XPS M1530 and Call of Duty 4 - Lag Problem

After reviewing the posts on this forum that address COD4 problems, I still don't have a definitive answer, so I will ask the question perhaps in another way. I just last week received my 1530 and loaded COD4 on it 2 days ago. It plays well, but when the action gets intense, I get a pretty serious frame lag.

I have played around with the settings in an attempt to resolve it, but don't really know what I am doing or where to start. Can someone recommend the first few most effective settings changes?

Thanks.

Dell XPS M1530 | T8300 | 4GB RAM | 15.4" LED LCD (1440x900) | 256MB 8600M GT | 320GB 7200RPM | Vista Home Premium |

 

what settings are you using now?

 

"optimal", but I have played around with the resolution, sound, and anti-aliasing some. I just don't know if these are what I should be adjusting or if there are other settings that would be more effective at resolving this.

 

You might want to try a new graphics card driver.

 

I had thought of that, but can these be downloaded from nVidia's website? From the reading I have done there, it seems that Dell has to provide the drivers. My current driver is v 7.15.11.7431 (2/22/08).

 

Try turning off AA and V-Synch and you should see a decent increase in performance. V-Synch off will cause some "tearing" to occur probably but its not noticeable after a while and pretty much all console games have screen tearing so its obviously not a big issue for the millions of console owners out there and probably won't be for you

 

You can get drivers from http://www.laptopvideo2go.com

There is a thread on it stickied in the gaming(software and graphics card) forum.

 

The XPS is "okay" for games, but it is more of a sleek "lightweight multimedia machine" (to quote Dell).

It's good for some casual gaming too though which is always nice to have. The 8600M GT will play most games on low-medium settings and anything older like HL2 and its mods should be able to run maxxed out at 1440x900 resolution with little to no framerate lag! Episode 1 and 2 should also run at max.

COD4 I would say most settings need to be no higher than medium and turn down the shadows etc.

 

By "V-sync" do you mean "Sync every frame"? If so, both of these had already been turned off. Darn.

A Dell tech support guy remoted into my computer and attempted to update the video driver, but there is apparently nothing newer.

 

Officially you probably have the latest driver issued by Dell. On the laptopvideo2go website they are modified versions of the drivers which may or may not mprove performance.

The latest dell ones should be fine though. That's what I use and I have played a few games on my XPS with good results. Although when I first got it I admit I was expecting a little too much from the GFX card.

For COD4 try customizing the graphics options so that you can turn some settings down to their lowest, I would suggest putting shadows down to their lowest settings as they aren't that important anyway, and make sure that nothing is set to high at all.

I think that you have them on optimal and that just sets it to what the game thinks your system should be able to handle? But usually it is too generous when evaluating your system (this is the case with most games that suggest settings to you).

I only have COD4 for the PS3 and 360 (and it runs a solid 60fps on consoles) but I have been wanting to get COD4 for a while. I'll get it tomorrow and let you know what sort of performance I get from it and try to figure out the best custom settings.

 

I look forward to hearing your results. Keep in mind that I only have this frame-lag problem when the action gets intense, and that did not occur until I was a good ways into the single-player game. I have not yet tried it in the multi-player mode.

 

basskiddanny - Did you ever purchase COD4?