Aoe 3/m170/noob...

Hi geniouses, I just got my xps m170 yesterday(WOW!), and I wanted to play AOE 3 demo.When it starts loading up the error message says: "Initialization failed- old or corrupted graphics driver, hardware acceleration disabled(how do I enable if disabled?), or starting the application with workstation locked(dont think thats it)."
My forceware driver is 78.30, bios-5.7.0.02.19.12, and I just installed Directx 9c.
Sadly I am a noob at computer games(recent convert), could some one walk me through the updating process for my 7800 gtx/m170?
All help is welcome and I look forward to learning.
Thank you all!

 

there is nothing wrong with your graphics card or your drivers. its just that the aoe3 demo is jacked up. this is what you have to do...

1. go into your documents and delete the my games/aoe3 folder
2. change your resolution to 1024x768
3. load up the game
4. change the resolution of the game to what you want (most likely your native reso)
5. quit the game and change the desktop reso back to your native or your prefered setting
6. load the game and you should be able to play it.

i suggest you get the aoe3 full version, cuz the aoe3 demo has some bugs in it. have fun

 

Brilliant! Worked like a charm. What a pos demo, they better make up for it with the retail.
I knew you all would help asap...Great forum...Notebookreview is.
I'm still open to any and all help on my PC gaming journey,
Cheers,
I23

ps-what are the bugs and are they dangerous?

 

How do you like the M170?
How much did you pay?
WHat options (vid card etc)?

I just cancelled my 9300 so I could get the M170 instead.
Still working out the pricing.

 

I'm in love/lust...the XPS m170 runs sh$te.
With the 30% discount I paid $2600 including tax and shipping.
As you can see in my siggy, its pretty maxed out...except for the processor, I didnt think the meazly+ .26Ghz was worth the extra $300 or whatever.
Get the free 100GB 5.4k hd if still available, max out your memory to 2GB, and deffinately get the Nvidia 7800 gtx gpu(you'll be glad you did).
Choose the rest of the options that suit your situation best.
...I was a worried the LCD would dissapoint with the light leakage and what not, but my screen couldnt be more perfect(really!).
IMO you made a wise choice by upgrading your laptop, you'll love it.
When you finally get it make sure you update you bios via the Dell download page(and keep it updated every 15 to 30 days).
...my system came with the old A04 bios and limited my 2Ghz processor to 800Mhz!( I almost sh@t myself)
Do not expect anything from the customer service though, utterly useless Malasyian tools...
Cheers and enjoy!
I23

edit s-Be very stiff with the customer service at all levels...it pays off...free upgrade to next day shipping from ground and a meazly $50 "concesion" credit in my case...lolwtfbbq

 

Thanks for the info.

I am using this to replace my aging desktop AMD 2500+ and want it to last me till the VISTA systems come out. I love gaming and if I can get a high performance gaming rig in a laptop I am happy.

 

Am I the only one who doesnt give an F about Vista?
Whats so great about it...enlighten me

 

From my limited understanding the new chip technology that will accompany it will completely revolutionize the way programers write games and physics engines. The ammount of instructions that will be able to run in a given string will increase exponentially. What this ultimately means for games is more realistic physics than we currently have. Programers are still not happy with the lack of realism in current game physics.

 

haha i think vista has some features that takes control fully of the new chips out there. and its also suppose to be more "secure" i dont know. lol windows always tends to have leaks and crap haha. thats why there are so much patches and security updates for xp. and it didnt change that much so thats why i'm not really into it.

 

...Windows...Secure..thats rich...Bill Gates is laughing all the way to the bank.

 

I just downloaded the A05 bios from the dell site and ran it from my hard drive. It's a nice floppyless utility and now the proc reports properly.

I'm only bummed out because 2 weeks after I received my xps, dell started offering the 7800 gtx and 4 weeks after that the 30% off coupons started showing up again.

In regards to hard drives, you should really go with the 7200 rpm drives. Yes, they're more but you'll get better disk access times when loading games and resources. I went with the 60 gb 7200 rpm drive instead of the 80 gb 5400 because of that.

 

I suppose its a matter of taste, but my 5400 rpm hd seems plenty fast...
and that 60 Gig Hd is gonna fill up real fast! :decision:

...To those in the know(you know who you are...), how hot does your XPS gen2 or m170 get when running a GPU intensive game plus using your resources for all the other running processes(such as firewall, AV, ect).
Mine seems to get quite hot...between warm/hot and scary melting metal hot.
I will be getting a laptop cooler asap(though I havent found an ideal cooler for this 17" beast.
Could one of you fine gentelman lead to some information regarding setting up a seperate user setting for gaming only.
I know you'll come through.
I23

 

OK I just placed my order:

Final cost: $2569.23 tax and freight included....
System is as follows:

222-0250 XPS M170, Pentium M 760 (2GHz/533MHz FSB)
1 320-4259 17in True Life Wide Screen UXGA
1 311-4665 2GB,DDR2,533MHz 2 Dimm
1 320-4529 256MB NVIDIA GeForce Go 7800 Ultra,for XPS M170
1 464-5315 100GB Ultra ATA Hard Drive
1 420-4768 Microsoft Windows XP Home Service Pack 2, English
1 463-2282 Dell Owners Manual installed on your system,click on icon after system set-up to access
1 420-4928 Windows Media Player 10
1 313-3776 Dell Resource CD with Application Backup,w/Tools for XPS M170
1 412-0706 Dell Media Experience,v2.1
1 420-4830 DELL SUPPORT 3.0
1 420-5477 Dell Direct Download
1 430-1277 Integrated 1 Gigabit Network Card and Modem
1 430-1048 Adobe Acrobat Reader 6.0, for Inspiron
1 464-5302 8X DVD+/-RW Drive
1 420-5111 CyberLink PowerDVD v5.5 Decoding Sofware for DVD Drives
1 430-1404 Intel PRO/Wireless 2200 Internal Wireless (802.11b/g,54Mbps)
1 412-0802 No Security Subscription
1 312-0316 80 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
1 412-0586 AOL BSD/SMB
1 412-0670 DELL/MY WAY HOME PAGE
1 412-0845 Paint Shop Photo Album 6.0 Starter Edition
1 412-0803 Corel WordPerfect 12 plus Trial of Quartro Pro and Presentations
1 902-0681 Type 3 Contract - Next Business Day Parts and Labor On-Site Response, 1YR Extended
1 960-7600 Type 3 Contract - Next Business Day Parts and Labor On-Site Response, Initial Year
1 412-0359 Soft Contracts - Qualxserve
1 902-0941 Technical Support,1 Year Extended
1 960-8710 Technical Support,Initial Year
1 462-4506 Purchase is NOT intended for resell
1 464-5002 System not eligible for hardware mail-in rebate
1 464-4786 Thank you for choosing Dell
1 420-5136 Quickbooks 2005 Special SimpleStart Edition

 

Good Boy, you'll love her.
Why didnt you get MCE?(very nice!)

 

Bought it from the SMall Business division and they did not offer it. I will probably pick up a copy myself. But I have a copy of XP Pro to install as well if I want.

 

I dont know about the Programmers but these graphics in the newer games are as close to Virtual Reality then anything I've ever experienced...Well maybe not everything.

 

Thats too bad, IMO you need MS MCE to get the most out of you machice at the moment.

 

After the system arrives I will call Dell and see if I can coax a copy of MS MCE out of them. Since I am getting an XBOX 360 it would be nice to have the MCE OS. Plus the fact that I might be buying an XPS600 desktop as well.

 

Your going all out, so its a given with all the features available.
I know you can get them to give you a Free! copy,np.
Will the Xbox 360 compare with the Nvidia 7800's?
What kind a setup are you going for w the 600...I maxed mine out at 15k....

edit: I set up my gaming profile myself.
170 mb while surfing via FF.
This should help keep my computer cool.
Next, is the advanced cooling options. TBC...

 

Here is the XPS 600 I am looking at

XPS 600 Qty 1 Unit Price $2,834.00 - 30% = $1983.80 before tax and freight
Pentium® 4 Processor 660 with HT Technology (3.60GHz, 800 FSB),
Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition (Will request MS MCE after system arrives)
Memory 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz- 4 DIMMs
Keyboard Dell USB Enhanced Multimedia Keyboard
Monitor SAVE $200! 20 inch UltraSharp™ 2005FPW Widescreen Digital Flat Panel
Video Card 256MB Nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX
Internal Hard Drives 160GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/ Native Command Queuing
Mouse Dell Optical USB Mouse
CD or DVD Drives -- Read, Write and Store Data Dual Drives: 48x CD-RW Drive + 16x DVD+/-RW w/ double layer write capable
Sound Cards Sound Blaster Audigy™ 2 ZS (D) Card w/Dolby 5.1, IEEE 1394 capability
Limited Warranty, Services and Support Options 1 Year Ltd Warranty, On-site Service, and Tech support

 

Hmm. Why get that configuration? Save up a little more and do it right.

 

Seriously? That looks like a top end system to me!

 

Seriously Chaz, go to Dell and configure a xps600, you'll see.

 

What more do you think I should add?

Going SLI will only benefit extremely high resolutions.
3.6ghz is plenty fast enough (the D processors have no gaming advanteges at all)
2gig 667 ram is plenty of ram
and for just gaming 160gig HD is ample.

 

Its up to you what you get...but dont you think it should blow away your notebook thats on its way? If not the only value would be its upgradability. Right? If you have 8g's to blow here's a pretty nice configuration...

XPS 600
Date & Time: October 23,2005 9:06 AM CST

SYSTEM COMPONENTS

XPS 600 Qty 1
Pentium® Extreme Edition Dual Core w/ HT Tech (3.20GHz, 800FSB), Microsoft® Windows® XP Media Center 2005 Edition Unit Price $7,262.00
No Interest for 18 months on XPS Systems when using Dell Preferred Account!
Limited Time Offer! View Details

Catalog Number: 29
Module Description Show Details
Dell XPS 600 Pentium® Extreme Edition Dual Core w/ HT Tech (3.20GHz, 800FSB)
Operating System Microsoft® Windows® XP Media Center 2005 Edition
Memory 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz - 2 DIMMs
Keyboard Dell Wireless Keyboard and Optical Mouse
Monitors 24 inch UltraSharp™ 2405FPW Widescreen Digital Flat Panel
Video Cards Dual 256MB Nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX with SLI Technology
Hard Drive 1TB Performance RAID 0 (2 x 500GB SATA II HDDs)
Floppy Drive and Media Reader 13 in 1 Media Card Reader and 3.5 in Floppy Drive
Mouse Mouse included in Dell Wireless Package
Modem No Modem Requested
Adobe Software Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 6.0
CD or DVD Drive Dual Drives: 48x CD-RW Drive + 16x DVD+/-RW w/ double layer write capable
Sound Cards Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ XtremeMusic (D), w/Dolby® Digital 5.1
Speakers Logitech Z5500 500 Watt 5.1 Digital Surround Speakers w/control pod
Office Software (not included in Windows XP) No Productivity Suite - Corel WordPerfect® word processor only
2nd Hard Drive 500GB Serial ATA2 Hard Drive (7200RPM)
Anti-Virus/Security Suite (Pre-installed) PC-cillin Internet Security with AntiVirus and Spyware removal 15-months
Digitial Music Musicmatch by Yahoo!™ Music - Entry level music software
Digital Photography Corel Photo Album™ 6 Starter Edition - Organize and Edit your photos
Hardware Warranty SAVE $100 instantly with the 4yr Premium Solution Package
Premier Warranty Support Dimension XPS, Specialized Support
Dial-Up Internet Access 6 Months of America Online Membership Included
Financial Software (Preinstalled) No QuickBooks package selected- Includes limited use trial
TV Tuners and Remote Controls Dual TV Tuner + Remote Control - watch one channel while recording another
ACCESSORIES
Netgear WPN824 RangeMax Wireless Router Qty 1
Unit Price $100.00
TOTAL:$7,362.00
Additional Discounts and Coupons
FREE GROUND SHIPPING! $29 Handling Charge Applies.

Limited Time Offer! View Details


Dell Home Customers: Shipping & Handling Charges.

Limited Time Offer! View Details




Total Price
Sub-total $7,362.00
Shipping & Handling --
Tax --
Total Price

 

With that much money....you also get the wonderful 3.5 floppy drive too.

 

What a steal!

 

Mine gets a little toasty. I usually shut it down, unplug the ac adapter, and let them cool down for a few before stowing my laptop into the bag.

I plan on upgrading my hard drive to a 100 gb 7200 rpm hard drive over the next year. It's currently around $150 which puts it about $265 below upgrading it at Dell.

I'll probably just ghost my drive using a usb laptop hard drive adapter.

 

How toasty? Mine never runs hot.

 

Are you seriousley going to spend $8000 on a computer? OK, wow. I wouldn't because it would be outdated. Just get you an M170, or a sager 5720.

 

If I didnt mind that it would be outdated in a year...maybe

If your talking to me Dellguy, Im not spending 8 thousand dollars on anything...especially is it doesnt have 64 bit tech.