M1530 PERFORMANCE TEST - 7 Games with ingame pics

Seeing as the XPS M1530 is advertised as a powerful yet compact computer I figured that a decent performance test with ingame screenshots and fps-tests would be appropriate. I have tested 7 games with my M1530 system that I am now sharing.

SYSTEM: Dell XPS M1530 Black|2.2GHz|WSXGA+|8600M GT 256MB DDR3|2GB RAM|160GB 7200rpm.|VISTA 32bit| Ordinary Clock speed with NVIDIA Forceware 169.28 driver
GAMES: Bioshock, Crysis, Command & Conquer 3, Oblivion, Call of Duty 4, World in Conflict & The Witcher.
SETTINGS: Target resolution is 1280*800 with the highest graphics settings without compromising game performance through unacceptable fps-rate. The minimum fps rate that has been set to standard during these tests are 20fps. Through personal preference, some gaming experiences may be less than optimal at these rates. This guide should therefore not be considered a guide for the optimal graphics settings but as a performance test.
PROGRAMS: Fraps

3dMark06 results with system: 4408



The picture quality has been decreased to be more browser friendly.
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Bioshock
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Resolution: 1280*800
Graphics: MAX
FPS: 30-50



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Call of Duty 4
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Resolution: 1280*800
Graphics: MAX
FPS: 20-50



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Command & Conquer 3
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Resolution: 1280*800
Graphics: MAX
FPS: 25-30



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Crysis
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Resolution: 1024*768
Graphics: MEDIUM
FPS: 20-30



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Oblivion
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Resolution: 1280*800
Graphics: HIGH
FPS: 25-60



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The Witcher
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Resolution: 1280*800
Graphics: HIGH
FPS: 20-30



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World in Conflict
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Resolution: 1280*800
Graphics: MEDIUM
FPS: 20-30



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Need For Speed Prostreet
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Resolution: 1280*800
Graphics: MAX
FPS: 20-35



Reader additions:

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Conterstrike source
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Resolution: 1400*900
Graphics: MAX
FPS: 90-300

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Unreal Tournament III
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Resolution: 1280*800
Graphics: MAX
FPS: 30-55


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CONCLUSION
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I must say that their claims were not false. This computer is very much so capable of playing the most recent games with good results. It is ofcourse not comparable with the extreme gaming notebooks or desktops, but for people who does not wish to make a trade off between performance and mobility, this is a great choice.

Comments, questions and rep is appriciated

 

Excellent review, this really is convincing me in selling my 1420 and getting a 1530...

My congratulations for such a good review, thanks for all the effort. Rep!

 

cheers for taking the time you've taken to do that, good job!

cant wait to order mine although im from malta(eu) and can't find a place to order it from, hoping that ocuk get it into stock soon ;p if anyone knows any reliable eu online pc websites please inform me

 

Ya...gotta concede...well deserved and ya gottem from me as well.

 

Good post. Definitely gives people insight on what to expect. Are you using modded graphics drivers by the way or the dell drivers? Thanks in advance.

 

modded drivers is the way to go.

 

Thanks for the positive feedback

DOS3, I use Nvidia 192.28, I have edited the article with a link, Thank you for pointing it out =)

 

Glad to see you did the performance tests. Id just like to add a few from my own personal experience, these are with the most updated dell drivers

World of warcraft at 1440x900 max 65- 250 fps

Conterstrike source at 1400x900 max 90- 300 fps

 

Gave you +rep, good screenshots.

 

Great, I have added them to the article

 

Fantastic post. I've been dieing to see these numbers. Can't wait to try it out with TF2 and Unreal Tournament too. Will send numbers to add to your list. Rep for you!

 

thanks lindstroem...exactly what i wanted to see....kind of disappointed with the crysis performance though (i run everything on high on my PC at 1680x1050 with an ATI HD3850 so i was expecting a little better from the 8600M GT)

 

kboyer, Thank you. It's great if you gather figures from those games as well. The longer list the better =)

sticky101, I usually run Medium/High settings when I have my GPU overclocked by 21-22% (max temp 77 celcius after about 1-2 hours of game). If that helps to know

 

great job. if u have any more games post pics of them too!!

 

Start O/Cing the gpu. Its very capable with lots of head room. You should get a nice 15-20% boost in overall performance. Should help with your min frames and allow you to increase your details.

 

I call bull**** on that statement. Please prove that you can run it high on everything at 1680x1050. Hell my 8800GT can't and it smokes the 3850.

 

Great work here, thanks for your time and effort!

 

Nice going! Decent numbers and confirmation of a solid card! Now I'm just wishing for a better screen res.

 

Thank you.
I thought that 1440*900 and 1680x1050 would be about the maximum resoulution one could need on 15.4" screen.

 

Just thought I'd throw in my 2 cents.

I have an Asus G1S with the 8600 DDR3 version as well and I get conflicting results.

Bioshock I can play smoothly only with shadow maps and real time reflection turned off. It is playable with them on, but fps drops dramatically with a few enemies on screen as well as around areas with more detail.

Oblivion - I don't think you can consider those "max" settings. What is your grass distance turned to? Even at 5-10 clicks, the game becomes very, very choppy. Even with the other draw distances to max, it slows down a lot when traveling around. I keep tree distance near max but the others closer to the middle and grass either off or only a few clicks to keep it playable when in the wilderness parts...

CNC3 - The fps is capped at 30fps and anything below is noticeable. When there are many units on screen or explosions, my fps definitely drops below 25.. probably to 18 or so. Even at high settings this happens... shadow detail kills the fps.

Anyways, not saying you are lying, but I've just had some more time to experiment and these are my results in the same games. Good work on testing and posting your results, though!

 

Thank you for the complementing remarks. I only visited the world of oblivion shortly so it could be safe to say that you are right on that remark. Would you recommend changing the setting to Medium or High instead?

Regarding bioshock and CNC3 however; I´ve played bioshock all the way past medic department without noticing a dramatic fps-drop. During which i encountered atleast 3-4 enemies simontaniously. Same with CNC3 where Ive only during brief moments encountered fps near 20 where I do find the game running quite fluently (of course are +25fps preferable). Don't know how severely your gameplay is affected but this could just be a matter of personal preference.

EDIT: Will add pics and data from NFS Prostreet tomorrow

 

Unreal Tournament III 1280*800 max 30-55 fps.
2.0Ghz, 8600M GT 256MB, 2.5GB Ram

 

Very good information and very precise. I have one question for Oblivion: did you maxed all the parameters? (including shadows and grass).

Thanks.

 

Thank you so much for the screenshots, this made me feel much better about just getting the DDR2 version of 8600m GT. Seems to me the differences between the 2 cards are small enough to be ignored. On the OC aspect GDDR3 is still better but I could careless.

 

Hey, great work lindstroem. I just recently bought the 1530 with the 1680x1050 screen resolution, and I was just wondering how Bioshock specifically looks when played at less than native resolutions. Of all the games, that's the one I'm most interested in.

 

Proof:


btw i have a 512MB PowerColor ATI HD3850 slightly overclocked...my friend who has the 8800GT was also pretty surprised by my GPU (and a little sad cuz he spent $150 more for it )...i have no idea why it performs better because all the benchmarks indicate that the 8800GT does in fact smoke the 3850

 

DTTM, I have added UTIII to the list, thanks

lozanogo, No I noticed that all these settings were infact not maxed. I have therefore downgraded Oblivion graphic settings to HIGH

 

My card is not yet using the LV2GO drivers, its just windows update on them, and, HELL, it runs crysis real good on high, avg. 15-20 fps.

very high? it stutters... a lot... 5-15 fps.

forgot to mention im running it on DX10 mode by default... is there any noticeable improvement on dx9? how do i switch to dx9? T_T

 

In the original start menu on Vista, you have a tab called "Games". Click on it and you should be able to locate Crysis. Right click on Crysis and select PlayDX9. You should be able to see some difference depending on the graphics card.

 

or add -dx9 to the shortcut.

 

nvm...
just tested it....
its almost"""
the same...

meh.

 

how can you get this new driver? the download in the link you provided doesnt seem to work

 

look for 'em at www.laptopvideo2go.com

 

ForceWare 192.28 driver or 169.28 ???

Another Q: 169.28 or 169.25 ?

 

Strange, just tested the link and it worked for me.

nVIDIA ForceWare X 169.28 for Windows Vista 32bit
www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum --> Release 160 drivers --> Poll: v169.28 Vista 32bit |

Direkt link : http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=16679

 

I wish the framerates were a little more consistent. Has anyone tried any of the other laptopvideo2go drivers. I heard 169.28 is good, but I've also heard 169.21, 169.09 and 169.04 are pretty good as well and in certain cases more provide more stable performance, but that performance might be on a game to game basis. I still haven't grasped the whole concept of uninstalling old drivers and putting in new modded ones. If anyone has seen better results from other drivers, info on that would be much appreciated.

 

This thread states that the 169.04 is the best driver out:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=209168

I will actually try the 169.04 and compare it to the 4408p I get with 169.28

 

Oh my mistake, I was wondering how those drivers might affect performance for the 1530. It seems like you're on it lindstroem. Good stuff.

 

I tried the 169.04 driver and i got more or less the same results in 3dmark06. Unsure about the fps in games though. Keeping it for now =)

 

Ok then when I install the graphics driver I'll install 169.28. Thanks for giving it a shot lindstroem.

 

hmm the reader's addition screen shots didn't come up

 

If you are refering to Sticky's screenshots; They are not taken with a notebook M1530 but with a desktop computer.

 

good stuff!!!

 

where Can I Get List Of All Drivers

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=193815

 

Cool review! I just got by m1530 last friday and I love it.
160G HD, 2.2GHz, 3g DDR, Vista 32x, j.black.

 

Nice =) Corrected Witcher to High instead of max

 

do all the games seem smooth at the settings u play

 

Yes, the settings in the tests are the ones I currently run and I've not experienced any noticable fps-drops during gameplay. I do however run the computer overclocked now with a 3dmark06 result (1280*800) of 5200p from the Performance test where I ran unclocked but there should be no considerable difference between these as I tested all the game during a short period of time when i grabbed the screen shots.

 

lindstroem how did u get such a high 3dmark score (without overclocking) the score u mentioned on ur original post.

i get around 3954 with the 169.28 drivers, were u using the 1280*800 resoloution for 3dmark