11 réponses à ce sujet

[Winternova2012]

Received as a gift 2 months ago, and runs most games horribly, worst of all DAO.

800x600 (minimum) res, graphics and texture detail medium, frame-buffer effects checked, and it runs about 10 frames a second exploring, around 5 in combat. heres the specs:

Windows Vista Home Premium
Intel Core 2 Duo CPU   T8100   2.1ghz
RAM: 4 GB
NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS
5 GB space available 

I use Avira Antivirus and run scans frequently. i've tried deleting basically all my processes (even dwm.exe and explorer.exe) before playing, with no improvement. 

This is a thread of desperation.

Why is it running so slow??? 

Do I need a better CPU? even at the menu, minimized, cpu usage was at 100%, so im thinking thats my best option. I just never expected to need to upgrade considering how close my specs matched the recommended. 
 
Solutions? thanks

Modifié par Winternova2012, 25 décembre 2009 - 01:44 .

[Puchi Kitsune]

The recommended specs are designed for desktop PCs, not laptops. To keep laptops compact, light, to promote longer battery life, and to make sure that stay nice 20 degrees Celsius on your lap, laptops hardware was always created with power saving and thermal management in mind. Performance in laptop is always dead last, unless you have one of those 18inch or 19inch laptops, that are designed to sit on your desk 24/7

I would say with your laptop hardware, you should be playing on low settings. 8400M GS is a 3 generation ago video chipset from current standards (which are X2xx cards). 8xxx series are already 2 years old. In addition, since it is x400 GS series, makes it a middler tier video solution. As oppose to x600 and up, which are high end solutions.

Intel Core2 T8100 @ 2.1GHz is not helping either. It is a 2 year old mobile dual core CPU. On top of that it is Penryn-3M model. Penryn-3M are "low end" version of Penryn. The smaller (82 mm² instead of 107 mm²) Penryn-3M is used in mobile processors with an L2 Cache 3 MB or less as a successor to Merom-2M. The entry level Penryn-3M Core 2 processor is the T6xxx series, with 2 MB L2 Cache and begin with the T6400 at a clock rate of 2 GHz. Other Penryn-3M based processor series are Celeron T3xxx, Pentium T4xxx, as well as most Core 2 Duo SU9xxx, P7xxx, P8xxx, T8xxx processors. In addition, T8100 has slower memory access (front bus speed of 800Mhz, as oppose to 1066Mhz of all other Penryn models.)

Modifié par Puchi Kitsune, 25 décembre 2009 - 02:01 .

[Winternova2012]

ah, yes well..even people with older laptops (2+ years) seem to be playing on high settings nearly flawlessly. even when i change to bare minimum settings its choppy. i know my specs arent that great, it just seems like such a drastic difference..

ill start shopping for new stuff then, unless someone cares to do it for me and post some good deals 

[boomgosthedino]

Why I don't do gaming on a laptop. They just cant handle as well. Unless you spend LOTS of money on one of them gaming ones. Witch is not really worth it.

[SirDremor]

2Winternova2012, one good advice - reinstall OS (from scratch, OS, drivers...), and It will be better.

I can agree that you have a somewhat old laptop, but 800x600 should be possible... because, just read reviews - someone manages to play even on netbooks (with Atoms)!



Or find the one, who will do it for you.

[Herethos]

I guess the laptop is configured for low performance battery saving mode, you can probably set it to full performance somewhere, but this would most likely make it quite loud as fans will spin at max speed etc to get rid of excess heat and drain its batteries quickly and should only be used if its plugged in. But as some has mentioned the 8400m gs seems to be a lowend budget version. I don't know if its viable(cost wise) or possible to replace the gfx card in the laptop with say a 8600m or better which should run the game much better.

(How to remove and install a laptop graphics card. (Part 1) www.youtube.com/watch?v=TD6WDt-goiU

Modifié par Herethos, 25 décembre 2009 - 09:24 .

[Winternova2012]

 thanks all, looks like ill be dumping my christmas money into a full-fledged gaming laptop 

[Inarai]

The 8400 is a media card, not a gaming card - so you do have this working against you.



HOWEVER, a piece of advice before you start spending money: Use MSCONFIG(Run>MSCONFIG, or just type "msconfig" into the search bar on the start menu and press "enter") or the free Startup Explorer to turn off every non-essential startup program you can. You'll only get so much through the task manager.

[Bullet_Proof]

sounds like the gfx card is your problem, I have and ati card in my laptop and it wouldn't run half the games it does now even with the lastest laptop gfx cards untill i used driver heaven to install a standard ATI catalysit driver for desktops, now it runs most games very well. Driver heaven also has a version for Nvida cards, i strongly recomend trying the the fix they offer for drivers.

[Althernai]

Winternova2012 wrote...

800x600 (minimum) res, graphics and texture detail medium, frame-buffer effects checked, and it runs about 10 frames a second exploring, around 5 in combat. heres the specs:

Windows Vista Home Premium
Intel Core 2 Duo CPU   T8100   2.1ghz
RAM: 4 GB
NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS
5 GB space available

I use Avira Antivirus and run scans frequently. i've tried deleting basically all my processes (even dwm.exe and explorer.exe) before playing, with no improvement. 

This is a thread of desperation.

Why is it running so slow???

Do I need a better CPU? even at the menu, minimized, cpu usage was at 100%, so im thinking thats my best option. I just never expected to need to upgrade considering how close my specs matched the recommended.

Your specs are nowhere near the recommended because of the GPU; the performance is more or less expected. Also, that is not a new laptop -- it uses the Santa Rosa platform which is 2 years old (I didn't even know they sold those anymore).

That said, it should not be that bad. I'm playing this on a Santa Rosa laptop with a T9300 and an 8600M GT and it is playable (I haven't measured the FPS, but there are only minor slowdowns in areas with lots of NPCs and effects) at 1280x800 with both textures and graphics detail maxed out (no AA though). Are you using ForceWare 195.62? These are the latest WHQL-signed mobile drivers from Nvidia for the GeForce 8M cards and they get along very well with DA:O.

[Eurypterid]

Winternova2012 wrote...

5 GB space available

This may factor into it as well. You need more than that for the game, and if you're getting down to that little space left on your HDD, you'll run into performance issues. But yes, your card is likely the biggest culprit.

[Eshme]

Winternova2012 wrote...

ah, yes well..even people with older laptops (2+ years) seem to be playing on high settings nearly flawlessly. even when i change to bare minimum settings its choppy. i know my specs arent that great, it just seems like such a drastic difference..

ill start shopping for new stuff then, unless someone cares to do it for me and post some good deals 

Probably they havent got a 8400GS, but likely a 8600 at that age. Disregarding those numbers, the latter GPU is 3to 5 times as fast, and even that is slow in current times. As the 8800 is yet again 3 times as fast on average, and its what, 3 years old? This is it for your other 2 year old laptop
8400 cannot reach up to games at all.

This is the drastic difference for you.