FireGL information

Hello,

I'm considering purchasing a T41 and am just trying to figure out what the main differences are between the Radeon 9000 and the FireGL video options. I intend to do some occasional gaming, so I'm mostly interested in 3D performance. Is it worth paying up?

Thanks!

Fly

 

Are you talking about the FireGL T2 (T41p) or the FireGL 9000 (T40p)? The latter is very similar to the Radeon 9000, with double the RAM (64Mb as opposed to 32Mb), and optimisations for "real" 3D work (i.e. AutoCAD / 3d Studio Max / Maya etc), although most of these come through the way of drivers. The clock speed will be identical to that of the Radeon 9000, or even a little slower (as crazy as it sounds, the desktop equivalents sometimes had slower clocks than the gaming cards).

The FireGL T2, however, is in a different league again. It's based around the ATI Radeon 9600, so is a generation ahead in terms of technology. It runs 128Mb of RAM, and a faster clock speed (pretty sure it has more pipelines than the 9000's, too).

These days, videocard are moving at a fast rate, and it's very difficult to keep up. With a laptop, that task is even more difficult, as we're unable to upgrade. While the T2 is obviously going to be faster than the 9000, I see the more important factor being compatility: video RAM, shader support and texturing units.

I've been going through a similar choice to what you are. I was looking at the highest model "non-p" T41 (Radeon 9000, 1.6G P-M), and the top-of-the-range T41p (FireGL T2, 1.7G P-M). Although there's around a AUD$1200 difference, I believe the features of the T41p will enable it to remain reasonably compatible with graphics software to come in the future.

HTH,
- Tim

 

Hi Tim,

Thanks for the informative reply. You answered my question, which I should've phrased better: does the FIRE GL T2 offer the same (or better) gaming performance as a Mobility 9600? It seems like the answer is, "pretty much", which is good enough for me.

Since you are in a similar position, I wonder if you've seen any information on the upcoming T42. I am in a hurry-up situation created by a sloppy hand and a full cup of coffee, but am niggled by doubt about buying a product that has been out for so long...

Take care,
Fly

 

Hey Fly,
One thing to note with the FireGL T2, with regards to gaming performance, is to use one of the few available mods out on the web, which allow you to use the ATI Catalyst drivers on the Mobility chips. This will (so I've heard) greatly improve the speed of the card. Try this link: Here

It's funny you mention the T42, as I've been debating whether or not to get the T41p just yet - pretty much with the same reasoning as you: it's been out for quite some time now (and is pretty damned expensive - don't want something to come out the month after purchasing it! [ ] ).

The most solid news I've gathered on the T42 lineup is as follows:
They'll be sporting the first of the Dothan chips (400MHz FSB still, but up to 1.8G from what I've seen).
Higher models will replace the 32Mb Mobility 9000 with either a 64Mb or 128Mb (depending on model) Mobility 9600 (about time!).
Bluetooth looks to be standard.
The higher models will have 80Gb hard drives (up from the 60Gb max).

So they're looking pretty inviting. To be honest, I'm not sure what I'm doing (I seem to change my opinion each day!). I know that I should wait for the T42's to come out, but I don't want to [ ]. Rumours are strong that they'll be out next month, so perhaps it won't be too long to wait.

However, as with all new things (and considering that these laptops will coincide with the release of the Dothan itself), there will be teething issues. I'm guessing that IBM won't be releasing a T42p for a little while yet, but I could be mistaken. That of course results in more problems, as the "p" adds more than just a better video card, such as the better fan (doesn't sound like much, but look at all the posts about fan problems on the regular T41's), extended life battery, higher resolution screen (okay, it's available on one or two regular T41's, but I'm not so sure it'll be in the release lineup of the T42 series).

Personally, I'm going to try and wait for the T42's to be released. Even if they don't have a model that "fits the bill", they're sure to push the price down of the T41's (I'd hope, at least. The current pricing on the T40p says otherwise).

Cheers,
- Tim

 

I have a Thinkpad T41p. I am yet to install any games that require direct x 8.0 or higher. Let me know what benchmarks you would like me to run, and I will put the data up here.

I will run 3dmark03 build 340 with the native drivers, and the patched Omega drivers (based on Catalyst 4.4), and put the results here.

 

Heya pksw,
Those benchmarks'd be really quite interesting to see: both the improvment of the Omega drivers, and the overall performance of the FireGL T2.

- Tim

 

I see you are also from Victoria, Australia... I'm not an expert on benchmarks, but my t41p gave these results

1 gig ram, P-M 1.7, running on mains power
3dmark2003, latest build from website

(Apparently quake3 is a better graphical benchmark, but I don't have it)

The first column is the Omega Drivers, the second the standard driver. There was no real noticable difference.

Result 1 Result 1
File Name
Primary Device RADEON Mobility Fire GL T2 (Omega 2.5.36b) ATI MOBILITY FIRE GL T2
Width 1024 1024
Height 768 768
Anti-Aliasing None None
Post-Processing No No
Texture Filtering Optimal Optimal
Max Anisotropy 4 4
Vertex Shaders Optimal Optimal
Force PS 1.1 in GT2 & GT3 No No
Repeat Tests Off Off
Fixed Framerate Off Off
Comment omega standard drivers
3DMark Score 2548 3DMarks 2536
GT1 - Wings of Fury 94.4 FPS 94.7
GT2 - Battle of Proxycon 15.4 FPS 15.5
GT3 - Troll's Lair 14.3 FPS 14.4
GT4 - Mother Nature 15.9 FPS 15.3
CPU Score 439 CPUMarks 463
CPU Test 1 52.1 FPS 54.8
CPU Test 2 7.3 FPS 7.7
Fill Rate (Single-Texturing) 629.1 MTexels/s 628.8
Fill Rate (Multi-Texturing) 1242.7 MTexels/s 1206.5
Vertex Shader 8.3 FPS 8.3
Pixel Shader 2.0 24.9 FPS 22.2
Ragtroll 10.2 FPS 10.1
No sounds 0.0 FPS 0.0
24 sounds 0.0 FPS 0.0
60 sounds 0.0 FPS 0.0
Family Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1700MHz Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1700MHz
Internal Clock 1054 MHz 1040
External Clock 400 MHz 400
Description RADEON Mobility Fire GL T2 (Omega 2.5.36b) ATI MOBILITY FIRE GL T2
Total Local Video Memory 128 MB 128
Driver Version 6.14.10.6436 6.14.10.6392
VGA Memory Clock 203 MHz 203
VGA Core Clock 317 MHz 317
Total Physical Memory 1022 MB 1022
Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Microsoft Windows XP

 

Yep... located up in the hills, East of Melbourne. [ ]

I'm surprised with the relatively identical benchmarks between the two. I have read of others obtaining far greater results with using the Omega drivers. Perhaps the IBM drivers are reasonably up-to-date... I'm not sure? I'll have to divulge what I find when I get mine [ ]

 

It may just be that 3dmark2003 is crap at assessing video performance, and might just be assessing CPU performance. I subscribe to Atomic magazine, and they don't use it for video cards. I don't have Quake III, but that is a fairly standard benchmark for graphics. Can you suggest a benchmark I could download, and I'll try it.