Hmmm Dont Make A Lotta Sense

[mussie]

Hey all

I have run AH on my laptop occasionally and found that the poor thing had trouble I would get a max of about 40 FPS, Well here at work last night just for the hell of it I downloaded the HI RES textures and instaleld em.

I then reconfigured the video and set my Max Texture Size from 256 to default, which was 1024.

I then started AH and found an significant improvement in the FPS (And it looked DAM sexy to)....

My lappy's Specs are the following

HP DV4220TX Pavillion
CPU Pentium M 1.86
RAM 512 MB @533Mhz
GPU X700 128MB Dedicated (though the weird thing is AH and a few other progs say its 256MB)

I am running the Omega Drivers and used FS Auto start to stop services and defrag memory (I always defrag the mem a second time cause I find it ends up with substancially more free ram after the second defrag)

So what dont make sense is:
1- The increased performance after the Graphics changes...
2- Why do some progs see my GPU Ram as 2x the actual amount...

Would appreciate you thougths ppl....

[StarOfAfrica2]

1.  You lowered your max texure size, so you are using less memory.  Of course that will improve your frame rates.  Your CPU doesnt have to handle all those swaps and can concentrate on the work it needs to do just to handle the game.

2.  Ignore the ingame graphics memory amounts.  They usually arent right anyway.

[mussie]

Nah mate I went from 256 to 1024 texture size and installed the HI res textures and got better performance.......


thanks for the reply though

[Skuzzy]

Newer video cards, particularly higher end ones, can get better performance from higher settings.  It has to do with the optimizations the video cards have been designed for.

It can be confusing to know which ones do better under higher loads.

ATI X3xx, 9000, 9200, 8xxx cards need lower loads.  There are others, I just cannot remember them all.

[x0847Marine]

My notebook is like yours P-M 1.8, 128M 6600go, 1025 RAM.. but mine is a no name brand Quanta KN1, or ENP611, vanilla book... AH plays very well, but I think I'll try that.

Did you have to disabled the P-M power saving? AH was unplayable until I did that. I always get asked if AH is really any good on a notebook, I have no complaints., I really enjoy gaming out on the go, esp for about $1k.

[mussie]

Yep disabled a lotta useless crap... Use FS Autostart (GREAT PROG BTW)

I was just surprised at the performance increase after increasing the texture size and installing the Hi res texture pack....

I rembered Skuzzy mentioning the fact that some Video cards run better at HI resolution, but I assumed it only related to the different resulotions not things like the texture size.....

What sort of FPS do you get on that puppy XMarine ?

[x0847Marine]

Originally posted by mussie
Yep disabled a lotta useless crap... Use FS Autostart (GREAT PROG BTW)

I was just surprised at the performance increase after increasing the texture size and installing the Hi res texture pack....

I rembered Skuzzy mentioning the fact that some Video cards run better at HI resolution, but I assumed it only related to the different resulotions not things like the texture size.....

What sort of FPS do you get on that puppy XMarine ?

I did the same, bumped up to 1024 textures... and sure enough I'm back getting a solid 59FPS from the low 50s, smoother and looks better too...lol thats nutty.

I kill all but 21 processes using msconfig and overclock the video using coolbits 450 clock / 750 memmory with "2Q" AA.

My notebook is a no name brand manufactured by Quanta called a Quanta Kn1, or sold by PCClub as an EnPower ENP611.. they're $999 with an upgradable MxM video chip...  I havent been motivated to upgrade the video chip yet, I'll probably upgrade the P-M to a 2.6 and video at the same time.

I love having a notebook that games, the ability to game out anywhere is my freedom from the dreaded wife.. BF2 and Americas Army play well too. I added a Turtle Beach Roadie sound card to kick out the jams.

http://www.pcclub.com/clearance_system_details.cfm?itemno=ENP61104