Alienware 17 owners and battlefield 4 beta! Report!

Hey guys. As the title says, if you own a alienware 17, heck I don't care what you own! Post your setup, specs, settings, fps and what drivers you've had luck with. Also don't forget to leave your origin/battlefield id so we can all hook up and play.

My expierience so far.
Alienware 17, 780m latest drivers ( non beta )
Seems my fps is a little low and all over the place, not sure if it's the drivers? I'd assume I'd be getting close to 60fps on high judging how bf3 plays on ultra. I've got set to high now, 2xmsaa, vsync, full screen. All in all though the game is enjoyable and I understand its a beta which isn't very optimized at the moment.

My battlefield name is drastix! Look me up!

 

The actual game itself will be much more optimized and NVIDIA should have better drivers out by then, so what we are seeing now is probably going to be at least 10 FPS less than what we will see.

 

M17XR4 with the 3630qm and 7970m nothing overclocked. Ran really smooth for me sitting at 42-46 FPS in most areas with occasional drops into the 30's but it was never noticeable, the only reason I knew was to see the fps counter. When the skyscraper came down and covered the city in smoke and debris it dropped the FPS to the high 20's in some areas but again I never actually noticed the difference. This was all on Ultra settings, i will probably turn some stuff down and see if I can keep it a little higher. That being said really don't see much in terms of graphical improvements at all...

 

Did NVIDIA just released the beta driver for this game ? Do you guys used it ??

I forget the driver version, but it's clearly for Battlefield 4 beta driver......

 

Right, I was running an older driver and had a lot of graphical problems, weird pop ins. Updated and getting around 40 on high. Although I'd rather see much higher . Not much in terms of groundbreaking graphical overhaul compared to bf3 and the much higher fps it has. I do enjoy the faster paced gameplay. Overall I'm happy with it. My desktop is great, ultra with vsync full screen 60fps maxed ! Lol.

 

Runs fine with settings toned down and the gameplay is pretty awesome as well. Gonna be nice when I get my haswell/780 desktop finally built for some 1440p goodness!!

 

Ok after some more tinkering, its not the laptops fault, i've come to conclusion the game isn't optimized nor are the drivers i'm using. I'm using 327.23, anywhere theres not a lot of smoke, or effects detail going on, i'm 45-60, but in these areas, staring out into smokey area etc. This brings my machine to a crawl, 7-10 10-20 fps. Unplayable until i find different drivers or they patch this. Good thing its beta, its to be expected. Guess i'll play on my desktop pc until i figure out a different way.

 

What cards does your desktop have? and Nvidia seems to have some optimisation problems as systems with desktop 780's seem to be experiencing the same problem. Hope they get it all figured out soon!!

 

Amd 7970 one of each ensures it will work on most games lol.

 

I just tried latest beta driver with much better luck!

 

Been playing the beta using the latest nvidia beta drivers. Getting around 40-60fps with all the game settings on ultra at 1080p. I do however get alot of network lag even though my ping is low. This is the only online game I get network lag with. I'm assuming its an issue with the servers. Specs are 780m, i7 4800, and 16GB ram. I've noticed this game uses about 2.5-3GB of ram. I'm guessing once the game is fully released there will be better drivers for it giving more fps but so far it runs pretty well. Not impressed by the graphics though. Not much better then bf3.

 

the build they are using for beta is an early build so hopefully there will be more graphics polish in the release version. As to the latency issues, have you tried messing with network smoothing in the settings at all? Not sure if that would help or not.

 

I have not tried messing with the network smoothing settings. Good idea though ill try that. I hope even though the graphics will be improved it still runs well

 

It definitely makes my r3 feel old. Still doesn't run all that bad at that bad once I drop a lot of stuff to medium.

 

I'm hoping to get BF4 installed tonight. Hope it runs well!

 

Here's a minute's worth of video in 1080p on my system on ultra settings and recording with fraps (about 27-30fps)

Battlefield 4 1080p Multiplayer Beta Footage - YouTube

my system's a year old mind you

 

I think your CPU is holding you back.

 

Now that I got my network lag issue sorted out I may try to get some gameplay video. Game runs pretty well fully maxed and with a nice little overclock I'm staying around 50-60fps

 

Game runs really smooth for me as well on the Ultra settings preset. I'm using the latest beta drivers. Downloading MSI Afterburner now to do a recording.

EDIT: Can't seem to get MSI Afterburner to record for BF4.

 

I don't think afterburner plays well with 64 bit programs.

 

I'll have to try FRAPS later today, or this weekend. The BF4 beta is fun but needs some work. Hope the final product is much better, and I'm assuming it will be.

 

BF4 doesn't seem to like the 307 Dell released drivers, but I heard that the warranty will not be honored (if something goes wrong) when we update our Nvidia drivers. Is this true? If so, are there any work-arounds, upcoming dell driver releases, or other suggestions ...I'm astonished that my 680 has not had one update from Dell since 2012, and there have been many Nvidia releases since then

 

I updated my BIOS from A10 to A12 and it seems to help, but the rubberbanding is still an issue in Conquest games. Domination games play fine. I recorded about 25 minutes and gave my impressions Battlefield 4 Open Beta Multiplayer Footage 25 minutes High Quality With Skyscraper Collapse - YouTube

Not sure how I missed this thread today, but sorry about posting over and over just wanted to share

 

Nah you should be fine. Go ahead and use the Nvidia drivers. It won't void your warrenty.

 

I am running just fine in Ultra settings, FPS wise (780m 120hz 4800mq). Though I was lagging like hell of latency. I changed WMM to 'disabled' in Wireless configuration, and now I'm not lagging anymore, but my networks speed is around 12mbit (I have a 100mbit connection). Any idea how to fix this?

 

Thanks for the response Tony! I cannot understand why Dell would do that (if it's true) as Dell should have an agreement with the supplier that any updates should be covered. In any case, I heard this rumor on the forums but would not have thought twice otherwise ...and I certainly hope updating windows won't void it either

Thanks again ...now back to some BF4 lol

 

Play a server with lower ping? There aren't going to be as many resources dedicated to the Beta as there will when the game is officially released. It should only get better.

 

yea try to play on a server that is located near you. I play on servers all they way down in dallas from up here in alaska and only get a 100 ping though. So that may not be the issue.

No problem man. If you do end up ever needing to deal with warrenty, just install the stock dell drivers and such again and you should be good to go. And since both windows 7 and 8 are supported on the alienware 17 and the r4 you should be just fine if you decided to upgrade windows.

 

Here are a couple of screen shots: Everything running at stock frequencies.

Spoiler

The final picture: running to take out some sniper... didn't work out.

Temperatures: 86C maximum with my CPU; 78C maximum with my GPU (usually stays around 75C). It's warm today, too. My room is a little warmer than usual.

So far I'm seeing decent frames per second. It stays around 45 FPS most of the time, but during intense scenes, like a chopper attacking and crashing, it can dip below 40 into the 30's. And in smoke, it can really dip down to the low 30's, maybe even upper 20's. This game really needs optimization and we need some better driver support from NVIDIA.

The game looks awesome! I can tell the difference between this and BF3, I don't know why people say they can't... I mean, look at those screen shots. The 120Hz screen is totally awesome...

 

Nice screenies man!! +rep

 

Thanks.

Right after I finished that game, AW Command Center pooped out on me. The lights on my system seem to no longer work and I get this error when making changes to the current theme: "The device you have selected is included in the current theme but AlienFX cannot detect this device on your system. Do you want to remove this device from the current theme?"

The device it is referring to is my laptop. There are no external devices connected. This is very weird...

EDIT: Solution

 

Sounds like some sort of bug maybe with the alienFX game tie-in and not releasing it corrrectly? I remember that BF3 had keyboard effects. I don't have this beta access to try it out

If you have metro LL see if that works. The KB should go black and do things like get lighter as you move out of shadows, or glow red when near a heat source if it's working OK.

A restart should reset the AlienFX when it goes funny.

 

Wasn't as simple as that, unfortunately. I had to do a complete power drain (remove battery, hold power button). What a stupid issue...

 

J Dre i think you can also disable third party programs from taking over alienFX. I also have a weird issue when i open itunes, the alienwareFX alienhead eyes turn red like i no longer have control of it.

 

That's one of the cool features about Alienware. I don't want to disable it.

It must be an issue with the Beta. It works okay with BF3.

 

Looks Good! I'd love a 120Hz display. To really get the best out of that display why not reduce the graphical settings and get the fps up above 60fps to enjoy the smoothness of that 120Hz; I bet you'd even enjoy the game more with it running ultra smooth & fast, even at the expense of graphical detail. Have you experimented with turning the settings down & getting those high frame rates?

 

Thanks, but I didn't spend thousands of dollars on a PC to lower settings. With more optimization across the board with both NVIDIA and DICE, I guarantee it will be much more consistent in FPS, similar to how BF3 is now. This is only the Beta version of the game, running a Beta graphics driver.

With that being said, I am seeing 60's when there aren't explosions and such, as you can see in the last picture. For the first few pictures, I purposefully set off a grenade and looked at fire to see the lowest FPS I would get. With anti-aliasing disabled, I see more consistency, but then I lose the higher detail.

If you play without the FPS counter, you can't even tell the difference. That counter messes with your mindset of the game with that thought of, "I need 60+ FPS" in your head the whole time you're playing.

 

Yep, it's all personal preference & subjectivity in terms of if you prefer the eye candy vs the higher fps & greater smoothness. At least you've got the option to try either!

 

So, with FRAPS recording, no matter what settings I use, BF4 is like low 30's, which is very strange. At that point it gets kind of laggy. Without recording, I'm seeing 45+ which is smooth. (Highest settings possible.)

 

I've never recorded using FRAPS, but I have read that recording with FRAPS can reduce frame rate, so that makes sense.

 

Turns out I had some setting to keep it at 30 FPS, oops.

 

same, its because fraps will default record at 30FPS, you can turn it up if you want, check my videos out on page 3 or whatever and its the same thing. youtube is only 30fps so I didn't bother with any higher setting

edit: (oops didn't see your above post )

 

There has been a patch, seems to have improved performance and took care of some issues.

 

Took care of FPS dips for me. I haven't seen a dip since. I'm also seeing slightly higher FPS on Ultra.

 

hmm maybe i'll play tonight and record some more footage if that is the case!

 

after about 2 and a half hours of BF4 on ultra with my 780m overclocked to 1050mhz on the core and memory at 6000mhz ive been getting max gpu temp of 86, time for a repaste or is that an ok temp? I average 50-60fps with that overclock and its very stable, no crashing at all. cpu max temp is about 75

 

Those temperatures should be switched around. The CPU should be 86~ and the GPU should be about 75 - it's time for a GPU re-paste.

On the Auto preset, I'm seeing up to 90 FPS (or more), but averaging 60~70. On the Ultra preset I'm seeing 45~55 average, max 60~68, min 35~39, all at stock clocks.

 

figured its time for a repaste. even with that overclock though? 86 is still too high ?

 

Yes, it's warmer than it should be. You shouldn't be seeing anything in the 80's, especially the upper 80's. However, BF4 is not optimized and I notice warmer temperatures in BF4 as opposed to other games. Have you tried other games? :thumbsup:

 

not with this overclock, but ill try some and if its still that hot ill do a repaste