M14x Battlefield 3 Perfomance & Discussion Thread

Thank u! You are so nice! I will get one BF3 for my laptop soon.LOL

 

got bf3 yet to go online but im well impressed that the campaign runs great at good fps and looks amazing im playing with medium settings

anyone else playing it and impressed

 

The game is great and the m14x is better . I was worried about how it would run the game, and heat issues, but it has been working like a charm. Haven't gone over 80"c while playing. I love them both.

 

No idea what fps i'm getting! but running it at high settings and its V playable! cant see any slow down at all! This is using the latest official verde 285.62 drivers from nvidia.

V happy with the m14x! especially as the BF3 site says my machine isnt good enough to play it! Bah! what do they know! GT555M ftw!

 

So the m14x can play on line with a great FPS? Happy to hear that! Bur still a little worry……LOL

 

That GPU analyser, analyse only the Desktop version of NVIDIA GPU, so even you have a GTX 580, you will get the same either unplayable or able to play at low-medium message. And plus since Desktop is the PC true lead platform so that why I dont think they would even bother to fix that analyser.

I use to try to run at Ultra, the avg fps was between 10 ~ 25 (according to Fraps), high at between 20 ~ 35, Medium at between 30 ~ 45, Auto setting is 25 ~ 40, however I tweak it a bit, and able to get around 35 ~ 50 with an Overclocked GT555m. All setting are test on 900p 60Hz with no V-Sync on.

 

Kind of off topic, but anyone know any good beginner clans? Always wanted to join one and i think this might just be the game...haha

 

You might want to have a look at this, however this is not a clan, but it work somewhat similar to a clan - Recruiting Platoon Members Oh btw, you must have the game installed and have an EA/Origin account to access this website.

 

some interesting posts here... thought I'd chime in with my 2 cents

my l702x isn't gonna be much different from the m14x when it comes to performance in this game, same card, latest nvidia driver, overclocked etc (760/960)

single player is one thing... DICE have optimised each area to get the most out of your GPU, seeing 60fps in single player isn't a big deal

however, anyone saying they're getting a constant 50+ fps with "high" mode running at 900p, or even 768p for that matter in large scale maps like caspain border is bending the truth

keep this in mind:

resolution has the biggest impact on frame rate, going from 900p to 768p gives about 10fps

the next biggest hitter is MSAA (antialiasing deferred) which should be turned off with this card anyway. Post Process AA has NO FPS IMPACT (well, 1 or 2 fps at most) so it's personal choice if you like the blurry/vaseline type look this adds to the overall image.

turning motion blur on at all has about a 4/5fps hit to the image, even if you're not moving - keep it off

Ambient Occlusion. Without AO you will find some areas can look quite flat, it adds a level of self shadowing and depth which makes it subtle but worthwhile. SSAO is about a 5fps hit whereas HBAO is around a 10fps hit... it's not worth 10fps, just use SSAO

AF makes those gorgeous textures look good at angles/far away... go for 4X or 8X, performance impact is minimal.

Texture Quality, if you can actually notice the difference between the "high" and "ultra" textures then you're superhuman, just keep it on "high" - there will be no performance benefit over "ultra" but loading games may be quicker.

VSync adds a slight performance hit, but with so much going on (particle effects, post-processing blur/smoke/lense flare on screen etc) screen tearing is noticeable... IMO it's worth keeping vsync on.

Mesh Quality controls the level of detail on buildings, items, terrain etc (yes, even though there's a "terrain quality" option... mesh quality still seems to effect terrain) lowering polygon count, the distance at which the LOD of objects changes. There's a fair difference between "medium" and "high" with this setting, some smaller buildings, trees, less important objects will dissapear alltogether in the distance. Try it yourself, on caspian border you'll see a 3-4fps difference going from medium-high settings. Stand in the operation metro tunnel entrance and look at the geometry of the rocks around the entrance when you switch from medium to high. It's noticeable but still worth keeping on "medium" for a FPS boost.

All the other settings have a very subtle, almost not noticeable difference when going from medium to high... and the frame rate increase mirrors this as you'll only gain around an extra 4 or 5fps from taking terrain quality, shadow quality, effects quality and terrain decoration from medium to high (and I still haven't found an area where I can notice a difference between medium and high terrain quality... hence I just keep it on medium)

play around with it yourself but I'm using

1600*900

texture qual: high
shadow qual: high
effects qual: high
mesh qual: medium
terrain qual: medium
terrain decoration: high
antialiasing deferred: off
antialiasing post: low (looks too "blurry" when on high)
motion blur: off
anisotropic filter: 8x
ambient occlusion: SSAO
VSYNC: on

finally I've got my FOV on "80", this could possibly impact performance over the default "70" but I haven't tested it

with those settings I'm averaging around 30FPS-40FPS on largescale maps, to view your frame rate pull down the console with the "`" key (on a UK keyboard anyway... it's the one above "tab") and type "Render.DrawFps 1" to have your frame rate constantly displayed.

 

JoN vMagic glad u finnaly reply, u seem like u noe a lot when it comes to this! I have a few questions! Are u playing in windowed mode? How far is ya memory overclocked? Cos i have the same card but just in a dell xps17! Also does ya framerate dip below 30? N are the settings the optimal choice for quality n performance?

Thnx a lot buddy srry for spelling im usin ma iphone to reply to u

 

I think these gonna be useful, awesome suggestions!

 

no worries, am also using a dell xps 17 (l702x)... the core's at 760 and memory at 960 at the moment

that's my personal choice for optimal performance/quality but you may not be bothered by running at a lower resolution and gaining some extra fps

I'm not playing in windowed mode, I keep it fullscreen

occasionally can dip below 30 but very rarely, usually stays over 35fps - there was one map the other day (can't remember the name) which features quite a lot of rain effects and a mosque... that hit my frame rate harder than some other maps

 

disabling antialiasing boosted my frames to a average of 50-60fps.

nice if you can handle the edginess

 

Do you mean disabling AA?

 

yupp, right. sry, i was a little, lets say, we got good booze here in germany

thanks mate

 

Thanks John vMagic for the write up on the settings.
I followed your suggestion and I'm very pleased with the performance!
I also disabled AA like you suggested and gained a bunch. Don't see much jaggies at all on a 14" display at 1600x900 (even on my 20" it's not bad at all)

 

i'm not sure whether i should overclock my gt555m, but i too disabled aa. you dont notice on a 14"!

 

Well actually, you do notice. Especially with objects that are somewhat far away.


I've decided to play other games on my laptop. Just ordered a desktop to build that should run on Ultra. I'll just use that to play BF3 and other powerful games, while my laptop is for college use and to play some other games at college.

 

lack of AA is kinda noticeable but the performance hit on a gt555m is more noticeable

did some testing with toggling shadows between medium and high... it's one of the more noticeable effects (dropping to medium you do lose some of the nice self-shadowing effects on buildings n such, see siene crossing for example) but having shadows on "medium" over "high" does give a bit of a fps boost (3 or 4 fps) so if you're looking for a couple of extra fps can just drop shadows a bit

if you want a smoother image it's a better idea to use post-process AA, it's not an amazing effect and basically just adds a blur to everything but imo it looks better than having the overly obvious jagged edges.

gonna experiment with nvidia control pannel and see if I can force CSAA rather than MSAA... CSAA is an nvidia-only Antialiasing which can give good image quality with less of a performance impact so will let you know how that works out, might be better using 1366*768 and 8xCSAA than 1600*900 with no AA.

anyway, this game has pushed me into building a desktop... 2x 580GTX 1.5gb in sli, i7 2700K... should run OK

 

Haha, I've also decided to build a desktop. But not as powerful. Just a GTX570 and i5-2500k.

 

Well, decided I want to play in Ultra settings, so set the res down to 1366x768. Set AO down to SSAO, and AA down to 4x. Everything else is in ultra. GPU OC'd to 750/1500/1080. Super smooth, even in Op Metro 64 Conquest (you know, the meatgrinder?)

Can't be happier with this 14in laptop.

 

@Zephir, how can u be running at ultra on those settings bro? just very curious.

btw magic i got a question bro, i was wondering what temps u getting? i was just playing for a bit and my temps reached 74C when do u think i need to be worried? thnx a lot

 

Don't really understand your question. I changed the settings, and found it smooth, so I use them?

 

Srry let me be more clearier! How can u be running it on ultra? What fps r u getting? Are u also running it on the gt555m? Im just very curious because i would love to run it at ultra as well! Srry if im nuking u with questions, i just wanna see what i can do better! I mean doesnt ya comp die in terms of fps with 64 Players on metro with ultra settings?

Thnx a lot in advance

 

wouldn't worry about temps until they hit the 85degree range mate, cards are stress tested to 100degrees and laptops generally get hotter than desktop GPUs, you're fine with those temps

and yeah, can run on ultra at 768p (as long as ssao is on and MSAA is off) as the fps difference between ultra and high is minimal without MSAA but you will encounter some areas where you'll get random FPS drops due to shadows (25fps or so)

 

I'm getting 30-40FPS. Running it with GT555M. I also run Throttlestop with Turboboost disabled. Maximum temp I got to is 90 deg C. No cooler used.
In fact, played 64 Metro Conquest for 4 hours straight yesterday. No overheating problem at all.

 

90c is still pretty high.. I wouldn't personally be happy with that temp but that's just me. additionally metro is one of the least taxing levels on GPU

 

Believe it or not, Metro 64 Conquest is the worst punish you can put your laptop through. 20 nades exploding everywhere, RPG's flying in all direction, not to mention the multiple grenade launcher noobs.

I also forgot to mention that 90 deg C is peak temp. Between rounds, the laptop gets a chance to cool down while stats are shown. Furthermore, Intel CPU has thermal limit of 105 deg C, so I believe it's ok. I understand if you don't want to push your comp that much, though.

 

Anyone have problems getting the game to display in fullscreen? Best I seem to get a bunch of flickering and then I end up with a window that takes up the whole scree.

 

make sure you got the latest nvidia driver 285.62 WHQL, also available from the dell m14x driver site.

 

I just reinstalled it and allowed it to do a clean install. It definitely helped it a bit.. hard to explain, but it still has the title bar with the 3 buttons at the top right and the start bar at the bottom is still on top. Really strange. Can't seem to get it go fullscreen. Any other suggestions?


Edit: Solved it thanks! I had to manually uninstall all the drivers. Then reinstall them. Working perfect the first time. Awesome!

 

oi, I'm a grenade launcher noob! ;-)

 

hey magic i got a question for ya! erm when im playing my GPU % usage keeps sometimes jumping from like 76 to 60 then to 82 n then to 99. its kinda weird and annoying and its affecting my FPS in ma game. any idea how i can fix that? any suggestions appreciated! thnx bud

 

its reallly weird and annoying, it goes down to like maybe 60 n then boost up to 75 and then 99, it stays there for a while and everything is fine n then again!

 

Me too, but I'm trying to quit

 

Hi

My old advent laptop died recently so its time for me to upgrade and get a new toy.

I'm thinking of getting (as this is in my budget)...

ALIENWARE m14x
Processor - Intel® Core™ i7 Processor 2670QM (2.20Ghz, 6MB, 4C)
Graphics card - 1.5GB NVIDIA® GeForce® GT555M
Memory - 4gb
Hard Drive- 500GB (7,200rpm) SATA Hard Drive
lcd 14.0" (36 cm) Widescreen High Definition + (1600x900) WLED
Wireless - European Dell Wireless 1000

..now is this going to run BF3 well? ...what sort of specs and options?

I've got the game on my xbox 360 but want to know really if the above set up will look much better than my xbox version and if its worth me spending out on this machine? I was wow'ed by the videos for the pc graphics for bf3, the 64 players online, biggger maps etc so I'm hoping the above set up will serve me well ?

Is the processor I've picked ok or is it not much different to the i5? Will my memory be ok at 4gb or is it worth me getting the above 6gb (or should i save the money to get the better 3gb gfx card instead)?

Any help appreciated as I've not had a pc for gaming for many, many years so I'm pretty new to all of this!!

Thanks in advance

 

You should be able to run at med-high.

The 3GB graphics is no better than the 1.5. If you can, put more power in the processor, that's a big one.

Anything medium and higher is 10x better than console graphics

 

Thanks for the reply.

Well the stanrdard spec is the i5. I thought upgrading for a £100 more for the i7 (2.20Ghz, 6MB, 4C) for £100 wasn't bad but I don't think I can stretch that more for either an additional £260 or £490 for the other options?

Intel® Core™ i5 Processor 2430M (2.40Ghz, 3MB, 2C) [Included in Price]
Intel® Core™ i7 Processor 2760QM (2.40Ghz, 6MB, 4C) [add £260.00]
Intel® Core™ i7 Processor 2670QM (2.20Ghz, 6MB, 4C) [add £100.00]
Intel® Core™ i7 Processor 2860QM (2.50 Ghz, 8MB, 4C) [add £490.00]

Also is the 4mb memory (4096MB 2x2GB 1600MHz DDR3 Dual Channel)good enough for battlefield 3?

and is the wirless connectivity much different and worth investing?
European Dell Wireless 1000 [Included in Price]
Intel® Wireless LAN 6205 2x2 (802.11a/b/g/n) Card - European [add £20.00]
Killer™ Wireless-N 1103 - EUR [add £30.00]
Smarter. Faster. Wireless. For online gaming

Ah the joys of wanting to play Battlefield 3 on an alienware but with a limited budget! lol

Sorry for all the questions!!!!

 

Lol, I think you mean 4GB, which should be enough for BF3. I'm not completely sure, as I got 8GB, but many users have claimed that 4GB RAM was enough for them to run games without noticeable differences compared to 8GB users.

Anyways, the i7 should give you a boost with the CPU-intensive apps and games, and I'm pretty sure BF3 is one of those. The Killer-N wireless card has been said to be amazing compared to the lower options, with lower latency, higher transfer rates, etc. If you're planning to be playing multiplayer a lot, the Killer-N will be the best choice for you to make.

 

Again thanks v much for the replys. I think I might stretch my budget to slightly upgrade to the i7 Processor 2760QM (2.40Ghz, 6MB, 4C) for the extra £260.00 then (seeing as you reckon its worth it) and probably keep the memory at 4gb seeing as you think that BF3 will play fine with it.

I probably won't be able to get my machine for about a month (I'm still frantically saving and selling things on ebay to fund my battlefield addiction lol) so I'm hoping I'll find some money off vouchers online to bring the costs down.

Exciting times!!!!

 

Welcome to my world! The best deal you can get is thus:

sign up at topcashback or quidco, as you'll get 10% cashback on alienware purchases. click through to the dell website. Go for code "n00w1403".

Upgrade your processor if you feel you must. but my 2.2 is powering through BF3. Go for nebula red as its gorgeous! Add to basket and use code "JPN4LP3D6TR70H" to get another 15% off. that means:

i7 2.40ghz
4gb DDR3 1600mhz
750Gb HDD
3gb GT555M
killer N wireless

Goes from £1444 to £1095. you'll get £93 cashback to make it £1002.

then if you want to be extra cheeky like i was, threaten to send it back once you've received it. i told them i wanted a free bag, and other people had negotiated that into their deals. so they gave me 10% refund. Thats £110 to you! So total cost £898. Still cant afford one?

Come join us on the deals thread on the main alienware forum for more! We can give you the name of a rep who can secure the £1095 price for longer then the 16th if needed!

 

Hi, Im new here and ive purchased a M14X earlier this year (around june i believe) i was assured that with the specs that i have, i should be able to run all games on ultra without problems. I havent found time to game with it due to certain commitments but have recently decided to allow the m14x to serve its purpose. However what greeted me was the exact opposite of 'problem-free'. The start up is generally slow and the connection to wireless terrible. I tried playing FM2012 and it occasionally hangs and crashes. after clicking 'play match', the screen goes black for aproximately 5 seconds before lagging for another 5 and then starting. TF2 also crashes regularly.

Battlefield 3, when played, also provided a plethora of issues that my brother's computer (a HP DV6-6171TX) isnt facing such as a terribly slow launching time (over a full minute), a slow connection time to servers, and very frequent game crashes (like once ever 3-5 minutes). i cant even get through a single chapter of the campaign without it hanging and having me to end process through windows task manager. Is this supposed to be happening considering that the M14X is supposedly one of the best gaming rigs around for its category?

my specs are as follows:

Intel Core i7-2630QM processor 2.00GHz with turbo boost 2.0 up to 2.9GHz
1.5GB DDR3NVIDIA GeForce GT555M
Intergrated 10/100/1000mbps gigabit ethernet NIC
8GB 1600MHz DDR3SDRAM
500GB 7200RPM HDD

Please help!

Thankyou so much (in advance!)

 

Well I can tell you that you should've never assumed that.

The GT555m is decent, but it's not high end, it's mid-high.

To play games on Ultra with no problems, you buy a desktop. Or an M18x. Not the m14x

 

Even on medium resolution, the exact same problems occur...

 

If that wworks then I'll be a very happy chappy!

I've got a few items left on ebay to sell this week and if I can get my machine with the above discounts then I'll probably be able to order it by the weekend!

Thanks very much in advance!!!!!!

 

Hmm, i too find it takes a minute or two to connect to a server? Anyone else get this?

 

Yeah the initial load time is awful for me too. Switching maps once in a lobby though takes like 20 seconds.

 

I bought a mx14 yesterday going by the methods you showed me (although I added a few extras and upgrades which put the price up a bit). How does getting cashback from topcashback or quidco work then? ...how and when do I receive money back from them??

I might try your bag blag too?

I guess next stop for me is to download orign and then finally battlefield 3!

 

Glad to hear you followed the advice! the reps have advised me thats a better deal than they can offer! Feel; free to add rep to me!

topcashback will track once its delivered, if you clicked through them to get to the dell site. Mines tracking fine, takes upto 45 days for the cash back. But still better than a kick in the teeth!

If you dont ask, you dont get! So feel free to whiz an email off via Dell - Support
lets face it, if they say no, they say no. if they say yes, you get a free £90 bag or £100 back in refund!

 

I've added rep.

My alienware's status says its shipped and UPS are currently sorting out the labels so I recon I might get it sooner than later. ...battlefield 3 here I come!!!

So regarding asking for a bag/getting money off - all I do is just moan to dell customer service that I didn't recieve one? ..or do I say something like I've seen other people on websites getting a bag for free so where's mine? lol