kpauls
05-23-2008, 04:12 PM
My NP9262 sucks down juice like no other machine. And why shouldn't it? It's powerful!
So share your tips for the rare times when you have to unplug your top-end notebook. Let's tame that beast!
I've tried some more playtesting unplugged and it may be that the 8800M is just a really power-hungry card. Even with max power saver customized to max 35% cpu I get under an hour. Here's what may help make it better:
GPU: Maybe shut down some of the rendering and vertex pipelines and not just lower the clock?
CPU: Next generation cpu might be lower power consumption? Make sure your power plan has its max CPU set very low (5-15%)
Disk: Go solid-state
Screen: in addition to dimming the screen, scaling down to a lower resolution gives me at least an extra ~30 minutes of life when using my business applications (Eclipse) (1280x720 is too wide, 1280x960 too narrow, 1600x1024 is the right ratio but pretty high res)
Here are the clock rates for an UNMANAGED 8800M (no PowerMizer or CoolBits available) on windows Vista:
GPU-Z sensors tab reports GPU Core Clock
200.0 MHz - unplugged on power saver, no games running (vista Aero power saver tho)
275.0 MHz - unplugged on power saver, wow loading screen
200.0 MHz - unplugged on max performance, no games
275.0 MHz - unplugged on max performance, wow loading screen
200.0 MHz - plugged in on max performance, no games
500.0 MHz - plugged in on max performance, wow loading screen
200.0 MHz - plugged in on power saver, no games
275.0 MHz - plugged in on power saver, wow loading screen
I would hope that with PowerMizer (http://www.mouldy.org/nvidia-powermizer-settings) or CoolBits (http://www.mouldy.org/nvidia-coolbits-settings) I could crank down my GPU and memory clock even lower
So share your tips for the rare times when you have to unplug your top-end notebook. Let's tame that beast!
I've tried some more playtesting unplugged and it may be that the 8800M is just a really power-hungry card. Even with max power saver customized to max 35% cpu I get under an hour. Here's what may help make it better:
GPU: Maybe shut down some of the rendering and vertex pipelines and not just lower the clock?
CPU: Next generation cpu might be lower power consumption? Make sure your power plan has its max CPU set very low (5-15%)
Disk: Go solid-state
Screen: in addition to dimming the screen, scaling down to a lower resolution gives me at least an extra ~30 minutes of life when using my business applications (Eclipse) (1280x720 is too wide, 1280x960 too narrow, 1600x1024 is the right ratio but pretty high res)
Here are the clock rates for an UNMANAGED 8800M (no PowerMizer or CoolBits available) on windows Vista:
GPU-Z sensors tab reports GPU Core Clock
200.0 MHz - unplugged on power saver, no games running (vista Aero power saver tho)
275.0 MHz - unplugged on power saver, wow loading screen
200.0 MHz - unplugged on max performance, no games
275.0 MHz - unplugged on max performance, wow loading screen
200.0 MHz - plugged in on max performance, no games
500.0 MHz - plugged in on max performance, wow loading screen
200.0 MHz - plugged in on power saver, no games
275.0 MHz - plugged in on power saver, wow loading screen
I would hope that with PowerMizer (http://www.mouldy.org/nvidia-powermizer-settings) or CoolBits (http://www.mouldy.org/nvidia-coolbits-settings) I could crank down my GPU and memory clock even lower