Took the plunge and ordered an m17x

Does it have vista compatibility?

 

Yup, so they claim. I've left a note on their forum in case anyone there has any ideas.

 

Congrats Jimmo,
i'm using 179.13 drivers and Crysis and Crysis Warhead both play very well on high settings on my M17X with SLI enabled.

 

Thanks tanamerra! I'll try out new drivers shortly.

A couple of extra notes as I learn about my new system...

I was getting great fps rates in COD4, from the 60's to nudging 200 - except for one place, the misty field in the "Blackout" level where we meet Kamarov. This ground along at a mere 9-10 fps with all the settings maxed and at 1600x1200. The "force alternate frame rendering 2" suggestion in the SLI guide from Stone helped bring this up to 18-20, which isn't great - but aside from that small sequence the rest of the game screams.

Stone's suggestion also helped make the Crysis single player demo quite playable, albeit at 1280x1024 with all the settings on max except antialiasing, which was at 4x (as opposed to 8x).

Now I have Vista behaving more or less in a civilized manner, I must say I'm really starting to enjoy this laptop very much indeed. There are a couple of niggles, which may not matter to other folks...

1. The quality of the RealTek HD audio is rather mediocre - this is particularly noticeable when plugging in top quality headphones. It's fine for general purpose use but, as a musician, it's a bit disappointing (especially given the premium price tag).

2. No ASIO driver bundled and ASIO4ALL doesn't seem able to work with the integral HD audio device. Ever been distracted trying to talk on a long distance call when you hear your own voice echo a moment after you've spoken? Well, the latency without ASIO is just like that when you try playing in real-time with an instrument connected to the PC.

I plan to work around both problems 1 and 2 by buying an external USB audio device - a better integral audio system would have been nice for this price but I don't want to make much of a fuss about that...integral audio on laptops is notoriously crappy across the board.

3. The keyboard. It's a good keyboard and it's nice to have the numpad However, the design of the m17x is naturally pretty large and the keyboard is set back quite a way, behind a large illuminated mouse touch pad (more on that later). This means you have an acre of plastic slab to rest your wrists on...not bad, although the leading front edge of the base can start to cut in to your forearms after long periods of use.

The main issue I have with the keyboard is the translucent key markings. I didn't get the AlienFX keyboard option, so there are no christmas lights behind my keys...but the keyboard isn't marked with white markings on black, its the translucent one for use with illumination.

This makes the keyboard markings very hard to see in dim light (imagine dark grey markings on black keys). With hindsight, I wish I had gone for the illuminated keyboard so I could see what keys I'm pressing without needing a 100watt light bulb over my head.

4. The mouse touch pad. I like that it's big and that it's illuminated. It's very easy to get the fleshy parts of the palms of your hand (below the thumb) touching on it when you are typing, which can be annoying when it sends the mouse cursor off for a long holiday somewhere. Also the rocker switch mouse buttons are ok but not great. Simple fix - use an external mouse and disable the touch pad.

Put into perspective these are all just minor niggles - the only ones I really care about are the ASIO/audio and the translucent keyboard markings.

 

Jimmo,
Have also used the 178.15 drivers. They also work pretty well. Going to try the "force rendering option 2". Never tried that. What else in Vista did you tweak? i am always looking to eliminate things to increase memory and improve performance. But not a geek so i do not want to screw around with anything too complex.