weird performance with my xps

So after playing with the graphics settings for hours, I've come to the realization that a bigger problem is at play than just having the graphics too high. I'm trying to run cod2 on a m1710 with a 7900 gs card, 1 gig of ram, 2.0 t7200. Its pretty much brand new. In the nvidia control panel I've got all the settings on medium to low. In cod2, it doesn't matter if I turn the graphics completely down, or all the way up, I still get around 40-50 fps. I just dont get it. The fps max is 91, so that's not the problem. I just can't seem to get good performance in this game. I dont really have any other demanding games to try it on. I just updated the drivers the other day, and I don't have any programs hogging my recourses. Any help?

 

might be window xp vista problem after reading this one
( GeForce 7900 performing like crap on Vista--are there any newer drivers? )
it is same as your gpu
sry for no hyperlink^^

 

Maybe vertical syncing is on? Sometimes that limits the framerate.

 

I'm running media center 05 and vsync is off.

 

I've got a XPS M1710 bought in November; T7200, 2GigRAM, 9750 Gtx, XP. I'm running the Nvidia drivers Dell released in Early December and it screams through Fear, Guild Wars and NWinter2 all at 1600x1200 with all/most of the goodies turned on and framerates in the 50-80fps range. Did you install drivers directly from Nvidia? I've heard that with the XPS that can hamper performance until Dell approves/tweeks them.

 

yeah they came straight from nvidia. I got 940 fps in cs 1.6 with the res at 1920 x 1200. I know that's a really low game but my friends nice gaming desktop couldn't even get that high. So I'm wondering if its just a problem with cod2.

 

What resolution are you running at in CoD 2? You said you tried different settings but I'm wondering if you did anything about the resolution.

Did you install the latest CoD 2 patch? It adds multi processor support, so you will see a nice performance boost if you have not already installed it.

 

yeah ive tried it on all resolutions. even at like 800x600 res i dont see a big increase. thats what made me realize theres a bigger problem. and how do i get the latest patch? i bought cod2 off steam like a month ago. how do i know if i have the patch?

 

ok this is terrible. something is not right. I've got the res set at 1024x768 with aa on 2x and all the graphics turned all the way down and im getting between 40-60 fps. wtf is wrong?

 

open steam and go to your games tab. you will see if the game is updated. I think Steam updates automatically unless you manually tell each game you have to not update.

 

Hmmm.. I believe your setting to DX 7 mode thts why the sudden boost in fps.. You'll get patches over here http://www.callofduty.com/patch_cod2/

 

The patches can be found on this page:
http://www.callofduty.com/patch_cod2/
However, I'm not sure if you have to update the version of CoD 2 that you bought through Steam differently. Try what Andrew said first.

 

He is right, install the latest drivers from Dell. You can find them HERE. It is very highly recommended that people use only the Dell drivers for their XPS.