I could use some help tweaking my new 'top for maximum game performance.

I just got a dell inspiron 1520 with windows xp home 32 bit, a 2 GHz Core 2 Duo, 1 gig of DDR2 667, and a geforce 8600m gt with 256 mb of ddr2 (yuck). I will hopefully be getting a second gig off of newegg soon, but for now I want to tweak. First I want to get the best (which I assume would also be latest, but not necessarily) drivers for the video card. Then I want to download the best overclocking utility for the video card, and maybe an overclocking utility for the processor is well (I heard that dell locks down OCing in the BIOS, have yet to test that, but if they don't I will just OC in the BIOS). If there is anything else I should do to maximize game performance, let me know. Thanks for all your help.

 

for overclocking you can use rivatuner

laptopvideo2go has good drivers for you, but you will need to test a few to get the best driver for your needs. Personally, i just switched to the 169.38 drivers and it is the best driver i have found so far for my needs.

 

Clean install of XP

 

I don't have any reason to do a clean install. There is almost no bloatware, which surprised me because my Dell Vista desktop (my dad didn't want to trust me with building it ) had a ton.

 

if you have an xp license or an old xp machine, get xp on your dell, do a clean install. that is your best bet for performance squeaking if possible.

imo 169.32 are the best drivers for performance available (in xp)

also, just upgrade to 4 gigs of ram. its like $50. make it happen and toss the 1 gig stick.

if you can only buy 1 stick of ram at the moment, make it a 2gig stick, so that eventually you can buy another and have 4 gigs. buying a 1gig stick of memory isn't going to help you in the long run (you will have to toss out both sticks to upgrade to 4 gigs)

 

If you like vista more than XP, then dont bother with installing XP, the performance difference is less than 1 fps in nearly all games and it's not worth the time. Unless you like the look or interface better in XP over vista.

RiveTuner is currently the best application for overclocking your Nvidia video card.

I use RivaTuner in conjuction with ATItool for the artifact and FPS counters that ATItool has built in that rivatuner doesn't have.

 

The laptop came with xp, which I like more than vista. Also, masterchef, windows xp 32 bit only supports 2 gigs of ram, 3.2-4 gigs if you do some tweaking. And why on earth would I need more than 2 gigs in windows xp??? All I'm doing is internet and gaming. By the time that would require more than 2 gigs, this laptop would be obsolete.

 

well i wouldn't say obsolete... but i agree that 4gb now is definitely a waste especially if you plan to upgrade to a new comp in 2-3 years

 

Well either my Vista installation was nuked, or that statement didn't hold true for me. The different between everything max, and barely playable at all with med-low settings in all games.

 

yeah me too, in counterstrike source i gained about 10-15 fps on average id have to say going from vista to xp.

 

im just saying that for new games, you will see benefit in increasing the amount of ram you have in your machine. I know that the cap is somewhere between 3 and 4 gigs, but its so cheap that its worth it to add *some* ram to your machine, imo. The benefit is high per cost.