Games running HORRIBLY all of a sudden

I bought fallout 3 last night, and to my dismay, was only able to play it on its lowest settings, at lowest resolution, and still only at 20fps.

I have an inspiron 1520, with an 8600m gt graphics card and 2gbs of ram. I can run Oblivion and Call of Duty 4 on their highest settings while still getting a decent frame rate.

At first, I thought maybe Fallout 3 was just way too good for my not-too-shabby rig, but logic kicked in and I knew it should be performing way better than this. So, I booted up WoW, and found even that game, from 2004, to be performing poorly.

To make matters worse, it appears my battery does not work anymore, because when i unplug my adapter, the power goes off instantly. I've removed the battery and put it back in, but it still doesn't work.

Could these problems be related? I really hope so, then I can just get a new battery tomorrow and be playing Fallout 3 properly.

 

Yes t hey're related.
Your charger might not be functioning, therefore when the pc runs on battery power, the system lowers the gaming clocks, leading to poor performance.


**EDIT:

Hm... wait.. maybe your battery isnt working... you just said that and now im repeatig lol!
you should get it replaced...
I dunno, maybe... check the gpu and cpu temperatures? are they constant?
maybe its overheating?
maybe cpu is downthrottling?

 

Good to know. Do they sell chargers seperately?

 

If you're still under warranty, you might wish to contact Dell and ask them to send you a replacement battery/charger.

 

Not really sure how to check that stuff. What would be normal levels?

 

First thing first: Does your laptop turn on when battery is not in there?

 

If the charger is in, it turns on. Without the charger, it won't turn on, even if the battery is in.

 

Battery kaput. But to check the temps you can try running the games in window mode and hwmonitor: the cpu downclock at around 90*C and the gpu around 100*C...

 

It's an Inspiron.

Guess what, 95% chance that battery needs to be changed. I've had 5 inspirons, all with the same problem.

 

So is the battery problem the reason why my games aren't running well, or is this a seperate issue?

 

Do the games slowdown if you keep the battery out? If yes then the battery is not the only problem you have to take care of ...

 

I already tried this, and they run just as shamefully.

On the icon on to the bottom right, it says "No battery is detected" at all times.

 

which drivers r u using?
are you running on performance mode?

 

I suggest you just get the Toshiba x305 q701 it on sale for $999.00. Your rig is already busted anyway and the 8600m gt isn't gonna cut it for fallout 3. Trust me I had dual 8600m gts and to play these modern games and your old games like oblivion how there suppose to be played you need a 256 bit video card. So sieze the moment and get this awesome gaming notebook while it's a steal right now.

 

I'm not going to spend a thousand dollars on a notebook for marginally better performance. I play Call of Duty 4 near highest settings, and Oblivion runs on full, even with the patches that give it even better graphics.

 

Are you talking about oblivion: streamlined? Because that makes the game runs far faster... And I'm running oblivion at 1440x900 with maxed everything at perfectly smooth framerate (no values, sorry), and I can only play FO3 at medium settings with 1440x900, 2xAA, 2xAF and actor drawdistance increased...

I'm not telling you to buy the new laptop, just letting you know in case FO3 is a big thing for you.

 

your machine should run it fine, as on my Tablet with an integrated gpu (HD3200) I get better performance than you said in your first post. So, defintately a hardware issue, and not just simply having a pc that's not fast enough. You've got enough speed, just have to figure out what's wrong.

 

have you checked to make sure AF and AA are turned to "application controlled" or off? i had this same problem with crysis then realized i had AF to 16X!

 

Its comments like these that make this site feel unhelpful sometimes.

 

really? with a 9500 GS vs 8600m GT?

 

Have you been able to check your clocks against what they're supposed to be? (RivaTuner or something?)

I was just making the point that being able to play oblivion maxed doesn't guarantee you awesome FO3 performance.

Considering I have more RAM and what I assume to be a better GPU, his fallout performance didn't sound insanely odd to me...

I don't doubt that there may be a hardware issue, but I wouldn't be expecting great FO3 performance with the specs he's given.

Mind you, I'm still pretty new to all this, so I may be missing something obvious.

I'm not sure exactly what point you're trying to make... Care to share?

 

actually, my bad, man. i thought the gs was a little worse off. i guess, i was wrong http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=237100