Empire total war and Napolean total war

I have a Sony VAIO VGN FW5 bought end of december.

Intel Core 2 Duo 2.8GHz 6MB Cache 1066FSB
ATI Mobility 4650 HD
Full HD 1080P Screen 16.4inch
500GB Hard Drive
4 GIG Ram
Windows 7 64 Bit

What settings would i be able to play at smoothly with my native resolution being at i think 1920x1080

 

I can play empire total war on highest settings with my laptop, however thats with an ATI 4850 HD which is a far more powerful card and my screens max resolution is 1440x900.
The game will defiantly play on your pc with those specs although you would have to play around with the settings. Lower the resolution or reduce the settings to medium to get a good compromise of smooth fps/decent visuals

 

Play it at 1600 x 900. The performance loss ain't worth the FullHD res.

 

so if we say that res and crank the settings up to ultra, but take off grass cause thats a killer, should give me resonable quality and performance. Dont need high fps in RTS games tbh

 

Also, Sony underclocks their cards. Instead of 550/800 (stock clocks) the max is 450/600. You may want to overclock using GPU Tool, only if you really want the extra performance.

 

would it be wise to overclock then? which tool is the best, i use a notebook cooler, will this be ok?

 

Why dont you try the game first?

 

but if i clock the 4650 to its stock settings, will it cause significant changes in heat, imm using a laptop cooler with my laptop

 

do i just install the catalyst 9.11 drivers to help?

 

how do i use the mobility modder with the catalyst im a little stuck lolll

 

You should NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER use Empire Total War to compare with anything, or use it as a benchmark of any sort. The game is horribly optimized (the game is not optimized at all to be exact). Just because you can play a more demanding game on medium (I could play Crysis on medium) doesn't mean that you can play Empire on medium (I couldn't). And no it's not entirely because Total War is more CPU intensive while Crysis GPU intensive, it's simply because Empire was not optimized.

With that said, you can probably play Empire at your native resolution with everything on low... And assuming Napoleon is optimized better than Empire (like Medieval), you might be able to pull off medium with unit size set at large.

 

low surely high with a lower resolution tbh

 

surely my modded drivers catalyst 10.2 with a resolution of lower will take high/ultra settings, look at this dude, much worse laptop than me and he has ultra settings. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2ifh_be2bQ

 

His laptop is not worse than yours. Sure your processor beats his, but he makes up for it in the video card compartment (the part that matters the most when it comes to gaming).

 

No his graphics card (8800gts) is better than your graphics card as standard. Also his card is overclocked and according to SomeRandomDude the card in your sony is underclocked by default, increasing the gap in performance between the 2 cards

 

1 - Get the Catalyst preview drivers (10.3). They improve overall performance in some games. Try the game, and if you are not satisfied, get the 9.12 modded drivers ( http://www.hardwareheaven.com/modtool.php). I had some issues overclocking with the preview drivers
2 - Here's a tutorial to overclocking your video card ( http://twisted-reviews.com/overclocking-ati-mobility-radeon-hd4570-hd4650-hd4670/). I leave mine at stock clocks and that gives me a better performance, but if your cooler is good you can take a bit further (to match a 4670). Try to use overclocking only when absolutely necessary. I always prefer to lower the resolution or detail a bit before overclocking.

 

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