Gaming problems

So I finally received my m1530 yesterday (ordered on 7/5), and spent much of yesterday doing the typical gruntwork, removing bloatware, tweaking msconfig a little, and transferring files and programs.

Today for the first time, I experimented checking out the gaming capabilities of my new lappy, so I installed steam and some of the games on my account.

HL2 opened up fine, but none of the other source games work! I keep getting "hl2.exe has stopped working" and the details quote some shader9xx.dll driver problem or something. I searched the web for answers, but none of the "fixes" worked; i.e. I don't have AIM installed, yes I can access network/internet connections, yes I have DEP off. But apparently this is a common problem so I'm not so swift to blame it on the laptop itself of course.

However, I then opened up Bioshock, and right off the bat it runs horribly. I even put it on all low graphics settings just to be sure, and there was no change in performance. I can get about 3-4 seconds of normal but slightly sluggish movement in, then it stops for about a second and repeats the cycle.

I don't think it's temperature, because my GPU reached a max of 63 C during that entire ordeal of doing that for about an hour. And I don't think it's the drivers, because after that I went around installing bunches of new ones (even some unstable ones that caused me to BSOD), and it didn't change performance.

Does anybody have any idea how to fix either of the above problems? It would be greatly appreciated

 

Try some older and more stable GFX drivers...

 

You don't think the ones that came with the notebook are stable enough? Don't the manufacturer's usually err on the side of stability rather than performance?

 

Usually... though they don't update that frequent, so sometimes they get behind. I've been out of the loop on the video drivers side of things for awhile though; I don't even know what the most current drivers are ATM.

 

What gpu do you have, and have you played any games other than Bioshock?

 

8600gt ddr3, 4gb ram, t9300

I should be able to run it just fine. I can run HL2 just fine, it's just the source games I have the other error with. **** steam.

 

I can't help you with Steam, those games have always run fine on my 1530.

However, I did have similar problems with Bioshock, which were solved by disabling Cyberlink Power Cinema (pcmservice.exe) on startup. I believe this is what runs Media Direct, but I'm not certain. I have no idea why this conflicts with Bioshock, but it did the trick for me.

I would also recommend updating your Sigmatel audio drivers while you're at it; the old drivers caused me problems with other games (e.g. LOTRO).

Hope this helps.

 

i have the 174.31 drivers, and i can play cs:source on steam just fine...however, i've only played it like 4 times, and 3 of the 4 times, clicking "quit" on cs:source menu, the screen just is blank like cs:source hangs up and i can't get back to desktop. even ending all steam processes w/ task manager doesn't work, and i end up either restarting thru task manager or re-logging in.......

i need a fix, happen to anyone else?

 

haha what a coincidence, those are the drivers I ended up with before I read your post, and now bioshock runs fine; on all highs I get at least 20fps, my 3dmark06 score is 4521, and CoD4 runs even better (I don't understand this, CoD4 looks a lot better and I thought it was a more demanding game), but I get like 40fps in that.

So basically my problems are solved except for the steam problem. Again, I looked around on the internet a lot about it and I am 100% sure it's a steam account problem not a problem with the 1530 config.

 

haha nice...hmm i dont have bioshock or anything, but on cs:source (same engine as hl2) i get nearly 150 fps and more (depending on the area of map) which i was amazed at, because i only get about 40-60 on my desktop (radeon x300)...its nice to play at that speed. i hope starcraft 2 is like that.


im still having that problem with steam as well. its like quitting cs:source freezes the application itself, but not the system. I can use task manager, close programs, but i just cant get to the desktop... sucks man. can anyone fix this :cry: