Dell XPS m1530 just not performing

Hey guys, I've been running my m1530 for about six months now, and frankly I am just not impressed with performance. The only current game it seems to be able to run at a decent rate is Civilization 4, or the orange box (and I realize the half life 2 engine is not a "current" engine, at all). When it comes to Warhammer Online, Company of Heroes, Age of Conan, or World in conflict it really can't handle any of them, and it doesn't matter what the settings are, almost all of these games are just as sluggish at medium-high settings as they are at low settings with every last feature shut off. The only setting that seems to have any apparently effect on performance in the games is the resolution. The screen I got with it is a 1680x1050 screen, and when playing at the reduce 1440x900 and 1280x800 it does play better (still sluggish, ) and it looks like absolute a$$!

The important specs on it are as follows
T8300 CPU
8600gt GPU
4gb RAM
1680x1050 Screen

I've tried installing Windows XP to see if performance would get any better, but after battling with sound drivers for a day, gave up on that fight. I've tried beta drivers, I've tried different drivers from laptopvideo2go.com with modified .inf files. I'm running out of areas to look, is the GPU just a pos, should I sent it in for replacement?

I can understand Warhammer and World in Conflict not running at their best, their both resource hogs of games, and on a mobile chipset it could get a bit sluggish. But Company of Heroes, a game released....two years ago, should at least run slug free at low to medium settings. The biggest performance gain I got from Company of Heroes settings was changing the Shader Quality from Direct3D 10 to High, I assume that means it would be rendering in directx 9 instead of 10, that increased my framerate by about 125%.

If anybody could offer me some advice that would be greatly appreciated, I'm banging my head against the wall when a new computer with decent specs, can't keep up with my 2.5 year old desktop I replaced with the laptop. If you need any other information just ask, I'll be more then happy to oblige.

*Edit* I might be able to blame heat issues a bit, I've just been running some world in conflict benchmarks with different settings, and the same test ran from idle (low heat) and already running with a hot GPU gets a much lower score.

 

Your expectations are too high basically.

-Its a laptop GPU.
-When it was launched, it was mid-range (ie higher than the 8400m but lower than 8700m/8800m.
-And the card is already well over a year old.

Also 1650x1080 is a pretty high res to be gaming at (for a year-old mid-range laptop GPU) so thats another reason your performance won't be good.

You should run 3DMark06 and see what your score is. If its normal (ie probably 4600 (+/-) with official drivers, theres nothing wrong with your card, the problem is with your expectations.

 

I run WiC at 1200x800 (don't recall the exact resolution) on medium settings at an average of 30 FPS. I have a 1530 with an 8600m GT and 3 gb ram. Have you tried using the non-dell nvidia drivers? I think I'm using 176 or 178 (iirc). They made a huge difference. Before changing the drivers, I couldn't seem to run WiC at more than 15-20 fps, even on low settings.

 

8600gt GPU are all bad Dell's new BIOS solved nothing, ok most are bad. Its obviously not performing up to snuff.

Have DELL replace it in 30 days when something new comes out, for the XPS line.

Look at the guy in the other Studio forum, Dell extended his warranty.

 

this is the reason I think I will stick with the 1280 x 800 display. The system will run games quite well at this rez, and because it is the display's native resolution, the picture quality appears quite sharp.

What you have is a fantastic screen that prob looks amazing whilst watching DVD's and HD content, but when it comes to playing games the system just cant output at those levels. When the system scales the image to fit your display's pixel count, you get that slightly ugly looking distortion.

 

If I were you I would read the posts on the first page regarding heat issues, make sure you don't have a heat problems by measuring temps with Hardware Montitor, and post those temps here, correct any problems, and then see what your performance is like.

Alot of people don't realize that when they are playing a game, which was flowing along nicely, then suddenly the frame rate hits the dirt, that the GPU is downclocking as a result of thermal intervention.

Edit: here are two links to posts regarding heat and performance/lifetime
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=336917
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=336462

We're trying to get to the bottom of this and as far as the question of which heatsink is the best revision, the answer does not exist anyware on the internet as far as I know. Hopefully we will have an answer soon. When my heatsink arrives I will document my findings.

 

I don't know if Mythic has solved the issue yet, but Warhammer Online doesn't seem to run well on lots of desktop systems with beefy graphics cards.

 

I was able to play AoC with medium settings very well. Too bad the game sucked, tho' and never renewed past 3 months of play time.

 

Just an update guys, I've finally put on Windows XP 64-bit with working drivers, installed 175.80 from laptopvideo2go.com and my performance has skyrocketed. Warhammer Online is now playing nicely at 1440x900 @ medium settings, WiC is playing at 1440x900 @ low settings, and Company of Heroes is playing at 1680x1050 @ Medium/High settings. I really have a hard time complaining about performance now that I'm starting to see decent frames at decent settings. Scored 4100 on 3dmark 06.

But for some reason my performance in games drops back to the ****ter after the computer gets shut down a few times. I reinstall the video drivers, and its good to go... Is this just an issue with the 64bit OS and the 32bit drivers?

As for heat issues, I've blown out the fan with an air compressor and noticed my temperatures drop nicely, I can actually use my laptop in my laptop without padding from the scalding temperature.

I'm finally getting performance in my expected levels, and I couldn't be any happier.

 

Thought: Do you have "High Performance" mode enabled in the Vista power settings? This will ensure your video card is utilized to it's full potential.

 

Yes i was using it in "high performance" power mode in the vista power settings, performance never changed.

 

Post your 3DMark06 on 1280x1024.
Also you could/should download newest DOX drivers + you can safely overclock to 550~600/900/750 which should give you +25% boost.