M11x Gaming Discussion Thread

Textures on high works GREAT on mine, Texture settings just eat VRAM, and 1gb is plenty, so you shouldnt see much hit form cranking that up. I have AF at 4x, shadows on medium, water very high. No AA, all of the weird options (SOAA or something? specular points?) set to off.

Benchmark never drops below 25 and that at the end of dakr tower when everything explodes. I was seeing 20 fps there with everything cranked, so this is a decent balance. Looks a little worse and a little better thann the 360 version, depending on whats going on and what you are looknig at (better textures on PC, but not by much, and some betetr lighting etc.. on the 360 compared to the settings I'm running on the m11x)

Fantastic game, couldn't believe how nice it looks and runs on this tiny thing. I jump between the 360 and m11x depending on if my wife is watching TV or doing home work ;D

 

SOAA is Ambient Occlusion I remember reading, which shouldn't be touched with a 50 foot pole on this computer. I'll try knocking up the texturing as well. I remember swapping them back and forth on the demo and outside of the opening cutscene I was never able to notice any real difference so I just left it on low to maybe squeeze extra fps out.

 

Hey guys did anyone figure out how to get Battlefield Bad Company 2 to work with the PS3 Controller yet? I am still spinning wildly out of control... apparently it conflicts with the mouse input in the settings when I plug my joystick in. I am using MotioninJoy with the DS3 Tool and Xpadder for my button config. Anyone having the same problem?

If not I think I'm gonna uninstall this and wait for a fix... does anyone know if there is a patch that fixes this? I have asked like 3 times and no one has answered my question... please help

 

Oh ok, thats what that is.I know that is typically a hog.

Oddly though, the AO setting in Borderlands does not seem to harm performance, and since I turn shadows off on the m11x, turning on AO gives me some shading back, and seriously does not hurt FPS at all. Maybe they just have a fakey way of doing it.

 

I've never liked Xpadder for trying to assign the mouse to a joystick, that problem (or something along those lines, i.e. always holding back if I used it for fighting games) has always happened for me with a ps3 controller. I don't own BFBC 2 but I'd probably assume unless it supports 360 controllers by default you might be kind of boned.

 

just wondering why someone would want to use a controller for a FPS. Personally wouldn't stand using anything short of a keyboard and mouse.

 

I like using a controller for NFS Shift. With out it, I'd end up with carpal tunnel. Maybe Tom Clancy Hawx as well. I have yet to play that on the M11x. But shooters, definately mouse and keyboard.

 

Sidewinder X8.

 

Nice wireless mouse. It's quite responsive and the battery life is great. But that wireless transmitter (not a dongle) is so bulky.

 

Yeah, the dongle is kinda... Huge. Lol. But I only use it at a desk so no worries.

 

Two questions- does Just Cause 2 play better with the Xbox 360 controller and is the 1st Just Cause worth playing? I bought the original when it came part of a Steam Eidos package deal. Thanks!

 

@gman = Think it would play better with a controller cause its RPGish. Since you have it, just play it LOL.

 

Wow GTA4 does run fairly well on this system. Now I just need to wait for my 360 controller for windows to arrive tomorrow.

 

Just Cause 1 was absolutely terrible. I couldn't stand it lol. JC2 now...so great.

 

Play Just Cause 2 with a controller (I personally use a PS3 controller faked into being a 360 controller with motioninjoy since it's more portable then 360 controllers, though mostly because F*** playing SF4 with a 360 controller), it's keyboard layout is pretty god awful in my opinion.

Just Cause 1 is , I bought it as part of the like 7 dollar deal off steam, gave it about 2 hours then deleted it.

 

@Hengst2404 - What settings did you use for GTA IV to make it run fairly?

 

The Witchers on sale for 10 bucks on impulse driven for the weekend if anyones interested.

 

I'm saving for BC2 so yeah lol.

 

I'm trying to find more people to play bc2 with. Add me if you get the chance lol. My in game name is Fourskim.

 

I'm in NZ so my pings will be atrocious anywhere else in the world sorry lol.

 

I ran it at 1280 X 768 resolution, medium details and I turned off anything like Anti-Aliasing. I also cranked the shadows to low and tweaked the draw distance. I am running it overclocked as well. Thus far it has run fair steady for me.

 

I will try and post some video at some point and start showing the results of my tests on random games. Bloodbowl works like a champ, but that is more of a niche title.

 

The original Mass Effect works well on Ultra when the system is OC'd... frame rate drops to 20-25 in the presidium, what with all the water effects but other than that the game is pretty smooth.

 

Hi guys, have ordered an M11x. was wondering if anyone could post some FPS results for The Saboteur game.
Thanks Nick :>

 

that seems pretty good! i'm running at 800x600 just trying to keep it smooth. really, i'm extremely impressed with this little comp.

 

yeah it does slow a bit when it starts raining outside. I am enjoying it more now that I have my xbox 360 controller to use.

 

I haven't seen any good Crysis video's on youtube, so does anyone know if it's possible to run the game with these settings:

Shadows:medium
Shaders:high
Object quality: medium(or high)
physics: high
(motion blur: low or medium, full bar)

I don't care about the rest, I tested this on my desktop and these settings are the only settings that matter for me, they make the game look stunning, even if the rest is on low.


E: I saw some Just Cause 2 video's on youtube on an m11x, and it looked very, very good. It's a bit GTA like, but on a tropical island with some "small" cities and villages etc. You also have some sort of "powers" that remind me of Prototype.

Looks cool, I recommend it!

PS: Reason why I can't test Crysis on my m11x is because it hasn't arrived yet .

 

@thomas - I have a short crysis video in my sig. I have settings shown so you can check it too. it's short but whatever =) has fraps.

shaders high
objects high
shadows low
water low
effects high
rest medium
blur is off

 

Anyone been able to get their PS3 controller w/ MotionJoy working over Bluetooth?

Couldn't get it working, although USB worked fine.

 

Could you try the settings I mentioned? with shadows medium?

E: I've got some screenshots for you at 1280x768, note that these were NOT shot on an m11x.

the settings I used for the other 2 screenshots:
http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/8594/settingsn.jpg

Shadows on medium:
http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/6011/shadowsmedium.jpg

Shadows on low:
http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/5757/shadowslow.jpg

Following settings: shadows: medium, object quality: high, shaders: high, rest on low:
http://img532.imageshack.us/img532/4328/lowp.jpg

As you can see there's almost no difference between the second and fourth picture, so just use that settings if you want a nice looking game with optimal performance.
There obviously is a HUGE difference between low shadows and medium shadows. Go for medium!

 

CnC4 works like a charm on this machine.

 

sorry I don't really care for shadows so if I could I'd put them on off, especially since shadows hurt performance a lot too

 

Wow, looks terrible with low shadows....

I'd test but don't have Crysis yet.

 

Hey guys. New "Verde" nvidia notebook drivers were just released. Version 197.16 WHQL - with the long awaited official support for the 335M finally! Anyone want to give them a go to see if there are any substantial improvements over the stock Dell ones?

Grab them at nvidia.com
I'm hoping these help smooth out the Metro 2033 / BC2 performance and give a little boost to Crysis.

Thanks guys!

PS - I too am interested in seeing the Crysis FPS when using the settings suggested by Thomas@PC.

 

Download the Crysis Demo!

 

@legoheads - that new driver does not support Notebooks supporting Hybrid Power... which leads me to believe that it may be incompatible with our M11X since it has the switcheable graphics option. Take a look at the "Supported Products" tab for more info towards the bottom of that page.

Also of note is that it may mess with your battery etc if you choose to use the NVIDIA drivers. Check this link:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=6035394

 

I bought Just Cause 2, but still don't have my M11x to play it. I can play it on my desktop, and I played a couple of missions, and it is very cool.

 

It should work taco... you'll just lose the ability to switch to IGP. Not practical, but may be worth seeing just to measure the performance gains we may see with a future Dell driver update (if it ever comes).

On a side note: Some guys over in the Sony Vaio Z thread have discovered that Optimus is really just a software solution and not hardware dependent like Hybrid graphics. They have actually successfully installed & activated Optimus on their systems. Gives us hope that nvidia may eventually give direct support for this feature which would let us bypass Dell's driver site entirely! Fingers crossed...

 

So if we are permanently on NVIDIA graphics the only thing it impacts is battery life right? I still would like to keep being able to change back and forth and increase my battery when I dont use my graphics card...

 

@lego = Over at the owner's thread, there's a guy who's hacked the asus optimus drivers to work on the Z and the m11x, it works thus far for someone. Still early in the project tho.

 

Oooh, had no idea there was one! I'll find it after work.

 

Here you go: http://www.crysisdemo.com/

HOURS of entertainment right there.

 

Is it possible to copy GTA4 files from a desktop to the m11x, and then play it without using the CD? Or do you need to download a crack or something? I have lots of games on CD's so I'm curious...

 

Yep, it will simply not use the Intel GPU at all. I'm running this way right now with updated Dox drivers, and will try the new Nvidia drivers soon.

Metro 2033 refused to run on the dell/alienware drivers, so had to update. If you don't need more than about 4 hours of battery life, it's not a problem at all. I'm usually no more than a couple hours of usage between plugs, so hasn't been an issue at all yet. Not ideal, but not that bad...

4 hours still is pretty dang good for what this things packing. And with newer drivers and tweaks that will combine newer Nvida and still enable switching we'll be even better.

 

welp the newest drivers 197.16 under discrete only runs Metro 2033 very well, I tested a quick combat scene in the prologue and befoer I was getting major dips into low teens etc, these new drivers played smooth, low 20's in combat and lowest I saw was 18FPS. Averaged upper 20's into 30's otherwise. If I can put my comp to sleep properly with these, I'm keeping them even w/o Intel Gfx.

oh yeah also tested BFBC2 and it could be just me, but my FPS was very good for all lows except high textures, 16 player map it was ~28FPS average and hardly any dips which is what I enjoyed most in terms of playing smooth.

 

I know its a pretty old game, but will Battlefield 2 play in maps with 64 players? I was adicted to that game a couple years ago.

 

Well that is promising news about Metro 2033 & BFBC2 aznguyen316.

Too bad there is not a dedicated BIOS toggle to choose between intel IGP and 335m. It wouldn't be the most convenient, but it would at least allow one to use the most up to date performance drivers and not lose the long battery life for times when you really need it (flight).

 

Still got no answer. But I really want an answer, I don't have much Valve or Steam registered games (I can't register games like Borderlands since they don't have a production key), so I really want an answer .

 

You'll probably need a crack. That's what I did with my disc copy of Fallout 3.

 

nsx - I read that if you just launch the .exe and not the fallout 3 launcher then you don't need disc/crack. I am interested in getting FO3 and prefer not to mess with cracks, so if that method works fine then I'm game.