Gears of War and 8600m GT

Hi
I'm getting the laptop in my sig soon so I was wondering has anyone tried Gears of War with a 8600M gt, what kind of fps did you get and at what settings+resolution?

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=2724145&postcount=8

 

ah thats very good, thanks

 

The heck?

I'm pretty sure that's not the norm...

I'm getting between 16-32FPS (depending on what's going on in the screen) with my OC (see sig) at 1024 x 640! No way in heck just a 50Mhz more core OC would allow him to play at all highest settings at 1280 x 800... I'm pretty sure FRAPS is mistaken there. Gears of War has its own built-in FPS counter that you can initialize by going into the console (by pressing "~", same as CS) and typing "stats fps".

Generally the FPS hovers around 25-30FPS, and sometimes it actually goes to 32FPS when there's absolutely no firefights going on, but it can just as easily dip down into the teens (16 is the lowest of the low, haven't seen it go under that) when there's about half a dozen enemy on screen at once.

But due to the post processing/blurring, the game still looks considerably smooth at 25~ish FPS. But you can definitely feel the slow down once you get to 20FPS or below.

It's still a pretty decent and smooth game on the 8600M GT, by all means... But I highly doubt a 600/460 OC can play this game on the highest settings at 1280 x 800 and still maintain a 30+FPS most of the way through.

 

I think that does sound more right as the fps is likely to drop when there is action going on. So just to confirm you play at 1024x760 for best gameplay.

oops yeah i meant 1024x640

 

No, I play at 1024 x 640 so that it's full screen 16:10 aspect ratio.

You CAN play at 1024 x 768, there's nothing stopping you, but you'll either:
Have a scaled image or black bars on both sides (depending on the settings you selected in the nVidia control panel in regards to scaling none native resolutions).

Not to mention, it takes more processing power to render a 1024 x 768 screen than it does a 1024 x 640 screen.

 

btw did you have to update your display drivers to run it

 

on 169.21 drivers clocked at 550/880 I can play gears in all high settings w/ medium shadows in 1440x900, or all high settings in 1280x800.

Both look excellent. I'll go check my exact fps right now actually.

bottoms out at 32, avg framerate is about 45

 

If you try it out pcgamer, could you tell me how it is. I'm getting a vostro with similar specs.

 

Yeah I'll give some feedback on how it peforms and is when I get to play it on my new laptop.

So far from what I've read is its had mostly techinal issues, a lot of bugs/crashing with the game on desktops.

 

In response to Triple_Dude, this isn't a false claim. FPS does go down to sub 30 when my hunk facing off half dozen baddies in big area but most of the time it is silk smooth experience and 30+
Comparing to the rig in your sig I have 2g cpu oppose to your 1.6g and overclocked more. If you can get the same rig as mine and same video card clock speed run the bench again.

PS: what driver you use btw? and I forgot to mention shader clocked 1400 so maybe it adds up the difference too.

 

I'm not saying it's a false claim. Just saying that it's not the norm.

As for my CPU, well, CPU doesn't play that big of a role for FPS's... Sure, my FPS might be a few FPS lower on average, but it sure the heck shouldn't be THAT much of a difference--and I'm on a lower resolution, to boot!

Perhaps its your OC'd shader clock that's giving you the extra performance boost, since I'm using nTunes and cannot OC shader clock independently.

I'll update my drivers and give Rivatuner a try, and see if I can match your FPS or come close to it by OC'ing my shader clock.

I don't know if I had to, but I did, before playing it. I updated it to 169.04, and am currently still using it.

Well, I'm not surprised there, since you're using the GDDR3 8600M GT. The rest of us poor folks are using the DDR2 variant.

 

DDR2, Clocked at 560/490 I can play at 1680 x 1050 with about a 22 avg fps. Dips down to 17-18 sometimes in really intense firefights.

 

What settings, may I ask?

Most definitely NOT all maxed out...

Otherwise I think I got a defective GPU or something... <_<.

 

Everything max but shadows at medium.

 

Okay... I think I'm the only one getting absolute *crap* performance at an absolute *crap* resolution (well, 1024 x 640 isn't exactly "crap"... but it's not stellar, either)...

Is it just me, or do I have a defective GPU? The fact that it makes odd noises when I run LithUnwrap and use the 3D Preview mode makes me wonder... Hmmm...

 

Dude I'm pretty sure you have a bad GPU.

I have mine OCed at 625/525, run gears at 1440x900 everything high or maxed except probably shadows which I think I might have at med (but probably is at high). Never seems to dip below 30 for me. This and UT 3 both are ridiculously well optimized.

 

I'm getting this as a gift this year, but I have no doubts about running it on high at 1680x1050.

In DX9 mode, of course.

 

Yeah your 8700, should have no problem. LOOks beautiful at 1680 x 1050, like simply gorgeous.

 

*Drools at all you guys with a WORKING GPU*

*Sits in the -Defective GPU owners's corner- *

I think I'm going to give Dell a call...

 

Did you run 3dmark and monitor your temps? Sorry what were your exact problems, as in without the sounds. IN game performances in what games were bad?

 

What kind of frame rate are you getting with that? And I assume you're using the 256mb GDDR3 version?

 

Is that at max settings?

 

i think you updated to recent driver for gpu right?
because if you didn;t you are stuck with dell driver that doesn;t even perform well..

 

Nope, I have not run a single 3DMark benchy yet, since those are "meaningless" according to most GPU guru's around here... It's in-game performance that matters.

As for the problem, there aren't any "real" problem, just that my FPS is, apparently, much slower than what you guys are getting with the same GPU...

Well, there's a GPU whine sound when I run LithUnwrap's 3D Preview mode (based on OpenGL), apart from that... no real problems.

And I did monitor the temps while playing games. The hotest it ever got was 66C (recorded via SpeedFan. nMonitor reports 59C. It always reports 7C cooler than SpeedFan) when playing Gears of War for a few hours straight (the back of the laptop is lifted about 3.5-4CM above the table to give better air circulation).

Also, one BIG problem is that there are random stuttering in games... Such as Homeworld 2 (appeared after I updated driver to 169.04) and in WC3 (has always been there, and didn't go away with a driver update).

BTW: Somewhat unrelated, but nvsvc32.exe (It seems like it's the driver OC service or something like that) keeps on sending data to svchost.exe and it keeps on jacking more RAM and CPU time... But when I kill nvsvc32, my GPU becomes underclocked and stuck at 275Mhz (that's what nMonitor says... but GPU-Z says 170Mhz ) for some odd reason...

 

Disable nvsvc, its not needed.

As for 3dmark. I agree too but it will give you a general idea if your gpu is underperforming alot or a bit depending on the range. 3dmark is not great for comparing across generations of card but is reliable comparing the same card.

 

Are you sure it's not needed?

Because it seems like my GPU becomes permanently (well, for the duration of the current boot) locked to a lower clock speed when I shut it down through the task manager...

But I'll take your advice and run some 3D Mark tests. If possible, could you provide me with some reference scores that you got with your GPU at 1280 x 800 with stock clocks?

 

http://www.neuber.com/taskmanager/process/nvsvc32.exe.html

Maybe your just viewing it when it goes to a lower power state. Did you try overclocking while its clocks are lowered?

As for the score. I don't run at that res so I'm not terribly sure. I think 3500 is the ballpark figure.

 

Nice to meet ya, I go by my XBLive gamer tag, Random Haji.

Create an account (if you haven't already done so), and make your voice heard: Stuttering and other game anomalies.

 

I have almost the same machine as you (mine with 2.0 GHz, and Windows Vista, no overclocked 8600m GT), and the 3dMark 06 is 3519. 1200x800 resolution and 169.21 drivers.

I hope it helps.

 

Okay, I can't finished a proper 3DMark06 benchmark because it keeps on crashing saying some sort of Visual C++ runtime error!

What the heck...

Also, when I was running the "Return to Proxycon" demo, the textures in the space scene were all screwed up... Is this due to a faulty GPU?

I'll try to get a screenshot of it.

EDIT:

Here's a screeny:


Extra Info: I'm running driver version 169.04.
Okay, I was listening closely to the GPU during the test, and it seems to be making a weird noise that's a blend of clicking and a high-pitched whine. I've never noticed this before (except, once again, when I was running LithUnwrap with the 3D preview), so is this simply the fan kicking it up a notch... or is it something else?
There's also "stripes" on the water in that dragon demo the 3rd time I ran the test... I'm 100% sure it wasn't there before, so it can only be an artifact... And if it's an artifact, that means my GPU must be defective since I'm not even OC'ing it right now! Grrr...