M17X with FSX

Hello all! First post here, and I have a couple questions. First off, I ordered mine on the 26th of June, and have an EDD on 22 July. Fine by me, I guess. Here are the specs, then to the questions....

Intel® Core™2 Duo P8700 2.53GHz (3MB Cache, 1066MHz FSB)
4GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1066MHz
17-inch WideXGA+ 1440x900 (900p)
Single NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 260M, 1GB
250GB 7,200RPM w/ Free Fall Protection

I will only be using this for FSX (and couple other mild games) and surfing the net on the big screen tv. FSX works fine on my XPS420 with 2g of ram, so I am just wondering if anyone else has played FSX on this laptop with close to these specs? Also, has anyone else used it on a big screen (60" HDTV/LCD)?

I kept it pretty much bare bones as it's only going to be used for FSX at the most, and can upgrade later if need be. I also asked about this on a FSX site, an a lot of people said that they had the dual cards, but disabled the other as it slowed the fps down running duals. Didn't make sense to me, so I thought I would ask the experts here.

Thanks in advance for your help and opinions!!!

 

I know Moo has a similiar system too that... I have used countless PC's on my 46" samsung LCD HDTV 1080p, and It always looks so fantastic so I think you'll be ok

 

size of the tv doesn't matter ... the laptop will run Modern games on HIGH with ease and 1080 p it should run them Med-high.

The 260m GTX is actually a die shrunk 9800m GTX

 

Welcome to the forum Icepirate!

You should be able to use both cards for better performance no problem.

I played FSX with my M9750 with dual 7950M GTX's and used a projector to display the game.

It was just like playing any other game. One card worked but with both cards the was a small performance increase.

The key with FSX is to have the most powerful processor you can afford. It's not a multi-threaded game so by powerful I mean clocks.

If FSX is your main reason for getting this rig then I suggest you order it with the cheapest processor and then purchase an X9100.

Although FSX is not optimized for SLI, dual graphics cards will yield improvements if your processor is fast enough.

 

I haven't received my M17x yet, but it seems to me that FSX is not yet optimized for 2xx cards, and definetely does not support SLI. You'll have to tweak the driver settings.

 

A Tom's Hardware article I wrote about (can't link, as per forum rules) said that it was more like an 8800 GTS. It's pretty shocking really, seeing how much NVIDIA can get out of us for just a name. Makes me wonder why those notebook cards are still so darn expensive.

 

thats why i usually get ATI.....

 

desktop 8800 gts?

 

because you hate having good driver support and you prefer the game developers to work with the competition instead?

 

I like ATI driver service and my 3870's played every game i got

I think the 4870's don't need a biased game they can play it any way

 

The only reason that game developers work with nVidia is because their cards make up the majority of the market, at least where desktops are concerned. (They also own most of the laptop market but I don't think they own quite as much where laptops are concerned) If people knew the BS that nVidia do then ATI would easily be ruler by now. I mean, nVidia rebrand their cards (*cough* desktop 8800GT and 9800GT *cough*), their mobile versions aren't based off their desktop versions (as has been said, 280M is just a die shrunk 8800GTS desktop card) whereas ATI do not rebrand cards and their mobile cards are actually based off the desktop cards, e.g. the mobility 3870 is actually based on the desktop 3870, moblilty 4870 is actually based on the desktop 4870...

nVidia, in my opinion, will eventually lose because of this.

In terms of driver support...I don't see why people always say ATI driver support is worse. Yes they don't really release mobile versions of their drivers but that's what mobility modder is for therefore it's not a problem. And ATI cards constantly improve with new drivers.

 

I completely agree, the new ATI cards hopefully DDR5 will kill... but remember whenever ATI releases something Nvidia ins't far behind with it's card that usually crushes it... The Nvidia 3xxxm chipset may be a competitor, but we'll see.. if not IM ALL IN FOR 4870's!

 

touchy subject...lol

 

Yes when it comes to Nvidia vs ATI tread lightly .

 

Don't worry AMD is used to playing second fiddle. (yes I like poking angry dogs with sharp sticks)

Ok, I'm done.

 

Do you suppose that when ATI does release a mobile 4870 they will be compatible with the m17x, or does the m17x use an nvidia chipset that would prevent such an upgrade?