What are my options? (GeForce 8400M G)

I recently ordered an Acer Aspire 7520 from New Egg.

I thought I did enough research on my first notebook purchase but evidently did not.

Specs:

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?Item=N82E16834115410

GPU/VPU NVIDIA GeForce 8400M G
Video Memory Up to 1024 MB of TurboCache technology (256 MB of dedicated GDDR2 VRAM, up to 768 MB of shared system memory)
Graphic Type Dedicated Card

I did not realize that New Egg doesn't offer any type of returns for Notebooks except for EXACT replacement for defective models. They will not allow you to exchange for something different. I also contacted Acer whom advised me that they only offer repair services through their depot and that they could/would not help with an exchange.

So getting around to my question. The system is great and I got a good deal on it. The only complaints I have are that the GPU is not powerful enough to run some of the games I want. On max settings I'm only pulling about 20fps in World of Warcraft. While it isn't a huge ordeal considering I was going to use this notebook for work and school mainly, I would like to game on it. Other than looking to sell it to someone and take a loss on it, what other options do I have?

 

Tweak WOW and i hope you have at least 2 GB RAM.

WOW is however very playable on 20 FPS, i play as a lvl 70 Warrior on a X3100 with 15 FPS average with details on medium and it works great i own in Arena.

Remember to get the latest drivers if you dont have them.

 

if they don't take returns, you are probably going to have to sell this one for a loss...

how long have you had it? maybe you can just be honest and tell them that it doesn't meet your expectations?

 

You didn't get a bad deal on it, $800 is a good price for a 17" notebook with a dedicated video card. A Toshiba 17" around the same price has integrated graphics.

I would also suggest tweaking WoW to run better, or just don't run it on max settings. The game scales well. Don't take a $ loss if you don't have to.

 

I suppose I am just used to my desktop which pulls a steady 60fps in WoW on Max Settings, as well as being very capable of playing the Crysis Demo on full settings at a very reasonable FPS (not sure on exact). I suppose I'm just disappointed that my new notebook won't be capable of playing the current market games on full settings, and likely won't be capable of running newer games at all. The other complaint I have on the system is that I cannot find many WinXP drivers on the Acer site for this model. I have Vista Home on it, but will need XP Pro for Remote Desktop for my side business. I was also hoping that I would be able to get a small performance increase in gaming if I run it in XP since Vista is labeled as being a resource hog. Thoughts?

 

yeah no laptop can max every game out right now....mine can with the exception of crysis but desktops cant even do that.

and Vista is not too bad, I hated it at first but it really is a lot easier once you figure it out and gamin performance is alot better now. and if you tweak it properly, it wont be SUCH a resource hog. I have 3gb of ram so im not really worried anyways.

 

Yes your laptop will be after with XP than Vista so stick with XP SP2 or 3 for now. You will be able to run many new games on your laptop on medium settings.

For exampe F>E>A>R,Stalker,Bioshock,COD4 etc. You will be able to run ALL new games even Crysis. Just reduce the settings and tweak them. Games as Stalker and HL2 you should be able to play on max settings. Just experiment

 

I received it on February 14th, 2008.

 

I sincerely appreciate all the feedback. I've decided to just cope and utilize what I have. No sense fighting to get it exchanged or selling it for a loss. It was only $800 plus shipping and tax, and honestly I bought it for school and my side computer repair business anyways. I should be able to afford a new system toward the end of the year anyways when I finish my MCSA certification.

Once again, thank you all for the feedback. These forums are awesome, and I'll definitely be hanging out, and contributing when I can.

Wish me luck getting XP Pro running on this thing considering Acer doesn't provide any XP drivers for this system. (Only Vista)

 

There's virtually no performance difference in games between XP and Vista now. The drivers are up to speed.

While Bioshock will run, Crysis doesn't even run playably on 8400M GSes like mine.

 

Download ntune and Riva so that you can overclock it.

Overclock your CPU, FSB, GPU any you will get a nice boost in overall performance