Lenovo IdeaPad Z585 Impressions Part 3: Overall & Conclusion

I had a problem shortly after benchmarking everything: as I was installing Infinite Crisis, I turned on Youtube and went to bed to drift off for an hour until the download was done. When I woke up, the monitor wouldn't turn on.

I reset the computer; picture on the BIOS was fine, but the moment it loaded Windows, it faded to black. To make sure it wasn't a Windows problem, I booted from a live-CD Ubuntu image and the same thing happened; picture fine on post, faded to black while loading the OS.

I very nearly had a panic attack. I read around and tried the various fixes; I made sure the system was running on its native screen (Fn+F3 changes multiple monitors). I read it might had been excess charge from the outlet and many laptops get that. The fix to this is removing the battery and unplug the computer, then hold the power button pressed between 30 seconds to 2 minutes, sometimes repeating the process up to three times (for HP laptops, I've read).

I tried that, but it didn't work. In the end what fixed it was resetting BIOS default settings (and then changing them back, obviously). I don't know what the hell that was, but it gave me quite a scare, as I've read this is an omen of bad things to come (like system death) and the incident occurred a mere two days into owning the Z585.

It hasn't happened since, but to make sure it wasn't excess charge that can damage the hardware, I switch between the High Performance Mode and the Battery Saver profiles in Windows' Power Saving Options. You should do that too.

Or you could install the Razer Game Booster app, that automatically switches the setting the moment you load up a game.

Lastly, I also suspect the CPUID Hardware monitor app, which is great, but occasionally gives errors as it probes the BIOS (used to give me BSODs on the desktop on occasion). I avoid leaving the app running for more than a few minutes now (it was on for close to two hours before the odd crash).

Another tiny issue is that I'm not certain of the wireless card's efficiency. My fiancée's 3-year-old VAIO gets better wireless perception than my Z585 in our house. This shouldn't be a huge problem once we finally fucking move the desk near the router (I always favour Ethernet connections), but for the time being, even Youtube can lag at times.

Lastly, the temperature does worry me a bit. During gaming, the aluminum casing can get hot enough to literally cause pain and make me pull my hand away on occasion. GPU-Z gives below 50 degrees Celcius for the dedicated 7670M on idle and around 80 on load, which is well-within-range.

What worries me, between the plastic frame that can melt and everything being cramped up in there is the CPU/APU. GPU-Z gives the APU over 100 degrees Celcius on idle; however, I've found out that these apps can't properly monitor APU temperatures.

The closest a tool can get is the CPUID monitor. This one gave me more... reasonable temperatures: below 60 degrees for the CPU, below 70 for the APU on idle. Both of these go up higher during downloads and installs (another side-effect of hardware being cramped in a laptop, since both the CPU and the hard-drive experience heavy load during an install).

They're not as scary, but they're still not great. Keep in mind, these temps are monitored while the laptop is running constantly on top of a base with a 14'' fan spinning. It's an AMD thing, apparently and if high temps are something that worry you, you'd might want to reconsider.

All in all, I'm cautiously satisfied with my purchase. The system is still not running as it should; not being able to install Linux is a major draw-back for me and the temperatures do worry me (as laptops are somewhat future-proof investments), while performance drops on simple Windows use can get infuriating at times.

Adding in at least one more 2GB dimm of RAM is absolutely necessary, especially for multi-tasking and I should get around to that sooner rather than later. The recommended gaming requirement of 8 or 16GB is an overkill, but 4GB may be pushing it these days, especially as Windows already eats up at around 1.5GB and the APU needs memory as well (of around 500MB). This leaves a mere gig for use by games and apps.

However, for less than 500 Euros, the performance gain is impressive. There are very few games I'm interested in that haven't come out yet and as real-life is getting more hectic and responsibility-heavy, I don't expect to be much focused on next-gen gaming anytime soon. Besides, with a kid in the house, for these games perhaps I should ponder switching to a console.

The upgradeable processor is certainly a sweet deal and if your budget can handle it, an A10 is the better pick. Remember to stay away from AMD dedicated GPUs from the 8xxx series that are below the 8750m (as they perform slightly higher than Intel's HD series, which in itself performs significantly lower than AMD's APUs)  and avoid any processors with less than 4 physical cores, as they're not particularly future-proof. The Z585 is not something I'd recommend for a purchase for anyone looking to invest in the future, but with just a few bucks more, AMD's A series does produce surprisingly good results in my personal opinion and should always be eyed for budget mobile gaming.

PART 1: UPGRADING TO A LAPTOP

PART 2: PERFORMANCE

Lenovo IdeaPad Z585 impressions Part 2: Performance

At this point, I was seriously regretting my purchase. I wasn't happy about it to begin with and the issues I had ran into made it all the worse. The A8 is not a good quad-core (it underperforms per-core even below some dual-core i3s) and the Z585 is already at least two years old. As I didn't expect a performance gain (and in fact expected worse performance than my low-range desktop), the lack of Linux for common, every day tasks had me nearly depressed.

After I was fed up trying to install any Linux distro I've worked in the past, I finished setting up my Windows (using another computer to find drivers, installing necessary apps) I proceeded to download a few games on Steam and benchmark the system.

Most of my library ran alright on my desktop. Later games required dropping the resolution (Shadow Warrior pushed my system just a little) or some extra tweaks (THIEF had me upgrade my RAM and required some messing around with the .ini files), but they all ran. The only game I had to seriously turn everything down for was "Call of Duty: Ghosts" (downloaded it for benchmarking as a next-gen game, didn't keep it), but that one also ran (though only barely). The rest of my library is mostly older games, with the exception of few and far between (Deus Ex Human Revolution, Tomb Raider to name a couple).

I didn't really intend on clogging up the hard drive with games I wasn't going to replay anytime soon, so I only installed what I was playing and a couple of games the performance of which caught my attention while I was on my desktop. As such, there were six games on my install list:

- The MOBA Infinite Crisis and the MMORPG Champions Online, both of which I often play to kill time and get my super-hero fix and as such they are always somewhere on the hard drive.
- Natural Selection 2, the heaviest Source-based game I've come across and my preferred online shooter at the moment, aside from the various Counter-Strike flavours (all of which ran perfectly even on the desktop).
- Mass Effect, because I was in the middle of a campaign playthrough at the moment of switching systems and despite it being a very old game by now, the desktop still gave me the occasional framerate drop and stutter.
- Batman: Arkham Origins. The first two Arkham games ran great on my desktop (although Arkham City required turning off some cosmetic details), but Origins gave the system a run for its money; it was playable, but I had to drop the resolution and turn off all the extra cosmetics and still got considerable framerate skipping during the open-city segments.
- THIEF. This one busted my balls when I purchased it. I had to wait for Mantle support from AMD's gpu drivers and upgrade my RAM, on top of some .ini messing about. The game is so terribly optimized it causes issues even on high-end machines.

Performance is where my tune changed. Considering the troubles I'd gone through, as well as all my research and my negative predisposition toward laptops, I expected the worse. Never had it occurred to me I'd get a performance increase.

But that's exactly what I got.

A few preparations were required; I run the system through the AC adapter and I have entirely removed the battery, as there's no point playing games on battery power. Aside from increasing physical battery life, this is also said to increase power output to boost performance on laptops.

 I also had to switch Windows on performance mode, both in terms of the Aero theme and when it came to the power options. Lastly, I also installed the Razer Game Booster, an app I'm not certain really works, but the results are satisfactory at the moment.

Another thing that's ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY if you own or buy one of those "dual graphics" laptops: TURN OFF THE DUAL GRAPHICS MODE. Having two GPUs is helpful in that the system will use the integrated GPU (or the APU, in AMD's case) when the system's on light load (movies, office work, internet), but will switch to the dedicated card during 3D heavy apps (games, 3D modeling programs). You can make sure of that and/or set it manually via the Catalyst manager on AMD systems (right click on the taskbar icon-> Configure Switchable Graphics-> Set X App to High Performance).

The problem with AMD's "asymmetric crossfire" is that, despite their claims of two GPUs working together for better performance, the damned thing doesn't work. AMD has yet to provide proper drivers for this function and as such, while the performance gain may be theoretically feasible, it almost ALWAYS leads to micro-stuttering.

I was defeated upon my first efforts to benchmark these games, because even though I had a good framerate count, there was a lot of stuttering. Turning off dual-graphics fixed the stuttering entirely and made a gigantic difference.

Infinite Crisis ran well on my desktop and runs a bit better on the laptop. I didn't focus on it a lot, as for some idiotic reason MOBA developers make these games surprisingly heavy on the processor. Turning everything on Ultra-High drops framerate considerably (but the game is still playable), but on medium I average 56fps. Honestly, why you'd need ultra-high visuals on a MOBA is beyond me.

Champions Online is also fairly old, but surprisingly heavy considering the actual quality of its visuals. I never had any huge issues with the game, but on open-city situations the framerate was an average of 22 with a lot cosmetics turned off. Well, the Z585 annihilated my Athlon desktop on this. Despite it having lower memory capacity (4GB of RAM, 1GB free for use opposite to 6GB on the desktop), the quad-core handles the game more efficiently. Almost everything's on max, running on the system's native resolution (true-HD, not full), the game averages 30fps. It rarely goes over that (in fact it seems as if the game's locked on 30) and there are the occasional drops below 25 when the city textures and layout are loading in real-time (the memory is important here), but the overall result is fantastic. As usual, the big performance gain comes from turning off anti-aliasing, which is fortunately not a big problem when a game's running on the screen's native resolution.

Champions Online, averaging 30fps on the settings shown.

Mass Effect, at this point, wasn't a concern. As expected, the game runs averaging 55fps with everything on max. As I finished the campaign a day after benchmarking it, I also installed the 2010 Mass Effect 2, which also runs between 30-60fps (depending on load and size of map) with everything on full.

Arkham Origins was the first that truly impressed me. I didn't even have to try many different configurations; running on native resolution with all cosmetic details (again, minus AA) on averages 35fps, while switching the geometry detail and post-processing to the DX11 Enhanced setting causes less than 10fps drop (which I'm personally not willing to sacrifice for barely-noticeable-graphical-upgrades, but still). That was during the open-city segments; no stuttering during load, loading levels was all-around quick, practically no noticeable drops under heavy load. I expect building interiors will make the game even faster.

Arkham Origins runs fluidly at 30fps+ on these settings.

THIEF was the Holy Grail. It was the game I was CERTAIN wouldn't run. It's the only game I installed purely for benchmarking (though my complete save game did carry over) and at first, I very much thought it was unplayable. It was the first game I tried, sure that it would fail and originally it did. Constant stuttering (due to the game's terrible optimization on the real-time-texture loading feature), not enough RAM to turn off real-time loading and that was with everything on low; turning up the resolution on HD or adding cosmetic details made the game average a whooping 1fps. So not even kidding.

For all intends and purposes this was a failure of an experiment-- that was until I did two things. The first was one I've mentioned already, turning off dual-graphics-mode. Shame on AMD, by the by; Arkham Origins is at least a game optimized for NVidia machines, dual-graphics not working is acceptable within range. But THIEF was endorsed by AMD and optimized for their hardware and turning it off makes the game work better. A lot better.

Another thing I did was something that was a huge no-no on my desktop: I went to the game's display settings and turned off Exclusive Fullscreen. This feature gave me a major performance gain on the desktop, but it crippled performance on the laptop.

Once these two fixes were applied, the ridiculously heavy and terribly optimized THIEF ran better on the laptop than it did on my desktop. It's still not perfect; real-time-loading still causes significant stuttering (which can be fixed once I upgrade my RAM), but I managed to get up to 50(!) fps on the open-city segments, running on native resolution and even turning on most of the cosmetic details (except SSAA and tesselation, both of which are broken in this game to begin with).

THIEF delivers stutters, but shifts between 30-50fps on these settings.

I was elated. With only a couple of tweaks, the heaviest game I've come across on my systems to this day turned from unplayable to a fairly good performer; on a laptop. A laptop built over two years ago.

The only game in the list that really did disappoint me was Natural Selection 2. Valve's Source engine is fantastic and offers great range for users of practically every configuration still out there today. Natural Selection 2 ran on my desktop with quite a few tweaks (and ridiculously long loading times), but it barely runs on the Z585.

Oh, it runs, it's playable, but not enjoyably so. The interesting thing is that, theoretically, performance on the IdeaPad is better compared to my Athlon desktop. Turning everything on and switching everything off causes very small framerate deviation (around 2fps between all off and all on medium), both on the DX9 and DX11 modes.

The problem is that there is constant stuttering. I don't know why. Dual-graphics mode isn't the culprit this time around. The game just stutters. Considering the minuscule framerate change between different graphics configurations, I have to place some of the blame on the game's developers for bad optimization. Natural Selection 2 is a pretty, but still far too heavy game that seems to have sacrificed the Source engine's diversity for visuals that eat up a lot of memory (if the texture popping is anything to go by).

Natural Selection 2, averaging 22fps on these settings. Dropping them leads to minor gains.

It is of note that the monitor I was using on the desktop ran on Full-HD and the resolution downgrade on the laptop is certainly a factor in favor of the performance gain. The 7670m despite its power is too old to run games on Full-HD monitors as fluidly as my bechmarks would suggest.

However, outside of Mass Effect, none of the aforementioned games ran on any playable level on Full-HD and I had to tinker with the resolution settings on the desktop to get them running (usually dropping below the laptop's native resolution).

IdeaPad Z585's specs: AMD A8-4500 (quad-core, 1.9GHz up to 2.6GHz on Turbo), 4GB RAM, 1TB 5400RPM HDD, 7640G APU + HD7670M, True-HD 1366x768 native resolution.

Desktop's specs: AMD Athlon II x2 250 (dual-core, 3.0GHz, semi-locked multiplier), 6GB RAM, 500GB HDD 7200RPM, HD6570, Full-HD (1920x1200) monitor.

PART 1: UPGRADING TO A LAPTOP

PART 3: OVERALL & CONCLUSION

Lenovo IdeaPad Z585 Impressions Part 1: Upgrading to a laptop

I hate laptops. I've always been a hardcore PC gamer and a laptop just doesn't cut it for that type of user. I've been needing to upgrade my desktop; the poor thing wore an Athlon II x2 250 and an HD6570, well below mid-range by current standards. It still performed adequately with the proper tweaking in games' graphics options, but its time had come. I had come up with a fine, affordable upgrade for it.

However, as I'm getting married next year, mobility became a major issue and I had to reconsider. Even if I weren't moving a lot these days, my wife-to-be doesn't quite grasp the magnificence of games and as we're hard-pressed for time, there are major spending cut-backs in our budget, which very likely means that the next 5 years will be comprised of nothing but me finally playing through my Good Old Games and Steam backlog.

To her credit, she was hell-bent on me merely upgrading, because the cost was technically lower. I had to pull my "I know better" card at that point in time, which I really hated doing because I wanted the upgrade too; but between the lack of space in our place (where we will stay after the wedding and with the first of our children) and her overall distaste for my hobbies, moving to a safer, quiet spot in the house according to circumstance (when her friends are visiting, during summer-time when it's hot inside and I smoke) mobility took precedence. Besides, I also write (short stories, this blog) and I need the computer for work, which made mobility a necessity when away from home.

It helped that my upgraded system's price jumped from a little over 300 Euros to well over 450. At that price, a laptop was more approachable.

Originally I was going for an i7 and GT740 combo; a gaming laptop costs way too much and it's honestly not a good investment. But that combo sounded perfectly serviceable for a few years. The problem was that my budget quickly and suddenly shrank; any such decent combo laptop costs at least 600 Euros; not a lot, but money I didn't have. What I did have was 500.

I managed to find a Lenovo IdeaPad Z585 at 460 Euros (480 with a base cooler). The specs weren't great; it wears an AMD A8-4500 with a dual graphics set-up between a 7640G APU and a dedicated 7670M. I had done a lot of research for laptops over the course of three months and while AMD is considered the preferred option for budget gaming, because their APUs are stronger than Intel's HD series, in general they were to be avoided.

Three things led me to finally ordering: 1) it was well-within my budget. 2) the A8 is, in fact, upgradeable and can be swapped with an A10 (including its superior APU) whenever I think it necessary and 3) the 8xxx  series of mobile GPUs is actually kind of crap; the 7670m is old, but strong.

The system arrived soon, but things didn't start off well. I wasn't that sold on it and it seemed like a desperate purchase I was going to loathe and once I opened the box, I had little reason to believe I was wrong. The laptop was Polish!

Lenovo is the former IBM, bought out by the PRC's government. This piece, however, had been imported from Poland. I had bought it from a local, Greek shop; a pretty big one as well, one I've been a customer of for over a decade. This is the first time they screwed me over so bad; everything is in Polish. The stickers on the frame are in Polish, the manuals, even Windows 8, leaving me wondering what the hell I'm supposed to when I log in. Add insult to injury, there are no drivers, no disks, not even a sticker with the Windows 8 serial number, which I'm pretty sure was included in the price.

Once my first wave of rage subsided a bit and I finished moving my desktop elsewhere and cleaning up my desk, I had a look at the device itself. The Z585 looks alright; it's mostly plastic, a major no-no for laptops that handle gaming, especially if they run on AMD hardware, as they tend to raise considerable temperatures that can literally melt part of the frame and cause damage. There is, however, plenty of aluminum covering on top of it.

The speakers are surprisingly good for a mobile system, loud without making the whole frame shiver and causing interference (the system boasts Dolby Home Theatre v4 capabilities). They are placed on the surface right above the keyboard. The keyboard itself is well-manufactured, keys are soft but maintain the necessary traction to avoid accidental key-strokes (important in gaming when your hand rests on the keyboard a lot of the time). The touchpad is fine as well, perfectly responsive, though of lesser importance all around as I'm using a mouse most of the time.

There are nice touch-buttons for system sleep and sound volume right above the speakers and the only problem is that resting my hand on the WASD keys during gaming can't be good for the temperature, as the left side of the frame is the one getting the hottest (or hot at all, for that matter) during heavy load.

The Z585 comes with only four USB slots, while I've noticed the two on the left side of the frame output a lot less power, which makes usage of storage devices or using them for charging other devices (such as a cell-phone) considerably problematic. There is also the standard HDMI output, as well as a VGA one. On the lower right side there are speaker and microphone outputs, while the IdeaPad also comes with built-in microphone and webcam (as it's customary these days).

There is a card reader on the front of the frame as well as the diagnostics lights, though I've only seen three, the one missing is the very needed "load" light (the one that usually flashes red when the system is under load), which I've come to rely on on desktop computers.

I tried to get rid of Win8 altogether, on account of the fact that that thing is made by Satan. I did manage to install Windows 7, by disabling secure boot and UEFI boot in the BIOS and reverting back to the Legacy boot.

The problem is that, while Windows 7 works perfectly fine with Legacy boot, Linux doesn't. The very existence of the UEFI boot screws it up and live versions of Ubuntu, Debian and Linux Mint (Ubuntu variant) couldn't even see the Windows partition.

This was successfully fixed using the great Fixparts tools that get rid of GTP leftovers on the hard drives and make the partitions usable again. I did manage to install Linux then, only one problem: IT WOULDN'T BOOT.

Grub didn't read Windows at all, fucked up the Master Boot Record and even Ubuntu wouldn't proceed past a certain point during loading the OS.

Friends, I tried time and again to fix that and with all my experience and research, I have yet to find a solution. At this moment, my computer only runs Windows 7. This may not be a huge problem for most users, but it is for me; I don't trust Windows, I find it unstable, restricting and in need of constant clean-ups or reinstalls every few months. I only ever use it for games, everything else (from work, word processing, reading and films/music) I do on Linux. Not being able to boot any distro from the hard drive is a major thorn on my side.

PART 2 - PERFORMANCE