Crysis on Area 51 m9750.........it kind of runs....

Hey everyone,

I'm sure you've read all my posts involving my struggles with Unreal Trounament 3 and its instability. I recently tried crysis today, and as avertised, it does run.......kind of. I'm very convinced that the hardware in the laptop is just fine. I know we've been in circles with different drives and whether or not to add artic silver or reseat cards. ​

So..... on to Crysis. It runs.....not great.....and it's very glitchy. There's a few crashes and momentary pauses every now and then. However, for the most part, it out-performs unreal tournament 3. I've come to conclusion that I'm dealing with poor drivers and maybe a very handicapped vista sucking me down. My only problem is that I like vista. I'm aware that installing xp might make all my troubles go away.......but why do that when xp dies in June?? Vista can only get better after that right???
I know what you're thinking at this point. Why not just use the 174 drivers that everyone raves about??? Simple.....they don't work.......if you're playing unreal tournament 3 or crysis that is.
If anyone has a solution to my problems, or perhaps a golden driver, let me know.

System Specs:
Windows Vista Ultimate (Service Pack 1)
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0 Ghz
4Gb of RAM
Dual Nvidia 8700 Gts Cards in SLI
Dual Seagate 80 Gb 7800 drives (raid 0)

Thanks,
Gabe

P.S. - If you're looking for seamless, mind blowing Unreal Tournament 3 or Crysis play from this laptop, do not buy it. However, if you're a computer savy, very patient, and understanding person, go wild.

And as always......best played on Alienware.......I think.

 

Why not make a dual boot with vista and xp just to see if xp makes the problems go away? Just for a test. Then you can be sure that is not the hardware.

 

I would agree. Although I have SLI 7950's my wife has SLI 8700's and she plays UT3 and Crysis with no issues at all. She is running XP and will only upgrade to Vista when XP is totally dead and not supported. I seems you have a hardware issue. I would call AW tech support back and let them know you are having issues in more games. Perhaps a new graphics card or two is in order.

 

GabeZ you have really wierd issues... on my dual 7950GTXs, 2.33ghz CPU, 2gigs of ram i use the UT3 benchmarking tool and i get 60.53 FPS average all game maxed out,and on Crysis i play on all high 1440X900 res with a 22-27 average FPS.. the only difference between me and you i guess is the operating system, am on XP, when i was on VIsta i was getting 35FPS average in UT3, try to dual boot with XP and see what happens

 

I really don't think this is a very fair statement to make. I have almost the exact same setup as you on my m9750 and it runs UT3 flawlessly at 35+ fps avg. Once in a blue moon I get a driver error that causes the computer to freeze for about 30-60 secs, then it fixes itself. I am running Vista Ultimate SP1 w/ 174.16 drivers. I had the 2.0 overclocked to 2.16 but I've since dropped it back down since the gains weren't worth the added risk of damage to the computer.

I agree you are fighting with a driver issue, but it is unfair to say because you have had problems with your m9750 that the machine is unable to play simple games such as UT3.

Perhaps you should send your system to AW to see if they can fix it. You have a warranty, right?

 

yup, as Tokaygecko said

 

Hi Everyon,

Thanks for all the support. I do want to apologize to Alienware for the rather aggressive post. I'm just a little frustrated with performance. I do agree in that I'm having really awkward issues with the system. In response to tokaygecko, my blue moon comes more frequently than yours does. I can pretty much play UT3 for all of about 5 minutes, and then I get this skipping sound and frozen screen issue, and it crashes to my desktop. Then it is usually followed by a message that UT3 has quit working, and I also see a little yellow hazard sign that tells me that the nvidia drivers have stopped and recovered.
I have been working closely with alienware to resolve the issue. We've done such things as monitor the temps, reinstall windows and drivers well more than I can remember, and I've tried the famous 174.16 drivers (Alienware approved and recommended). We've tried enabling/disabling sli...... the issue starts to go away and then mysteriously returns like a plague....
To tell you the honest truth, the computer was crashing with UT3 since day one with the factory image....... except that I was crashing with a black screen instead of the usual sound skipping frozen screen that I usually get.
I'm all out of ideas.......even at very best, when the the machine doesn't crash, I get jittery performance that I don't think I should have. I have an Asus G1 gaming laptop that runs UT3 smoothly with a single Nvidia 7700.......what's wrong here??? ​

Thanks,
Gabe

 

GabeZ- I truly understand your frustration because it took me 2 months of trying to get UT3 to play well on my system. The factory AW drivers suck and I had the same issue you did- I'd get gameplay for about 5 minutes before it would get choppy, freeze, and crash completely. I had initially given up until I tried the laptop2go drivers, which improved performance but still didn't give me the results I was looking for. When someone posted the SP1 registry "fix" I used it to get SP1 ahead of the official release and it made a pretty noticeable difference in gameplay, but still not perfect.

The first time I tried the 174.16 drivers UT3 wouldn't even allow me to change resolution from the default 800 x 600 without giving me a black screen and crashing. I had to uninstall them and roll back to the 169.xx drivers I was using previously. After reading other peoples' success with the 174.16 drivers I tried them again by following the directions in the SLI sticky (using driver sweeper, etc) and they worked great the second time. I think I may have forgotten to use driver sweeper the first time I installed the 174.16 drivers and that may have been my original issue with them.

Crysis runs on high on my computer at 1440 x 900, but I had to tweak the settings to get rid of choppiness. I don't have the crysis benchmark tool but I'd guess my framerate is in the mid-high 20s on average. There is very little choppiness and it is unnoticeable unless there is a lot going on.

Believe me, I know how you feel. When UT3 kept crashing my system I'd get real pissed off and throw things across the room. I came damn near throwing the computer until common sense kicked in that the $4500 laptop wasn't going to survive the landing. I'd have felt better for about 2 seconds before reality set in.... Keep messing with it, it will get better. My specs are the same as yours except the hard drives so there is a way to make it work. Believe me, once you get it working smooth all the frustration goes away when you blast the first character with the 3 rockets from your rocket laucher and see their body parts bounce all over the screen

 

Heh I'm glad that my SLi guide that I wrote is helping everyone out. I actually haven't tried UT3 on my M9750 after I installed the 174.16 drivers, I ought to try it again.

 

Hi,

Thanks for the reply tokaygecko. This may sound odd, but it seems as though installing the 174.16 drivers over the alienware ones without using the sweeper helps the crashing. I have no clue why this is..... it shouldn't make any difference.
I just glanced at my computer a few minutes ago, and believe it or not, the Nvidia driver hazard sign showed up at idle....... I think I'm now convinced that there's a problem with the graphics cards (or maybe just the second one).​

I'll be posting some screen shots shortly.

Thanks,
Gabe

 

Here's the pics
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm38/gabezs/Untitled1.jpg[\img]
[img]http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm38/gabezs/Untitled3.jpg[\img]

 

lets try this again....

 

that very very stange i got a problem with sli too.
After 15 mins, screen turns black and my fps drop to 15.
I called aw they sent me back a new slave 8700gt card.
I ll test this new card this weekend but if it doesnt work i ll return my m9750 and ask for refund with (15% restocking fee)....

btw i've tried all driver from 167 to 174.XX....put artic 5....installed sp1....but nothing worked so far......

 

Maybe it's mainly a driver issue, check this article out.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080325-vista-capable-lawsuit-paints-picture-of-buggy-nvidia-drivers.html

 

i think its a driver issue aswell.. 8700gt's are having real troubles with drivers, but i thought that the problem was solved with SP1?

 

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to give you an update on everything I've done with alienware. So far, I've been contacted by the critical issues team. This was a surprise to me, being that I never escalated the issue. However, it did work ou to my benefit, being that the issue was finally resolved
I ended up removing the slave 8700, and it was like a miracle occured. The little yellow hazard sign wasn't taunting my anymore, and I was finally able to install the 174.16 drivers flawlessly without any dll issues. And for those of you that insisted that I shouldn't be having dll error while using drive sweeper, this cleared it up too. They are now sending me a new set of cards ​

Thanks,
Gabe

P.S. - When I run a single 8700 card, I notice that the heat sky rockets to 97 degrees when really rapped up. Is this normal with the 174 drivers? Anyway, I guess it will be taken care of with replacement.

 

Glad to hear your being taken care of.

 

Excellent. I'm glad AW is taking care of you. This is the level of service I have come to expect from AW. No complaints here. Like I performance car it may need a little extra work but its worth it in the long run.

 

It is refreshing to read this after going through all the complaints in the other threads.