Game settings for Metro 2033???

Hi Stevie,

My Crossfire is working flawlessly with stock Dell Drivers. The Vsync option becomes available on Crysis when you patch the game but I am not using the feature. That leads me to three conclusions. Either you have software, hardware, problems or my system is just specked higher and that makes all the difference.

Adrianrp was also having trouble with his sons crossfire. He is from the UK as well. Maybe there is a UK issue with MLK? All along we have assumed that your system left the factory in 100% working order but maybe not.

I would not accept anything less than 100% performance. You should be able to play Crysis in at least medium with no problems at all.

P.S. UK roads are pretty bad, maybe the Lorry drove hit a few potholes? Or maybe they never seated the CF connector properly, or maybe they have a bad batch of connectors?

I would definately book a service call.

P.S. If you go to Youtube and search for M17x Flicker you will see the flicker that was happening back in January. That I think has been fixed with all the bios upgrades. Again my system is running perfectly so yours should be as well. Are specs are different but I can't think that that would make that much difference.

 

If they replace motherboard and GPU and the system still doesn't work they will probably let you reorder. If they tell you there are not 5870 in parts than ask to return the unit immediately and reorder.

 

Just got off the phone with a Dell technician....explained the problems and he went off to speak to a colleague for advice/info....came back with 2 approaches:

1) Order me a replacement secondary gpu.
2) We open the laptop up over the phone and swap the gpu's around to see if the secondary is faulty - i presume by doing this, it shows that when the secondary is enabled in crossfire, if it is swapped to the primary and doesnt flicker in single gpu mode, there is no prob with either (as i have no flicker with x/f deactivated so my primary gpu works fine as it looks now)

I did attempt to do the latter of these two options but as i have never opened up a laptop before and was having difficulty doing so to get at the gpu's (worried about causing damage etc) but i eventually had to give it up as a bad idea for a novice like myself.

He told me that the cards are not available atm, he would order one but thought it would be over a week or so before i could get one / book a service visit.

I told him that wasnt happy with this as my system is only 3 weeks old and shouldnt have these probs and that i would like a replacement NOT a replacement part....he told me this wasnt possible.

What should i do now?

 

Hi Stevie

Everything is going like clockwork. Ie replace the GPU, no parts in stock, et et, cant do a replacement. Technicians are not authorized to replace units so take it to sales. The service side of the business is different from the sales side. I would contact your sales rep and tell him you want to return and reorder a new unit. The salesman may make 2 comissions so I think he would be more than happy to help you. If you Don't have a sales rep than I would contact the district sales manager. They have been short of parts since May so no suprise. They are under contract to provide you NEXT DAY SERVICE. If they can't do that than they are breaking their own warranty. You and Adrianrp should communicate via PM as you are both having crossfire problems. Perhaps there is a problem in the UK. Just a wild quess but perhaps they may be sourcing these boards from numerous factories and your boards are not identical but similar.

 

Who knows where they are from....and to be honest, as long as they work, thats my only concern !!
Spoke to AW tech who again said he cant authorise a re-order - infact he said they would have to undergo several visits and try numerous things before they could do anything.....with a new laptop less than a month old, i really dont want spare parts here and fixes there, new motherboards or whatever else they might think of to try and "fix" it....

Really lost confidence with the whole thing....my first Alienware laptop, bought based on recommends from this forum (no ones fault obviously) but it really has dampened what was going to be a great experience for me...

I have been told by tech to get intouch with my sales manager about a reorder of which i am trying to do right now.....

See how things go eh?

 

Stevie, you are doing a great job dealing with Dell. If you are reasonable than they will be reasonable as well. See...even the tech is giving you the same advice... Ask the Sales Manager if there are any recalls or know issue with the MLK version? The only difference I can figure between the MLK and R2 version are that In Europe you have the R&TTE Directive 1999/5/EC Compliance which applies to radio/telecom signals. Also tell the Sales Manager what you bought the computer for and ask if you have ordered the right hardware. Maybe they are having problems with certain hardware and he will top his hat by telling you what to order next time. Perhaps the MLK versions have a know driver issue with crossfire? Just be honest with them about what you expected and they will probably cut you a pretty good deal on your next purchase.

 

Next purchase???? LOL....i have bought and paid for this already so i dont know how that works, if i get my money back and then have to re-order or i just get to re-order the same spec in lieu of return of this one???....basically what i want this laptop to do is to be able to do what it says on the tin......be a gming laptop....bought crossfire because of obvious reasons for gaming.....now seem to be stuck with a laptop with dodgy crossfire application and the thought/possibility of having my new machine hacked to bits by AW techs trying to remedy the problem which shouldnt exist inthe first place.

If you buy a lamborghin from a dealer, you dont expect it to be limited to 60mph....oh, and if that does happen sir, we will have it back, tear the guts out of it until we can find a problem, replace everything we can think of until we can sort it out for you sir......NO - you would expect to get a new car instead because YOU have PAID handsomely for that prestigious car......

At least thats how i feel anyway...i know i havent got maxed out specs, but £2500 for me was a hell of a large chunk of cash to part with for what i thought was ulitimate spec laptop for me anyway - and having this sat here now with a replacement a/c and now gpu issues maks me wanna pick it up and throw it out the window.

It has made me think, when i placed the order, i was told cos i ordered nebula red, the wait would be longer than usual as stock availability was an issue (i was ok with this btw).....next thing i know is that my order is available in one week for delivery......maybe i have got a system that someone has returned seen as how it all of a sudden became so readily available????

NB...took your advice and sent a PM to Joker but not had any reply.......

 

*customer service will prepar a RA
*takes 10 mintues on the phone
*they will email you a shipping weigh bill
*they will credit your visa the day they recieve the item
*figure 3-4 days.
*customer service rep will follow process from start to finish
*once you have RA you are free to order again.
*after reordering call verification department so they don't think the 2'nd order is fraud.
*don't except an exchange make sure you are getting a full refund and ordering again the same way. That is the only way you will guarantee a new unit.
*After you get your RA, give Alienware technical support a call in Costa Rica and ask them what they think happened before reordering again.

You comment that they told you about 3 weeks and than one became available a week later is intersting. Many many people returned single card systems and reordered CF. Perhaps they took these "new" system and throw an extra card in. If the cards were slightly different than that would account for all the problems.

 

Thanks Falcon....RA? - whats that stand for? - return authority?
I am going to talk to my sales manager later today about this, staying calm, i will insist on a return and a NEW order as you suggest.

The other thing that i just remembered (and something YOU pointed out to me in an earlier thread) is that when my system arrived (alot earlier than what i was originally told) I was talking to you about recovery discs : http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/494044-simple-question-new-m17x-owner.html

I recall you saying that i had "lucked out" on receiveing a systme with an OS disc and driver disc as Dell had stopped shipping with these on i think 25th May this year. http://support.dell.com/support/top...&s=gen&docid=62A668E1C399857AE040AE0AB8E12942

Now if thats the case, my brand new order shouldnt have come with any discs at all - UNLESS i have had someones returned unit reboxed and reshipped to me.

Now, if thats the case, it really does look even more likely that someone returned theirs (with their OS Discs) and that was the only way that I got them as my order would have been AFTER dell stopped supplying these discs.........I have just checked a few things and I place my order with dell on 2nd June with an ETA of 21st June....i then had a guy call up to say my system would be with me within the week!!!.....I had to get them to "hold" my order at the UPS depot until my original shipping date (basically, as i wanted to see what came out of E3 in LA just gone). All very surprising since when I placed my order with Dell on 2nd June, due to the fact that I chose Nebula Red, the sales rep told me that this would INCREASE the build time due to shortages/availablity - this didnt bother me as delivery would be well after E3 (my concern was that it arrive before E3 and that something came up from the convention such as usb 3.0 or maybe GTX 480m's).
From then, i get a call saying "its ready" and that it has been shipped!!! - very odd considering i was told that my order would have an extended build time due to the colour choice.

Looks like I have had someones singular 5870 unit that has been returned in favour of a crossfire, then Dell have stuffed an extra card in it, re-boxed it and shipped it out to me rather too quickly for my liking for it to be considered a "built to order" machine.

Makes me very angry to think this but it could well be the case.....

 

RA means return authorization. Your theory makes sense.

 

I have since looked thru my saved emails and found that the day after i placed my order, i had a phone call from dell to confirm shipping and the guy said i would have it within 5 days.....i emailed my sales manager over my concerns that day regarding delivery (3rd june) as he was aware that i did not want to take delivery until E3 had been and gone......

Surely it takes longer than this to build a brand new custom system and given the fact that i WAS told that choosing Nebula Red would only extend this build time, seems highly suspect to me.

Falcon, you also said about a 2nd card being "added" to a system that is "different" and that would explain all the problems.....any chance you can elaborate on this for me and explain why this is the case, i mean, do gpu's need to be in serial from the same batch or something like? - would be handy to know so that when i do speak to my rep, i can be ready to address this issue properly.

BTW - ran crysis in dx10 as suggested.....got to the menu....flickering up and down like mad so turned on vsync and it stopped and screen was very clear and no jittery lines going up/down - turning it back off, reverts to the horizontal scrolling lines.

Thanks
Steve

 

Hi Stevie

Glad to hear you got Crysis to run in Dx10 with vsync. I think the need for vsync is a function of monitor, cpu, ram, hardrive, motherboard, bios, game, combination. Some are saying they need it and others day they don't. It caps frames at 60 FPS but anything over 30 frames is gravy anyways.

When crossfire first came out you needed to buy one master and one slave GPU. The master had a special chipset. That has changed and the GPU now are both master/slave at the same time. With nvidia SLI technology you can have mismatched graphics cards but with ATI crossfire they have to be from the same family. If you have a 5xxx card than you need to match with the same 5xxx card. They also need the same memory and clock speed. If you had two different brands of 5870 than they might run or they might not. AMD licences this technology to different brands some of which manufacuture the boards themselves. All the GPU's for Dell laptops are custom boards meaning they specifiy to the manufacturer what features they want. If Dell ran into short supply maybe they switched to a different supplier who may have had stock for a different laptop brand and they tried to use these. All other things being equal I can't think of any other logical explaination other the the MLK version has some driver issues that the USA versions don't. In theory you can use an XFX card with a EVGA card , or a SAPPHIRE card with a DIAMOND card , as long as they have the same memory and the same clock speeds. If one GPU has slightly different clock or slighly different speed than this could cause problems. In that case the clock speeds and frequency would have to be adjsuted to the same. If they ran short of cards and used various suppliers this could account for why the cards are flickering/horizontal lines for some. Perhaps the cards were slightly different specs. This is all just speculation and theory. Only Dell knows why bleeping cards aren't working on a select groups of systems.

 

Just a very quick update on my situation before i go to bed.

Have spoken to my dell sales rep today who said he was raising my concerns to the relevant dpeartment. I explained my issues and problems and he seemes understanding.

I was quite insistent upon a refund and re-order strategy, although he said he couldnt do this, he would escualte the matter and i should hear more tomorrow.

He asked me to email him stating that i did not want a tech reapir and to explain all my issues whichh i have just done.....i will hopefully have some news tomorrow on things...im hoping that they will agree to what i would like and that i can re-order.

Will keep you posted (especially you Falcon as you have given me so much support and advice, i dont know quite how to thank you for all your input since day 1)

Catch up soon mate.....

 

NOTE:

After speaking with Dell about a refund, i did explain the logic behind thinking i had been supplied with a return.....i mentioned about the OS discs and the fact that according to the Dell posting i listed ealier concerning this states that "will no longer ship with OS/resource discs"

My sales rep told me that this was only applicable to the likes of XPS etc and that Aliewware, due to its high end nature, had been excluded from this activity. He told me that any new Alienware system will always be shipped with OS/Resource discs as standard due to the nature of the systems.

This, to a degree, nullifies part of my logic that possibly i had received someones return laptop.

I wonder, does anyone have any experience of NOT having OS discs supplied with their new Alienware??

 

Hi Stevie

Have been reading up on ground loops this morning as a possible cause of flicker. Thought you might find this interesting.

Re: Ghostly horizontal flickering on external monitor? - HP Support Forum

 

Thats a good read Falcon and thanks for diging that one up. Im not sure if thats whats causing my issue although i do have a UK 3 pin plug and also a c13/c14 style IEC connector from the other end of the power lead to the power adaptor.

As the article states, there is no ground to the laptop itself so there within could lie a problem causing this "loop"

However, IF that was the cause of my issue, surely it would not have anything to do with vsync in games.....i mean, regarding crysis, i can play it with or without vsync enabled BUT without vsync i obviously get the flicker issue which does sound like what is described in that article.
Subsequently, when vsync is turned on, my issue disappears and i dont have any flicker.

My hypothesis on this would be that if i was suffering from "ground loop" then it wouldnt matter if vsync was on or off, i would still get the flickering with it enabled as the earthing issue would be the constant??

I cant be 100% sure but that would how i would look at it....scientifically speaking, the ground loop SHOULD cause the issue regardless of other controlling factors if it is to blame???

Also, (although not advisable and i havent done it as it would suck my battery dry in minutes lol) would be to perform a test to run a game without a/c connected thus totally eliminating any external power source interference......surely this approach would elimanate any possible ground loop as its not even connected to ground??

What d'ya think ?

 

Hi Stevie

*Ground loop one possibility ie printer, external monitor with a 3 prong plug attached to a two prong laptop.
*Floating ground creating a voltage drop or surge on one card is another possibility.
*You could try unplugging all peripherals and try running on battery performance mode.
*Desktops are properly grounded and laptops aren't

 

Falcon,

As i dont have any external peripherals attatched that require their own power supply, i would assume that i can eliminate the goround loop theory by running on battery. I will give it a shot now and report back.

 

UPDATE:

Just tried to run Metro 2033 on battery settings native res and high dx11.....although the game was obviously alot slower and the mouse was extremely poor on the menu page, i did not find ANY difference in the flickering....it was still there even when Artym is stood still looking at a completlely still background with no action at all......nothing going on except scenery/background and i still get the same flickering.

This was without any "powered" peripherals attatched and running the battery on high performance mode....

Suggests to me that earth loopping is not casuing my problem anyway but then again, im a novice and not an expert - these are my findings anyhow Falcon so let me know what you think mate....

EDIT: Just read this:

In video, ground loops can be seen as hum bars (bands of slightly different brightness) scrolling vertically up the screen. These are frequently seen with video projectors where the display device has its case grounded via a 3-prong plug, and the other components have a floating ground connected to the CATV coax. In this situation the video cable is grounded at the projector end to the home electrical system, and at the other end to the cable TV's ground, inducing a current through the cable which distorts the picture. As with audio ground loops, this problem can be solved by placing an isolation transformer on the cable-TV coax. Alternatively, one can use a surge protector that includes coax protection. If the cable is routed through the same surge protector as the three-prong device, both will be regrounded to the surge protector.

Here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_loop_(electricity)


Sounds like what i am experiencing but i dont understand how or why.....

ANOTHER UPDATE:

I thought i would try removing the surge protector i had been using to see if that had anyting to do with earthing.....no difference....i also have just tried plugging in the power at various sockets around the house to see if there may be a bad earth....again no difference.....
I have also tried runninf Metro in dx 9 10 and 11 and again no difference.....


Basically, whatever i have tried, i still get the horizontal lines rising up the screen like the above article suggests and nothing i do can rectify it. I dont now if this is a "bad" earth within the laptop itself because im pretty sure all my home electric sockets are perfect as the house went under a rewire recently and was tested by qualified electricians.

I dont know if this is of any help for you Falcon in trying to help me diagnose my problems but i really do appreciate all your help...id be lost without you at the moment.

You know what you said earlier, about our systems being different (obviously yours is better) but even so, i cant see how a better cpu and and more ram would make a difference regarding this...also, i cant see how turning vsync on and off would make ground loop problems disappear....which it does in crysis...

It could possibly be voltage drop on one card like you say in your second suggestion maybe? - i cant see anything else causing this "ground loop" issue.

Again and as what is becoming a bit of a habit, i look forward to hearing from you again Falcon....(god, i am beginning to wish i had stuck with the sony vpcf11z1e or the asus g73jh that i returned in favour of this one......)

 

Hi Stevie

Thanks for the feedback. And thanks for testing on battery. Where do you stand with Dell at the moment. Have they come around to authorizing a return?

 

Hi Falcon,

Regarding Dell, I spoke to my account manager (the guy who dealt with my order) on Thursday just gone, told him the whole saga (he was understanding but said it wasnt his decision to make to authorise a return).

He asked me to write an email to him explaining my full story in detail and also to specify in it that i did not want a technical support visit to my home to try and fix my new laptop. (its not the case that i dont want it fixed, i do - but i really dont think i should be in this position whereby someone's gotta start replacing hardware on a 3wk old machine!)

I did that Thursday night and phoned my account manager on Friday morning who had received and forwarded my email (he said unaltered) to the concerns department. He told me that he would get back to me later that day (yesterday) but didnt and i found myself phoning him back late last night for an update.

He apologised for not getting back to me and said there had been no update and he had not got any more info from the relevant department yet and that he would keep me up to date with progress of my request at some point today either via email or by phone.

So, i am still waiting and i do appreciate that it can take time - i think its gonna be Monday at the earliest before i get any real update.

In my email, i obviously explained all the issues, not just the "hum bars" with x/fire but also my initial power adaptor problems....the fact that i wasnt happy to have such a new machine tinkered with and bits replaced to try and fix things....

I ended the email by stating what i DO want to happen and what i DONT want to happen....obviously, i DO want a return authorisation and to be able to re-order......i DONT want to have to have several hardware components replaced in order to fix what should be a perfectly normal working machine.

I guess only time will tell, i have no control over what the outcome wll be but i hope it is favourable....if not, i will have to look at escalating the issue higher in order to pursue my intended resolution further.

Fingers crossed eh?

 

Hello everyone,

I am having problems installing Metro 2033 on my R2. The error occurs when the game attempts to install PhysX on my system and states that it cannot find PhysX on my system? What do I need to do in order for the game to install correctly (this is the second time I've downloaded this title on my system) I am currently running stock drivers A05, 8.692.2, etc. Do I have to install physX on my system even though my system contains no Nvidia/PhysX components? Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

 

Yes you have to have it installed for it even though you have no nvidia products.

 

yeah, i too have no nvidia suff on my laptop but when i installed, i noticed a rather large file/program installed for me....(i did mine from disc and not a download via steam) but even though i dont have nvidia, i think the game needs to install it as its built for nvidia gpu's..

File size is 80.0mb located on my c drive under physx......

 

So I need to go to Nvidia website and install PhysX or just reinstall the game through disk and not Steam so that it automatically installs PhysX?

Also, do I need to have driver 10.5 installed on my system before I install Metro 2033 as I have read that many that have installed Metro have 10.5-6 on their R2's?

Steviejones133,

I too noticed the large PhysX file (80MB!)

Just a thought, but would installing the PhysX software condemn my system to the dreaded flickering or is this a 10.5-6 ATI driver issue?

Any help would be appreciated.

 

I think you need this file regardless as its a game made for nvidia...you DONT need nvidia to play it, its just a "part" of the game because it has the phyx capabilities encoded in it.

Best way i can think of descrbing it is that you get a bit of something you dont need along with the installation...your gpu's cant take advantage of physx because they are not nvidia gpu's BUT that programming exists in the gaem so that those who DO have nvidia gpu;s can bebefit from that aspect....call it just a side effect of installation..you cant use it , dont need it but its part of the game and it shouldnt cause any problems whatsoever.

 

Thanks for the responses from the both of you. I am still trying to understand why I am getting the error "PhysX.dll not found" after installing the game. My question is where do I go to install the software? Will installing the software from say Nvidia, affect my system since I have non-Nvidia components? I guess I'm worried since PhysX is only compatible with Nvidia hardware that the software might affect my systems performance or hardware?

 

when i installed metro it was via disc.....it automatically installed physX and i got an error meassage saying that a .dll was not found...i researched this but found that after restarting my pc and steam that this message went away....no need to download anything from nvidia website......if you are still getting this message after re-booting, i think i would suggest uninstalling and reinstalling the game as it may not have installed correctly....everything you need to run the game should be on the disc or download....i dont think you should need to visit nvidia website to do anything as the game should contain everything.....the fact that is has some nvidia stuff on it seems irrelevant, just take it as a side effect of installing a game that was designed to run best using nvidia graphics cards which you dont have but isnt going to cause you any harm either.

Nice system by the way......

 

*I am running Physx on my machine
*Metro needs this file
*Metro Physx will use your CPU for some standard physics processing.
*Nvidia customers will get ADVANCED processing via their GPU.
*If you select Physx than you will get standard physics via your CPU.
*If you Don't select Physx than you will get even less processing

 

Basically, you need PhysX to run the game at its best even if you dont have Nvidia hardware to support the additional benefits that the game offers via PhysX......

 

Stevie,

plus rep +1 I thought that I would have to reinstall it again that's why I installed it twice so far because I thought re-installing would take care of the issue. Now I have to re-install it again, just make sure that I restart to get rid of the error message. Thanks!

 

So do I download it from Nvidia? Will it affect my hardware negatively? I never had to do this on the R1 because it had Nvidia components.

 

I hope it works for you, and thanks for the rep....im pretty new to this stuff but when i installed this game, it was via disc and like i say , i did have some message about a missing file....spent some time trying to research it but when i restarted the laptop, initiated steam and loaded the game, it ran fine....i didnt have to install anything secondarily....

Maybe your downloaded installation got corrupted or something happened that messed up your installation....posst back with how you get on if it doesnt work cos alot of people on here are really helpful (especially Falcon who has posted here)

Hope you get it sorted as it looks a good game to me......

 

If im right, it should be in the game installation if you do not already have it on your system....it was the very 1st game i put on my machine and i didnt have to visit Nvidia website to get it....it should be part of thhe installation procedure of the game i think - and i have ati gpu's also

 

Yes Physx does come with Metro. This game was designed to highlight the 480's and spank the rest. I was kind of creeped out when I saw this Nvidia file on my computer. Researched it and found that the game needs it to run.

I found the install folder you are looking for:

Go to your start window and search for SteamApps Folder and install PhysX_10.02.22_9.10.0222_SystemSoftware

SteamApps > common > metro 2033 > install > PhysX_10.02.22_9.10.0222_SystemSoftware

Reboot

 

Another game that relies on PhysX is Batman Arkham Asylum....have seen some funky in game effects like floating papers when batman moves along that highlight this but if you dont have nvidia cards, its useless....unless ati develop something which utlises PhysX it may as well be irrelevant to us Ati gpu owners.......but i havent tried the game yet as i have other issues

 

I couldnt find that by typing in the start window, had to go to computer/c drive/program files (x86)/steam/steamapps/common/metro2033/install and that shows me where that file is located.....