Will Crysis work well on M17x laptop?

What do you say?

I read here in the forums that I need more than 512 MB to play it smoothly...what does it mean?

 

well, the m17x has more than 512mb in ... well everything about it, gfx, ram, cpu. so no problem there. and i can say that my middle range m17x plays it just fine on medium and even high seems ok. so yes, it can. no problem.

 

I currently have an M17x as follows:
i7 920XM
2x 5870
8gb ddr3 ram
2x500gb HDD raid 0

I can crysis warhead with everything set to enthusiast 1900x1200 resolution(no AA). I get FPS in the range of 34-24. Normally sits around 29-31. I normally play the game at 720p with 2x AA and it runs smooth(does not dip below 30). If you want I could take a video of me playing crysis later and post it to youtube? hope this helped.

 

Doesn't anyone find it odd that even with 2x5870 you only get average 30 FPS and you cannot have AA on while playing it on 1900x1200!

Well, I suppose we know that its the bad coding in Crysis....anyway....
Are we all in agreement that once the M18x comes out with Crossfire HD 6970s that we would be able to play Crysis in full enthusiast settings 1900x1200 with full AA and have FPS over 30? Lol, there is not telling, but its fun to speculate.

I would love to see Crysis finally "tamed" and pwnd by the 6970 in Crossfire as its been giving gamers tears ever since it came out way back in 2007.

KJ

 

I complete agree with you lol! I can't wait to pull the trigger on an m18x when they come out. Maybe it well come with 485m sli . The 5870m crossfire do well on every game but crysis. Which considering it's three years old does make a statement to its coding. Hell, look at black ops. I can dip as low as 30fps on that game maxed out. But, bad company 2 i never dip below 40fps even with smoke and explosions going off everywhere xD.

 

Newer GPUs like that should cream an older game like Crysis now, as others said that just isn't right when you look at battle field bab company 2. programmers did something wrong in that game. yeh the graphics are still good by any standards but come on....

 

Isnt 30 FPS really slow? I would call 60FPS +++ smooth...

I'd like to play high max everything.

What is that 512 MB I was reading about here?

What are the models of i7 processors in those laptops? I know they are miniaturized, some thing like that, and they are not the same as the desktop processors.

crossfire is a good graphic card?

 

I stay in the 40's with everything maxed except AA. I dont have the extreme proc, but crysis is more GPU intensive. Then again, I only get 70 fps most of the time in warcraft unless I stare at the ground. Think its flaky drivers. Im on ATI December release with updated profile.

 

Crossfire is not a graphics card (GPU) its a term used by ATI to attach two of their GPUs together for more gaming power!!!! For example, you can have an HD 6870 alone, or in Crossfire you have 2xHD 6870....better performance in games.

If its Nvidia, then the term is SLI....

KJ

 

GPU is not a graphics card...Okey I see thanks

What is the best M graphic card for laptops that Alienware provide?

 

GPU is Graphics Processing Unit but we usually refer GPU as a graphics card.
5870M for ATI and 285M SLI for Nvidia.

 

thanks very much really!!!!
I appreciate it..

I guess Nvidia is better between the two
where did you see the video cards?

 

You can say crysis is an old game, but it is the only real "next-gen" game in graphics and phisics to me. Bad company 2, looks really bad compared to crysis, and the phisics on bad company 2 are not good, ... so it is crysis an old game? yes it is.. it is abnormal to get only 30fps on it?? NO, because crysis still is the best game around in graphics ans phisics term. And cpu doesn't matter really in this game, I went from 2.0 GHz quad to a 3.06 GHz quad and gain only 2 fps. This game is GPU intensive.

 

i have to call you on that, metro 2033 is the most graphics demanding game for now, i think!

 

Crysis was a game built from the ground up to run on the PC, and only the PC. The best PCs on the market besides.

Almost every other game out there is designed for the consoles first and then badly ported to PC, so everything has their bar set reaaaaaaally low at what the XBOX 360 and PS3's hardware can still handle. Just imagine if all those AAA studios actually started trying to makes games for the PC. Part of the reason for that shift was because consumers were tired of buying new hardware for their computers every 6-18 months just so they could play the game that came out last year. Game makers made a habit of making games for hardware that didn't exist in the consumer market yet, at least for some things.

 

You could always play in a window at a slightly lower res to enable at least 2xAA. Smoother, better looking gameplay. Though at 1920x1200, I doubt you'd need much AA.

I've taken Crysis all the way down to 21fps once and it still ran rather smooth to me. It all depends on the game.

 

can crysis run on any laptop at max settings and still get good fps?

 

That really depends...Very High plus AA or no AA. Some people consider no AA still maxed out. The thing about this game is that the fps can change withing seconds. You're facing a village and it's like 21fps and then you turn 45° and you face a mountain getting 35+fps...All in all I think you can get decent playable fps with this game on M17x hardware. Tone the res down to 1440x900 and kill all background apps/aero and you can get major fps increases. It's the sacrifice we make for portability.

I mean 2x 5870m is like CF 5770 desktop versions which is more of less a down clocked desktop 5870. A 5870 even at stock is a pretty decent card. The thing is driver support...lack of good CF drivers will kill us.

 

you guys should try DX9 mode. dx9 plus tweaking will make it look almost exactly like ultra with great performance gain.

also capping the framerate to around 40 keeps the game very stable so that the spikes in framerate,from firefights to walking around, arent as noticeable and gives a much more seamless experience. I think all games should come with a cap, if there's anything i cant stand is spiking framerates. I would much prefer consistency over speed.

 

I have to agree with you, I just got my R2 and bought every AAA game for the of that I could. Crysis is better than the COD series, Halo, because of the physics, you can grab objects and use them as cover. You can shoot people through walls, fences and such, and see the cover fly as bullets hit it. It's incredible, that in my opinion is why it takes such a graphic intensive setup to run, think about all of the moving parts in the world, everything is "interactive", it's sick.

Sorry to get off topic, but I had to state that. Now to performance, I have 8gigs, i7 740 with SLI 285M and can run with most options set to high and get 30-45 fps. Which is fine, most console shooters are at 30fps, some are at 60, anything higher than 60 is really not noticeable to the human eye anyways, so it doesn't matter.

Beautiful game and a must play.

 

what does it mean GPU intensive? does it mean that I need a really good grapchis card and GPU chip?

What is AA/AAA/A/2xAA and all that...?

Why do we need to make a sacrifice for portability? This laptop is better than many other desktop computers I have seen. What is exactly the "sacrifice" we make here?

 

hey dsmoke1986, is your processor the best processor Alienware has?

 

Graphic Cards and GPU's are the same thing. Same goes for processors and CPU's.

 

nop, not mobile graphics card can maxout crysis., for example everythin on maximum settiings 16x aa.

 

Why cant mobile grapchis card maxout Crysis anyway?

 

For a lot of reasons, Crysis is a poorly coded high graphic intensity game and was designed to strain even desktop Graphics Cards. Mobile(laptop) graphics cards are usually at best 60-80% as powerful as the same desktop card, so when you combine a weaker card with a poorly coded high intensity game it ends up being a game you can't max.

 

Nieiaa....I've already posted my prediction that the new M18x with HD 6970 in Crossfire, with the extreme chip they will offer at max ram should most def. PWN Crysis once and for all with hopefully all AA, FA, FS, BS... etc..on max.... (I was joking about the BS ones..lol) But the point is, I really am hoping that this will bring the end of Crysis causeing so much misery in mobile gamers lives.

KJ

 

Crysis 2 I hear won't be as straining on the system.

 

nice....I heard it too. I guess "they" learned their lesson....

KJ

 

Where do you get this information? Why do most games get blamed for bad console ports? Where is this master bad console port website where I may find other games listed? I've been playing FPS games on the computer for a long time. And I'll say it again, nothing about BFBC2 feels like the console game.

Sorry for the highjacking, I too am interested in trying Crysis on my M17X R2. I've always been more of a realistic military FPS gamer, but I would probably like Crysis. I would think that playing with 30 FPS would be rather weak though. I usually find 60 to be a good average. And I get well over that on most of the games I play.

 

Many consider the Xfire 5870s the best, but I went with the Nvidia 285m SLI Config. The driver support really is excellent, when you boot up Crysis, it has that Nvidia "the way it's meant to be played" screen.

I know a lot of the benchmarks have the crossfire AMD gpus as better performing, but my experience with the Nvidia chips has been awesome. All the games have high settings as the optimal settings within each individual game.

Crysis runs great, GTA 4 runs excellent, very smooth. NBA 2k11, MLB 2k, Starcraft 2, Need for Speed Hot pursuit, Black Ops, Dirt 2, Mafia 2....Every game runs great with no crashes, I downloaded the beta drivers and they work great.

Haven't done anything to the bios, and no overclocking, so I could probably get even better performance, but I'm a noob to pc gaming(big console gamer), and don't want to potentially damage the system.

 

Crysis with a steady rate of around 25-35 FPS looks smooth and playable, so long as the dips/minimum FPS drops aren't too severe. The game uses object motion blur, so it makes the motion look smoother as opposed to other games that look jittery when taken below the 30FPS mark.

 

When they say "more than 512MB" they're talking about the memory on your graphics card.

And that's not true. There are a lot of weaker graphics cards out there with 1GB or more of memory. Mine are only 512MB, but they're still powerful and run Crysis very well.

But, generally, more memory is better particularly when playing in higher resolutions. Just know that the graphics memory alone doesn't make a graphics card powerful.

GPU intensive means that the game uses up a lot of graphics power. This means that to max it out, you need a powerful graphics card.


AA is short for Anti-Aliasing. It's a system within games to reduce how 'jagged' an edge is. Have you ever noticed while walking past a building's edge in a game that the edge of it looks jagged? AA stops that. The number before it stands for how much AA is being applied; 2xAA is the lowest without turning it off, but you can also get 4xAA, 8xAA and even 16xAA. Each level reduces how jagged an edge is, but also lowers framerate further.

AAA is not a game term, it stands for "Triple-A" and is generally used by people to describe something that's really good. For example an AAA game would be one of the best games on the market.


As for why we need to sacrifice performance, it's to do with the graphics cards themselves and the limits of putting them in a laptop.

You see, every graphics card draws power, and creates heat. More powerful graphics cards use more power, and also create more heat in the process. Obviously, they need to be cooled to prevent overheating. In a desktop, making a more powerful graphics card isn't much of a problem; you can just make a bigger/better cooler for it, and the power supplies in desktops can be replaced easily to provide more power.

Some of the most powerful desktop graphics cards can even suck up over 350W of power. And create a LOT of heat in the process.

In laptops, this would cause a serious problem. We're restricted by the size of the cooling system that can be put in place, and by the power that can be supplied. Even the highest performance graphics cards don't go above 75W. There's one or two that go up to 100W, but that requires a VERY powerful cooling system, that makes a laptop bulkier and heavier. That's why gaming laptops are so thick and heavy; they need a better cooling system. (That, and the parts are bigger as well.)

It's easy to do the maths. A 100W graphics card is never going to perform as well as a 350W graphics card using the same technology.

THAT is why we have to sacrifice power for portability. Also, there's the fact that you can stick up to three of the highest performance graphics cards in a desktop, linked together for added power. You also get dual GPU graphics cards, which are like two graphics cards in one, and you can stick two of those together to make what is essentially four graphics cards working together. In laptops, we're limited to two graphics cards, and even then you only get two in the very largest gaming laptops (such as the M17x R2).

Wrong. The GPU is simply one part of a graphics card. It's the graphics card's processor. Graphics cards have other parts as well you know.

Most people simply say 'GPU' instead of 'graphics card' because it's shorter and people know what they mean.

As for processors and CPUs, a 'processor' can be a processor in any part of a system, whereas the CPU is a computer's central processor that controls everything, like the 'brain' of the computer. But again, when most people say 'processor', they're referring to the CPU.

Correct. They've learnt from the first. It'll look better all while being less GPU intensive and more efficient.

Its minimum specs are actually lower than the ones for the original if I remember rightly.

Correct. Crysis uses motion blur very well and so it can appear very smooth even at 30FPS. Games that don't use motion blur well could be unplayable at 30FPS.

Motion blur, simply put, tricks your brain into seeing it as a constant movement. It's what allows movies to run at 24FPS while appearing completely smooth and real.

 

What are the reasons for the poor performance of the (M) mobile hardware components? besides their smaller size...

I hope so. I want 60 FPS minimum. 30 frames per second is the minimum for first person shooter games...
I hate playing games on desktop. it's just not fun!!

As I said, I hope it will run 60 fps everywhere in game no matter how many players,smoke,explos there are in the same time...
Because M18x, and I mean all the M laptops of Alienware have the best mobile hardware components and we pay for them so I want the best experience. I know there are desktop computers that can run it on highest settings, but I want mobile, portability.

I hope they did.

Yeah, 30 fps for an fps game is low...Why haven't you tried Crysis on your M17x? i need the performance details.

Can I buy the M17x, or M18x overclocked?
thank you for the information, helps alot!
how many fps do you get in the games listed above?

M18x will run it on 60FPS++++.
And it will run Crysis 2 on 60++++ fps if not more...

 

EviLCorsaiR very good post above..... I would like to make a prediction here and see if anyone will agree.....


You made it clear as to why Laptops cannot be as powerful a system in gaming as desktops do to power need consumption of GPUs, other internals, etc.....

Yes, it is very very true... but what do you think it will be like in the future? Have you heard how they are experimenting now with paper thin batteries? There are flexible display screens coming out... etc... see where are I am going with this?

We saw the progression from the first computers that took up whole rooms to a desktop and now laptops.... well.... Imagine future GPU, chips, etc will be smaller, smaller and much smaller, using way less power, and giving out more output in terms of grahics performance... In other words...

I would bet millions that the Laptop will eventually become the staple over the desktop. Even if it won't take over completely it will surely be EQUAL in terms of gaming performance once future tech is at hand.


KJ

 

But unless development on desktops is severely haulted the desktops will likely progress at the same rate, so unless there is a ceiling hit on desktops I don't see that happening. They may be able to narrow the gap in performance but I don't see them being equal. Now the one thing I do think we will see is the possibility of Laptops greatly outnumbering desktops and desktops being primarily used by business/professional users only.

 

See, that is a good point.... What I was getting at is, if tech is going to get better, smaller..than logic serves that the Desktop may become obsolete...meaning....sure the desktop will be a "laptop" or its equavilent in space aka, not large. Why would you want a huge say...uhmmm Alienware Area 51 gaming monster when all that power can then (100 years from now or less? lol) can be used in regular sized laptop? So yeah...Desktops may very well fall in same way the wonderful dinosaurs went...


KJ

 

How do you think its going to happen? I just read EviLCorsaiR helpful post...

Whats the difference between the same graphics card, but only that one is 100W(laptop) and the other one is 350W(desktop)???

 

Nieiaa, what I was saying pertains to the future..... many more years down the line, not sure how many more...but I can't imagine big rigs like the Area 51 in the future...they will be much smaller..aka laptops...lol.


As to what EvilCorsaiR was saying... eventhough the Desktop and Laptop use the same card...I believe the size may be different in the mobile version compared to the Desktop..you can just go to Youtube and see the difference.... the Desktop verison is well, huge, thick....its a monster..and it uses more power, more heat...just like he said.... so its more powerful..better graphics...etc.

P.S. Just to have you know...I'm still learning all this myself too. I've been out of the computer/gaming thing for a bit...so...yeah

KJ

 

Why does the size makes the crad more powerful?
I have just begun learning about computers..

 

It's able to run faster clocks due to more power consumption and better cooling, if you tried to run 350w through a laptop GPU it would fry in about 3 seconds as it would be too hot. The larger the die, vram, etc area the better the cooling. The better the cooling the more effiecient and powerful. Also the better the cooling the more power(wattage) it can run at pushing it further.

 

Eventhough the gaming laptop of today still falls a bit short of the desktops regarding gaming performance, the laptops still do damn well as many of the M17x R2 people have stated getting high setting levels and good FPS from Crysis... even desktops could not do that just in 2007... so ...it makes great sense for those who love to be mobile and play in a car, a tent, plane, God knows where and have great fun doing it getting damn close to FPS in a desktop.

Honestly, I was one of those a few years back who would never ever consider a laptop...but now...in 2011 its a very nice option. I don't think I may ever go back to a desktop again....now damn you Alienware, come out with the M18x already...we can't wait forever!


KJ

 

Yeah I know I want to play everywhere haha!!

If the M18x will be able to run Crysis on 60FPS it'd be awsome!!!!!!!!!!
It will be better then every dekstop computer so far!!!!WOW

Why do you have envy 3D avatar?

 

Uhm... I orginally purchased the Envy 17 3D....but returned it this week because I want the new Sandy Bridge version of the Envy 17 3D... I plan on waiting till HP puts up the specs for ordering than I can make a fully informed decision if I want the Envy or the M17x...although I'm leaning toward the former.... style...and warranty.... but I plan on getting the M18x one day soon...oh how I dream...I am a gamer reborn.

KJ

 

Thanks for the praise. And yeah, technology is advancing pretty damn fast and should hopefully continue. But in terms of processing power...well there are two things I've heard. How true either will be I don't know...

Firstly, some say that development could progress to the point where the size of transistors is as small as an atom, or a few atoms. That would mean a hell of a lot of transistors.

But secondly, I've also heard that once we get to 22nm, development will slow down because of the extreme costs of shrinking further.

I have no doubt that laptops are catching up. It's the question of whether they'll ever meet the desktop's performance.

There are multiple differences.

Firstly, the actual clock speed of the components is slower. For example, the GPU might run at 750MHz instead of 1250MHz. That'll result in a serious performance drop.

There will be a lower number of shaders as well (and the shaders will also be lower clocked), and it's the shaders that handle filling in textures. As that's the most intensive part of any game, it means that the mobile cards with fewer, lower clocked shaders won't be able to render a frame as quickly.

Everything is done to reduce the power consumption. And basically put, as long as it's from the same line of technology (so comparing the nVidia 460M to the desktop 460 for example) then reducing the power input means reducing the performance as a result.

Of course, newer technology will be faster than older technology even if it doesn't consume more power. This is because technology is becoming more efficient as time moves on. So a 100W graphics card now could be around twice as powerful as a 100W graphics card from 2 years ago.

There's reasons for this, but it's a very long technical thing so I won't go into it.

Don't worry, I'm damned certain the M18x will handle Crysis on 60FPS. Graphics cards like the 460M can already handle it at 50FPS, but probably not at max resolution and all settings on max. But stick two of the most powerful cards there are right now (nVidia 485M, ATi 6970M) in a laptop and we could see beastly results.

However, 60FPS is not really necessary. Crysis actually looks smooth at 30fps, and it looks near perfect at 40fps. But a laptop that could pull it off on 60fps would be beastly indeed.

(But there will be a better desktop computer. Three nVidia GTX 580 cards will easily beat whatever laptop Alienware can make, and by a long distance. Such is the way of mobile computing. Like I said, they aren't as restricted in the desktop market.)

 

Well, if you're going to play Crysis in 3D you will NEED those 2 HD 6970s in Crossfire since that 60 FPS will most likely be cut in half to 30 FPS by the demands of the 3D.... but oh, its worth it... but that is why I am hoping the M18x will be 3D because the M17x R3 will not be able to handle Crysis in 3D well...
KJ

 

I am able to run it smoothly at 1280x1024 with everything on enthusiast. Even at that res with everything maxed out it doesn't even look like 1280x1024, oddly.

Specs:
i7 720
8gb 1333
5870x2
500gbx2 raid 0

 

I tend to think that a 6970M could handle it in 3D, but not maxed out. I think it might be able to handle it in DX9, all set to high. (DX10 on ATi's in Crysis is buggy anyway)

 

Is there a desktop computer that can run Crysis, everything set to highest?

 

plenty. any desktop with high end processor and 5970s will max crysis out.