Poor games performance on 5920G - any owners able to help?

Hi all

I have just bought a new 5920G from Amazon UK. It is model LX.AN60X.041 and has a T7300 2.0Ghz dual core processor and GeForce 8600M GS, 2GB RAM and 1GB Turbocache.

I have vista home premium, directx10 and my video driver version is 7.15.11.0138 (which is the driver it came with)

Anyway, after reading a few posts on here it seemed to me that this should be an adequate gaming laptop and perform reasonably well (even though a GS, I gather the GT is slightly better?). So I ran 3dMark 2006 and got a score of 1341 which seems ridiculously low as other people have said they can get 3000+!! And as the scenes were playing I managed about 2-3 FPS on average.

Games performance is also inconsistent - FEAR runs pretty well at near max settings. Stalker, Oblivion and Crysis on the other hand I have to have on minimum to make them playable at all (OK crysis is a bit of a beast, I admit, but other people have said they can run it well at decent settings). Far Cry everything is just blue (very weird - like looking through a very thick blue fog, objects appear very faint and you can only see things very close to you)

So my question is why is it performing so badly? Is it a vista compatability thing? A directX 10 thing? A video driver issue? I'm sure the hardware is capable enough.

I see people talking about video driver versions like 163.75. Which driver is this and why is my version a different format (I mean like 9 digits instead of 5)? Also when I go to the nvidia site and try to download and install this driver I get a message saying the "setup could not locate any drivers compatible with mys system and will now exit".

Have also tried laptopvideo2go.com but the website seems to be down on the moment so no joy there yet.

Have just re-read my post and am firing off questions all over the place so apologies for that (if you have even read this far). In summary is anyone able to educate me on

1) What might cause such a low 3dMark score and how I can improve it
2) How to work out which video driver I have and how to update it (and recommendations on which is the best driver)
3) Any other vista/directx compatability tips (I couldnt even install brothers in arms earned in blood, although that is apparently a copy protection issue)

Thank you in advance

PS should also mention my Windows experience index score is 4.7 with 4.9 for graphics

 

Well the first thing I'd say is ABSOLUTELY update your Nvidia drivers. The stock drivers you have are the ones that come with the Acer. The drivers that are released by nvidia (and others) need to be tweaked (the inf modded) to allow them to install on the mobile graphics cards. laptopvideo2go is for me the best souce of these modded drivers (though they are moving onto new servers at the mo' so they are down). Some versions are better for overclocking than others - it depends on what you want to do - while others are more stable and don't cause your system to crash when it goes to sleep etc.

These boards should have other Acer users opinions on the modded drivers so have a look. The drivers are easy to install and you will DEFINITELY see improvements in fps/gameplay. I have 5.3 on the index for gaming, which is about standard (I have the GT 8600 which is slightly better than the GS). Perhaps someone can direct you to other websites that have the modded drivers.

Also: Update the Intel Chipset (PM965) and Turbo Memory (which will also update the Matrix Storage) to the latest versions. There are also some Geforce 8 Series Windows Updates which you should install (though they need at least the 163.xx drivers). The Nvidia site has links to them ; these also are meant to improve Vista running these types of cards.

Success!

 

Is your laptop in "performance mode"?

By the way... GT is quite a bit better.

 

ONE: Install Windows XP. Dual boot if you have to, XP guarantees a 15-20% performance boost over Vista, check comparisons on the net.
TWO: Download the latest drivers, 169.12 from www.laptopvideo2go.com . With laptop drivers you will always have to download them from there, you have to download a modded .inf as well that will be in the same area as the driver on the website and put it in the install area, replacing the original. Otherwise it won't detect your video card on setup.
THREE: AFTER you install the video drivers, right click anywhere on your desktop (just not on an icon) and select NVIDIA CONTROL PANEL, make sure it is set to LET THE 3d APPLICATION DECIDE, or USE MY PREFERENCE and PERFORMANCE. Otherwise Nvidia applies graphics-crunching 'effects' that aren't even noticeable to EVERY 3d APPLICATION.

Read the last digits of your driver to find what version you have : 101.38 VERY OLD

Well, that's about everything... 163.75 are drivers to try as well, but 169.12 are the latest so should be the best. let me know how things go.

okay I forgot laptopvideo2go is down so open the link from:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=194335
(thanks Lithus)

and download the two files. Extract the .exe to somewhere easy like C:\Driver Then copy the nv_disp.inf that you downloaded aswell (from the link) and paste it in C:\Driver, replacing the original. Then Install the driver, and there you go you've got one of the latest drivers.

 

Thanks for the replies. I will have a go this evening and report back

 

I have installed 169.09 for Vista 32 from laptopvideo2go on the same laptop. It all works fine, and the bioshock demo plays fine, which it would not do before. I am not a big gamer so have tried no other games, but all the sleep functions work fine etc

 

Thanks for the tip. Have you noticed any effect on HD DVD playback. I have heard that using modded drivers from laptopvideo2go can cause issues with copy protection

But i suspect i will cross that bridge when i come to it

 

OK I have some success to report. Laptopvideo2go is back up and after much too-ing and fro-ing i managed to install 169.04 (as people said that was stable). Might try 169.09 also as hardtackle has suggested.

For some reason I could download the modified inf but not the driver itself so had to get that from elsewhere (had to be the international version as well otherwise i got file not found errors on installation)

Anyway 3dMark06 score is now 2300 so a big improvement on before but still short of what other people have managed. I will also look for the chipset and turbomemory updates as suggested.

Any other ideas on how to get the performance up to scratch?

 

Actually... 2300 is about normal for 8600GS.

 

Another brief update - have tried out a load of games briefly and noticed a vast improvement so thanks to all who replied for your help

For other users who have just bought this machine I strongly recommend going to laptopvideo2go - loads of clear and helpful info.

 

I dont get it!! I'm able to run everything on HL2 to the absolute max and i ran doom3 at ultra hig with 6x aliasing smoothly. So i get Far Cry and im experiencing the same exact blue fog your talking about! I'm able to run it with everything very high and went up to 1450x1280 or something like that and it runs absolutley perfect except for the damn fog. no lags or anything, just that damn fog....the game looks really good when i get close to objects but i cant see far because of the fog..it almost looks like a big glitch

whats going on? how do i get rid of this? and what driver do i need to install so i can get rid of the problem?

 

have you tried downloading the latest far cry patch?

 

What driver are you using?

Far Cry runs fine for me with 169.09.

 

Hey thanks for the reply. I'm using 163.75 I believe it was. The game runs perfect just the blue fog distortion.

 

I forgot to mention it was just the Far Cry demo.

 

ok i just downloaded 169.12 drivers what do i do now? And where do i get the modded INF?

 

I actually recommend 169.04 for now as there are some reported bugs with newer version.

Check out laptopvideo2go for modded inf and drivers.
Good luck

 

thanks for the heads up I appreciate it.

 

I haven't had a chance to try out the modded drivers - but just wondering; how is HD DVD playback with 169.04?