Samsung.

Arnold: Okay, I understand that you have already contacted ATI/AMD but the chipset is made by ATI and all driver release/update should be made by them as the chipset manufacturer. on our end drivers available on our website all came from ATI.

You: Yes. I know. The core driver for the M series comes from ATi. But Samsung has to write the switchable interface.

You: Do you even know anything or are you just reading off a "what to do when a customer actually asks a legit question" book.

You: Do you even know anything or are you just reading off a "what to do when a customer actually asks a legit question" book.

Arnold: I won't blame you if you think that way, but the information we have are based on our resources.

Arnold: What I can do to further assist you is to make a report about your inquiry and forward this to our product support engineers.

Arnold: So that the necessary fix can be provided in collaboration with ATI.

Arnold: But still we will not be able to provide you with an specific time frame on when a driver update to fix the issue will be released.

Arnold: Will that work for you? if yes, kindly provide some necessary information that I will need to process the report.

Arnold: Hello, are we still connected?

Arnold: We have not heard from you. Do you wish to continue the chat?

Arnold: It appears that you have been away from your computer for an extended period of time or that your questions have already been answered. To assist another customer who has been waiting, I need to close our chat conversation. I apologize for any inconvenience. If you have any further queries, please contact us again through Live Chat with the ticket ID AVA4XDWA1R39P. Thank you for chatting with us. If you have a minute, please click on the blue “X close” button to receive a transcript of your chat and fill out a brief survey to help us serve you better. Have a wonderful day! Follow Samsung Service on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

 Arnold has left.

So, am I basically fucked? Or is there another way to fix this issue.

[UltraMantis]

To avoid giving you the runaround, probably.

But give a chance for one of the devs to read this, maybe they will have some idea. All i will say before i search a bit more about the problem is that i'd advise you to stay away from unofficial drivers as most of such are malware.

EDIT - You can try to enable vsync and see if it helps at all. It will force the game to render fewer FPS and can sometimes reduce the load.

EDIT2 - Forgot to mention something. If you purchased the game from the website you can send an email to ask for a refund since the game is unplayable. If you purchased from Steam or GoG you can contact them about it.

EDIT3 - There is a post on this page (#9) that may be helpfull:

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Everything works fine, the drivers are fine. All performance benchmarks as expected. The problem was that the Fn+F11 toggle was set to ON!
This initiated silent mode (which is actually very useful and really virtually silent).... The laptop accomplishes this state by turning off all the fans, so of course with just passive cooling serious throttling occurred.... (as low as 800Mhz per core on a full load prime95 stress test)

Why doesn't this have an LED marker like the Wifi and Fn Locked buttons do right next to it????? Oh my god, I wasted like 2 whole days of my life on this s**t...
Oh yeah, and it doesn't show up ANYWHERE inside Windows power settings weather or not silent mode is on or of, on the contrary my fan settings were set to active... 

EDIT4 - Found a little bit of small print from AMD

AMD Enduro™ technology, AMD Enduro™ technology automatically turns off the AMD Radeon™ discrete GPU for non-intensive applications to help maximize battery life for more time unplugged, and requires either an AMD A-Series APU or an Intel processor, plus an AMD Radeon™ discrete graphics card and is available on Windows® 7 and Windows® 8 Standard and Professional editions. Linux OS supports manual switching which requires restart of X-Server to switch between graphics solutions. With AMD Enduro™ technology, full enablement of all discrete graphics video and display features may not be supported on all systems (e.g. OpenGL applications will run on the integrated GPU or the APU as the case may be). Always check with your system manufacturer for specific mode capabilities and supported technologies.

The OpenGL bit is interesting because FTL uses OpenGL and requires decent OpenGL support. This support varies from driver to driver and causes issues on some PCs but not on others. The above also indicates that your machine may switch automatically when running FTL, though it would not explain the problems with other games.

I guess your choices are either to wait for a driver to come out or ask for a refund, unless the silent mode tip hits the jackpot. Very sorry about your trouble because i don't know if it's hopeless or simple to fix. Hope it turns out for the best.

[gir489]

I purchased it on Steam, and it would be a crime against humanity to refund my money. I wish I had known about the website first, otherwise I would've paid $30 not $13.50. This is one of the few games I've played where I actually felt good about paying for it. Unlike most games that come out now, this game, despite using retro graphics and a 2D perspective was actually better than Call of Shock: Super Graphics In Your Face. I can't remember how long it's been since I played a TBA game, and fuck knows how long it's been since I played an RTS. This game blends them so perfectly.

The game is "playable" it's just an inconvenience that I have to keep rebooting the machine when I want to play.

When I press FN+F11, it just makes my screen dim and I can hear the fan slow down. So, I'm assuming silent mode was alrady off.

[UltraMantis]

I hope there's a solution. And i do get what you mean about FTL feeling much better than a top budget game. I was into it so much when i bought it and spent so much time playing and enjoying it... i would compare it to VtM: Bloodlines in the "suck you in" effect. And i hate vampires.

[gir489]

I found a way to replicate the issue. It seems to be caused by when I put the computer to sleep then wake it up. After that I get garbage FPS and the cursor lags. After rebooting it's fine. Definitely sounds like a hardware issue, but since Samsung sucks a dick, I doubt I'll see a fix in my life time. it sucks I can't return this computer anymore. I've had nothing but problems with it.

[UltraMantis]

Well multiple complaints might force them into resolving it. Afterall i've read posts where people actually wonder if their gfx chip is working or not and are trying to find proof either way. This is not something that should happen.

It's a shame because it looks like a great machine and for that price you'd expect not to run into problems that often plague entry-level hardware.

[gir489]

Well multiple complaints might force them into resolving it. Afterall i've read posts where people actually wonder if their gfx chip is working or not and are trying to find proof either way. This is not something that should happen.

It's a shame because it looks like a great machine and for that price you'd expect not to run into problems that often plague entry-level hardware.

In a perfect world.

[Matthew]

Hello, gir489. I don't have much I can offer to this, I just wanted to come in very late to the conversation and apologize for the problem. Laptop manufacturer's really seem to not care about properly supporting their hardware. Drives me nuts. I apologize as well for the delay in responding to your problem, we are extremely busy at the moment and the forum sometimes gets forgotten in the work haze.