Asus Vivotab Smart ME400 experience

would you mind testing a lower resolution on your Thinkpad tablet 2? If you would, i'd like to know if y are able to make a lower resolution stretch to fit the full screen, or if it will only display with black border. I cannot stretch on my Smart, but since the tablet 2 uses the same chipset that might shed light on where the problem lies for me. Thanks!

 

Thanks, i'll have a look at them later, a lot of components to update so I may just try a few key ones. Wish there was another device I liked that I could move to though, tired of this lack of support.

The HP drivers were definitely newer but I wanted to try drivers from a device closer to the 810 family, on the off chance there were optimized drivers.

 

I tested this with the TPT2 and the only other resolution I can set is 1024x768 and it just chops off the sides. I don't think I can stretch it to fill the sides on either the Asus or the Lenovo.

 

Okay, thanks... That was my suspicion: I don't think the absent stretch option is an Asus issue, it's an issue Intel not fully supporting their range of GMA hardware on Windows 8... I've seen a few angry threads at the Intel forums about this. It seems nothing but GMA hardware baked into the newer core-i chipsets are getting decent support, despite things like the Atom z2760 being a 2012 chipset.

 

The graphics chip in the Atom z2760 isn't a GMA, it's a PowerVR. They licensed it from Imagination. I wonder if Intel or Imagination do the drivers...

 

It's still a GMA: Intel frequently uses PowerVR SGX* GPUs in their chipsets, especially Atoms, but prior to this has fully supported them. Take a look in their own marketing material for the z2760, which states that it has a Graphics Media Accelerator. (http://www.intel.com/content/dam/ww...-briefs/atom-z2760-consumer-tablets-brief.pdf) Device manager on my tablet states the same. You can see the whole line of GMAs using PowerVR here: Comparison of Intel graphics processing units - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Intel's driver support site has plenty of software for those older ones complete with the full range of options in the GMA Control panel, but despite their own marketing material stating that the z2760 is "Purpose Built for Windows 8", you'll find no driver support from Intel. It seems they aren't giving much to the OEMs either.

 

I haven't had much experience with Intel GPU's. Is there a correlation between Intel-designed GPUs, PowerVR's and driver support? I reckon Imagination probably do the drivers for PowerVR and then pass it on to Intel.

Another interesting thing is that the page you linked says the SGX545 only has DX9.0c capability, but in the main PowerVR article it says it supports DX10.1

 

Yeah, the GPU is not Intel-built, but I don't think licensing the GPU from a 3rd party excused Intel here: For one, the third party they are licensing from, Imagination, is a company they partly own, I think nearly a full quarter- They may in fact be the single largest shareholder, though I'm not positive. Second, I've owned other Intel systems with PowerVR graphics, the GMA 500. It has a full suite of drivers, with the complete set of Control Panel options I usually see in Intel integrated graphics. And you're right: The SGX545 is DX10.1 capable... if OEMs were relying on Imagination for drivers, I would think that Imagination would provide a driver that actually utilized the full functions of the chip. Instead, Intel has built this driver, though only through to Windows 7 (It's the GMA 3600 series, confirmed to me by Intel support). They simply took the GMA 3600 series GPU, bolted it on their new Atom chipset in the form of the z2760, and provided the barest of support for Windows 8 while rebranding the GMA 3600 to just a general "Graphics Media Accelerator". That rebranding alone cost me hours of research to try and find out what actual mode was in use, to see if I could track down drivers. When ultimately I had this confirmed by Intel support, It was quite disappointing, since I was already familiar this document from Intel stating that they would never provide Windows 8 support for the GMA 3600 series: Microsoft* Windows 8* Intel Graphics support FAQ

I tried for some time to get the Windows 7 driver to install, but Windows 8 won't allow it: Even disabling Driver Signature Enforcement didn't allow it to install. It's all very frustrating... Intel provides a new Atom chipset, brands it as "Purpose Built for Windows 8", and then provides no official support for the integrated GPU, insteal passing on a bare-bones driver to manufacturers like ASUS and Lenovo.

 

Any idea when Asus will start selling the transleeve cover and BT keyboard?