M17 Gaming trouble, With WoW and Fallout 3 so far...

Hey Guys,

Recently got my M17 really nice laptop everythin seems fine 3dscore was 12,700 and my config is as follows:

Video/Graphics Card: Dual 512MB ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 3870 - CrossFireX™ Enabled!
Processor: Intel® Core™2 Extreme Quad QX9300 2.53GHz (12MB Cache, 1066MHz FSB)
Chassis: 17-Inch WideUXGA 1920 x 1200 LCD (1200p) with Clearview Technology
Keyboard Options: Illuminated Keyboard – Alienware Exclusive Design - Astral Blue
Operating System (Office software not included): Genuine Windows Vista® Ultimate (64-bit Edition) with Service Pack 1
Notebook Tuners and Remotes: Without Media Center Remote Control or TV Tuner
Memory: 4GB« Dual Channel DDR3 SO-DIMM at 1066MHz – 2 x 2048MB

System Drive: Extreme Performance (RAID 0) - 1TB (500GB x 2) 5,400RPM (8MB Cache)
Optical Drives : 8x Dual Layer Burner (DVD±RW, CD-RW) w/ LightScribe Technology


I have just tried to play WoW a game i figured this comp would not have much trouble with but for whatever reason it keeps shuttering and brief game freezes the Fps go down real low and come back up and the game sound echos along with it.. Very strange and this happens at random times

Ive tired different in game settings as well as reinstalling the drivers nothing really seems to fix it... Also my GPU temps are idle at 47C and while in game they reach a max of 70C

Any suggestions?

 

i had the same problem with mine and alienware guys checked it out my graphic card and crossfire was broken my setup was pretty much the same as yours also

 

you score seems a little low for the qx9300. have you tried updating your drivers? also the sound echo may be in game settings in wow.

 

Works fine for me, I would suggest making it run in windows mode, maximized, and make sure you have the right resolution set, also turn down the View distance and just mix around with it and you'll get it to run smoothly.

 

Thanks for the tips guys, I just ran WoW in Windows mode and put everything down to the lowest setting and it still gets choppy and laggy (sound echos when it slows down) I think ill call alienware and see what they say maybe it is a hardware issue with crossfire or something...

Any more help would be appreciated

 

it could be your raid0 setup...these things don't seem to like raid at the the moment.....

 

i have raid and it works fine.

 

define fine? so i can pass it along to the ocz people and the many others experiencing shuddering and slow downs... any help on what you did and what your running would help as well. stripe size drive size games ran and programs ran. thanks in advance.

 

I can play WoW max settings at 1920x1200 silky smooth. The only thing I have turned down is shadows, which I have set to medium. I have the 2.5 core 2 duo and 4gb ram.

 

what kind of fps do you get playing that game?

 

I'm using 2 seagate 7200.2 200gb r0 128kb stripe. haven't noticed any performance issues.

 

thanks! im going to relay that to a few others that are having issues.

 

Temps look fine. Your score is kinda low, it should be around 13.500-15.000 range. Try update your drivers with the modded ones, try set Catalyst AI to disabled and see if that helps the problem.

WoW's shadows at the moment is like enabling "Crysis mode". I play with shadows a bit bellow the middle, distance a bit above the middle and all the rest at max, works really great without any issues at all

 

Thanks guys I installed the modded drivers here and Wow seems to work much better not bad fps mostly 30+ everythin on high,

also 3d mark was 13,250 not sure how to get this any higher without OC'in but any tips would be great

 

For WoW i use shadows a bit lower than the middle, distance a bit higher than middle, and everything else at max. Had no issues so far with that settings.

 

With wow being a older Game I would expect you get higher FPS. Due to faster CPU and Better grapics cards.

 

i get around 70 fps in wow on mine.

 

Older game which its engine got refreshed 2 months ago. And lets not forget WoW doesnt support Crossfire or SLI.

 

Yeah, I've seen quite a few people say that it does support SLi // Xfire, but it seriously appears it doesn't. Shadows are definitely broken. I can't wait for new patches, I remember reading a few blue posts that say that the new graphics updates will be released through content patches. Hopefully that means more pretty, and less broken

 

Yeap that would be nice although the game settings at them moment are pretty much maxed up. To be honest, i hate shadows Even if we could set the shadows higher without that much of performance impact id probably still leave mine at "a bit bellow middle" since i dont find them realistic at all (except from the character ones).

But having max distance view sounds kinda nice.. Although not really needed