DELL XPS M1710 Problem/Question

I just got my dell XPS M1710 today. I'm using it right now in fact.

It came with a 512 Mb 7950 GTX card, 2gig RAM and with T7200. It's on XP.

I just tried playing Age of Empries 3 on this laptop with the highest resolution, however, if I put it on 1900 by 1200, the game lags severly. Only when I take it down to 1600 by 1200 is it playable.

I thought the XPS with this graphics card could handle games at the highest setting - is there a problem with this laptop, or did I overestimate this laptop's capabilities?

 

I don't know this game and how heavy it is to run, but 1600x1200 allready is a very high resolution for games in general. Have you tried running a benchmark program like 3DMark06 so you can check if your system is performing like it should? You can download a free version on the futuremark website.
If you're still running with out of the box (video) drivers upgrading them might be a good idea to.

 

I've got a similar 1710, but with the 7900GS (256 mb)

Anyway, i can play Call of Duty 2 and Civ 4 on 1900x1200 res at high fps, but i don't know the requirements for your game. Might want to turn AA off, and upgrade the drivers. Might also want to check for programs running in the background, and try playing off with it plugged in to see if it is just not letting the hardware do its job.

 

Hey there, I'm kinda new at all this stuff so I'll need a lil more help.

Perhaps it's a driver thing, as I have only taken this laptop out the box few hours ago.

Where can I get a new driver, and how do I put in on my computer? What driver would I need. I'm planning to get games like Battlefield 2 and Fear in the next few weeks; so will I need to keep getting different drivers for each game? What driver would you recommend....

I'm also wondering whether I should have gotten Vista or not .. oh well, too late to change I guess.

 

You don't need different drivers for each game. You only need to update drivers if the ones you have aren't performing the way you want.

Most people are getting their drivers here
http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/

I guess you'd go here and get the ones for 32-bit Vista
http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/drivers/vista

I forget what has to be done with the inf file, but you may need the inf in order to install the main drivers.

 

One more question for now I guess:

How do I check what driver I have at this moment?


I should really write a review on this XPS. So far..my expectations have been much higher than what I've experienced with it.

I have a much older 15.4 inch Sony Viao from 2004 (with a crappy graphics card but cost around $4500 back then), but it feels much more .. well-built you could say. Also the keyboard on that is much easier to use than this one.

Thanks for the links btw chelet.

 

You can check your driver version in either Device Manager or by using dxdiag.

You can find them by typing
device manager
or
dxdiag
in the Start menu box.

If you use dxdiag, info on your drivers will be on the Display tab of dxdiag.