M11x Gaming Discussion Thread

I'm curious as to how Dragon Age 2 will run - first runs great, no problems at all...aside from some modification based crashing.

DA2, we shall see...BioWare likes to make their games available to everyone - so probably be a good bet it'll be good.

...to get, or not get an M15x and supplement my R2...

 

From the system requirements it doesn't seem like it's going to be a problem for most the minimum requirements are low while the recommended requires a better machine then the M11x.

Dragon Age 2 PC


I will recommend waiting till Crysis 2 comes out

 

Gave Medieval II: Total War another go on my i5 R2.

Still getting annoying lag every few seconds. I'm using throttlestop but it doesn't make much of a difference. On all medium settings with AA off. Empire: Total War runs pretty well on all mediums, I don't understand how Empire can run smoother than Medieval II.... :/

Anyone else have this game? Care to test it out?

In good news though, I'm able to run Bad Company 2 with All high setting (with shadows on medium), and x2 AA and x2 of AT? (I think it's A.T...). Overclocked to 166MHz and using Throttlestop, Game Booster, and GPU overclocked using MSI Afterburner.

Pretty stable as well. Played two games, 39 FPS and 35 FPS average. Turning down shadows gave me 43 FPS.

If anyone wants me to try out a game just say, I've got a fair few games.

 

Hmm...my R2 i7 plays Med II perfectly - playing the Third Age Total War mod almost exclusively though...never any slowdowns or problems, aside from the every-so-often mod caused game crash.

My settings, all high. V Sync, bloom, reflections, and widescreen all selected. Shader version 2, anisotropic x 4.

 

What GPU drivers do you use? I think this may be the problem I'm having...

 

Currently 266.44 - been very stable for me so far in multiple games. Dragon Age, MTW2, Mass Effect 1/2....

 

I had been using the 266.44 flawlessly too, BFBC2 was a pleasure to play and also saw many frames per second gains on New Vegas. Then I tried to play ME 2 and Bioshock 2 and it would freeze within 5 mins. of gameplay. Dealbreaker, figuring I had fallen in love with ME 2 recently.

 

i wonder how total war: shogun 2 will run on the m11x.

 

It runs on the same engine as Empire, doesn't it?

EDIT: System requirements for Shogun II aren't that different from Empire. Hopefully it'll run OK.

 

Might sound crazy...I'm not very excited for Shogun II. Was hoping for Rome II, or maybe even a Victorian era game, might have been to similar to Empire and Napoleon though.

...I can barely get ETW/NTW to function on my R2. Them's the breaks!

 

I haven't played the original Shogun so I can't really judge but, I'm guessing Rome II will be next. Medieval II, then Shogun II, Rome has gotta be next.

Are you overclocking for Empire? I get pretty good FPS on all mediums I believe. But I'm not really a fan of Empire. Dislike the guns.

 

not a fan of the total war series or of RTS in general so just thinking if it would work or not.

EDIT: If I could get my hands on the leaked crysis 2 beta that would be a good thing to try out on the M11x.

 

Hey guys... will our video card support crysis 2? so we can run it at least high?

 

Highly doubt it..

 

crysis 2 will run fine

 

i hope homefront will run nicely too!

 

Our GPU will support Crysis, don't expect playable framerates at high settings though.

EDIT - I of course meant GPU not CPU.

 

i would love to see someone try it!

 

From what i have seen it was getting 8 fps on loading cut-scene but there might have been a mix up and the game was running from cpu(?) this was on lowest graphics settings(?)

I will see if i can't find another test for it in the next few days. using m11x r2 on 257.30 drivers from dell.

 

If you can run Crysis 2 in DX9 then it'll be great. DX10 will make it struggle a bit and DX11 is not even a question. I had both Crysis and Warhead installed on mine for awhile and they ran pretty well on high in DX10. I got a 15+ frame boost if I forced it to run in DX9, though.

Also, hoping Homefront/BF3 run amazing.

 

i am hoping that homefront will be less intensive than crysis.

 

Just bought Test Drive Unlimited 2 and 1 (the Atari bundle) for 44 bucks... I will report back how the M11x R2 handles it.

 

Ok, So I've got GTAIV on the m11x-R2 and have the 266.58 drivers.
the game runs smooth as silk with the usual overclocking but when I go to the menu to look at the graphic options it pretty much tells me its using the onboard intel graphics instead of the nVidia 335M.

Now I've checked the task bar icon for nVidia and it says its running GTAIV so I guess this is why its playing good but why on earth on the settings page does it default to intel?

Any ideas peeps?

 

Official Crysis 2 can run on m11x r2 (r1 most likely) was running on medium specs at regular laptop resolution at playable frames around 20-25fps. Low specs was around 30 fps.

 

YouTube - Crysis 2 Beta Leak running on M11x r2 Medium settings

proof.

 

Based on the official forums it will either run well (given the specs) or run like a dog and nothing in between.

Many users are reporting very low GPU usage on even high end i7 machines (4GHz +), thus ruling out cpu limitation as the cause.

I seem to be lucky as my overclocked Phenom II (Tri core) / GTX460 1GB partnership handles the game quite nicely. My R1 *can* play it but I am getting some really weird sound issues and low GPU utilisation (I thought this was the cpu until I read the threads over on the TDU2 forums).

 

I recorded a short 30 second vid of TDU2:
YouTube - Test Drive Unlimited 2 on the Alienware M11x R2

that recording was done using 4x AF and all settings high. The framerate was relatively stable... I'd say 20-30 FPS, though it peaked at about 45 FPS in parts. There was no stuttering, but it isn't nearly as smooth as playing on medium settings.

I'm not overclocked or anything, but I'm going to keep playing with it to see if I can get the framerate up on "high" settings. From what I've read, TDU2 isn't very optimized for PC, and that future patches may result in more performance.

The game is very playable though.

 

I'm sorry but 20-25 fps is not playable.

 

Speaking of Homefront.

Minimum Spec
· Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7
· Intel Pentium Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz or AMD Athlon X2 2.8GHz
· 2 GB RAM
· Shader Model 3.0 graphics card with 256MB of memory
· NVIDIA GeForce 7900GS or ATI Radeon 1900XT
· 10GB of free hard drive space

Recommended Spec
· Windows Vista or Windows 7
· Intel or AMD Quad Core 2 GHz+ CPU
· 2 GB RAM
· NVIDIA GeForce 260 or ATI Radeon 4850
· 10 GB of free hard drive space

Speculate!

 

Anyone know if Just Cause 2 ruins on the 260.99 drivers? I want to buy it on steam for $7.50 but dont want it to crash on this driver. Thanks in advance!

 

Quad-core preferred makes me worry that it's another "modern" CPU-bound game like BF:BC2 and CoD:BlOps (whether you want to argue about sloppy programming or no).

Not sure if I will cancel my 360 pre-order or not and get it on PC. Free Metro 2033 on Steam is tempting but that game doesn't play too well on M11x, heh.

 

My R2 has been weird...Empire/Napoleon Total War are completely unplayable.

BF: BC2 and Black Ops play perfectly - great frame rates, high settings, no multiplayer lag...

...and then Sins of a Solar Empire drags it heels. CPU intensive games are the death! Must...resist...ordering my M15...

 

what graphics options do you get in the crysis 2 beta?

 

Excellent!

After a bit of trial and error last night and following a quick guide I found on the TDU forums (turning off wifi at the initial "Play" splashscreen and then turning it back on at the "click start to play") the game is now more than playable on my R1. I should note that this was at medium / high settings (environment on medium) whilst the game was running at night with rain effects (thus more intensive).

Rather oddly trying to run MSI afterburner (which works fine with all my other games) caused the game to lag really badly. By lag I don't mean low framerate, I mean what felt like very high server ping. Why this would happen when MSI afterburner is running is beyond me.

Very odd but I am not glad that both my setups can run the game fine.

 

Must be your drivers, Empire runs fine for me.

EDIT: Also, there will be a demo for Shogun II: Total War on Steam on February 22nd.

 

Works just fine for me.

I'm using the 266.58 drivers on an M11x R2, and not 260.99 drivers. But I do not see any reason why it wouldn't work with 260.99.

 

Just Cause 2 works perfect, there is an issue with the grass, in parts with a lot of it, your frames can drop in half in a few seconds, but is a problem with the game, not the m11x, even in very powerful desktop units, there is a huge drop, but the game works, around 40fps average, with a mix of highs and meds...



And you all guys (and girls) must know, but Batman AA works perfect in the m11x, I got it in the steam sale, and it works all settings at high, 2xAA and no physX, it runs average of 50fps...

 

noob chiming in here

Can someone explain the difference between

R1
R2
(upcoming R3)

-paul

EDIT: I am on the line for buying one of these. I am more concerned if the laptop can game reasonably @ 1600x900 I think 1920x1080 Might be pushin it.

 

got the crysis 2 leaked build and now just waiting on my m11x to arrive to see how the build fairs....but tried it on my Q6600 desktop PC and all i can say about the performance is this: PROMISING and MUCH BETTER.

 

Ok, Just a couple of problems from my end!

1) I dont have any options on the 266.58 nVidia drivers to resize my screen when its plugged into the tv via HDMI. On my desktop pc, I can select different resolutions, click an option for four white arrows to go on the tv and resize it, but these options are not on the 266.58 released drivers at all and my tv currently shows all the edging off. So I cant see the start bar. Any Ideas?

2) GTAIV runs like an absolute dream, but when you go to the settings it seems to think its running off of the Intel chip as opposed to the 335M. It wont let me change any of the options and to top it all off the game does run really smoothly, but half the textures are missing. Theres no city backdrop and theres no boat when the story starts, so Its like Niko and his friends are floating in the air when they come in to the harbour!
I've deleted the game installation and im going to re-download it (From Steam) and see if that helps.

With regards to everything else I'm extremely happy. BFBC2 runs silky smooth, as do WoW in fullscreen mode, Starcraft 2 and Just Cause 2.

 

R1 only uses the Core2Duo processor.
R2 uses the first generation i-series processors.
R3 will be using the second generation i-series processors.

All use the same graphics cards. Not entirely sure about the R3 version, as I don't even think it was announced yet.

 

R1 is manual gpu switching and tends to get notably more battery life
R2 performs better in CPU bound games/ processing tasks
R3 is pure speculation, less than a month after the R2 came out people were talking about a "developer version" with the core i7 660 or 680. IIRC, they had a screenshot from some website in China to prove it.

 

The part about the M11x R3 is *INCORRECT* and inaccurate.

Here is what we do know:

Alienware M11x R1:
- Core 2 Duo ULV processor
- nVidia 335M GPU
- Has VGA Port
- Manually switchable graphics

Alienware M11x R2:
- Core i5/i7 CPU (and Core i3 option, in Asia)
- nVidia 335M GPU
- Does not have VGA port
- Automatically switching graphics (using nVidia Optimus)

Alienware M11x R3:
- Has NOT been announced or confirmed by Dell or Alienware. We do not know if it even exists.
- Circumstantial evidence points to a fixed hinge design (Chris, a forum moderator over on the Dell / Alienware forums).
- Circumstantial evidence points to a release in March 2011 (Chris, a forum moderator over on the Dell / Alienware forums).
- Circumstantial evidence points to inclusion of Verizon 4G LTE integrated broadband option (screenshots from a testing report showing Verizon 4G LTE successfully tested on Alienware M11x).
- That is all we know. Any discussion about other hardware specifications (e.g. inclusion of 2nd generation Intel Core i3/i5/i7 Sandy Bridge processors) is pure speculation from enthusiastic forum members with active imaginations. No evidence (real or circumstantial) of other hardware specifications exist in any form whatsoever.


Again:
- The Alienware M11x R3 was *NEVER* confirmed by Dell or Alienware. We do not have any confirmation that it exists, or has a release date.

- The *ONLY* evidence we have at all is circumstantial. It basically is as reliable as "I know a guy that works at Dell, and he said blah-blah-blah."

- We also had circumstantial evidence for the past 4 years, where "A guy I know at Apple / Verizon *SWEARS* that the Verizon iPhone was just around the corner." And we all saw how well that turned out.

 

Exactly. It is pure speculation from enthusiastic people with active imaginations.

I have screenshots 2 years ago of an Apple iPhone being tested on Verizon's CDMA network. And we saw how that turned out. Just because a developer / test model exists somewhere, doesn't mean that it is going to become a product that a consumer can go out and buy anytime soon.

The Alienware M11x R3 probably exists, and will probably be released some time in 2011. I base my speculation on historical trending and data, and not wild guesses and hopeful thinking. Laptop companies typically release laptop model refreshes for consumer-grade laptops about once every 2 years. So late 2011 / early 2012 makes sense for their release cycle.

 

Craig9080 found this in the R3 thread...it's not circumstantial and it's about the R3:
Welcome to PTCRB

We spoke about this in another thread:
Apple.

Also, using the past doesn't work too well for the M11x...they updated the R1 to R2 within months.

EDIT: and Chris from Dell makes some references here that are interesting: http://en.community.dell.com/owners-club/alienware/f/3746/p/19364347/19819896.aspx (I know this has been seen before).

 

All of that stuff actually *IS* circumstantial evidence. They are from 3rd party sources, which at best, is considered hearsay. It implies a certain conclusion, but by itself, isn't enough to actually confirm a conclusion.

*REAL* evidence would be something along the lines of: (A) an official product announcement from Alienware / Dell; (B) The Alienware M11x R3 showing up for sale on their website.

For example:
You're linking to a 3rd party testing report showing a computer labeled as the "Alienware M11x R3".

I can also link to 3rd party reports that *SWEAR* that a Verizon iPhone was coming:
In 2008, when Verizon released specifications for 3rd parties to develop devices that interact with the Verizon Wireless network.
In 2008, when Apple started posting job openings for CDMA engineers
In 2009, when a market analyst predicted a 2010 Verizon iPhone to ride market momentum.

You're also linking to the same forum post that I referenced, where "Chris" mentioned something about an Alienware M11x R3. That is basically as reliable as "A guy who works at XYZ said ABC..."

I have plenty of stories as well where "A guy who works at XYZ said ABC..."

In 2010, when a Supply Chain manufacturer indicated that Apple was going to start using a Qualcomm chip that operated on both GSM and CDMA
In 2010, when USA Today predicted a Verizon 4G LTE Apple iPhone by June 2010, based on comments by Apple COO Tim Cook that a CDMA / 3G iPhone wouldn't be very useful to Apple, because CDMA 3G is an aging technology.


When did the Verizon iPhone actually come out? When *REAL* evidence came out. There was (A) an official product announcement from Verizon (specifically, Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam); and (B) The Verizon iPhone started showing up on the Verizon Wireless website soon afterwards on January 11th, with information on how you could pre-order one.

I never doubted that the Alienware M11x R3 exists, or will exist... in all likelihood, it will eventually be announced / released, and will eventually be available for purchase. But personally, I'm going to wait until Dell / Alienware makes an official product announcement, and until I can actually go on the Alienware website and place an order, before I get all excited about it.

 

I am on the line for buying one of these. I am more concerned if the laptop can game reasonably @ 1600x900 I think 1920x1080 Might be pushin it.

can someone give me some feedback on this thing playing at 1600x900?

 

GTAIV runs like an absolute dream, but when you go to the settings it seems to think its running off of the Intel chip as opposed to the 335M. It wont let me change any of the options and to top it all off the game does run really smoothly, but half the textures are missing. Theres no city backdrop and theres no boat when the story starts, so Its like Niko and his friends are floating in the air when they come in to the harbour!
I've deleted the game installation and re-downloaded it but this hasnt changed anything. It still thinks I'm running it from the Intel chip. PLEASE help.

With regards to everything else I'm extremely happy. BFBC2 runs silky smooth, as do WoW in fullscreen mode, Starcraft 2 and Just Cause 2.

 

Have any of you guys tried PlanetSide on your M11x? I used to love that game and would not mind going back! According to their site, Vista/7 support is now built-in...no more hacks required.

 

Anyone got Civilization IV? How well does it run, and what settings?

Civilization IV: The Complete Edition is on sale on Steam for a nice €6.25 as part of the Weekend Sale.