I'm new here, but meh.

I'm a proud owner of an Alienware m17x (R1 I think? Came with dual GTX260m and intergrated 9400).

And I am absolutely BAFFLED by my Alienware's poor performance.

In Dragon Age 2, I am only able to play on Medium settings with 1920x1080 resolution, as setting it to High will cause extreme lag, about 15 FPS or less.

And for The Witcher 2, even on LOW (1920x1080 res)it's only giving me about 15 FPS and less.

I have checked whether if I have SLI on or not, and I'm sure it's on, I've followed steps given by Moo on how to turn SLI on.

Stealth mode is off.

I've cleaned the vents.

And also as a last option move I OC-ed my cards, 650/1050/1600, and performance is STILL . ):

SPECS
-------
Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit
Dual GTX 260m SLI, integrated 9400
Intel Core Quad CPU Q9000 @ 2.00GHz, ~2.0GHz
4096MB RAM
BIOS - A02
Driver - 186.81 [read that apparently this is the best driver for 260m]

I'm quite new to this, so any help is truly appreciated...

 

You are trying to run BRAND NEW games on a card that is 2-3 years old 3 with a computer that is about 3 years old...There is nothing you can do about that. The Witcher 2 get 30-60 fps on my desktop rig with specs in sig, it is one of the most GPU intensive games to date, DA2 as well.

 

Thanks LV for replying, so what you're saying is my Alienware is doomed to low settings? D:

 

If it is an R1 I don't think you can upgrade the graphics, if it's an R2 you should be able to swap those cards out with 460M's and get a larger charger

 

Meh, I guess I'll give my m17x a silent prayer.. Lol. Thanks for replying!

 

Does it look too bad if you lowered resolution until its playable?

 

pp_ph, nah it's not that, just that, it STILL isn't any better. Maybe it's just the first level that lags like that. So many NPCs in the first chapter. Rofl.

 

There's a lot of room for improvement with your M17x if you don't want to buy another system.

1. Download the latest BIOS revision: A07
2. Access BIOS menu and navigate to Advanced > Graphic settings and here switch everything to Disabled (yes even the integrayed 9400m if you don't use it but most important is PCIe Gen2!)

3. Ununstall your current video drivers thru Control panel. Boot into safe mode and run CLeaner to clean your registry(there should be some useless reminders of the old driver that might cause trouble)

4. Reboot and download the latest video drivers on nVidia's website( there's a thread around here on how to install them as they forgot to add support for our systems

Now for the upgradeability part:

1. You can get yourself a QX9300 which is the best CPU for your system and combine it with throttlestop (to overclock it)

2. For GPUs you can get either 2 GTX 280m (since you already have the SLi cable) or two mobility 4870, both overclock well.


With these you'll be able to see some improvement for your games.
Remember to watch your temps and clean your machine.

Cheers

 

well according to benchs the 260m SLI should hold up pretty well even for today's standards.

Mobile Graphics Cards - Benchmark List - Notebookcheck.net Tech

ranks 33

 

Also you say that SLi is on but I don't think that video driver supports SLi for your games.

 

Do you think just because it is an Alienware, that you can play all games great?

The SLI GTX260m is a very weak combo these days. Even most single GPU cards smoke it.

3 year old technology is why you can't run it, not Alienware...

 

... Really? Okay I'll go look for the latest driver ASAP and the instructions to install them. Thanks a bunch. O:

 

Can anyone look into my specs and make an estimate as to how high I can run Witcher 2? 'Cos I get around 20-25 fps no matter how I tweak the settings. Even on the lowest setting, I only get a minor improvement.

And the game micro-stutters like crazy. I'm using 11.6 with 11.6 CAP 1.

 

Gah. Can't find any nvdm.inf for m17x r1. D:

EDIT : I found it!

For other m17x R1 users of my spec that are having the same problems, I think I found the solution.

First download the latest nVidia driver.

Uninstall your graphic driver as you would normally. Reboot.

Boot safe mode, driver sweeper/ccleaner the driver's stragglers. Reboot.

Go to the thread below, find the nvdm.inf modded file. Download it.
Link - http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/582912-275-33-whql-drivers-out-3.html

Follow instructions given.

???

HAPPY!

 

Great, happy to hear that.

 

Don't know if your problem is completely solved, but here are a few things I would have told you to do. Make sure your Windows power settings are set to High Performance. Take a look at your GPU driver controls and set them all to a performance-type setting. Make sure your computer is plugged in to the wall. A great troubleshooting aid is 3DMark Vantage. If you run that a couple of times, and find that you're not scoring around the average for what your computer should be scoring, you can begin troubleshooting possible causes. If your scores are on par and you're not happy, then it may be time to start looking at upgrades.

 

I was gonna say, I'm running that setup with (2) 260m's in SLI, 8GB memory, a QX9300, and quite frankly, it screams, even on the The Witcher 2