Aileron Posted December 10, 2009 Report Posted December 10, 2009 Alright, I recently got a ViDock 2 for my laptop. Its a little on the expensive side, but what it does is it plugs in to the express card slot and is capable of mounting a desktop's GPU (I have a Radeon 4670 in mine). Then, you have to plug an extra monitor into the card. On the customer satisfaction end, I consider it a great product. The downside is that I put about $400 total into a $500 Laptop and my total rig has no mobility whatsoever, but on the positive end I could still unplug my computer and haul it around when I need to. The problem is that while the system has no problems running high end games like Fallout 3, when I try to play Continuum on it my FPS is unplayable. Mind you, I can still run Continuum on my laptop monitor without running it through the card, and its not like I need that type of card to run Continuum anyway, but it would be nice....
L.C. Posted December 10, 2009 Report Posted December 10, 2009 First time I have heard or seen about this new ViDock2 thing -- and I think it is pretty sweet! My thoughts on your framerate problem is that it might have something to do with ViDock2 itself in trying to render Continuum via DirectDraw; maybe it does not have full or proper support for 2D rendering and DirectDraw, as it was designed mainly for 3D games using Direct3D or OpenGL.
Samapico Posted December 10, 2009 Report Posted December 10, 2009 My framerate in Continuum also dropped when I replaced my 7300GT by a 4670. It now works fine with Software Emulation, Avoid Page Flipping, No Framerate Limit, and Disable Clipping all checked.
L.C. Posted December 10, 2009 Report Posted December 10, 2009 (edited) By the way, Avoid Page Flipping is the same thing as toggling Vsync. Samapico, can you check to see if Disable Clipping really has a performance impact? :? I just have some backend curiosity about something. Edited December 10, 2009 by L.C.
Aileron Posted December 11, 2009 Author Report Posted December 11, 2009 Oddly enough those boxes were checked, but unchecking them fixed my problem. I'm pretty sure it was related to the Radeon 4670 somehow. I consider the situation resolved. One bigger snag with the ViDock though...they don't list the realistic requirements of the device, which are that you have Windows XP or Windows 7, not Vista, and that you plug a Radeon and not a GeForce into the thing. When I first got my ViDock, I had Vista on my laptop and a GeForce 210 put in it, and it didn't work. I ended up upgrading to Windows 7 and it still didn't work. When I returned the GeForce and got the Radeon though it worked great. Now, those familiar with logic and the scientific method can point out that my experience doesn't justify the statement that it doesn't work with Vista. But according to the website, Vista users need to match their card with their chipset due to Vista's stubbornness with on graphics driver. To my knowledge, ATi doesn't make onboard chipsets. Basically, to get it to work on Vista you have to have just the right computer to have a Nvidia chipset and just the right GeForce which can be friends with ViDock. I have an Nvidia chipset in my computer so I could have played this game, but I wanted to get rid of Vista anyway. (The damn thing gave me a final FU when it put a security block on the executable to upgrade to Win 7.) All in all, the hardware was designed for Windows 7 and a Radeon, so I wouldn't recommend anything else, and don't know why the manufacturer doesn't list those things as 'requirements'. Sorry if I'm advertising, but its just a really great product that needs to hit the mainstream market.
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