The Maxxing Out The GeForce Fx Go5200 Guide!

Adrian Wong · 29th Jan 2004, 06:33 PM

As far as DirectX 9 is concerned, the NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5200 does not have the oomph to deliver the goods. To be fair, it could all be due to the fact it was under-clocked and its AGP sideband support was disabled.

That’s why we will take another look at the Go5200 today. This time, reclocked and with AGP sideband support! Let’s see if it finally lives up to expectations!

Link : Maxxing Out The GeForce Fx Go5200!

jonnywonder · 30th Jan 2004, 02:40 PM

I've been using my satellite m35 with the nvidia GPU for a couple weeks, and I've been pretty happy with the performance so far. I'm not a huge PC gamer but I like to keep my options open. Just a question because I'm new to the world of laptops...is it possible to get a new graphics card in the future like you can swap out graphics cards in a PC? Or are you pretty much stuck with what you got? Just wondering for the future. Thanks!

-jonathan

Adrian Wong · 30th Jan 2004, 05:49 PM

Well, GPU upgrades are not possible in notebooks, not that I know of anyway. I can't even add more RAM to the Go5200 in this notebook!

But the good news is at least the Go5200 has full DirectX 9 support. Game support should not be a problem. Only speed is a problem. To that end, you can always use a lower resolution and detail level.

Please note that I used maximum texture detail and a resolution of 1024x768 in the tests.

peaz · 30th Jan 2004, 08:59 PM

i believe you could for Dells because they've custom designed their GPUs into daughterboards. but as for other manufacturers... sad but no... it's not possible.

paxarchangel · 1st Feb 2004, 12:15 PM

Hi,

It seems that I can't change the speed of the Go5200 with my Dell Inspiron 8600 notebook. I tried to do as the article said, but when I open te RivaTuner I can't even change a thing. How can I make these manual changes if I can't even change a thing? Anyone ave any idea if I forget to do something?

Thanks in advance!!!

goodl · 2nd Feb 2004, 06:23 AM

read the documentation, it can appear that way, i had to rtfm before I found out how to do it properly. It isn't a very intuitive app

Adrian Wong · 2nd Feb 2004, 11:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by paxarchangel

Hi,

It seems that I can't change the speed of the Go5200 with my Dell Inspiron 8600 notebook. I tried to do as the article said, but when I open te RivaTuner I can't even change a thing. How can I make these manual changes if I can't even change a thing? Anyone ave any idea if I forget to do something?

Thanks in advance!!!

Hello Paxarchangel,

When you open up RivaTuner, you will be at the Main screen.

You will notice two different Customize... buttons. The top Customize button is for low-level settings, which is not applicable to the Go5200 due to its PowerMizer feature.

Click on the lower Customize button. A selection of icons will appear. Select the first icon - System Settings. This allows driver-level overclocking features for your Go5200.

Hope that helps you some!

paxarchangel · 3rd Feb 2004, 02:48 AM

Thanks Adrian for the reply, it did help me greatly, I was trying to change these setting in the first customize arrow, which seems to be frozen, so it did work with the second customize arrow!

I have another quick question,

I was wondering what is the difference between the Detonator drivers, the forceware drivers and the other nVidia drivers since I want to check if I have the lattest version of the drivers. I noticed that The Nvidia FX 5200Go drivers are available for the forceware version and the Detonator, which should I download?

Thanks in advance!

Adrian Wong · 4th Feb 2004, 12:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by paxarchangel

Thanks Adrian for the reply, it did help me greatly, I was trying to change these setting in the first customize arrow, which seems to be frozen, so it did work with the second customize arrow!

I have another quick question,

I was wondering what is the difference between the Detonator drivers, the forceware drivers and the other nVidia drivers since I want to check if I have the lattest version of the drivers. I noticed that The Nvidia FX 5200Go drivers are available for the forceware version and the Detonator, which should I download?

Thanks in advance!

They are the same thing. ForceWare is the new name NVIDIA chose for the drivers. It replaces the Detonator name.

canismagnus · 5th Feb 2004, 02:51 AM

Hey, great article! I have a Toshiba Satellite P-15-479 2.8 P4HT (865PE chipset) w/ the FX Go5200 w/ 64mb of VRAM, 8x APG, side band addressing enabled and 1024 mb of RAM. I used Powerstrip to overclock the GPU from the stock memory speed of 200mhz to 220mhz and was able to obtain some improvement in performance, around 150 more 3DMark03 point (i.e. it went from approx 1000 points to around 1150). If I push the memory speeds to 230mhz, 3DMark crashed. I didn't change the core speed.
I sure wish your insightful article had come out a couple months ago, when I bought the laptop. I definately would have rethought my purchase (I like to play games). I was suckered by the impressive looking component stats, but had no real benchmarks to judge them by. Your articles regarding the FX Go5200 provided very accurate and usable information and should be noted by anyone who is thinking about buying a laptop with this GPU for gaming purposes. For around a $100 to $200 more than I got my P-15 for, one can get a machine w/ an Mobile ATI 9600 Pro w/ 128 VRAM. The 3DMark03 benchmarks for notebooks packing those GPU's runs around 2000+ points (based on FutureMarks project ORB database). I think that is a significant enough performance difference to justify the added expense (gamer's perspective, of course).
Don't get me wrong. I think Toshiba makes a great laptop and overall, I've been very happy, since I often play non-graphically intense strategy games. Still, given the Nvidia hype, I expected more. Shame on you Nvidia!
Thanks for the advice and keep up the good work.

29th Jan 2004, 06:33 PM	#1 (permalink)
Adrian Wong Da Boss Join Date: 10 Oct 2002 Location: In front of my ASUS F8V notebook! Posts: 32,299 Reputation: 3574 Rep Power: 75	The Maxxing Out The GeForce Fx Go5200 Guide! As far as DirectX 9 is concerned, the NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5200 does not have the *oomph* to deliver the goods. To be fair, it could all be due to the fact it was under-clocked and its AGP sideband support was disabled. That’s why we will take another look at the Go5200 today. This time, reclocked and with AGP sideband support! Let’s see if it finally lives up to expectations! Link : Maxxing Out The GeForce Fx Go5200! __________________ Dr. Adrian Wong Tech ARP \| Blog @ Tech ARP \| The Free Trade Zone DYKT : The only offshore account I have is at the sand bank? We need PROGRAMMERS and TECHNICAL WRITERS! Contact us if you are a hot shot programmer or technical writer! My items for sale : 50x SD Card \| Memory Stick PRO \| Cyclone Energy Saver \| Seiko SS watch \| Tiger/Carlsberg beer jugs \| Travel Speakers \| Motorola V600 \| Nokia N90 SOLD! \| New Lowepro Mini Trekker AW Other items for sale @ the FTZ : Zalman CNPS9500 LED @ $20 \| Zalman CNPS7700 Cu @ $20 \| Zalman CNPS7000 Cu @ $20 \| Swarovski bracelet watches \| Dell 17" LCD \| Hi-Fi speakers \| English DIVX movies \| HP LaserJet toners! \| Office chairs

30th Jan 2004, 02:40 PM	#2 (permalink)
jonnywonder Newbie Join Date: 13 Jan 2004 Location: Santa Rosa, CA Posts: 3 Reputation: 0 Rep Power: 0	question I've been using my satellite m35 with the nvidia GPU for a couple weeks, and I've been pretty happy with the performance so far. I'm not a huge PC gamer but I like to keep my options open. Just a question because I'm new to the world of laptops...is it possible to get a new graphics card in the future like you can swap out graphics cards in a PC? Or are you pretty much stuck with what you got? Just wondering for the future. Thanks! -jonathan

30th Jan 2004, 05:49 PM	#3 (permalink)
Adrian Wong Da Boss Join Date: 10 Oct 2002 Location: In front of my ASUS F8V notebook! Posts: 32,299 Reputation: 3574 Rep Power: 75	Well, GPU upgrades are not possible in notebooks, not that I know of anyway. I can't even add more RAM to the Go5200 in this notebook! But the good news is at least the Go5200 has full DirectX 9 support. Game support should not be a problem. Only speed is a problem. To that end, you can always use a lower resolution and detail level. Please note that I used maximum texture detail and a resolution of 1024x768 in the tests. __________________ Dr. Adrian Wong Tech ARP \| Blog @ Tech ARP \| The Free Trade Zone DYKT : The only offshore account I have is at the sand bank? We need PROGRAMMERS and TECHNICAL WRITERS! Contact us if you are a hot shot programmer or technical writer! My items for sale : 50x SD Card \| Memory Stick PRO \| Cyclone Energy Saver \| Seiko SS watch \| Tiger/Carlsberg beer jugs \| Travel Speakers \| Motorola V600 \| Nokia N90 SOLD! \| New Lowepro Mini Trekker AW Other items for sale @ the FTZ : Zalman CNPS9500 LED @ $20 \| Zalman CNPS7700 Cu @ $20 \| Zalman CNPS7000 Cu @ $20 \| Swarovski bracelet watches \| Dell 17" LCD \| Hi-Fi speakers \| English DIVX movies \| HP LaserJet toners! \| Office chairs

30th Jan 2004, 08:59 PM	#4 (permalink)
peaz ARP Webmaster Join Date: 13 Oct 2002 Location: http://atpeaz.placidthoughts.com/ Posts: 8,584 Reputation: 1673 Rep Power: 32	i believe you could for Dells because they've custom designed their GPUs into daughterboards. but as for other manufacturers... sad but no... it's not possible. __________________ Ken Ng Tech ARP Follow me at Twitter Shoot and Earn Money from Stock Photography

1st Feb 2004, 12:15 PM	#5 (permalink)
paxarchangel Newbie Join Date: 1 Feb 2004 Posts: 2 Reputation: 0 Rep Power: 0	Problem using the RivaTuner for the Nvidia FX Go5200 Hi, It seems that I can't change the speed of the Go5200 with my Dell Inspiron 8600 notebook. I tried to do as the article said, but when I open te RivaTuner I can't even change a thing. How can I make these manual changes if I can't even change a thing? Anyone ave any idea if I forget to do something? Thanks in advance!!!

2nd Feb 2004, 06:23 AM	#6 (permalink)
goodl Newbie Join Date: 20 Jan 2004 Posts: 9 Reputation: 0 Rep Power: 0	read the documentation, it can appear that way, i had to rtfm before I found out how to do it properly. It isn't a very intuitive app

3rd Feb 2004, 02:48 AM	#8 (permalink)
paxarchangel Newbie Join Date: 1 Feb 2004 Posts: 2 Reputation: 0 Rep Power: 0	Nvidia drivers Thanks Adrian for the reply, it did help me greatly, I was trying to change these setting in the first customize arrow, which seems to be frozen, so it did work with the second customize arrow! I have another quick question, I was wondering what is the difference between the Detonator drivers, the forceware drivers and the other nVidia drivers since I want to check if I have the lattest version of the drivers. I noticed that The Nvidia FX 5200Go drivers are available for the forceware version and the Detonator, which should I download? Thanks in advance!

5th Feb 2004, 02:51 AM	#10 (permalink)
canismagnus Newbie Join Date: 5 Feb 2004 Location: Work (pretending to anyway) Posts: 3 Reputation: 0 Rep Power: 0	Great article-unfortunate results Hey, great article! I have a Toshiba Satellite P-15-479 2.8 P4HT (865PE chipset) w/ the FX Go5200 w/ 64mb of VRAM, 8x APG, side band addressing enabled and 1024 mb of RAM. I used Powerstrip to overclock the GPU from the stock memory speed of 200mhz to 220mhz and was able to obtain some improvement in performance, around 150 more 3DMark03 point (i.e. it went from approx 1000 points to around 1150). If I push the memory speeds to 230mhz, 3DMark crashed. I didn't change the core speed. I sure wish your insightful article had come out a couple months ago, when I bought the laptop. I definately would have rethought my purchase (I like to play games). I was suckered by the impressive looking component stats, but had no real benchmarks to judge them by. Your articles regarding the FX Go5200 provided very accurate and usable information and should be noted by anyone who is thinking about buying a laptop with this GPU for gaming purposes. For around a $100 to $200 more than I got my P-15 for, one can get a machine w/ an Mobile ATI 9600 Pro w/ 128 VRAM. The 3DMark03 benchmarks for notebooks packing those GPU's runs around 2000+ points (based on FutureMarks project ORB database). I think that is a significant enough performance difference to justify the added expense (gamer's perspective, of course). Don't get me wrong. I think Toshiba makes a great laptop and overall, I've been very happy, since I often play non-graphically intense strategy games. Still, given the Nvidia hype, I expected more. Shame on you Nvidia! Thanks for the advice and keep up the good work.