Gaming on 9600M GT?

I'm considering buying a HP Pavilion HDX16-1040US [ link] (I saw on the review that the reviewer got his for $800, I wish I could do that...). I mainly want it for programming, watching movies, and playing games. I was going to get a Gateway 7801u-FX but due to the economy and money issues, I need to spend as little as possible (the HDX is still somewhat pushing it for me). My question is, how well does the 9600M GT fare at playing games? I would really like to be able to play Oblivion, Fallout 3, Call of Duty 4, Call of Duty World at War, Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress 2, World of Warcraft, Mass Effect, and Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic at native resolution (1366x768) at medium-high to high quality if possible. Is this doable on the 9600M GT on the HP Pavilion HDX16-1040US?

Also, how much of a performance increase would I get from upgrading the hard drive from the 5400RPM drive it comes with to a 7200RPM drive and what kind of performance would it effect?

 

all the titles mentioned are playable on 9600GT, but Fallout 3 settings will have to be medium/low

 

That HP is $1000 at every place I went to.

From $50 cheaper to 300 more, you could get the significantly better G50vt with a 9800m GS.

Best Buy has the X1 and X5 variations: $949 for X1 and $999 for X5

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9050279&type=product&id=1218012519873

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9173262&type=product&id=1218044029168


Newegg has the X6 variation ($1300)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220483


I'd say skip the 9600, and get the 9800m GS. At those prices its not really worth buying less than a 9800m GS.

 

I see... so even after tweaking and updating to the latest drivers, etc. still will be medium-low at best? I would really like to be able to play it at medium-high if there is any way to do it. Also, on the Newegg.com page it says the 9600M GT uses GDDR3 memory but I heard the HDX16 uses DDR2 memory, which is correct? Also... about the hard drive question...

Edit: $1000 (after tax + shipping) is the maximum I can pay, I can't change that even if I wanted to. To be honest, if I could afford to pay over $1000, I would probably just go ahead and get the Gateway 7805u-FX. Also, unless ASUS fixed the problem, I remember reading that the G50 series suffered from occasional CPU lag in games as well as missing keystrokes (I am a computer programmer so missing keystrokes will greatly hurt my productivity).

 

Matrinix, then you will have to put in more cash and get a less portable machine. I'm starting to realize that myself too, so I'm not getting a high end gaming laptop, but rather buying a low end graph card laptop + a much better stationary comp for the same price.

 

I already have a high-end desktop computer (quad-core with a 8800GTS) but the problem is due to school, work, and social events, I am NEVER at home (only to sleep and eat). This is why I want a notebook to begin with. Because money is so tight, I am going to have to sell my desktop to help me pay for the notebook, so I want to try to get something that can hold up to the games I like to play.

 

i'd suggest hold onto the desktop....or downgrade your desktop...the only laptops to give you a remote chance of playing games similar to your pc would be in 3K+ range...you could however...go for something mid range...if you truly need mobility.....buy a nice cheap reliable laptop and bolster yor main rig if need be

 

My X1 is unaffected... so I am not sure what that keyboard lag is all about.
As I heard it was fixed in a BIOS patch, but I have not seen it in mine.

Is the X5 even affected?

Honestly, the X5 is $999 and you can avoid shipping (or reduce it to the cost of a few dollars in gas) by going to a local Best Buy. Applying for a Best Buy credit card may make this a very easy decision if your credit is even remotely decent. (pay it off in the no-interest period if you do)


If your hard limit is really $1000, then the HP is out of reach as well at $999 isn't it?

The earlier posters may be correct, it may be a better idea to purchase a junker laptop and buy a good gaming computer for your desktop.

However, the concept that you need a $3k laptop to game is ludicrous.
The 9800m GS is a very potent GPU.. and can be purchased for $949 with a C2D 2.26 which factory OCs to 2.5. This is no Crossfire-4870 with a quad-core... but plays Fallout3 with all te bells and whistles with absolutely no problems!

 

It's $999.99, no tax since I do not live in CA, TN, or NJ and it qualifies for free ground shipping. So it's technically below my limit by $0.01. Also, with the economy and the price I can sell parts for, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to make much off of downgrading. Lastly, since I am NEVER home, I really don't benefit from my desktop at all (except after long days at work+school when I'm not in the mood to do anything).

 

actually i'm interested in knowing the answer to that question bcuz i'm planning to change my 5400rpm HD

and Matrinix, about the 9600M GT ... you'll be able to play 95% of the games at maximum settings with 20-25 fps and the others like fallout 3 and gta iv will be good enough at medium settings which is not bad at all.

 

http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=596&card2=394

For this comparison, I put the 9600M GT on the left, and on the right I put the old 7900GS Go. I put this so you can see how the 9600M GT stacks up against a chip from two generations ago.

The memory bandwidth and bus speed will be big factors in determining how things will run at higher resolutions with more eye candy.

 

I play L4D at 1680x1050 with 2xAA.
COD 4 at 1024x768 with 2xAA getting around 50FPS.

Scaling isn't really a big issue for most games. Though certain games it sucks, like NBA 2k9...I can play that on medium-high at 1440x900, anything below that rez starts to look bad.

 

Hard disk upgrading doesn't make a difference in gaming at all. Would only affect hard disk intensive tasks. In gaming you won't notice any performance gain.

 

I'm a college student and have very little to no credit. I already tried applying for a Best Buy credit card and was denied for this reason (if I would've gotten it I would've bought the Gateway notebook if I was given a big enough line of credit). My student credit card's line of credit is $1000 which is why it is the maximum I can go (I can only afford to get it if I buy it on credit). The HP HDX 16 looks like an extremely nice notebook to me, the only thing that was worrying me about it was the performance of the 9600M GT in it as well as what kind of performance decreases a 5400RPM drive would cause.

I was actually considering a slightly cheaper notebook (about $100 cheaper) that had an AMD Turion 64 X2 Ultra and an ATI Radeon Mobility 3650 but it wasn't as nice as the HDX and I would like to have the CUDA support from the GeForce so I can do OpenCL programming (I also don't know anything about the performance of the AMD Turion 64 X2 Ultra line) as well as have the PhysX support (even though I haven't run upon a case where I needed it other than with Unreal Tournament 3 which I hardly ever play).

The native resolution of the screen is 1366x768 which doesn't seem that high of a resolution to me, but I would be willing to play at 1280x720 (or lower 16:9 resolution to prevent stretching) if it won't cause the image to get really blurry. To be honest, not being able to play it at high quality isn't the end of the world to me, I just thought it would be nice. I mainly only play Action RPGs (like Oblivion, Fallout 3, and Mass Effect), multiplayer FPSs (like L4D, COD4, etc.), MMORPGs (WoW and TOR when it comes out), and RPGs (KOTOR, etc.). I would like to play some Japanese RPGs on it possibly but I don't really know of any good ones for the PC other than Devil May Cry 4 which I am not sure if it would run on a 9600M GT. Lastly, being able to run emulators would be a nice addition (Playstation, Dreamcast, Nintendo 64, etc.). Only emulators I've used that seemed really intensive was for Dreamcast and Playstation 2; how would these fare do you think (I own all these systems so it's my understanding that is is legal to use emulators for them)?

Edit: I see, I was thinking that a 5400RPM drive would maybe cause the game to stutter if it needed to precache a lot of things and also cause slower load times (slower load times aren't major to me but stuttering from precaching is somewhat).

 

The hard drive upgrade would probably help in load times I'm guessing. Don't think it would affect in-game performance.

 

Fallout 3 and Devil May Cry 4 will work fine, tweaking a few settings here and there would definitely be beneficial (but that goes for PC gaming as a whole).

Emulators wise:

PS2 is mainly CPU limited, but you'd be able to play some games well, latest version released yesterday includes some good speedups 64bit compatibility as well as making use many versions of SSE help out a lot, so that'd be beneficial.

Dreamcast, should run fine for most games, albeit emulation isn't perfect, it's not too bad.

N64 not an issue, should be totally fine with all supported games. I used to be heavily involved with PJ64 (my name is still in the 'about' box, lol)

PS1 likewise.

 

I can run fallout 3 on high just fine at 1366 x 768 4x AF, but my system is OC'd and I've got a T9600.. it's do-able, but don't expect silky smooth on a 2ghz c2d. COD5 runs maxed out at 1366 x 768 4x AF. Oblivion performs a lot like fallout. L4D is really well optimized, 1366 x 768, 8x AF, 4x AA maxed. some games I can play at 1080p, like C&C3, but won't matter for you. either way, the key is overclocking the 9600... you can get another 25% performance just fine, and it runs cool for me on the zalman.

 

I'd perfer to use overclocking as a last resort as I don't want to risk damaging the hardware and/or voiding the warranty. I will try to optimize all the games to the maximum extent I can (through tweaking, etc.) as well as making sure to use the best drivers possible. The HDX16 I linked to has a 2.23Ghz processor instead of a 2.0GHz one. Also, is Newegg listing it as having GDDR3 a mistake?

 

No way! The laptop in my sig plays Fallout 3 medium/low.

Fallout should be a medium. Unless you want solid 60FPS+

 

I could care less about 60FPS+, I just want to be able to play it without annoying stuttering. Occassional stuttering isn't a problem for me, as long as it is not frequent and as long as it doesn't get me killed and want me to throw the laptop through the window. Also, I wouldn't mind doing some minor overclocking via nTune as long as I don't need to buy a notebook cooler and the fans won't be crazy loud.

Edit: Also, anothergeek, would you mind disabling your overclock and downclocking your CPU to 2GHz (since the P8400 only has 3MB cache compared to your 6MB cache so I think that should help make it a little bit more accurate) and tell me how well you can run Fallout 3 at 1366x768? I would greatly appreciate it. It's okay if not.

 

Well you can eliminate stutter by capping oblivion and fallout to 30 fps with fps limiter, also wouldn't hurt to use d3d overrider for triple buffering.

 

FPS limiter? Is that a program or a setting or a feature of nTune? Also was does the D3D overrider for triple buffering do? Also, out of curiousity, how does limiting the FPS help the overall FPS? Lastly, 30FPS is the fastest the human eye could possibly see right? So at 30FPS I should see no stutter at all right?

 

It's a problem with bethesda's engine, when the fps changes you get micro stutter. I rather live with 30 fps than 30-60 and constant stutter. It's a 3rd party program that essentially creates a limited vsync. Triple buffering is normally used to smooth frames for vsync, it takes a bit of memory but it doesn't hurt to use it with fps limiter. Also, limiting your fps saves a lot of CPU horsepower. It's generally a good idea to cap any game at 60 fps if it's solid.

 

I see, well since the human eye can see at most 30FPS, would it be wise to cap every game at 30FPS? Also, if I understand correctly, vsync is used to prevent screen tearing, is there a reason to use it and if so, should it be used when FPS limiter is being used? Also, is FPS limiter automatic or would I need to run it everytime I wanted to play a game?

Edit: Oh another thing I was wondering? Has anyone experienced ghosting on the HDX16 and also does anyone know if it is a 6-bit or 8-bit panel?

 

everything is fully playable on 9600m gt
except gta 4

 

The 30FPS being as much as the eye can see has some basis in fact, but is largely incorrect However a steady 30fps is far preferable to a slightly higher one that fluctuates.

 

I can easily see the difference 60 FPS makes although it's much less noticable any higher. You also have to consider the refresh rate of your monitor, laptops are limited to 60hz anyway. I haven't had any ghosting issues, I think it's a long gone problem for LCDs.

 

actually i'm playing it on
1280x800 - medium textures - high render quality
view distance/detail density/vehicle density on 40
shadow density on 10
using DoX's Drivers 185.20

plays very good with no problem or lag

 

So basically, for games that are stuttery, like Fallout 3 and Oblivion, capping it at 30FPS is a good idea, but for the rest, if they can go higher without stuttering, then don't cap it?

Edit: Out of curiousity, how would Assassin's Creed and Mirror's Edge run?

 

yep

10char

 

Though this isn't from personal experience (haven't tried the game yet) but on Youtube there is a video of someone with similar specs running Mirrors Edge totally fine:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qXC-9Ibyic

Should be a decent enough indicator, heck even the comments may help you out (if you filter out 99% of the usual rubbish).

That user also has several other videos that may be handy.

 

Well, the X1 is $949 + tax + few bucks for gas.
Thats like $1015-1020 depending on gas prices and how far away you are from a best buy.

If you really like the HP, then go for it... they do make nice machines. I just feel its my duty to tell you that for $15-20 the difference between the 9600m and the 9800m GS is MORE than worth the tiny price difference.

 

The closest Best Buy that still has the X1 is about 2 hours away plus the tax there is 9%. I mean, I think the G50VT is a good system, its just I'm already having enough trouble convincing myself to spend all my credit, let alone any more. I really like the HDX too, from what I've seen of it, not only is it a pretty capable gaming machine, but its also a luxury entertainment laptop. Also, I'll be doing some international travel, and I'd perfer to have the HP warranty incase it breaks while overseas compared to having the stripped warranty that Best Buy offers (not sure if it is global or not). Also, my school is a HP-certified repair center so if it broke, I could get it repaired pretty easily. Lastly, I like the more subtle appearance of the HDX compared to the G50VT. I mean, I agree with you that the 9800M GS is surely worth the extra $20-50 but to me, by the same argument, the Gateway 17" with the 9800M GTS is surely worth the extra $150-200; but I had to be firm and set my price range at no more than $1000, and I'm not comfortable going any higher.

 

It's worth noting that while the 9800 gs is great for crysis, it's more for running games at higher resolutions, which the basic G50 can't take advantage of.

 

So are you saying that other than for Crysis (which I don't intend to play), there really is not much of a benefit? Also, how long do you think the HDX 16 will last given the types of games I play? Is it better to use the regular NVIDIA drivers or Dox? Lastly, can you link me to the FPS limiter and guides on tweaking/optimizing? Thanks.

 

For the most part I guess so. The 9800 GS will max newer games with higher FPS, the 9600 won't have the same frames or won't even be able to max out the settings (like crysis). Atm though, 1280 x 800 or 1366 x 768 is low enough that the 9600 won't have much issue to get 30+ FPS in typical games.

Clean the bloatware, keep startup and background prgrams to a minimum. Highly consider a cooler (like the zalman nc2000) if you want more performance by overclocking. You'll need rivatuner for that, and for d3d overrider. HWmonitor is a great program for watching temperatures. Just google FPS limiter, it creates a shortcut to run the game that you can drop to the desktop. Not all games work with it, but you shouldn't always need it.

I highly recommend Dox's 182.05, but every other one of his drivers were causing resolution problems. 182.05 also gave me more performance than Nvidia's latest 179.48, which was the best yet.

 

Japanese games ported to PC usually run very well. DMC4 can be maxed on a 8600M GT and I'm playing The Last Remnant demo almost maxed (shadows still on low) at 1280x720(on an external 1080p monitor) on my C90S and I'm keeping 25~30 FPS (it's locked at 30, even though vsync is off)

 

Well the 9600m IS a adequate performer, but the 9800m GS will be significantly better than the 9600m at even 1366x768.

128-bit memory interfaces (as in the 9600m) hurt MOST in situations of high resolution OR high memory usage like larger textures and AA. So at 1366x768, it doesn't hurt as much as it would at 1920x1200 or 1920x1080 for instance.

However, the 9800m GS also has TWICE the shaders.
The 9800m GS has significantly more raw power than the 9600m can bring to the table.

This will be most prevalent in newer games like Fallout3, but once again is more than playable at lower settings on the 9600m.

 

So, if I could get Oblivion running well, would installing the high-resolution texture pack be a bad idea since the 9600M GT only has a 128-bit bus? Also, I understand that the 9800M GS has twice the shaders and double the memory bandwidth, which makes me understand why it is a much better choice from a gaming perspective, but the only really intensive games I would be playing would be Fallout 3, Oblivion, and maybe Assassin's Creed and Mirror's Edge. I really am in a bad position when it comes to that 9800M GS. (To be honest, I feel like spending $1000 is too much, but I'm willing to since I really like the HDX, and I think a 9600M GT should be sufficient based on what everyone has said so far).

Also, I forgot about The Last Remnant, thanks for reminding me. I was expecting The Last Remnant to fare well since it uses the same game engine as Unreal Tournament 3, Mass Effect, Gears of War, Rainbow Six Vegas, etc. but it is good to hear a reaffirmation.

I'm hoping for the laptop to last me around 1-2 years. I graduate a year from May, and once I establish my career, I'll be able to afford to upgrade to a high-end notebook (hopefully a Core i5 with a GT180M or better).

Edit: On another note, what games do you think will not run well on a 9600M GT at 1366x768?

 

Basically most games from mid-2008 and earlier will be on high but the new cutting edge games (the new far cry, fallout 3) you'll have to shave some settings off. You'd have to spend big $$$ to get a laptop that is going to play new release titles at high settings, some of the games coming out this year will have huge requirements no doubt. Easier to keep the desktop and upgrade it as needed for those high end games.

 

What kind of games are you talking about? Also, I noticed that in the GPU article it says a 128-bit graphics card (like the 9600M GT) cannot take advantage of more than 256MB of memory. Does this mean that I can't use it for increasing the texture detail (for instance, Oblivion has a high-resolution texture pack that is recommended only for GPUs that have 512MB of memory)? Also, I don't really care about Far Cry 2 (I'm not much of a FPS player, I just play them with friends online occasionally). A quick question, should I be discouraged from getting a notebook with a 9600M GT given the games I want to play? As far as games coming out in the future, the only ones I can think of off the top of my head that I care about are Diablo 3, Dragon Age Origins, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, BioShock 2, and Star Wars The Old Republic (maybe Starcraft 2 but I'm not that big into RTS and possibly Alan Wake). Lastly, if I was in a position to where keeping my desktop was an option, I wouldn't be looking for a laptop to begin with. I have ready access to public computers that can do pretty much anything I care about except for gaming. My problem is that I am never home so my gaming desktop RARELY ever gets used.

 

This is age old BS. Any card will use as much memory as it needs to. A weaker card however won't have as much need for 512MB of memory since it doesn't have the frequency and shaders to perform well at high resolutions, thus requiring the extra memory in the first place...

The card is fine for you, enjoy the laptop

Oh, and I did install Quarl's textures, the redimized version. Then I think I installed 1 or 2 tiers of the reduced pack. It looks a lot better than vanilla, and performs the same. It's all on tes nexus.

 

As far as PS2 emulation goes, I've been playing around with the latest release using the same CPU (P8400), and it's looking promising. Not perfect, but I can get many games to playable framerates with a 2.6GHz overclock. I use a 9800M GS for the graphics, but it isn't taxing the card that much so I'm certain the 9600M GT would handle it fine. It's really the processor that's the bottleneck, but PCSX2 has built-in speedhacks that make life easier.

 

Thanks for all the information. However, I am curious if any of you want to make any guesses as to how the notebook will perform in those games I said I was interested in that are coming out in the future.

Edit: Also, does anyone know anywhere I can check out benchmarks of the 9600M GT? I just want to be absolutely sure before I spend the money since Newegg does not allow returns of the HDX. And lastly, why are Bluetooth mice so hated for gaming? I was thinking of getting a laser bluetooth mouse (with switchable DPI) for cheap from a friend which seemed okay to me, but I am not sure now (I like the idea of not having to eat up a USB port since the notebook already has bluetooth). Also, if Bluetooth really is a bad way to go, what would be recommended for use with the laptop? I was thinking of getting a cheap corded gaming mouse (that way I can use it on flights, even though I'm not sure if there will be any space to put a mouse down), if not, then some kind of wireless mouse.

 

i am sorry for bringing this up so late

can't you get a 5930 ACER.. (i think it comes std. withh DDR3 9600M GT...whic would be atleast 20% better than our DDR2 variant)..i mean ACER has really come a long way with the new ASPIRE/travelmate range...... i have been a fan of acer's since the 4001WLMI (sporting an X600 or something)because of it's price

and as far as i know, acer is prolly the only other manufacturer with sufficent sales and service to match HP or toshiba (correct me if i am wrong)

i have the DV5 (bought in AUstralia......in nov of 08.....primarily as i could claim tax on a lappie rather a desktop...which i would have preferred), but having said that...yes..the 9600mGT on DDR2 will play games...as i needed something to be able to play GTA4 with...

10x7, all medium (cept shadows and a few others....) and at this reso, no OC, ( i am sorry i am typing this from another location...so cannot confirm exact options) on the latest laptop drivers from NVIDIA. 75 background svc's...and it is not too bad...... not remotely as well as my 3800+X2 manchester with the 8800GT and 3Gb of DDR1,..... but still it is worth it.... (got a 2.5 penryn, with 4GB DDR2 800's, Bluray, hybrid tuner, esata the works....screen at 12x8)..... but do try to get the highest amount of cache and speed you can afford...... every little thing helps....


PS i am sorry about that 3K+ remark on gaming laptops....but you see gaming is a relative term..... for some (like meself) where the buck rules the decision....i need to make the most out of my PC purchase....(ergo my current RIG) ...so wether it means playing a certain game at 10x7 so be it....

 

Agreed on Acer 5930G ... comes with DDR3 9600m GT which is a rather solid mid-range dedicated gpu.
I have it for 4 months now.
Upgraded to 4GB RAM and put in a new BIOS so it can use all that RAM in x64 OS (of course I also wiped the HDD and installed fresh Windows).
Games work perfectly fine, 3dsMax is also behaving pretty good, plus I paid only £600 at the time for the laptop.
I reckon that the same laptop would be somewhat cheaper today ... problem is, I cannot seem to find it in UK as available for purchase at the moment.
But it depends on your location and availability.
Heating is really not a problem (at least I don't have any issues in that department) and it's a versatile laptop.

 

Did I end up with a bad Acer Aspire 5930G?

I get lots of lagspikes in any game released within the last decade, my max fps is pretty high but it drops to 10fps every minute or less which pretty much ruined all multiplayer shooters for me. Even my old desktop with a 6800 GS did better meaning no lagspikes.

Left 4 Dead and Team Fortress 2 have become unplayable for me as I lag so much it's pointless trying to aim. Garry's Mod has also taken a huge blow.
In Fallout 3 I do notice it lags a bit but it isn't as much of a problem because I don't need to aim much anyway. The laptop basically forces me to play RTS'es and RPG's.

Could someone with a same or comparable laptop help me out here? I've tried a bunch of different drivers but it doesn't seem to do anything.

 

When was the last time you did a fresh install of your OS? It should not be lagging like that.

 

How are people able to run GTA 4 on the HP HDX16. I looking at getting it with:

Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo Processor P8700 (2.53GHz)
6GB RAm
512mb 9600gt or 1GB Nvidia GeForce GT 130M

Any I also want to play Mass Effect and Assassins Creed. Thanks.

 

Coming in late in this thread I would like to point out exactly how faulty this statement is...

I can play fallout 3 on "High with tweaks" on my Dell 1520, 1,8Ghz processor, 2 gig ram and 8600GT DDR2 memory.

The key is, as always, to tweak the advanced settings (mainly settings for water effects and shadows outdoors).

As I said I run this on 1280x800, 2x AA no problem with high quality textures etc.

Again, never ever just click on the presets, go into "advanced".