NVIDIA GeForce 9500M video card

hey guys,

i'm gonna be getting a laptop with the 512mb 9500M Nvidia GeForce... just trying to get some real-life reactions and opinions in terms of gaming experiences.

i'm not a big time gamer, so lots of numbers and benchmark tests don't mean a whole lot to me... i'd like to get a little more into gaming, especially since it seems like kickass games come around all the time.

so, plain english opinions, go!

p.s. i know that laptops are not the ideal gaming platforms, but i gotta dance with who i came to the dance with, if you get me.

 

The 9500M (GS) is a mid-range graphics card. It will play old and current games just fine at low to medium resolutions and settings. In comparison to other GPUs, the 9500M GS performs slightly slower than the 8600M GT. Depending on the games that you play, your gaming experience will vary since each game has different GPU and CPU requirements and you will need to tone your settings accordingly.

 

You may have to lower setting in games such as crysis but overall this is a mid range graphics card.

 

The Geforce 9500M GS performing slower than the Geforce 8600M GT? You've got to be kidding me right? They are the same cards. Not only is the Geforce 9500M GS a rebranded Geforce 8600M GT with the same clocks and shaders, but the 9500M GS is actually slightly better in terms of the soldering problem with the defective G84 architecture being fixed with these cards. Now if you were talking about the Geforce 9500M GS DDR2 vs Geforce 8600M GT DDR3 then your point would be valid, but that again is due to the higher clock and more efficient DDR3 on basically the same architecture. Anyhow, I have a Geforce 9500M GS on my 2nd notebook and it has been able to play whatever I’ve thrown at it so far at medium to high settings (except for Crysis which runs perfectly fine at medium).

 

I agree the 9500M GS is slightly better than the 8600M GT (with DDR2 both). Now do you know if it is 9500M GS or 9500M G? Because 9500M G is below the 9500M GS. Likewise, the 9500M G is a bit better than the 8600M GS. Of course, to make things even more complicated there is also the 9500M aka 9500M GE or 9500M GM. Actually it is a combination of the Nvidia GeForce 9400M (G) chipset and a dedicated NB9M entry level graphics card (GeForce 9200M GS or 9300M GS) in GeForceBoost mode. Now that's not a bad thing. If the memory is DDR3 then the 9500M could perform in some games in SLI mode with the 9300M GS and it would be like an 8600M GT! Dell for example claims to reach 3300 points in 3DMark06 with a 9300M GS with 256MB GDDR3 RAM (I have seen anyone confirming that though). So things are not that simple, you have to give us more info about your laptop.
@Cheeseman: BTW how is the SP2 in Vista?

 

From my experience this card is quite good. Everything I've thrown at it was fine on at least medium settings. Overall, now a days, I'd throw it into the mid-range category.

 

The only reason why I got this card in a laptop was because I didn't know any better. I got fed up of having to lower settings for virtually every single game I played. Even the old GTA SA would lag unless I lowered settings in somw way.

If you have no choice then this card isn't too bad but I really don't recommend it unless you don't mind playing current games on all low and older ones on medium as well as being forced to lower resolutions.

 

alright, here are the rest of my specs:
vista 64
intel core 2 duo P8600 2.4ghz
4gb DDR3 ram

i don't wanna turn this into a "can my computer run this?" thread, but how does all that sounds with the 9500M

 

I don't think we have figured out for which graphic card we are talking about. Unless I am missing something. LaptopNut, you probably have the 9500M, right? Because if you have the 9500M GS then your problem isn't the card per se but drivers, settings etc. I have the 8600M GT (overclocked) and the settings I am using are medium to high for almost all the games I have (even Crysis). But if you have the 9500M then, yes that card (or configuration to be exact) is at the low end spectrum of the graphic cards.

 

That's a nice mid-range setup, all the things compliment each other

 

I have the 9500M GS and the last drivers I was using are 179.48 (official Beta). I know there are newer ones out now though and I also tried some of Dox's drivers too.

 

I too have the 9500M GS, and it's taken just about anything I've thrown at it (which admittedly isn't much) and overclocks like a champ.

 

So it must something else because that card is a very good one for playing at 1280x800 resolution. Does your screen have higher resolution or have you checked the driver's settings (if you choose Quality settings that will enable aa and af which are pretty demanding for this card)? It shouldn't be the driver's cause the difference between the one you have and the Dox's is not very big. Have you tried to overclock it? I can get 10-20 fps more with the overclocking. There are many things that could restrict the performance but if you look around, people with 9500M GS are pretty satisfied with this card.

 

Your computer should handle new games well. But you may need to decrease your settings.

 

if your are considering the xps 1340, i suggest you look elsewhere for graphics performance, the 9500m in the xps 1340 is actually a low end card SLIed with an igp, and it performs alot worse than the 9500m gs found in some asus and acer laptops.

 

My native resolution is 1680 x 1050 but of course I usually have to drop down to much lower resolutions which in some cases looks terrible. I have the control panel set as performance and I have overclocked before with better performance.

I am just more fussy than I thought I would be about gaming. I am selling this laptop (Asus G1SN) and have an NP8662 with a Quad and GTX260M on the way though.

 

I'm quite pleased with SP 2 so far. Windows runs much smoother (starts and shuts down much quicker) and my FPS actually increased in games. I haven't spent enough time with it yet to make out an overall impression, but so far so good.