M17X R2 Video card problems/queries. ft. Crysis and UT3

Hey all,
First off, I appreciate all of your info you give in these forums. I have been using these threads as endless fonts of knowledge as I learn more about computers.

I am relatively new to the deeply technical side of computers and their internals, and am running into some things with my M17X R2.

I'm not sure if they are problems, or just natural occurrences for my relatively old laptop.

I purchased this laptop second hand a few months ago for it's portability mixed with power. I own a graphic design/sign shop where i need to work with large format graphics. It runs perfectly for this.

I wanted to tap it's potential, and purchased Crysis 1 and Unreal Tournament 3. I have never been able to get what I read others can get out of their m17x's performance wise.

My config:
m17x r2
i7 Q720
ATI Radeon HD mobility 4870 x2 (using crossfirex)
6 gigabytes ram

Crysis: I cannot get it to run very well. At least, not as well as some here can with their similar laptops. Granted, most I read are of m17x's that use the 5870. Are the graphics cards that different?
If i set it to my laptops 1920x1200 res, very high settings all across the board, no aa or vsync, I get about 10-15 FPS according to fraps. Very hard to play.
So I set it to "High" all across the board, and I get a playable 20-30 fps, with occasional hiccups when a new checkpoint is loaded. I;m ok with this, but from what I know about these laptops, I feel like it isn't enough. Now I know this laptop is almost 3 years old now, which says a lot, but so is crysis.

Unreal Tournament 3:This one runs great now, but I was having problems with it with my older drivers.

My main questions: does it seem to you awesome experts that something is wrong? i have read about vbios updates, but don't know too much about them, nor can I find any for the m4870.

Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance.

 

Sounds about right.

 

Well, Crysis 1 on max rez w/ high settings is VERY demanding even for people w/ a 580m or 6990m, which I believe is more powerful than 2x 4870's.

You may want to look into this for possible upgrading. Then you should be able to run crysis fine

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...6970m-your-m17x-r2-single-gpu-crossfirex.html

Good luck.

 

Crysis 1 on the max settings gets below 20 FPS on CF 5870 m17x r2 so you don't have any problems with the system.
Crysis 2 runs better than 1, which is kinda funny

 

Crysis 1 Dx10 + high requirements by default
Crysis 2 Dx9, more friendly and less requirements. This is without the Dx11 and high res patch.

 

Yeah I believe in Crysis 1 on my 4870 crossfire (overclocked) with a 920XM, I was averaging around 23-24 FPS on very high settings.

With the 6970s in crossfire, I Avg about 49-50FPS on very high (everything maxed)

For a game as old as Crysis, it's amazing how slow it runs on even very powerful hardware.

 

Great! you guys were very helpful. It's nice to hear from people with my similar setup that they have similar occurrings.
@Apocy, I'll have to try Crysis 2, I'm curious about that.
@ zoolian, what are the effects of downgrading my direct x on other applications? And I see you successfully upgraded to the 6970. How much was it, how easy was it, and how much improvement do you have now?

 

No, I personally dont own a R2, that's Greywolf who has the 6970's xfired in his r2. And alot of our crazy R2 owners.

There's no disadvantage, the game just happens to by default run off dx9 so it has lesser hardware requirements than dx10

 

But what about newer games? will they run fine on DX9? I just installed crysis 2, and It does run better than crysis. Weird.

 

Hey Armoredshoes,

I found that Crysis 2 did indeed perform better then Crysis 1 (I think it may have been optimized a bit better)

With dual 4870's even on the max settings (not the DX11 Ultra patch obviously) I was still able to get around 43 or so FPS.

With the DX11 Ultra patch and the dual 6970's I think it's closer to 50-60 FPS (I'm out of town at the moment so can't verify).

I can verify that it does indeed run very smooth at Ultra on the 6970's though.

The cost of upgrading to 6970's is around 400 or so per card shipped..depending on where you live. I had some problems with the upgrade myself, but overall many folks have had really good luck.

I originally ordered Clevo cards which caused me a few head aches, and then finally ordered a pair or Eurocom cards complete with a new crossfire cable and they've been running like a dream.

Lots of information on the other thread if that's something you are interested in doing.

Good luck either way.

 

Thanks, Greywolf. that is tons of help. It's nice to know my compy isn't screwy. Glad everything worked out with your 6970's!

Appreciate you all, guys!