Advice Wanted

Hello
I'm a new alienware owner, and not extremely tech savvy. I basically dropped three grand on a machine to play some games on, and thats it. Problem is, this machine with the i7 1.6 ghz processors, the 8 gb of ram, and crossfirex 1gb radeon 5870 is having more trouble loading games than my previous half-decade old computer with a fraction of the power. To be more exact, while loading maps and campaigns for the game empire:total war, I am sitting waiting over three minutes where my old computer was 10-30 seconds. It also has trouble loading the actual graphics on other games. Can anyone shed light on what might be the cause for this? Its less than a week old.

 

Hi and welcome.

Sounds like that game is affected by ATi slow loading issues. You could try updating your graphics card drivers. However this is gonna open up a whole new can of worms. Quite a few problems which are now getting sorted out recently.

I've tried running total empire and it does seem to take an age to load. After that the game runs fine though so just mainly the long loading times. You may need a patch update for that game otherwise ATi driver updates is also recommended. ATi and a few games has a well known issue with long load times. Can be very annoying this particular problem/bug.

I don't want to scare you since you are a new user and all but the recommended route if you are going to update your gpu drivers is to use this option.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...r2-driver-amd-5870-vbios-read-post-1-2-a.html

The combination of the Dell 10.8 7.863 drivers with the beta vbios. Also you won't be able to use any older ATi drivers after you flash the vbios. You will have to use 10.8 versions and up. There are ways to flash back your vbios but thats another topic I don't want to burden you with atm.

Basically you will need to install the newest latest dell drivers. Version 10.8 8.763 from the dell and drivers support page. You will need to uninstall the old gpu drivers. Boot into safe mode and then run driver sweeper to clean out any residue ATi drivers. Boot back into normal windows 7 mode and install the new drivers. Restart and then comes the daring bit for a new user. Its really quite simple however some users would rather wait till dell officially publicly releases the driver package combo along with the new vbios for the graphics cards. Its up to you however you will pretty much need to use the vbios flash if you intend to run on the newer drivers. Otherwise you will encounter some sleep, running on battery, hibernation and screen going black or blank and you can't bring the screen back without doing a hard reboot.

You will be able to find the new beta vbios on page 33 of that thread linked above along with pictures instructions on how to go about things.

It is also well advised to have a good read through that thread linked above. Just to understand whats what and make sure you know full well what is going on and needed to be done. Also a reminder that it is all optional to update drivers and flashing of the vbios.
Unfortunately the only way to fix up gaming graphics and performance is through changing drivers and most of the time updating them.
Also the Vbios is only meant for the 5870 GPUs and no other.

What are the SPECs of your new machine?
Also what other games are you having trouble with?

Cheers.

 

Hey reborn, thank you for the response. Here is the full spec sheet.

Alienware M17x
Space Black - Anodized Aluminum, Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit

Alienware M17x Space Black - Anodized Aluminum
Processor Intel® Core? i7 720QM 1.6GHz (2.8 GHz Turbo Mode, 6MB Cache)
Memory 8GB Dual Channel Memory (2x 4GB DDR3)
Power Adapters 240 watt Adapter
Display Panels 17-inch WideXGA+ 1440 x 900 (900p)
Video Card CrossfireX? 1GB GDDR5 ATI Radeon? Mobility HD 5870
Hard Drive 1TB Raid 0 (2x 500GB 7,200RPM HDDs)
Nameplate Standard Nameplate (Alienware M17x)
AlienFX Mars Red
Operating System Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit, English
Adobe Software Adobe Acrobat Reader
CD ROM/DVD ROM Slot-Load Dual Layer DVD Burner (DVD+-RW, CD-RW)
Sound Internal High-Definition 5.1 Surround Sound Audio
Wireless 1520 802.11n Half Mini-Card
Automatic Updates: Critical Updates Only
Bundle Microsoft® Office Home and Student 2010
Security Software McAfee SecurityCenter, 30-Day Trial
Service 1 Year Basic Service Plan
Factory Installed Games Steam and Portal? Factory Installed
Bluetooth Internal Wireless Bluetooth® 2.1 with EDR

I submitted the order on August 20th and it arrived on September 2nd, I was pretty happy with the quickness of delivery at least. The other game I was playing was Starcraft 2, and the issue was often when I would load a map the full terrain would load but certain locations on the map would not show units or mouse clicks. Units that entered these zones disapear, and are unselectable. I looked for game glitches like this and my search didn't turn up anything. The problem resolves itself if I restart the map a few times, but it can take a few restarts. It's a bigger issue for online play as I can't exactly restart those maps...

 

Ah I see. Yep the SC2 game has that known bug with missing units and mouse problems. There are quite a few threads on here where people are discussing it as well.

Have a search around on this site. There are quite a few SC2 threads.

eg. http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...rcraft-2-games-w-current-dell-ati-driver.html

Your best bet is to have a read of those threads and to update your gpu drivers.

 

You are missing on WUXGA RGB extremely savvy guy x)

Nice specs other than that.

Run some benches and make sure you are not on stealthmode.

 

Don't rub it in Achilles! Only reason I didn't get it was because if I did then I would have also wanted the bluray drive, and then a 300 dollar upgrade jumps to 600. Yeah it's that much in Canada.

 

Haha. If you are with in return period, I'd suggest return it, reorder one w/RGB screen rather than the blueray drive. Hmn.. and 3 year warranty minimum!!

Oh and again, make sure your stealthmode is OFF.

Brighter light = On
Dimmer light = Off

There's a software that shows, but I personally don't need it to see the difference.

 

I agree with achilles RETURN IT reorder with rgb and blu ray you will NOT be disappointed.

 

I'm sure I wouldn't be disapointed, problem is it's out of my budget

And yes, stealth mode has never been on thanks for all the concern

 

Watch out - just because you haven't turned it on doesn't mean it isn't on. You may need to turn it on (hit Yes at the prompt) then turn it off again (hit Yes again). The messages are really badly worded, but you'll know which is which when you see them.