All Alienware Laptop Gaming Videos Thread

Well, it's hard to excel at something when some people have no life outside of gaming, spend countless hours running the same map and have things memorized. The potty-mouthed juveniles that think using filthy language makes them a big boy and the hacks that see and shoot through walls ruins the experience for a lot of people. I generally won't pay money for any game that lacks an offline campaign. I have hundreds of games with an online multi-player option that I've never bothered to launch even one time because I have minimal interest in online gameplay. I like LAN with a few close friends, but gaming is generally my little oasis from the chaos of everyday life, not a social event.

AW14 takes a new mobo if you want a faster GPU, but the options are limited to what Alienware offers. So, it's really more of a system configuration change than an upgrade in the way we normally talk about upgrades... meaning something Alienware did not offer on a specific model.

 

Yup, exactly the same as me

 

It is, unfortunately, as Mr. Fox confirms. The only way around it for me was to grab an Ebay board with a GTX765m on it. Still haven't got around to swapping boards yet.....but soon!

Pretty much how I feel, too. For me, gaming is a solitary release, when I get the chance. My own little escape where it's just me, the machine and a few baddies to blast and not have to worry about which 10yr old kid is gonna frag my butt, because on line gaming and zero life outside of it has turned him into a professional hitman .

 

Max Payne 3

 

Looking good there, brother gh0sts.

 

yeah

it seems that tessellation in this game is a real framerate killer at the fps would drop into the 40s from the start of the video, as Max runs to the hooded goon and smashes them through the window and only goes back up once you regain control. I saw this on desktop GPUs as well so if you want a smooth fps then don't have tessellation enabled.

 

Nice vid man but I think you might have a prob? I have never seen lower than 95% GPU usage and over in the NV forum I read that the nearer to max GPU usage the better the frame rate for the card. Maybe it's because the max frame rate I saw was 60 even though you had v-sync off? There has been a problem with the last driver releases of v-sync randomly coming on even if it set to off in the driver.

I'd ask over in the owners lounge to get some typical FPS on your card to see if you should be seeing better

 

I have adaptive vsync on.

Sent from my One using Tapatalk

 

Try it off and see if the GPU usage goes higher on tessellation - but I do know its a killer

 

This is accurate... low GPU utilization often does equate to low FPS. In some games it is much worse than others. One word of caution though... don't get stressed out about cut scene videos, because GPU utilization under those conditions, and FPS, can be extremely low (29-30 FPS) and not be indicative of a problem. FPS is only relevent during actual gameplay as long as the cut scenes are high enough frame rate to play smoothly. It depends on how the cut scene video is being rendered. In some cases FPS are lower with more powerful video cards because there is not enough load on the GPUs, and it can be exaggerated with a more powerful multi-GPU setup.

On the subject of frame rate, I have been playing RTCW, Doom3 and Quake4 off and on recently, experimenting with the cvars in the console, modded pak files and commands in the CFG files. It is amazing how great those ancient titles can look with texture mods and cranked up settings that were too demanding to use with old hardware back when those games were released. I forgot how much fun those awesome old games are. Stuff I am playing with now would have brought a gaming PC, a powerful system by enthusiast standards back in the day, to its knees. They all have a 60 FPS cap. With that disabled they are unplayable (anywhere 600-1500 FPS and looks like a video on fast-forward, audio skips, etc.).

 

Yeah I saw that with dead space 3 though so far I haven't seen any low fps from low GPU usage... And by that I mean bf4.

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EDIT: I tested the same spot with vsync off any tessellation on and it still drops into the 40s....so it didn't boost the fps.

EDIT 2: chucked some MP3 settings to very high and it still runs a smooth 50-60fps.

 

Well, I decided to give Ghost Recon: Future soldier a try and I immediate uninstalled it simply because the game was running into the 80 deg c range when it was vsync'd.

 

the wait to unlock wolfenstein the new order is killing me: 2 hours to go

EDIT: logged into an Australian VPN as i heard that it was already unlocked there and it unpacked nicely but when i start the game all the RTSS stats are not visible like they have been coloured out so it just looks like one big rectangular blob and i can't determine my FPS

I'll wait till it officially unlocks for the NA east coast and see if the RTSS stats are blanked.

EDIT 2: tried fraps and the game won't load.

 

I doubt the game not being unlocked is causing that issue. That's not entirely uncommon. Seems to happen more with DX9 titles. Open RTSS and try using viewport or framebuffer (opposite of whatever you are using now). If that does not work, try turning on "Custom Direc3D Support" and see if that fixes it.

 

ok, will give a try! currently it looks like this:



EDIT: OK, I tried your suggestions to no avail: it's still looks like above.

 

I think I have solved my issue: in RTSS I had set the OSD render mode to raster 3D so it would show in nice legible text. So I switched it to vector 3D (or vector2D) and it worked - the stats showed up.

not sure why the game doesn't like displaying stats in raster 3D mode but I have stats showing albeit in very blocky font.

 

Got this dirt cheap from the Humble Bundle sale today...

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I'm not getting anything on-screen. I tried changing vector but no joy. Fraps does show up an interesting potential problem. V-sync is often coming in and out even though I've turned it off in-game, in game profile - yes it's already there for me and globally but still I see 60fps steady, 30fps in cut scene videos, and leaps when moving around menus. Kinda like I would expect with v-sync set to adaptive? Not a biggie for me though as I always crank up a game to run slower than that.

Back to the game I do like a game that leads you in nice and slow

 

Take a screenshot of RTSS so I can compare.

I have the game set to the high preset and it's getting 60fps.

Sent from my One using Tapatalk

 

No problem, I installed the latest beta (19) Afterburner, and all is good again .

I don't know if it's just a bug in the latest drivers but I am getting fps limited almost all the time at 30 or 60 fps. I've had to crank everything up to get it to drop below 60fps, so I'm still happy

Have seen these oddities before with an OGL game, and they have completely disabled 3D

 

Sounds like qualities from the Rage engine.

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Exactly the game I was thinking of (but couldn't remember ). It never really stresses the GPU either so having adaptive power management makes for the occasional very slow load at min power setting . The game profile in the driver had this turned off as the only change visible.

 

I'll have to try the ultra settings and see what the fps is like cos I am on high settings and it looks ok... Definitely not crysis level but better than cod but still feels a bit dated.

EDIT: I have tried Ultra settings and it does drop for me on my 780M so i think the high preset is good for 50-60fps.

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Now that wolfenstein has had it's day in the sun, it's time to turn our attention to Watch Dogs. Now from what I have been told people with dual core CPUs (how many are there here?) will not be able to play the game.
I've also heard that the game will lock out anyone with under 6gb as 6gb the minimum requirement for playing the game at low settings.

finally they also said that CPUs with a Passmark score of 9000 to 10,000 + a GTX 670 will be able to play the game on Ultra settings....at least that's what the game devs have claimed.

The devs have claimed that if you have a CPU similar to the i5-3470 (in score I would think) then you will be able to play it on medium to high settings.

So that makes me think that most of us here will have alienware 17s that'll meet at least 2 of the 3 criteria for playing this game on high settings as....

1. the 780m and 880m are downclocked versions of the GTX 680 (by spec comparision at least) and therefore should be able to play on ultra, if not high settings.
2. the i7-4700MQ scores an average passmark score of 7930 with mine coming in a 8331 so the max my alienware 17 will do is high settings.
3. your CPU needs to score higher than the average score for the i5-3470 which is 6570....and point #2 handly proves that.

so theorectially the alienware 17 can handle this sucker on high settings at least.

 

With an Extreme CPU and 780M you might be able to run Watch Dogs maxed out as long as the game developers haven't done a sloppy job of it. My 3920XM is over 11K @ 4.5GHz with reasonable temps and the GTX 780M is comparable to desktop GTX 680 results. (PassMark only tests one GPU even in a multi-GPU setup.) I suspect the 4900MQ/4910MQ/4930MX/4940MX with a rather mild 4.1GHz OC may all get around 10K on the CPU score.

PassMark Results | Baseline Validation: PassMark Software - Display Baseline ID# 241765

3920XM @ 4.5GHz | GTX 780M (No Overclock)	3920XM @ 4.5GHz | GTX 780M (1033/1500 @ 1.0500V)

 

Who was playing this as a "new release" 10 years ago? Wow... really... 10 years ago. *POOF* gone! Time flies when you're having fun.

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It was ahead of its time back in the day. As a benchmark, it is not demanding enough for today's best hardware. Even with maximum quality graphics settings across the board, it does not load the video cards enough for them to ramp up to full tilt performance.

 

Bah! Can't see it in Tapatalk but yeah CS us getting old.

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Early Watch Dogs PC adopters reports stuttering and low frame rates issues | CanadianGamer.net

oh dear!

 

Man, I'm starting to wonder if anyone knows how to make games that function correctly any more. It seems like most of them run like crap at the time of release.

 

I'd have thought that Ubisoft would have had plenty of time to get it right, what with all the release push backs.....maybe they were just focusing on console users and stuff the PC market

 

First reports I've seen on Twitter seemed encouraging, though. In terms of overall performance, I mean.

So, anybody around these parts planning on purchasing at launch? Be sure to let us know how the game behaves on the AW

 

Yeah I've pre ordered this like a sucker. I'll let you know how it performs. So far I'm not liking the gameplay videos I'm seeing on PC compared with what Ubisoft showcased at 2012 e3. It looks like absolute rubbish now compared to back then - no doubt gimped for console port-ability.
Many of the performance complaints I've read about are supposedly associated with the leaked pirated copy which has a bitcoin mining Trojan inside. Not sure how true this is, only I can't digitally download my copy yet so I'm scratching my head as to where all these magic copies are coming from. Either way I'll keep you gentleman posted.

 

Either they were pirated or some people got retail copies very early....most likely the former.

EDIT: I managed to get a hold of it just to see how it runs on a i7 4700mq with a 780m and the best i could do is 1600x900 on medium and even then the fps was all over the place. it would stutter when loading and saving profile data like new cars and music, it would stutter when driving. haven't see any bitcoin mining stuff so will see.

Yes, I did pre-order it at GMG so I'll hold off any any further judgment till release.

 

I had forgotten how much fun this game is...

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looks like there's a new set of drivers out: i wonder what this shader cache thing does?

 

I don't know. I'm downloading it now to see what happens. I need to create a restore point and a new drive image just in case it's crap.

 

tried the game again and i don't really notice anything.

 

I'm sure I saw problems with restore points in here, you'll be safer with an image. it's turned into a flame war but the mod is keeping his head down. Not even a placeholder for registered bugs.

https://forums.geforce.com/default/...ce-display-driver-feedback-thread-5-26-14-/1/

 

i wonder what temps people are getting watch dogs?

I'm seeing a peak of at least 83 deg C!

 

I started playing Watch Dogs properly today. My temps are nice with HWINFO pumper max on both fans. I'm hitting no more than 68c with 3 hours 22 minutes of playing. I'm about done for a bit now though. I managed to hit a consistant 32FPS after I applied Nvidia Geforce optimized settings. I have no idea what those settings are though as I haven't looked in Geforce as of yet.

 

I tested 30fps by setting it to adaptive vsync (half refresh rate) and it is playable but not temporally fluid that 60fps gives. for the 30fps test i have it set to 1080p all high settings, hbao+low, and no motion blur - result: still stutters while driving so it's definitely a texture streaming issue.

so in this case 30fps is playable but not something one expects for a game on PC with a frickin' 780m!

 

I agree the optimisation for this game is non existent and a single 780m should be enough. I'll share my findings with you soon. Just uploading a couple of video's. I'm sure a single 780m is good for over 30fps with everything maxed and some SMAA the way things are now.
I've managed to get a touch over 60fps using these settings and SLI compatibility bits for the SLI Scaling since the standard profile is a broken mess. I've been using a small OC of +100/300 and Vsyncing with NCP.

Getting 60fps with Shadowplay is another story but I'm trying. Hopefully a patch comes out and fixes this mess but I'm doubtful. This games been in development long enough that if it were a simple fix it would have already released that way - I hope I'm wrong about that.

 

Might be way off base but try putting your machine to sleep, wake it up and try again. I'm seeing a bunch of desktop 7xx users saying that this cures their stuttering until the next reboot...

 

Lol when it comes to doing these kinds of fixes I feel we've really hit rock bottom. Not saying it won't work by the way but I feel we've got more hope sacrificing virgins to the sun gods

 

I know - strange but true, NV are collecting log files from all the people saying this!

https://forums.geforce.com/default/...eedback-thread-5-26-14-/post/4231779/#4231779

My favourite 'fix' was one of my engineers who did a 'server dance' waving his hands in front of it. As he said, It's as much use as you standing there watching me! Point taken . The unix guys stick-with-feathers and bag of chicken bones always entertained

 

Man, am I ever glad I didn't waste $60 on this turd game. It's always so tempting to splurge on one of the new titles that look so awesome in trailers. It seems pretty clear to me that game developers are much better at marketing than than they are at making games that work as awesome as their media campaigns make them look. My "wait for $20" strategy still seems like the best approach to avoid disappointment and financial loss.

 

AH HA!

now i know the trick that makes 30fps feel like 60fps and my answer is motion blur. when i was playing ryse i knew it was 900p30 but it didn't feel like 30fps and i believe it's because of motion blur.

 

More like this game is really for consoles than anything else.

EDIT: to save on triple posting i have figured out how to make the game run in a 21:9 aka 2.40:1 aka cinemascope ratio on a 16:9 display. here's what i did.

1. go into the nvidia CP and find the custom resolution section.
2. create the resolution 1920x822 @ 60hz or 120hz depending on the display.
3. go into the gamerprofile.xml for watch dogs and search for Force16_9="1".
4. change the 1 to a 0.
5. load the game.

make sure your GPU is set to do the ratio scaling and not the display.





EDIT 2: Looks like BF4 can do 21:9

 

Yup, it's pretty stupid that all of these new grossly overpriced $60+ games that are so terribly buggy do not play this nice. So many of today's game developers do such a lousy job it's not even funny.

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Here's a video I made of Watchdogs. It's very hard to record a video using Shadowplay (OC is necessary) and also get a solid 60fps. To Watchdogs defense, despite it's bugs it's turning out to be one of the best games I've played in a long time and I've having a blast. It got alot wrong, mostly optimizations, but it sure did get a lot right. I will post up another video when I can. Since making this video I've discovered a few more things based around physics based effects that have impressed big time - most of them involve grenade launchers. Basically this game is the best looking game I've ever seen (big call) as long as its Night time and/or Raining.. honestly its simply breathtaking, hopefully my next video can do more justice.