just purchased XPS 1530, thought I would mention a few things to people looking to buy

I have been quite impressed. I ended up spending a little over £750.00 for an 8300 @ 2.4 Ghz and 3 Gb RAM with the 8600M GT.

I put it through its paces on a few games - I have no full FPS details for each, just some general information that I would have found useful when buying it.

1 - Bioshock initially was terrible - it had a continual hitch occuring every few seconds. Soon discovered that such problems could be rectified with a simple addition to the user.ini for the game (something to do with texture-streaming) it worked like a charm and easily on par with my desktop 6600 @ 2.4 Ghz with nvidia 7950 (although admittedley at lower res because of the limits imposed by the screen).

4.5 / 5 - I suspected it to be at least a little poor (especially after my first few attempts at playing it), but after the fix, and with it mostly on high settings it played like a charm

2 - Crysis - I didnt buy this laptop to play Crysis on, but I thought I would try it out. Medium settings - 800 x 600: ands its more than playable with FPS of 25-30+. I put it on max resolution the screen could cope with (1280 x 800) and all on max and had a staggering 1-5 FPS lol

3.5 / 5 - did better than I expected, but really at 800 x 600 and medium settings and, well, you are kinda missing the point of Crysis!

3 - Warhammer Online - I didnt have much hope here either, because the game is suffering from a few memory leaks as I understand it. In certain zones on my desktop the game runs like a hog and in others it is as smooth as silk. Not surprisingly my laptop had the same issues. Its about as good as you are going to get, and some people with UBER machines are encountering the same problems, so it is hard to judge.

x / 5 - not really fair to judge as the game needs optimising - the laptop performed as well as can be expected. Its no surprise to me that my RAM was in need of a good scrub after a short time playing WAR.

HINTS n TIPS:-

Some general hints and tips for you now, if you have just got your XPS 1530.

1 - you need to update the graphics drivers to the most recent certified nvidia - I didnt realise until after buying it that Dell push you towards using their own modded drivers ... but if you go to:- http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/ you will find all you need to use most recent nvidia drivers (by installing a modded inf alongside it). Really ... play about with different drivers. You will be amazed at how differently they all perform. The drivers that came installed were by far not the optimum.

2- I noticed an additional 5-10 FPS when clearing RAM with appropriate software (some form of memory manager). It made the difference of Crysis being playable and not playable. You can achieve the same by restarting the laptop after it has been on for a long time I suppose, as this should clear the RAM as well.

3 - enter msconfig (using RUN command) and look into limiting the amount of programs that start up automatically. Again, this frees up an awful lot of available performance. You dont need Dell QuickSetup or Dell Dock or Dell etc etc etc running - they just take up vital memory. Dont go disabling things you dont know about, but there is some performance to be gained by looking into this.

VALUE - 8/10: you can get cheaper laptops but genuinely I thought the Dell offer was a fair one.

PERFORMANCE - 8.5/10 - this isnt your power-house of a laptop but it is really good for someone looking for a genuine all rounder

DESIGN 9/10 - having spent some time looking at others on the market I genuinely like its simple and elegant design. Its not gimicky and has a nice feel to it.

SOUND 6.5/10 - its a laptop - you are gonna need earphones tbh

CUSTOMER SERVICE - 8.5/10 - delivered 10 days after ordered - pretty helpful so far. Time will tell I suppose

OVERALL - 8.5/10 - more than happy with it so far! Thanks Dell!

 

Congrats.. enjoy your system...

And Welcome To NBR

 

yes i haveto agree with the Warhammer comments, take its performance with a pinch of salt, i didnt know about the memory leaks but it doesnt perform that great on the high end desktop here over the weekend im sure it will improve alot though or it better

Wow plays just fine on mine, i loaded my account onto and played a little bit in bed, i know people will say wow isnt that intensive but it destroyed my old desktop in big raids and cities a few patches ago so it does need a decent amount of power to run and my m1530 was just fine.

Im not a fps player but i read somewhere it will play crysis warhead fine too.

I love this lappy btw, worth every penny and grats on yours

 

Kudo's on your purchase!!! :yes: Welcome to the XPS and NBR family

And, thanks for your comments, about the 1530!


Cin

 

the 1530 is great as long as people dont over estimate how good the 8600 GT is. Its perfect 4 casual games and yes runs crysis warhead okay too which is great! Jst dnt expect to max out games other than older ones like HL2 and ul b fine.

XPS is a sweet laptop!