Newbie. Some *new* laptop help wanted

Hi All,

Sorry I don't have much time so please forgive me if these questions have been asked before, but I couldn't find any answers on the sticky thread.

I've bought a sony fz11l laptop, with 64mb go8400m GT card, 2 gig ram, 1.8 core 2 duo processor, but I didn't realise that dedicated ram makes so much differene in games. I got 1040/2121 in 3d mark 06/05 using driver 158.45 and far cry demo was barely playbe on all low settings. I have read somewhere that by reverting to the older type of DX games become more playable on weaker cards.

My questions are:

How can I revert back to DX9?
Are there any better drivers to play older games like doom3, far cry and maybe half-life 2?
As I have 2gig of ram can I increase the dedicated graphics memory from 64mb?
Is there any other way in which I can increase the gaming performance without overclocking?

thanks

 

far cry is already dx 9, only a few games run in dx 10.

 

In games that are DX10 capable, there should be a video settings window/tab/menu thing where you should be able to select DX9, don
t quote me on this as i haven't played a DX10 game yet. Dedicated ram can't be increased, it belongs to the card, but if your card has shared RAM, it steals from the system ram (you don't really need 2GB for gaming unless you are running vista) and the option to use/increase should be in your graphics card options.

 

where do I find it in the graphcs card option?

 

It isn't usually an option that you control. If the 8400m GT supports TurboCache, which I believe it does, it will automatically take memory as it can/requires.

The 8400mGS really isn't a gaming card, and I think perhaps you misunderstood something with the whole DX thing. You don't really revert anything. If a game is DX9 it will run in DX9, if the game is DX10 and in Vista it runs in that, unless you specifically tell the not to. Farcry, is a DX9 game, if on all low it is still running poorly, your only option then is to lower the resolution of the game and hope for the best.

OCing the 8400m GT probably isn't going to help all that much anyways.

 

The 64MB 8400M GT isn't hugely powerful, don't be surprised if it doesn't quie give the performance you would like in games. That's why I'm not getting an FZ.

 

Why would they throw in an 8400m GT and then only use 64MB??? Come on sony! I can't believe it costs much more for 128MB than 64!

 

Of course it'll cost more to upgrade from 64 MB to 128 MB.

 

I may correct an say that this card is indeed powerfull for older games it performs alot better than x1400 and 8400 gs and they are able to play those games at medium settings at least. However i agree on resolution since the size of dedicated ram.

All of the games mentioned above should run on max but on 800x600 resolution.
if u have turbocache you might even run far cry on 1280x800 with all settings on high.

omega drivers improved my Far cry performance at very high
from 10-25 FPS to 23-42FPS but i have ati so dunno if they have same effect on nvidia.
I also gained 25-33% more score in 3dmark 06 and 05 from switching to catalyst to omega.

as scavar said OC low end GPu with so little ram is simply uselles. You will gain max 1-2 FPS

 

wow..
64mb of vid ram...
which means.. 125mb in total (correct me if i am wrong)
i means it is a direct x 10 card!!

 

I said "I can't believe it costs *MUCH* more for 128MB than 64."

You're talking a few bucks difference for a significant difference in performance and actual useability. Kind of like getting a Hemi engine with a transmission for a four speed four cylinder.

 

what score did you get in 3d mark 05/06?

Also, should I base my game buying on 3d mark 05/06 scores other people get? As I have seen that I got the same 3d mark 05/06 score as go7400, and I have been looking at the go7400 screenshot thread, so will I in theory,be able to play games that go7400 users lay at the same settings? Or will I be able to play them at higher settings (surely not lower settings)?

 

Do not worry about other people's 3dmark scores or any other benchmars, but in theory you should be able to play at similar settings that other people with the same card are playing at.

 

Eventhough my Gpu was a weak edition of x1600 i got about same as go7400/atix1400 and some said that it should be named ati x1500 or 2400.

But when i changed to modded drivers i got twice as much performance as those cards mentioned in games and 33-40% more score on 3d mark
Now your card is slightly more powerfull than mine according to 3d mark ati x1600 64 bit bus and 128 mem but you have 8400GT 128bit and 64 mem ram. So i would guess we perform same just find the right drivers an you will be able to knock out those too, but with turbocache you might even perform slightly better than me that is of course if you have it.

 

thanks. I have read that there are no 'best' drivers, so what would be a good bet for low end 8400gt? I'm using modded 158.11 drivers but they aren't very effective. Should I try older drivers?

 

i dont know if they are official drivers but heard of this site
http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/drivers

and remmeber while in some games you get more performance by changing drivers other games performance "can" decrease.
TRy to search the forum for 8400 GT drivers. ussualy there is someone before you who has same problems