8400M GS 128mb --Starcraft 2

Hi, I am thinkingabout about getting the dell xps m1330.
The only thing that is holding me back is that I plan to play Starcraft2 quite a bit when it comes out. But i am afraid that the card might not be able to handle the game judging by the screenshots and the gameplay videos. As you guys probably know its not fun playing a online RTS when you lag like crazy and get 3 fps. I know it is kinda silly to ask this when the game is not even out yet. But will anyone be able to make an educated guess based on the gameplay videos?
Thank You in advance

 

DUDE ARE YOU KIDDING? That thing has an absolutely fine graphics card. I feel like smacking you. Being a big fan of blizzards products, you should know that Blizzard makes sure that a large audience of people are able to play on it. Unless you are looking for absolutely the highest settings, you need not worry. I have an ATI X1300 (64MB) and I know that I will for sure at least be able to meet minimum requirements.

 

World of Warcraft ftw!!! That game ruined my last two quarters of school. Sold the account for $150. Blizzard sure does make sure that the game is not only available to a large audience but also addicting as well.

 

What type of games can the GeForce 8400M GS 128mb in the new xps handle?

I would be playing games like:

Battlefield Vietnam
Star Wars: Battlefront 2
Hitman 3
Splinter Cell series

 

The 8400M GS should be able to handle most games (playing fluently in most cases I.e 30+ FPS) at somewhat reduced details (I would guess around medium ) with no AA at 1280x800. The 8400M GS is OK for casual gaming, but I wouldn't recommend it for someone looking to do some serious gaming (And i'm not talking hardcore here). However if left with a choice you should pick the 8400M GS over the 7300/7400's any day.

I'd say it is mostly suited for games which don't require high consistent FPS, such as RPG, some MMO's and some strategy games. I would avoid it if you are looking for FPS games (which you seem to be)

(Edit: Just noticed this thread where the same thing is discussed http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=140489)

 

people conceive of this usually the wrong way. the minimum requirements most likely means the game would run just barely on the lowest setting.

 

Think. Starcraft 2 is going to be very scalable, that means blizzard plans to make the most money by releasing a game that everyone can play.
Blizzards products are always scalable, Warcraft III: FT runs on an Intel GMA 830 at max settings, Diablo II was even compatible with Glide and DirectDraw

 

Exactly, even WoW is perfectly playable on a GMA 950 and can actually run on a GeForce2 MX (I've tried), one of the slowest DX7 graphics cards. I believe Blizzard has said SC2 is designed for DX9 (no a or b or c), and I wouldn't doubt that it can run on anything starting with a Radeon 9550 and be perfectly playable on any 2nd generation DX9 hardware like the GeForce 6 series and the Radeon X700, at reasonable resolutions like 1024x768. Blizzard always designs their games for the largest possible target audience, in order to make the most money, which means they can be run on almost any hardware built in the last 3-4 years.

 

You're right. I needed a laptop because my Dell Dimension was like a 6 year old piece of crap. That was the computer I played WoW on and it had an nVidia MX420 card. It played like a charm BUT it was HELL in FPS terms. I kept getting 4 FPS when ever I walked but when raiding, it was in the 30's. Blizzard does excellent to make their games as available as possible to people with outdated computers.

 

even a GMA950 would run starcraft 2.

Blizzard games are very scalable as was said.

 

Just to say what everyone else has said... Blizzards games are very scalable

 

I think the 8400M GS is excellent at FPS's. I don't know about bleeding-edge new FPS games, but it handled CSS and INSurgency very well, at high settings and over 100FPS.

I could turn my settings down to get over SIX HUNDRED (600) FPS in Counter-Strike Source actually, I took a screen and did some benchmarking in the HP forums.

 

i've tried that with the 8600gs and it doesn't get up that high =[

 

thats pretty crazy and unbelievable
my bro has the 8600gt 128mb on the macbook pro and he only gets about 60fps on the highest setting at native resolution.

for those ppl who said blizzard games are very scalable and almost any computer can play their games. I am not sure cuz I have a 2003 12inch powerbook which has the nvidia go 5200 32mb, and I have problem running W3 online. It lags every time when there is a huge battle.

 

The problem isn't your video card, its your RAM. How much RAM you got on that thing? Also, if you have dial up that may be a factor. I know this because of experience.

 

I use to play warcraft 3 on a pentium 3........

 

Yes, same here, that was my experience.

 

Thats what I meant with the 830 chipset, it ran great at max settings on a Pentium 3 1.1GHz, 512MB RAM and the Intel 830. CSS runs at high on native res at 60fps+ and the Stress Test gives me 44.5fps, this on the 6400Go on my VAIO

 

Once you turn on 16X FSAA in Crysis all bets are off, of course . Otherwise, I can image SC2 playing on very high settings with an 8400GS.

 

Can the 8400gs play Oblivion ok? I'm about to buy that game cuz I heard it is awesome, but don't want to if it won't play.

 

Low settings.. Low res, maybe 800x600.. No eye candy.. It is somewhat playable at those settings on the Go7400, according to users, so the 8400GS should be around the same..

 

Really a lot of people told me they can do 1024x768 with low-med settings on Oblivion. Darn it, so the 8400gs is a bad video card then

 

No, it's not a bad card, it just can't handle OMGWTF graphics with Oblivion. But if you were expecting that, then you shouldn't have even bothered with the 8400m in the first place.

 

Yeah, I don't want wow, i'm totally in the game graphics. I just want to be able to play it and have it not look like crap, and have it run fine, without lags etc.

Only choice was the 8400m GS for the Inspirion 1420.

 

That is so untrue. I'm sure you misheard where-ever you got that info from. Oblivion runs flawlessly with low-med settings, with shadows & AA off, on a M1210's 7400go.

And the 8400GS is about 1.8 times better than the 7400go. And if you think 8400GS is too weak to play any fps think again. Read this -

"The Nvidia GeForce Go 8400 isn't the fastest laptop GPU out there, but it's at the upper end of what you can find outside of 17-inch desktop replacement systems. We got a very playable 33.3 frames per second in Quake 4 at 1,024x768, even with high-end options such as antialiasing turned on, meaning the XPS M1330 has decent gaming chops, as long as your expectations are reasonable." - Cnet review

Link here : http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/dell-xps-m1330/4505-3121_7-32465545.html

Its starting to annoy me how people are just so shallow to comparing 8400GS to a 8600GT in terms of performance and then going to label 8400GS a bad card. If you wanna compare like that, why stop there, so a 7950 card is better then a 8600GS, so 8600GS is **** ? or 2X7950 SLI is better than a 8600GT, so 8600GT is **** ? Stop comparing cards which are meant for different size of laptops. Instead think of the overall of the pros & cons.

In my opinion, able to squeeze out so much GPU power for such a small frame plus all that battery power, is almost the perfect balance.

 

Uh... the 7950GTX is better than even the 8700 (aka 8600Ultra), the 8700 is ****

 

768 mb ram, i think my cpu is the bottleneck... its a g4 1ghz powerpc. either this or the gpu.

 

well that is not true, @ 800x600 medium with antialiasing off you can get a decent framerate on the go7400. Even better if you turn off the grass altogether. Turning off the grass gives u an absolutely smooth gameplay experience.

 

so what does it look like with grass off? i mean it's still green, just not flowy grass right?

 

If he's maxing at 60fps, he probably has vsync enabled, which is usually a good idea on LCD's. Turn it off, see what he gets. CS:S should FLY on an 8600GT. It's a pretty old game, and the 8600GT is a screamingly fast card as compared to what the game was designed for. Your 5200 on the other hand just barely counts as having acceleration. Count yourself lucky if it only lags in huge battles, and not all the time at full resolution.

 

Ohh you have your graphics up all the way? Well if so, no wonder. I used to play on a Pent 3 650 Mhz 128 MB ram and I barely kept from dropping on the loading screens, and my graphics were turned ALL the way down. If you want a good game play experience(no lag or choppiness in battle), be smart and lower your graphic settings.

 

settings don't matter
still lag online even @ lowest resolution
for old games like wc3 resolution is the only thing that matters
other settings don't make much of a difference

 

you prolly right i;ll tell him to turn off vsync and see whaqt happens

 

You are probably right, but it did make a decent amount of difference on my old machine. If its really bad, it wouldn't hurt to try.

 

So says the guy who invested in two 7950GTX cards, anyway.....

Everytime Nvidia releases a new card now, I'm sure every pissed off 7950 owner is going to show up to dispute the benchmarks, which show the contrary.