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Holiday 2012 Ultrabook and Ultraportable Guideby Jarred Walton on 12/12/2012 4:00 AM EST
78 Comments
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mayankleoboy1 - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkUltrabooks -- Shiny Things For The Stupid Reply
di1in - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkJust because you didn't need them (or can't afford), does not mean others don't. Reply
SetiroN - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkAfter being seduced by the hype and getting an UX31A zenbook prime, I can only agree with him.
Similar performance to $400 laptops for 4 times the price with a weight and battery life that still leave something to be desired.
I'd much rather have a standard i3 (which performs better) than those overpriced ULV cpus, in a thicker laptop that takes advantage of it with a seriously hefty battery and acceptable dedicated, switchable graphics.
Shiny things for the stupid - or overly rich. Apple products in a taiwanese package.
Spending $1500 to still have absymal performance and the same kind of battery life just for the sake of some thinness is ridiculous, especially considering that they're not really all that incredibly more portable than standard 13". Reply
karasaj - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkWhy would you buy an ultrabook if you need more performance and heavy graphics... there's a reason MBA and iPad's became popular, and it isn't because of their price per performance. Reply
SetiroN - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkI'm not sure what post you've read, but nowhere did I say I needed more performance or heavy graphics.
As most people, you read what you want to read instead of trying to understand other people's perspective.
I'll try and help you: what I said is that
there is no reason to pay 4-5 times the price just to have a fashion item, because a normal 13" with an i3 could allow for a much larger battery and a dedicated GPU (which doesn't mean a 680m as you thought, just something more acceptable than the absymal HD4000) at a fraction of the price of high end ultrabooks while maintaining similar portability; Ultrabooks aren't really all that more portable because their battery still lasts 4 hours while weight and thickness aren't lower enough to justify the price. Nor does the cheap e-IPS screens that they market as if were EIZO while in reality they just cost just a little more than TNs.
If you need your CPU to consume less power, you can configure a power profile that lets any Ivy Bridge CPU consume the same kind of low power of the overpriced ULV processors that Intel is so willing to shove down our throats.
You pay for FASHION, not real added value.
The reason MBAs and Ipads became popular is that they offer good enough performance while being STILISH, regardless of their cost.
A smart buyer that doesn't care about making an impression with their laptop would save $500 and get the same thing half an inch thicker, while improving graphics performance in the process. Reply
Nvidiaguy07 - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkIm sure i can pay much less for a big clunky piece of crap, but lugging around something like that - with many inferior parts isnt just about style.
-sent from my 13" macbook air Reply
aahjnnot - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkYou make the mistake of assuming that everyone is like you.
Like many people, I have absolutely no interest in gaming so performance on my 13" MacBook Air is more than adequate. It launches applications instantaneously, resumes from suspend in a few seconds and is even fast enough for light video editing.
Of far more importance is the weight (it's light enough for me not to care about carrying it), the battery life (enough for an evening on the sofa), the screen quality and resolution and cool operation (my sperm don't care if it's on my lap).
If you think I bought it as a FASHION statement, you're an extraordinarily bad student of human behaviour. Reply
Ananke - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkI got $250 Asus made Pentium laptop, which is actually lighter than MBA, has decent build quality and allows me to do with ease the same what you are doing with your MBA :). ..The guy is right, ultrabooks are overpriced fashion statements, that command huge profit margin - the only reason manufacturers introduced them and still trying to market so desperately. The reality is that almost nobody buys them, and the pace of sales of ultrabooks actually decreases. These are the same as Aston Martins - beatiful things, but with very limited number of customers.
Now, if a nice equipped ultrabook is sold at regular price of $300 , that's different story. Reply
aahjnnot - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkDoes the $250 Asus have an SSD? Does it have more than 1280x768 screen resolution? Does it have 5+ hours battery life? Is it slim as well as light?
If so, I'm impressed. If not, it sounds as if it meets your requirements perfectly, but it doesn't meet mine.
We're all different. But to assume that someone else is driven by fashion is extraordinarily naive. I looked long and hard for an alternative to the MacBook Air, but, at the time, I couldn't find any equivalent on the market. I personally couldn't care less about fashion, but I'm happy to pay good money top get the features that are important to me. Reply
rickjr82 - Friday, December 14, 2012 - linkAlso, what about the touchpad and keyboard? I do a lot of development work on my machine and don't want to put up with something that isn't reliable or easy to use.
I looked all over for a well reviewed laptop with an ssd and high screen resolution and would have much rather spent $600 than $1099 for my MBA, but I couldn't find anything. Reply
EnzoFX - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkWhat about build quality? Those cheap laptops are cheap for a reason. They'll last you maybe two years lol. Let alone the merits of portability and usability (What's the point of some bit laptop that you will hate using because it's built so cheaply and it has shitty kb/trackpad/screen, etc). Reply
kyuu - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkWhat you say might hold some weight if other laptops had better battery life than expensive ultrabooks. They don't. Unless you're getting a sheet battery or a gigantic battery that bulges out the bottom.
Also, ULV chips really perform pretty much on par with standard laptop chips. I did some research on a particular ULV i5 that was in an ultraportable (though not quite an ultrabook) versus the standard LV i5 that was also an option. My finding was that the ULV i5 had pretty much equal performance in all respects to the standard LV i5, it just drew less power and had a price premium. Not really surprising considering ULVs are generally the same chips as the standard ones, they're just binned to get the ones that run at lower voltages. Reply
SetiroN - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkI'm not using the MBA as an example, we're talking ultrabooks. Apple's ultraportable admittedly is a better option, but no ultrabook is on par with it on multiple sides so considering were're talking ultrabooks, I couldn't care less that you're posting from your macbook air (as if the idiotic smartphone tapatalk signatures weren't enough, btw).
As I said, I have an UX31A (the top version with the 1080p screen, i7 and 256Gb SSD), and it's nowhere near worth the price premium.
- the screen is good, but it's a common e-IPS that's not worth $500. Also, 1080p is overkill (and 16:9 is just stupid at small diagonals, give me a freakin' 16:10 display FFS) and not prone to desktop usage
- the ULV i7 performs well, but it's not better than a normal voltage i3 3110m. I find myself limiting the CPU frequency on the go to retain that 1 more hour of battery and I could achieve exactly the same with said i3: at their low power states, 800-1200MHz, they run at the same voltage and consume the same amount of power, something I hadn't considered before
- build quality isn't all that good: the hinge becomes slightly loose over time and the screen gets damaged over contact with the keyboard border when closed). Yeah, it's made out of an aluminium unibody, but it's absolutely not solid, it easily bends and honestly compares to a normal plastic chassis. Macbooks' sturdiness is way above this
- the trackpad SUCKS
- despite the ULV chip, it's still relatively noisy under even slight load
-at 1.4Kg and 18mm, it's not that much more portable than normal 1.8Kg 25mm 13inchers
And that's arguably the best ultrabook on the market I'm talking about here.
So yeah, current ultrabooks are all about style and milking customers.
Unfortunatly Intel and the industry are pushing towards them enough that the great alternative that could easily be possible nowadays doesn't exist.
A more average 13" chassis (Thinkpad 430, Vaio 13s) has equal or better quality than this Asus ultrabook and could easily pack a configuration such as this:
1600x900 non-TN screen
i3 3120m
GF 620m or better
70Wh battery
128GB mSATA SSD + 2,5" HDD
for $700 less than the $1500 I paid for my ultrabook
But no, manufacturers need to follow fashion, stay within Intel's ultrabook specs and push pricey stylish designs, leaving consumers without a smarter option to buy. Reply
Shadowmage - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkI have a Lenovo Yoga, which I bought for $825 shipped off Amazon. It has a 1600x900 13" IPS touchscreen, high quality Lenovo keyboard, and quite decent touchpad. Also, it weighs around 3.4lb and 17mm thin.
A Thinkpad T430 costs just a hundred dollars less and is more than 1lb heavier, a larger form factor (14" vs 13"), and doesn't have the touchscreen (which is surprisingly useful).
It's not form over function, this is actually a best-in-class machine. Reply
arswihart - Thursday, December 13, 2012 - linkThe trackpad rocks on the UX31A with the latest non-Asus Elantech drivers (I forget the driver number). I use them along with Google TouchFreeze (disables touchpad when typing), and I'm extremely happy with the touchpad.
The ASUS touchpad drivers worsen accuracy and sensitivity. They fool you into upgrading to them by incrementing Elantech's driver version number, as if Elantech developed the drivers. Instead, ASUS is hacking on them and making them worse.
Personally I love my UX31A, if you don't need a bunch of CPU power and can deal with the 4GB RAM, it's really a beautiful device with a display that is second to none. Battery life is acceptable but agreed it's not great. Reply
arswihart - Thursday, December 13, 2012 - linkI agree the model you bought (i7 with 256GB SSD) is a waste of money. The base model has essentially identical performance and is a few hundred bucks cheaper.
So, I can see how the UX31A sucks for people like you who bought the expensive version. Reply
JNo - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - link"I'm not sure what post you've read, but nowhere did I say I needed more performance or heavy graphics."
But you did say:
"I'd much rather have a standard i3 (which performs better) than those overpriced ULV cpus, in a thicker laptop that takes advantage of it with a seriously hefty battery and acceptable dedicated, switchable graphics."
You may not have shouted it out directly but I think most would agree that any normal person would infer that you actually find your ultrabook lacking at times and could appreciate some more grunt. You may not *need* it but there' s an implication that it wouldn't go amiss. Maybe you should read your own post more carefully before getting too snarky in your reply... Reply
SetiroN - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkYou're right, I apologise for coming out too sour. Reply
JarredWalton - Thursday, December 13, 2012 - linkHey, what do you think you're doing!? This is the Internet. You NEVER, EVER apologize on the Internet! Man, when will people ever learn?
;-) Reply
althaz - Thursday, December 13, 2012 - linkNo, you pay for portability, screen quality, build quality and battery life. As an added bonus you can pretty frequently also get a huge boost to everyday speed and performance with an included SSD (the best thing about ultrabooks).
I don't give a shit about graphics in my portable PC (the HD4000 is no slouch, btw, it's not the integrated graphics of old), I've got a desktop with a 4Ghz i5 and OC'ed GTX670 with 16Gb of RAM for when I want performance.
I can't take my desktop on the train though. But with an ultrabook (I'll be picking one up that is also decent as a tablet as well, thinking the Samsung transformer-esque model with ULV i5 and 128Gb SSD) I can do my University assignments on the train (I work full-time so it's the perfect opportunity to get stuff done) and I can take it hiking or camping as well as watch a movie or read an e-book with it at home. I can also browse the web whilst sitting on the couch or catch up on my work emails while I'm on a plane.
Laptops are universally rubbish for performance, so why not get one that is ACTUALLY portable? Reply
Impulses - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkMany models are only around $1,000 and most $500 laptops have anemic battery capacities... The comparison isn't lopsided enough to make an ultrabook a universal bad value. You'll never find a 1920x1080 IPS display on a $500 laptop either. Now if you have other performance needs then you should obviously take that into consideration, your needs aren't the same as everyone's tho. Reply
sigmatau - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkMost $1,000 ultrabooks don't have a 1920x1080 IPS display either.
You are basicaly paying an extra $500 for a laptop shell. What do you get for the extra $500? A slower computer with similar or worse battery life.
Where do I sign up?
I said this since ultrabooks came out. I am not paying $500 for a laptop shell. Reply
mrdude - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkThey're just thinner... and that's it.
Current Ultrabooks are nothing more than netbooks with a metal shell. The issue isn't so much ultrabooks than it is the alternatives to ultrabooks. You can buy a 3.2lb Toshiba R935 with better internals for roughly the same price. Unlike Ultrabooks, it gives you full access to its internals and has a replaceable battery.
I'm surprised the X230 wasn't listed here. I'd take that any day of the week over an Ultrabook. Reply
EnzoFX - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkIt's called build quality, maybe you don't understand that concept. I'm not saying it's worth $500 to everyone, but it's worth something to everyone. Some people buy in sooner than others as prices make their way down. It's pretty simple right?
I for one can't stand those cheap, huge laptops that last 2 years tops. Reply
mrdude - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkBuild quality? You mean those Ultrabooks made of plastic that cost more laptops with better internals? That build quality?
Think about what you're giving up and getting for thinner here:
- A CPU that throttles under load, either on the CPU or GPU side, because of TDP constraints and thermal issues.
- Higher price because reasons.
- non-replaceable battery. If you use your laptop as a daily driver that means you're going to have to replace the battery in about 2-3 years.
- Soldered RAM. We all know how much us tech geeks love soldered RAM.
- High price for worse performance. If ULV chips sold for 2/3 the price of 35W cousins I'd be okay with that, but they don't.
And are they any lighter? Are they any quicker? Is the build quality any better? No, no, and nope.
My X220 with a 9-cell battery goes for 12 hrs on a charge, can be tinkered with all I please, and has a great matte display, all at just over 3lbs. Build quality? It's a ThinkPad. Reply
kyuu - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkExcept they're usually not slower outside of graphics performance (and are often faster in most tasks due to the inclusion of SSDs instead of 5400RPM laptop HDDs).
Also yeah, you're paying more for better build quality -- if build quality isn't important to you, then feel free to pick from the many choices for cheaply made laptop shells. No one is stopping you. Reply
mrdude - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkJarred has done an article on this already. The GPU in an Ivy ULV with throttle under load due to TDP constraints. It results in stuttering and can be significant depending on the title. I've witnessed this myself.
To boot, a lot of Ultrabooks suffer from CPU throttling due to heat as well.
You can also buy laptops with SSDs. The point here is that unlike Ultrabooks, you can actually do this yourself.
And I'd put my X220 against any Apple product when it comes to build quality. Steel hinges, great ventilation, magnesium roll cage and rubberized finish so it doesn't slip out of your hand. Throw in the spill resistant keyboard and sturdy nature of the product and you've got yourself some great build quality.
If you're comparing $500 laptops to $800 Ultrabooks then I don't know what to tell you. Reply
blkle - Saturday, December 15, 2012 - linkUltrabook is for mobility, to work anywhere with light weight. If it's about gaming, I would rather choose desktop setup than a gaming laptop.
Laptop is for mobility, ain't for high performance. Reply
designerfx - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkthe phrase is "just because you can, doesn't mean you should".
The phrase does tend to apply to ultrabooks. Reply
Flunk - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkI actually bought an XPS 14 ultrabook, I had huge problems with the screen and Wi-Fi. The performance also wasn't great. I returned it and bought an Alienware m14x and all my problems went away. Sure it's heavier, but it will do what I need it to.
Ultrabooks are good enough for a lot of things, but if you're a power user, they're not quite ready for prime time. I think they're mostly for people to use as a second machine. Reply
darwinosx - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkYour mom likes them. Reply
sandro - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkShouldn't the 13" MBP Retina be considered an ultrabook? How does it stand against the high-end models described here? Reply
JarredWalton - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkAwesome display, costs an arm and a leg. I'm not impressed enough with the rMBP 13 to recommend it, plus it's using full voltage parts which is sort of where I drew the line in this guide. Reply
TEAMSWITCHER - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkYou gotta shop around. I found the 13" MacBook Pro Retina for $1560.00. At that price it's worth considering. It's not a machine for modern gaming - just solid mobile computing.
I used to put all my money into a single kick-ass Laptop - using a monitor, keyboard, and mouse for desk work and gaming. But now, I split the load between my 13" Retina Macbook and a Desktop PC. Services like DropBox and iCloud has enabled me to easily move between machines.
Mumrik - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkCareful now. You're ruining Anandtech's supposedly pro Mac bias. Reply
prdola0 - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkYou somehow missed the Dell XPS 14, which fits into your midrange category quite nicely. It is 14", weights under 5 pounds (4.6 exactly) and has quite good graphics for a small form factor - GT630M. If I remember correctly this is the very popular GT540M from previous generation, but moved to the 28nm process. It can even handle 3D Vision over 3D TV Play.
You might want to add it to the list, since it's a very capable system. Reply
Pino - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkWhere the X1 Carbon fits here?! Reply
J_Tarasovic - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkI'll call your X1 Carbon and see you the forthcoming X1 Carbon Touch. Reply
yboy403 - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkI feel like the series 9 13" or 15" should have been in here somewhere. They compare very well to the UX31A on everything but price, and wouldn't have been out of place in the high end section. Reply
nathanddrews - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkI know it should be assumed with "Hello 1080p Touchscreens!", but you forgot to mention that the XPS 12 has a 12.5" 1080p touchscreen and you made no mention of its quality or the tech behind it. IPS? TN? Or do we have to, I don't know, wait and be patient for the full review? ;-)
It's a shame they couldn't have packed a discrete GPU in there, too. Reply
DigitalFreak - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkIt's an IPS panel. We have a couple of them at work and they're really nice. Don't know if they're worth the price though. Reply
frozentundra123456 - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkI was never a fan of Apple, but I have to say that in the thin formfactor, they have come from overpriced to very competitive. The bookstore at the college where I work has the 11.6 and 13 inch MBA on display, and they are very nice. The price is also now very competitive, especially since they come with a true SSD. So if I didnt need windows, I would consider one. Somehow, they just feel like higher quality and more portable than the ultrabooks I have seem in best buy. I also like the very simple line-up of the MBA, not so many models to try to choose from. It is great to have choice, but the array of ultrabooks is just dizzying, and nearly all have some flaw. I do like the Lenovo Yoga though, and to go cheap and really portable, I like the 11.6 inch Asus. They had one of these in Best Buy and it even had a touch screen. I sure would trade it for my crappy tablet in a heartbeat if given the chance. Reply
prdola0 - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkApple is still overpriced. It's the other manufacturers that somehow think that we want to pay as much as Apple fans. Reply
EJ257 - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkThat's nothing new. Remember the Sony ultrathin line back in the early 2000s. Those things were going for upwards of $2000 fully configured. It had no built-in optical drives because they were so small and this was back when optical was still useful. People still bought them. Couple of years later Apple released the MBA line and history repeats itself. Reply
pjcamp - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkThe whole point of a portable is *portability* and portability depends almost entirely on battery life. Consequently, I'm disappointed that, after an initial mention early in the article, you've not considered battery life as a factor at all in any of these recommendations. Please don't leave your readers to root around through a mountain of individual reviews to figure out this information. A guide is supposed to guide. Reply
Impulses - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkAnd readers shouldn't have to be spoon fed if they're researching a $1,000+ investment... It's a guide, not a review handbook or Bible. Anandtech's search works just fine and so does their Bench for more direct comparisons. Reply
jamawass - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkShouldn't this have been mentioned in the high end category? Reply
estarkey7 - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkI can't believe you put that Dell into the review and omitted the Sony. I think the Sony is by far significantly better than the Dell offering in every aspect, including price and reliability of the Tablet/PC mechanisim. Reply
JarredWalton - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkMost of the commentary (reviews) of the VAIO Duo are not particularly positive. I think the idea behind the Duo is okay, but in practice I just can't see it being all that great. I've got the XPS 12 in for review already, and I can tell you that I like it a lot. So that's why the VAIO isn't listed while the XPS 12 is. Reply
estarkey7 - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkEditor reviews are leaning very negative, but user reviews are overwhelmingly positive. Also, Sony stock of the Duo 11 also gives an idea of how popular it is with the demographic that truly counts - Verified Buyers. Reply
Johnmcl7 - Thursday, December 13, 2012 - linkYeah, it's an interesting disconnect between the user reviews and professional reviews. I bought the Vaio Duo 11 as it's smaller and lighter than the XPS 12 and even then, the Vaio is a bit hefty for use as a tablet so I think the XPS 12 is a bit much. I didn't like the Vaio design initially but it works surprisingly well for touch as the screen is very close to the keyboard so it's easy to lift your hands to the screen without much movement.
Also the Vaio has physical LAN, VGA and full hdmi ports onboard rather than needing adapters as most other Ultrabooks do.
Whenever it's been asked 'Where is the Sony' in previous comments the reply has always been that Sony rarely give them review units so assumed it was the same in this case.
John Reply
stratosrally - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkI was commissioned to help an elderly lady friend of mine that has had a partial stroke find a new laptop. We ended up going with the Asus VivoBook Q200E. It came with an Intel® Core™ i3-3217U CPU, 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD, USB 3.0, Bluetooth, HDMI and an 11.6" Touchscreen with Windows 8. It has an aluminum chassis, as well. All for $449.99!
She loves it. I'm actually a bit jealous - a year ago I picked up a Lenovo G570 i3/4GB/500GB 15.6 laptop that misses out on the USB 3.0 and the HDMI out. I paid $399.99. Reply
lamecake - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkI just got the Asus Vivobook Q200E (called X202 in Europe), put in an SSD and I absolutely amazed by it. W8 plus touchscreen works so nice and smooth. The thing weighs 1.3kg, boots in seconds, no lags oanywhere (i3 3217 + ssd + w8 goes perfect), I get about 3.5 - 5 hrs of multimedia use out of a charge, superb build quality, etc.
I sold my Lenovo U410 which had worse build quality worse battery life no support and lost some theoretical performance which I don't even miss/noticed. Oh and I got back 300 euros on the swap.
Bottom line the Asus vivo book for 449dollar/euro is a real gem for the money. I'd def put it way above the mentioned Acer V171. Reply
stratosrally - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkI've read on some forums that you can replace the Atheros card with an Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6235 and with Widi software and a Belkin Screencast send a HD wireless broadcast to your1080p HDTV. Also, there is a BIOS upgrade that reduces fan noise & increases battery life - look for BIOS update 205. Lastly, the Asus SmartGesture touchpad software can be uninstalled and replaced with Samsung Series-5 laptop touchpad driver 188.8.131.52 direct from their website for vastly improved functionality. These changes along with a 7mm SSD swap make it peerless... Reply
lamecake - Thursday, December 13, 2012 - linkAlready did the bios upgrade and touchpad driver update! Fan noise is barely noticeable afterwards. Only seems to be there under heavy GPU load (thing gets a bit hot.. 80c).
The WiFi I was already thinking about. But out of the box it has pretty decent performance. My gf has the Samsung 5 series ultrabook, and the asus does a bit better. The U410 has a design flaw which prevented WiFi to ever work properly, (and a very short whitelist preventing any upgrade). Anyway, I'm thinking the WiFi just stays as is (atheros).
As mentioned, battery life is indeed pretty decent. Also the 7mm ssd is a very valid point to mention. Nothing thicker will fit. To enable any other HDD in the Asus you also need to set smart boot/fast boot to "disable/no", otherwise you won't get past the bios screen.
But thanks for sharing the tips. :) Reply
stratosrally - Thursday, December 13, 2012 - linkJust spreadin' the word - enjoy your little dynamo of a portable! Reply
stratosrally - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkApologies - got the CPU wrong of my year-old purchase. I did upgrade to a nice Corsair 8GB 1333MHz kit for about $35, though. It's good enough for most day-to-day applications. Reply
failquail - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - link"Lenovo ends up the closest with their 14" IdeaPad S405, and sadly that's the smallest AMD-equipped ultraportable we can find"
Erm... you managed to somehow miss out the entire X-series line.
I've owned 11" AMD ultraportables for quite a few years now, first the Lenovo x100e, now a x121e. the newest is the x131e
http://shop.lenovo.com/gbweb/gb/en/learn/products/... Reply
kyuu - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkEh... those might be interesting if they came with some kind of Trinity solution, but Brazos? If they were going to go down that far, they'd also have to throw in Atom-powered netbooks. Reply
spctm - Thursday, December 13, 2012 - linkActually there is one decent ultrabook from Samsung that I am currently using. I have posted a review of it in AT forums. Its the Samsung series 5 535u3c with a trinity A6-4455m CPU. Granted I would have preferred a A10-4655 with a 25w TDP, nevertheless this is fine for my workload of mainly coding, surfing, and some simple photo management.
The moment I got it I added additional 4GB so-dimm and a sandforce based SSD(which i already had). Wouldn't match an ivy bridge but competitive enough. Reply
marc1000 - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkWhat about this unusual notebook from Asus? Near-ultrabook size with a touch screen AND conventional keyboard. What's your opinion about it? Reply
Abdar19 - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkI am not sure why there is so much aggression on this forum over how people spend their money rather than the products in particular.
I seem to see this comparison between a 5lb $500 laptop that is twice as thick compared to something 3-4lb at $1000+ dollars. Whether or not it is worth it is kind of missing the point. I think the problem is lack of variety. Let me clarify that, there is a lack of variety in unique options, there are many options. Ideally one would be able to set a price and a set of features and have a laptop that fits. To jump from 500 to 1000 dollars to get the next group of features is obscene and that is the problem.
I found one of the only truely intriguing options from Acer being the M5. It sits right in the middle of the price range for $700. Newegg has a $100 coupon now so you can buy a 128gb msata drive and install windows on it instead. This effectively makes it have all of the features of a $1000 (minus the screen) but plus a GOOD graphics card for $700. Value for money then I would argue this is really the sweet spot. Price itself is only a side point in this kind of debate, or should be I think. Reply
tmok2008 - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkThe HP ENVY TouchSmart Ultrabook 4t-1100 is very slick looking. It is 3-4 lbs, and has a 14" touch screen, although not 1080p. The price is reasonable, starting at $799 MSRP. If you look around for a coupon code, you may even save a few bucks.
Personally, I don't like small screens. I would take a 15" over a 13" any day. For me, the HP Spectre XT Touchsmart with a 15.6" 1080p IPS touch screen would be a better choice. It's not an "Ultrabook", but it is still under 5 lbs. Reply
wpwoodjr - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkThe HP Spectre XT TouchSmart is an Ultrabook. I got one recently, very nice except for 4 hour battery life. My review is here:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R8FI1889QG6Y3/ Reply
bogieworf - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkThere are about 5 different approaches to this class of device:
1) traditional ultrabook with the idea that all you need to do is make a regular laptop small/ thin enough and light enough
2) "yoga" type fold over convertible
3) Dell XPS 12 "flip" screen
4) MS touch/type cover
5) tablet/laptop that connects to a keyboard (ie Transformer)
Some of these ideas are going to take hold, others will vanish. In addition, the marketplace has not yet decided the compromises it will embrace in this kind of device and the ones it will reject. I think we all see that many people are carrying a phone and tablet/e-Reader around and maybe a laptop. And I think most of use would like to go down to at least two devices. So what is it? A phablet and a laptop? A phone and a convertible? Or keep all 3 as long as the price is low enough for each?
Over time, the answers will come. Today, all we can offer are best guesses. Reply
JNo - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkAlthough the Acer M5 is great, it seems that it's older brother, the M3, is even better value possibly. It misses a few modern niceties such as USB 3.0 but it has a still fast enough i5 coupled with what I understand is the full power GT 640M (not the LE version in the M5). And it's cheaper and still very thin. Win win all round for value gaming laptop if you're happy not to have the very latest specs... Reply
JarredWalton - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkThe M3 version has a slightly slower SNB processor, and while the 640M is technically faster than the 640M LE, the M3 uses a DDR3 variant while the 640M LE is GDDR5. It basically ends up better in some cases, slightly worse in others, depending on the game and settings. Personally, I like having GDDR5 memory on my midrange mobile GPUs, and the M5 is easier to find in stock. Reply
Pojosama - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkI recently purchased the Yoga 13, and I think it's an excellent product. Using any of these touchscreen ultrabooks in tablet mode is pretty ridiculous considering the size and weight, but I love being able to flip the screen back and use the keyboard as a stand. It's also nice that you can put the laptop into tent mode to use as a second monitor, so when you touch it, it doesn't wobble. Really, if Windows 8 is good for anything, it's for being a trojan horse for forcing manufacturers to create super thin, light, versatile products. I love where products like the iPad and Windows 8 are pushing computers.
Good stuff all around. Ultrabooks are made for ultimate convenience: they are very snappy performers and are light enough to move around easily. You definitely get what you pay for, in my opinion.
And yes, they DO look classy. There's nothing wrong with a bit of superficiality with our tech products. Reply
Electromikey - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkI've got the UX32VD, which I promptly stuck a Samsung 830 SSD into. I've owned it for about four months, and I absolutely love this thing. It lessened the load of my backpack by quite a bit (had a big ol' entertainment-focused monster before), and I can still play games on the go if I want to. Nothing incredibly taxing, but LAN party fodder is a piece of cake. The display is, as stated, absolutely gorgeous, and the keys are actually rather good for typing. I'm a "HULK SMASH KEYBOARD WHILE TOUCH TYPING" kind of touch typist, and these things give me rather decent feedback. Worth every penny I paid for it. Reply
alfling - Thursday, December 13, 2012 - linkNo mentions about the Asus UX51VZ? <2cm thick, <2Kg, 15,6" 1080p IPS matte screen, i7-3612QM, Nvidia GT650M 2GB GDDR5, 6 hours battery...not an ultraportable? Reply
ajp_anton - Thursday, December 13, 2012 - linkWhy do you disqualify the Macs solely on the fact that they're Macs? Just add a note that if you don't already own Windows, it will add some extra cost, but besides that, is there anything wrong with them as Windows machines? The trackpad was the only thing I used to have an issue with, but that's fixed with Trackpad++. Reply
Jamezrp - Thursday, December 13, 2012 - linkThat's what I'd really like to know. What Ultrabook has the best keyboard. Most of them are only half decent. I want something excellent. Reply
bogieworf - Thursday, December 13, 2012 - linkThe Lenovo Twist has the best keyboard I have personally tried Reply
JarredWalton - Friday, December 14, 2012 - linkI like both the Dell XPS 12 and the ASUS UX31A keyboards -- both have good key travel with reasonable layouts. The Acer S7 keyboard is severely lacking IMO. Reply
R3MF - Friday, December 14, 2012 - linkthe 13" ivy-bridge model (X3C) with windows 7 is currently available for £850 which includes a free Samsung Galaxy Tab 7 v2.
A steal. Reply
jonjonjonj - Saturday, December 15, 2012 - linkthe real solution is to format the computer and install windows 7. ClassicShell or Start8 doesnt solve the problem of windows 8 sucking. i also agree that a messing with the keyboard and making dumb changes is a sure fire way to not sell one to me. Reply
dja - Sunday, December 16, 2012 - linklots of interesting info in here, and some good, and not so informed opinions.
Ill never go back to apple, i use them for work everyday, and i just hate the OS, that's what it comes down too.
I bought a samsung NP900X4C and with 256ssd and 8g ram it handles everything i can throw at it, battery life is about 7-8 hours, it does some video coding for me, and a bit of gaming, as well as my daily duties no problem.
Im hidden down in australia, and even with our insane prices i paid $1400 about 3-4 months ago for it.
Thin, light and powerful enough for me.
Some people will buy these for looks, status symbols etc, but for me (a pro in the It field) it actually hit right where i needed it Reply
Amit kumar - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkWow amazing and pretty solid device. Thanks for one of the fairest review of the ultrabook guide. I got its full specification on this site as well. http://www.gadtecho.com/ Reply


text:
Resident Evil 6 - PS3
Release Date:October 02, 2012
Also on:PlayStation 3 PS4 Xbox 360 Xbox One
Viewing USA:Also on UK.
Resident Evil 6 is one of the best in the series, and a testament to how good Capcom can do survival horror genre. Unfortunately the campaigns put an over emphasis on action bring down the experience. If those shortcomings can be overcome there is a great storyline and gameplay to be found.
Super Gamer Dude
PlayStation 3
Resident Evil 6 had one of the most controversial development cycles of the series. Capcom expressed an interest in getting more casual fans to gravitate towards the series, and this acknowledgment caused an uproar among long standing fans of the series. Capcom's attempt to reach out to a wider audience does not go unnoticed, in Resident Evil 6, nor does it help make the game better. Only the strong points of the game, the ones that more often than not come from past entries into the series, pull Resident Evil 6 from out of the dregs on mediocrity and make it a game worth playing, just not one that is must play.
Instead of simply making one game that appeals to a certain niche, Capcom decided instead to combine four separate games and smash them into one game under the same engine. The result is the largest, most epic and most varied entry into the series, but it is also the most muddled. Rather than having one campaign Resident Evil 6 has four. Each campaign follows one or two different character from the Resident Evil series. The game's storylines intersect and overlap but each one can be played individually and has its own beginning, middle and end. The Tarantino-ish take on story telling is very effective and when they intersect it can be very satisfying. It is encouraging to see Capcom take this approach with Resident Evil, and it provides hope for where the series might go in the future.
The issues with Resident Evil 6 become apparent when the player realizes that some of the campaigns are simply not fun to play. Each campaign has its own feel and pace to it, Leon Kennedy's is a fantastic journey not unlike previous entries into the series, and is full of suspense and legitimate fear. On the other hand Jake Muller and Sherry Birkin's action-packed campaign seems like a generic pop and shoot game with a broken cover mechanic.
Extended fire fights and car chases are not the things fans remember when they think about the Resident Evil series, and Capcom's attempt to grab some gamers from Gears of War and Call of Duty by adding these elements did not work in Resident Evil 6's favor. Ada Wong's campaign is similar to Leon's, only with more stealth elements and it too is a great testament to the Resident Evil series. Chris Redfield's campaign meanwhile, falls somewhere in the middle of the two extremes.
Fortunately, regardless of the campaign, the graphics are top notch. With a greater emphasis on dark environments than in Resident Evil 5, the atmosphere is incredibly creepy, when it isn't being interrupted with gun fights and car chases. The controls are mostly solid, except for the cover mechanic, which is border-line broken, but most of the game can be played without it.
The good parts of Resident Evil 6 are some of the best in the series, and are a real testament to how good Capcom can do the survival horror genre.
Unfortunately the campaigns that put an over emphasis on action bring down the experience quite a bit. If those shortcomings can be overcome there is a great storyline and some terrific game play to be had here.
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I love to grill and barbecue but I also love to mix ingredients into a delicious sauce or rub or flavored whatever. I have a shelf full of really nice store-bought rubs and sauces that get ignored because I always end up making my own.
Welcome!! I think you will find many of us prefer our own rubs and such as well so you will fit right in. Be sure to share some pics and ideas.


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FCAT: The Evolution of Frame Interval Benchmarking, Part 1by Ryan Smith on 3/27/2013 9:00 AM EST
88 Comments
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DanNeely - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkYay for releasing software still using the visual studio default/placeholder icon. Reply
Guspaz - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkDesigning a new icon as a software developer is one of the hardest things, man... Reply
Kevin G - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkFCAT should have an icon of a fat cat. Reply
Jedi2155 - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkI agree with this comment. Reply
xdrol - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkYou deserve more likes, sir. Reply
mikato - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkYeah, Cheshire Cat! Reply
rcarroll05 - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkA picture of Garfield would work. A fat cat with an attitude. Reply
Gigaplex - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkGarfield is protected by copyright Reply
mwildtech - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkGood to see you guys are back in the game :) Cheers!! Reply
Veni - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkDoes FCAT reveal instances when frame metering is taking place? The focus on the end of the rendering pipeline concerns me, as NVIDIA might be using frame metering to give the appearance of very smooth frame delivery without improving the user experience. Delaying "fast" frames to shrink the delay attributable to "slow" frames does not help the subjective experience; stuttering game-time instead of frame-time is no better for the user. Reply
Spoelie - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkOn the previous article similar remarks were made: http://www.anandtech.com/comments/6857/amd-stutter...
In essence, stuttering in the game simulation is being downplayed maybe a bit too much.
Very intuitively, suppose that in the simulation an object moves from one side of the screen to the other at a constant speed, and suppose there is a stutter in there caused by:
1) the context queue being full
2) the simulation engine being blocked by this fact
(and also assume the simulation timer is written independent of the rendering pipeline of course, otherwise fast/slow rendering would accelerate/decelerate the simulation time).
Then the simulation might simulate like this (samples over time):
While the graphic subsystem is able to smooth out the stutter via queues, buffers, ... .
Frame delivery in that instance might be smooth, however visually the object will not move at a constant speed, moving slower in the beginning and stuttering/jumping or accelerating at a later stage.
... or I misunderstood some of the materials ;) Reply
Spoelie - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkOr said a little differently, the frame intervals actually should match the simulation intervals to not have a disconnect between the simulation and what's being shown on the screen. Reply
wavetrex - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkToday's multi-threaded games use a different thread for simulation.
The simulation runs at a constant speed, and sets up variables, which the graphic rendering thread pick up when generating frames. It's totally irrelevant if you have 20 frames or 120 or horrible visual stuttering. The simulation itself will be smooth... but the way it's displayed/presented... that's another thing. Reply
xdrol - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkDoesn't matter if the game engine is running on another thread or not, if it expects one frame to be displayed at t+0ms, the next one at t+10ms, third at t+30ms, then an evenly moving object will be at one third it's way on the second compared to the first and third frames.
If you even these frames out, and display them at t+0/t+15/t+30, then the object will be seemingly moving twice the speed between the first and second frames compared to between second-third. That is exactly shuttering. Reply
JPForums - Thursday, March 28, 2013 - linkI also agree with you and Spoelie. Simulation step stutter is also an issue that should be covered. It would be really nice to get simulation timestamps directly from the output of the simulator and match them up to their corresponding output frames. However, this would probably require collaboration with game developers that you probably won't get. Until then, using a tool that works at the output of the renderer (like FRAPS) and can associate simulation steps with output frames would be nice.
That said, there is really little that AMD or Nvidia can do to fix issues in the application other than trick it into working correctly. These results would be more useful for game developers developing new engines. Also keep in mind, simulation steps are tied loosely (through queues) to GPU's processing capabilities (unless the bottleneck happens to be before the command is dispatched to D3D). Simulation steps should be roughly equal to frame times on average. If the GPU processing were completely consistent, then the latency between the simulation step and output would be fixed and the output would appear smooth. It is variations in frame times that cause variations in simulation steps. On average, the variations of each should be roughly equal. The worse case stutter, which should be something like double the frame time variation (when simulator is compensating it the opposite direction as the frame time variation), is what we need to look out for. That said, variation in frame time is generally smaller than frame time itself. I would suggest that simulation step stuttering is a smaller problem than frame time stuttering and becomes smaller as frame times get shorter. Point of interest, Nvidia's Frame metering may actually increase simulation step stuttering. Reply
xdrol - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkI agree with this. If the frames aren't displayed at the time the game engine is expecting to, then you will have your should-be-moving-smoothly-objects being quirkly-moving-objects redered with a smooth framerate... Reply
Sabresiberian - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkI get your concern, but I'm not sure it's valid. The problem here is differences in frame rates, marked jerkiness where the moving images look like they've slowed down or even stopped and then suddenly jump forward. Evening this out by metering the frames ameliorates the issue, but at the cost of overall frame rates.
And, really, what's wrong with the technique, unless it were to bring frame rates down to an unacceptable level, and why would you consider it cheating somehow? Reply
JPForums - Thursday, March 28, 2013 - linkIIRC, frame metering occurs right before output and after the feedback loop. It does nothing to smooth out simulation steps. Further, adding random delays completely unknown to the simulator actually makes simulation step stutter worse. However, I believe simulation step stutter will prove to be a smaller problem than frame time stutter (at least until frame times themselves are long enough to be an issue). Reply
JPForums - Thursday, March 28, 2013 - linkAs far as I can tell it does not reveal instances of frame metering. While I do believe simulation step stutter to be a less significant problem than frame time stuttering, judicious use of frame metering may elevate its position as you are effectively adding random delays to the output that the simulator knows nothing about and therefore cannot compensate. I would encourage the reviewers here not to dismiss FRAPS completely yet. FCAT seems to be the better tool for evaluating the end of the pipeline, but until there is a better tool at the beginning of the pipeline that can see fine grained simulation step times, a coarse tool like FRAPS is still useful for revealing coarse simulation step time inconsistencies. Reply
justniz - Thursday, March 28, 2013 - link...but if they did do frame metering (i.e.delaying faster frames) the overall frame rate would drop, which other benchmarks would pick up easily. I'm sure that ATI and nVidia still care about overall FPS too. Reply
Ryan Smith - Friday, March 29, 2013 - linkIf there is frame metering, then FCAT would show results with highly regular frames with few-to-no runt frames. So in a roundabout way it proves frame metering/pacing; you wouldn't have that kind of smoothness without it. Reply
Andromeduck - Saturday, March 30, 2013 - linkNot delaying fast frames would cause stuttering game time.
Try again. Reply
Despoiler - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkCan't wait for part 2!
Found a couple of typos in this sentence, "By using a PC capture card, the *entre* run of a benchmark can be captured and recorded to *vide* for analysis." Reply
Torrijos - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkIt gets interesting ^^ A year and a half later, but still.
It would be interesting to have a FRAPS comparison result to see the improvements with this method.
Also I'm wondering about the cases where frames pass almost invisibly with only a few lines (or none?) been drawn to the screen (due to the screen / capture card refresh rate).
Does the tool detect such cases? (through knowing the order in which the colour overlay is supposed to happen it could detect frames that weren't drawn, while being unable to provide timing for those)
I've seen a couple more articles on news methods that forgo FRAPS...
http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Frame-... Reply
Torrijos - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkCommenting my own post (sic) to say that the pcper articles shows comparison between this new method and FRAPS and the old FPS average value, pretty interesting. Reply
DanNeely - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkYeah. It looks like pcper homebrewed the same sort of tool nVidia did internally. It'll be interesting to compare analysis options when part 2 is up. Reply
Klimax - Thursday, March 28, 2013 - linkHere you go:
Short story: You cannot stop using FRAPS unless one wants to miss part of story not visible at the end of pipeline. (FRAPS and FCAT are complementing not supplanting) Reply
tynopik - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - link"we have long waned" -> wanted (pg3) Reply
colinstu - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkTechreport has been doing this for months. It's a great measurement and definitely the way of the future when it comes to comparing cards. Sites holding onto FPS only reviews are stuck in the past. Reply
Novulux - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkYou may have missed the point of this article as well as the prior one. Techreport utilizes Fraps, which is what's being criticized. Simply because they may be waiting for the correct tool does not define many sites as "stuck in the past." Reply
Dribble - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkNo tech report have something very similar to what is described above with the colour bars - it's what detected the runt frames that afflict xfire. The nvidia tool looks like a more professional complete solution, but tech report did it first. Reply
Klimax - Thursday, March 28, 2013 - linkYou will still need FRAPS like tools, because FCAT won't see some problems and changes in pipeline. Reply
Hrel - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkmaking it a simple an effective tool - and*
it can only do at the start of the rendering pipeline - it can only do so* at the... Reply
Taracta - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkA color bar can hold a whole lot of information. From my reasoning, it might be possible to timestamp each line in a frame, but let's not get that detailed. How about just timestamping each frame and coding the information in the overlay. Each 24-bit pixel of the overlay is 3 bytes of information. An overlay at about 10 pixels wide would give 30 bytes of information on each line. This should be enough to timestamp the frame from were FRAPS would get its information to be compared with the time of what come out at the end of the pipeline. Why wouldn't this be possible? Reply
Rythan - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkAgreed. Ideally, you'd write a frame number and timestamp on each line of the overlay (as FRAPS/FCAT does), and separately transmit the frame number and timestamp to the video capture system (a simple 32-bit GPIO interface would do). This would tell you everything about latency, stutter, and dropped frames from the PRESENT call to the montior. Reply
Ryan Smith - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkUnfortunately that won't work. The timestamp needs to be generated at the moment the simulation state finalized, before the draw calls are sent off. Present is too late, particularly because a pipeline stall means that Present may come well after the simulation state has been finalized. Reply
Taracta - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkThe whole issue is not the simulation state but what happens between Present and your Display. The accuracy of what is being stimulated is not what the beanchmark is about (it would be nice to have a benchmark for that) but to measure the frame latency introduced by the graphics pipeline. Reply
shtldr - Thursday, March 28, 2013 - linkAt least the game/benchmark could encode the simulation time when it calls "present" and the capture analysis tool could then discover fluctuations in the time difference between simulation time and shown-on-the-screen time. Ideally, such a difference should be constant all the time, leading to a perfectly smooth rendering of the simulation. This is what someone has already pointed out earlier in the comments. Reply
arbiter9605 - Wednesday, April 17, 2013 - linki might be off, Like how frap's puts in its overlay of fps, dxframe overlay, puts the color on each frame in same way so colors are on each frame that through drivers, gpu, directx etc. Reply
toyotabedzrock - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkWhy can't they just send back a signal when the buffer swap happens? It seems that drawing more stuff on the screen adds a delay to rendering. Reply
wingless - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkIs this NVIDIA developed tool unbiased towards AMD? Reply
Ryan Smith - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkSo that's a very good question, and one I didn't have time to adequately delve into for this article.
The short answer is that on a technical level, there's no real possibility to fix the results. The extractor tool is only looking at a recorded video and has no idea what generated it. The overlay tool meanwhile is hooking into the pipeline at the application/Present level, similar to FRAPS. So it doesn't know anything about the hardware either.
On a practical level we've been over this with a fine-toothed comb. So have PCPerspective and others. What FCAT generates and what FCAT sees is consistent between all video cards. There's nothing strange going on.
That said, even NVIDIA is aware of the potential conflict of interest, which is why their goal is to eventually wash their hands of FCAT. The overlay can easily be implemented by someone else - ideally the FRAPS guys - and the extractor wouldn't be too hard to recreate (and the possibility is open of releasing the source for that). Someone had to do all the work to put this together though, and there really isn't anyone in a better position than a GPU vendor like AMD or NVIDIA. But now that they've laid down the template, independent parties can easily recreate all of this. Reply
DanNeely - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkIMO If their intent was to avoid maintaining the tool long term to avoid conflict of interest accusations they should've planned on making it open source from the start. Forcing 3rd parties to recreate something they always intended as a throwaway would be spiteful; and a pledge of opensourcing it would help mitigate accusations even if they held the code closed until it was completed. Reply
Ryan Smith - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkUnfortunately the overlay cannot be open sourced. There are patent/licensing issues there with some of the code they're using. The only way for that to be compliant is to recreate it from scratch, hence the very specific interest in having the FRAPS guys do it. Reply
xdrol - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkSeriously? That's lame.. What patented code does one need for drawing a single rectangle? Reply
Gigaplex - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkJust what the heck are they doing in the overlay code that has patent/licensing issues? Recreating it from scratch won't avoid any patent issues, and it's simple enough to implement that you don't need to cross license copyrighted code from a 3rd party. Reply
zanon - Friday, March 29, 2013 - linkRyan, Gigaplex is right and you're misunderstanding something here. Recreating code from scratch (*without* looking at the original, in other words clean-room reverse engineering) will get around any copyright issues. However, the whole reason software patents are so pernicious and wrong is that they protect the mere idea, not any implementation. Someone who came up with this completely independently and did it all themselves would still be violating any software patents on the idea of it.
If it actually is patented then the only way around it is for someone in a non-software patent country to do it or for anonymous people to just blow the law off and do it anyway. Also, software patents don't preclude open source either, they're semi-orthogonal depending on the license, but OSS is primarily about copyright (though the GPL 3 tries to expand it a bit). Nvidia may have separate licensing issues though that'd be unique to them. Reply
ARealAnand - Tuesday, April 09, 2013 - linkplease see comment below for my attempt at a reply to this comment. Sorry for the comment spam. Reply
wingless - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkThank you for the informative reply. I look forward to your use of FCAT (it needs a new name: FrapCAT). Reply
Taracta - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkI think there is a need to go over what frame drops and partial frames (runts) are as explained in article [LINK]http://www.anandtech.com/show/2794[/LINK] Reply
Th-z - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkThis can be time consuming and costly, but for the authenticity of FCAT's numbers, reviewers can always cross-ref with a second set of tool, e.g. high speed camera in random sections of a benchmark run to see if two results are consistent. If the stutter is really bad, a player can also detect it by eyes. My way of checking how constant the frames are is to move side to side with constant speed if it's a first person shooter (A and D in WASD config), or a controller to move left stick all the way to left or right for other types of games. Reply
Kevin G - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkA couple of generic questions regarding FCAT and the extractor tools.
I presume that the same color will appear across multiple frames on the monitor if the FPS is below 60?
Are the colors chosen random or do they repeat in a regular pattern? IE red green blue yellow red green blue yello red green blue yellow etc.
Does the extractor tool just use the color bar or does it attempt to determine where in a scan line a new frame starts?
Can this be used on an Eyefinity/Surround setup? Does only one of the monitors need to be captured? What is the maximum resolution that can be captured?
Looking at PLOT.png, there already appears to be some abnormally large spikes. Is there going to be any sort of visual inspection to verify that such oddities are just performace spike and not something erroneous going on with FCAT?
If FCAT and FRAPS are used simultaneously, which one intercepts the Present call first to process an overlay? Reply
Kevin G - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkTwo more questions:
What happens when the Present call is invokes when the color bar is being drawn on screen? IE one scan lines has the color bar composed of two different colors? Does the extractor record this as one scan line as one frame? (For example this could lead to a spike where one frame is recorded at 1080 fps on a 1080p display.)
If FRAPS can determine the frame rate from the application's perspective and FCAT can records the frame rate at the display level, then couldn't the latency invoked by just the OS/driver be determined on a per frame basis? Determining this latency would be interesting.
Can FCAT be used to determine the where a frame was rendered in a multiple GPU set up? IE each GPU is only allowed a specific subset of colors to use for their color bar. Reply
Ryan Smith - Friday, March 29, 2013 - link1) A scan line cannot be composed of two different colors. A frame cannot be switched mid-line. It has to wait until the end of the line.
2) So without timestamping and clock syncing, we would not be able to determine latency. It wouldn't be possible to easily match up frames to present calls, nor how long it took that one frame to traverse the pipe.
3) No. FCAT cannot tell us which GPU rendered a frame. AFR is too abstracted from the rendering pipeline for that. Reply
Ryan Smith - Friday, March 29, 2013 - link1) Correct. If the FPS is below 60, the monitor would be repeating part of a frame, so the color bar would stay the same until a new frame is finally served up.
2) The colors are in a regular pattern of 16 colors to detect dropped frames.
3) The extractor tool only looks for the color bar
4) Yes, this can be used on a surround setup. You'd just capture the leftmost display. The maximum resolution right now would be 2560x1440 (the limits of the capture card), which would be part of a 7680x1440 or 12800x1440 setup.
5) We've already taken a look at results like those. FCAT is almost dead simple; those aren't anomalies in FCAT.
6) It would be FRAPS first, then FCAT. NVIDIA suggests starting FRAPS second, so it comes earlier in the chain. Reply
wingless - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkFrame Render Ahead/Pre-Rendering (frames prepared by the CPU ahead of time)? How does this option change the outlook for SLI and Crossfire? The Battlefield 3 community is saying if you change this value to 0 or 1 versus the default value of 3, game play is smoother. I've done it myself on my old HD 4870 Crossfire setup on a i7-2600k+Z77 system and it does seem to help.
Does this pre-rendering affect the amount of runt frames on an SLI/Crossfire configuration?
What is the affect of different CPU/Chipset combinations. At one point folks used to say AMD system felt smoother, despite showing lower FPS.
Thanks for your analysis! Reply
marc1000 - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkso, this new method requires a PCIe card to capture the video? is that correct? Reply
bobbozzo - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkIt requires a capture card, and the capture probably needs to be done in a different computer, otherwise game performance would suffer. Reply
Ryan Smith - Friday, March 29, 2013 - linkCorrect. A separate system must be running a capture card to capture the output of the test system. We're using a Datapath Limited VisionDL-DVI card. Reply
HisDivineOrder - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - linkSoooo... not only did AMD NOT realize that this was an issue, but nVidia has known enough to worry about this particular issue for YEARS and develop a tool to detect and measure it.
Wow, AMD. You were behind the curve BEFORE you fired all those engineers in your R&D. The more this story develops, the more sad it becomes. Damn. It's like you're a farmer who failed to realize that you have to spray your fields for insects in addition to fertilizing them. Reply
ARealAnand - Tuesday, April 09, 2013 - linkI'm not sure you realize how development of silicon based semiconductor product works. This is not on the scale of a planting season where you put down some seed an later that year you harvest your crop. You start off with the specification phase of the product, you move to development of the hdl and verification of everything and then you go to nre and silicon samples. This is a multi-year process. AMD may well have known about this issue just as long as nvidia but silicon products don't go from specification to product overnight. That is why vendors offer driver/firmware/microcode updates. As to taking a pot shot at AMD laying off R&D people, it's called a business decision. Sometimes you need to let people go so that the rest of the employees can remain employed. Otherwise you can end up facing bankruptcy and massive layoffs. I don't know if it's the right move at this time or not, and I'm no financial analyst. Currently nvidia has no gpu chips directly that share a piece of silicon with the cpu, unlike AMD and intel. The next generation of consoles seem to have gone with AMD. I haven't heard of any big chipsets from nvidia. Anyway, sorry for the long response. I believe AMD, Intel, and nvidia all have strong points and areas where they can improve. This seems like it might be largely a driver issue and I'll admit that AMD seem to have had issues with drivers. Your post just seemed like an easy shot against AMD. I am not affiliated with AMD, nvidia, or Intel and the views expressed in this post are my own opinions and not those of any current or previous employer. Reply
arbiter9605 - Wednesday, April 17, 2013 - linkFrom what I heard/read somewhere, Nvidia new of such a problem back in their 8000 series card(8800gtx/gts/gt). So its something they knew about for a long time. Nvidia has hardware built in to their cards to keep the cards in sync frame wise where as AMD doesn't. Some time of 2 years for AMD to fix it properly as well as a software driver fix will most likely cost some fps. Reply
name99 - Thursday, March 28, 2013 - linkI'd like an AnandTech investigation of a slightly different issue:
How fast does Apple update the screen on iPads and iPhones when displaying movies? Specifically, when displaying movies, do they switch to updating the screen only every 24th of a second?
The reason I think this is an interesting question is that, in my experience, movies displayed on iPad show none of the stuttering when panning that is so obvious on both TVs and computers, stuttering which is, as far as I can tell, generated by the 3:2 pullup. (I don't have a 120Hz TV, so I can't comment on how well they deal with this.
So we have the visual suggestion that this is what Apple is doing, along with the obvious point that it would presumably save power to only refresh the screen at 24Hz (though the power savings may be negligible).
I must admit I would find very interesting an investigation of this (perhaps by similar techniques to what are being used here, like a movie consisting of a color coded sequence of frames, and time-stamped video capture; though you'd probably have to use an external video camera.)
And this is not just an Apple specific issue; it would be interesting to know if Android and MS likewise are capable of displaying stutter-free movies on their mobile devices (unlike on the desktop where, sure, you have far less control, but for fsck's sake --- can't you at least do the job right in full screen mode?) Reply
mayankleoboy1 - Thursday, March 28, 2013 - linkSo where does VirtuPro and VirtuHyperformance etc. come in this picture ? Reply
wingless - Friday, March 29, 2013 - linkGreat question. Enough Z77 mobos alone support this to warrant investigation. Reply
cactusdog - Thursday, March 28, 2013 - linkWow, so this issue of stuttering has been talked about amongst users for at least a decade, then Scott Wasson from techreport decides to run a test of latency just weeks before Nvidia releases their super duper new tool to test latency?......and Nvidia have been working on it for 2 years? What a coincidence!! ...and NVidia cards perform better in this regard? Double coincidence!! So does that mean Nvidia is a benevolent company who wants to help AMD fix their stuttering issues so AMD can sell more cards?? Wow they must be saints!! We can add this to Nvidia's long list of open, honest and transparent business practices. Reply
cobalt42 - Thursday, March 28, 2013 - linkNot sure if joking or troll.... Scott's latency tests started in their August 23, 2012 article entitled "Inside the second: Gaming performance with today's CPUs". That's not "just weeks" ago. Second, if NVIDIA thinks Scott's FRAPS tests are so awesome for them, why would they bother to release a tool that measures at an entirely different point in the pipeline? Your conspiracy theory is not only factually wrong, it doesn't even make a good conspiracy theory. Reply
JPForums - Thursday, March 28, 2013 - linkI also agree with you and Spoelie. Simulation step stutter is also an issue that should be covered. It would be really nice to get simulation timestamps directly from the output of the simulator and match them up to their corresponding output frames. However, this would probably require collaboration with game developers that you probably won't get. Until then, using a tool that works at the output of the renderer (like FRAPS) and can associate simulation steps with output frames would be nice.
That said, there is really little that AMD or Nvidia can do to fix issues in the application other than trick it into working correctly. These results would be more useful for game developers developing new engines. Also keep in mind, simulation steps are tied loosely (through queues) to GPU's processing capabilities (unless the bottleneck happens to be before the command is dispatched to D3D). Simulation steps should be roughly equal to frame times on average. If the GPU processing were completely consistent, then the latency between the simulation step and output would be fixed and the output would appear smooth. It is variations in frame times that cause variations in simulation steps. On average, the variations of each should be roughly equal. The worse case stutter, which should be something like double the frame time variation (when simulator is compensating it the opposite direction as the frame time variation), is what we need to look out for. That said, variation in frame time is generally smaller than frame time itself. I would suggest that simulation step stuttering is a smaller problem than frame time stuttering and becomes smaller as frame times get shorter. Point of interest, Nvidia's Frame metering may actually increase simulation step stuttering. Reply
Unwinder - Thursday, March 28, 2013 - linkI've just added FCAT overlay rendering support to OSD server of MSI Afterburner and EVGA Precision. Still need some time to discuss exact RGB color sequence with NVIDIA, then I guess we'll release it to public. Reply
Ryan Smith - Friday, March 29, 2013 - linkHi Unwinder;
Thank you for the update and for adding support for this. I think it's a great relief all-around having someone besides NVIDIA providing the overlay.
It's too big to post in our comments, but if you need the colors hit me up. They're not secret. I can send you the list of precise colors in hex form. Reply
Unwinder - Friday, March 29, 2013 - linkThanks, Ryan. I've already received hex reference colors from NV. MSI Afterburner with FCAT overlay support (3.0.0 beta 8) is expected to be released on Monday, EVGA Precsion 4.1.0 with FCAT overlay support will be available on the next week too. Reply
wingless - Thursday, March 28, 2013 - linkBattlefield 3
Guide: How to Fix Low FPS - Stuttering - Lag
There is a well documented stuttering fix for both Nvidia and AMD users on multiple forums. I've tried this for my HD 4870 Crossfire setup and it works. This particular user from the above link has a NVIDIA GTX 470.
5.Open notepad and paste this into it and save it as "user.cfg" inside your "program files/origingames/battlefield3" folder:
RenderDevice.TripleBufferingEnable 0
RenderDevice.ForceRenderAheadLimit 1
WorldRender.SpotLightShadowmapResolution 256
WorldRender.SpotlightShadowmapEnable 0
Render.DrawFps 1
With this applied to the game, are there any differences? Render Ahead seems to really affect these results and it would be nice if it were tested with FCAT.
Thanks Reply
JeBarr - Thursday, March 28, 2013 - linkWell.....at least now Ryan can keep his job :D
A marriage of fraps/fcat will sure be convenient to have for all unqualified reviewers everywhere. Reply
bill4 - Friday, March 29, 2013 - linki dont like the spin, lots of sites were left flat footed by scott wasson's work, and this article tries to spin it like "well we always wanted to do this, but we never had a good enough tool, until now" how convenient. it reminds of countless corporate bs. when beaten to a trend, a corporation will usually say something like "well we always wanted to do what out wildly popular competitor did, but only NOW can it be done properly, by us, we're not copying guys, no really"
Nonsense. You never cared (much) before, Wasson's work started exposing you, so you jumped on the bandwagon, late, like a lot of sites.
Mind you I like Anandtech, and dont even really like Wasson lol, but a spade's a spade.
and this fcat is probably a better tool, all that may be true. but again, call a spade a spade. Reply
Shark321 - Friday, March 29, 2013 - linkAmen brother! Reply
Panta - Saturday, March 30, 2013 - linkMissing here is pcper Ryan Shrout contribution
to the creation & the development of Fcat & a the new card testing methodology.
he spent last 12months working hard on this with Nvidia.
i think you should Credit him here. Reply
drpcusa - Saturday, March 30, 2013 - linkThank you for that article!
<a href="http://www.drpcusa.com" target="_blank">Computer Repair and IT Services in Thousand Oaks, CA</a> Reply
Samy0806 - Tuesday, April 02, 2013 - linkNice article, but i'm just a bit concerned about using another piece of hardware to get the results. What i also don't like is that the capture takes place at 60Hz. What about the ones that are "overclocking" their monitors (run them at more than the default 60 Hz refresh rate, for example my monitor now runs at 75 Hz) or the ones that have high refresh rate monitors, 120 Hz for example.
Also what i would really really like to see is an in depth analysis of VirtuMVP. In theory it should generate a more responsive and/or smoother experience, but most of the games i've run with VitruMVP had, more or less, some form of stuttering. Reply
wingless - Tuesday, April 02, 2013 - linkAMD systems feel 'smoother' than Intel systems: http://www.techpowerup.com/159270/Marketing-and-Pr...
I feel the topic of the OP relates to all of this new frame time testing directly. AMD systems may in fact be SMOOTHER than Intel system. I have a Core i7 2600k/Z77 system running crossfire. I can play Battlefield 3 on High at 60 to 120fps....albeit with a ton of stutter/dropped frames/runt frames. My coworker has a measly AMD FX-4100, with the same HD 6850 crossfire on an AMD 970 chipset. His system allows for CrossfireX to be enabled (Crossfire through the chipset/PCIe AND Crossfire cable simultaneously). His system ran only between 30 and 65fps during gameplay but clearly had no stutter/dropped frames/runt frames. At a reported 35fps his system played smoother than mine at 75fps. His 970 chipset was also pushing 1 card at PCIe 2.0 16x and the other at 4x, yet he was still 'smoother'.
This irked me... AMD systems may very well be smoother in Crossfire configurations given the added features that support crossfire on their chipsets. I urge Anandtech members to please write Techreport, Anandtech, and PCPer to do more testing with AMD systems vs. Intel systems. Reviewers tend to only use Intel systems when doing all testing, but this may not be showing the entire picture (literally). Also let's continue this discussion given this new frame time point of reference and get to the bottom of this.
Thanks folks. Reply
Shark321 - Monday, April 08, 2013 - linkWhat happened to part 2 of the analysis. What it not supposed to be released last week? Reply
arbiter9605 - Wednesday, April 17, 2013 - linkAs Ryan shrout has talked about, Frame issues with AMD cards happen in games were GPU is the limiting factor in fps. In games that use cpu more then gpu power for issue doesn't show up. So in case why AMD cpu's have problem less compared to intel cpu most likely is a case where amd cpu is maxing out well before gpu gets to its max. Its pretty common that per core per watt intel is faster. Reply
Unoquepasaba - Tuesday, April 09, 2013 - linkThis is fucking tool unnecessary.
Engaged in fixing the bugs that have disgusting play some games like Darksiders 2 or Bioshock Infinite.
We see that AMD is doing a lot of damage, the best proof is that the new consoles carry their hardware, while Nvidia says not interested in that market but also throw them a console lol.
Sorry for my English, it is google :) Reply
ARealAnand - Tuesday, April 09, 2013 - linkI do not believe your statement on patents is completely accurate. Patents do cover a specific implementation of an idea, although they also cover independent discoveries of that same implementation and clean room reverse engineering of said implementation. What I mean by a specific implementation is that taking for example the RSA cryptosystem, the patent did not cover all possible implementations of a public key cryptosystem although it might have been the only way to implement a public key system at the time. I'm reasonably certain that if diffie-hellman had been known of at the time people could have used that at the time just as it was used once it was discovered without infringing any patents. Similarly, LZW patents didn't cover generic data compression but instead a compression system that used less processing then LZ-77/78. People working on making patent free audio and visual codecs have been finding different ways to avoid various algorithms for some time now. I am not a lawyer or a trained solicitor. I have not taken any formal classes in practicing law and this post should not be taken as offering professional legal advice. I appreciate your comment and just felt it could use some clarification. Reply
ARealAnand - Tuesday, April 09, 2013 - linkI apologize. I meant this comment to be a reply to zanon's comment above. Reply
529th - Tuesday, April 09, 2013 - linkWhere can this tool be downloaded from? Reply
marraco - Sunday, April 14, 2013 - linkI wonder how 3Dmark will react to this evolution, because it gives scores based on FPS, but this kind of analysis requires an add on card to capture video.
Will 3Dmark ignore frame by frame analysis?
Will require more hardware (capture card)?
Will resort to a software solution (questionable)?
Will give the user a choice on methodology (giving different, non comparable results)?
I hope that AMD also give a similar tool. Nvidia and AMD already tried to cheat with his software, and if nVIDIA is the only one providing tools…
I'm happy with this evolution. I ranted for long time about noticeable freezes on benchmarks and games reporting great FPS (on single cards, not SLI/stuttering), but I felt frustrated by benchmarks review sites.
Now I'm worried by not having the same hardware than reviewers, and not being able to verify websites claims/results.
FbF analysis (Frame by Frame) is a step in the right direction, but makes us consumers vulnerable to companies corrupting websites to get better, non reader-verifiable, results. Reply
arbiter9605 - Wednesday, April 17, 2013 - linkUm not sure there is anything AMD can add to this. the DX overlay add's colors to each frame before it gets to sub systems, and colors are analyzed to be in a certain order. If a color is missing then a frame was dropped. i wouldn't say AMD is trying to cheat but they surely have an issue with frame's being dropped or being so small they don't improve gaming experience. When you remove those tiny and dropped frames from fps numbers. It paints a different picture on which card is faster in SLI/CF setup's. Single card setup, which card is better is a toss up. Reply
dreamer77dd - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkThe first time I read about this was on PC Perspective.
This article you have written a good read. It all a new direction :) Reply


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