why does my laptop underperform?

Hi to everyone! I have a Dell Inspiron 1525 with Intel Core 2 Duo T5750@2 GHz, 2 GB RAM, and the standard Intel X3100 graphic card. I'm aware this is not a gaming machine, but according to the info I got from the web I should be able to run old games like Fable, San Andreas and Vampire Bloodlines, to mention a few. But I'm not, the frame rate really sucks. I ran a PCMark05 benchmark and got 1992 points, although this review: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Dell-Inspiron-1525-Notebook.8005.0.html says I should have got about 3600.

The graphic driver is the latest (supplied by Dell, May 2008) and I've hoovered the vents but I'm pretty much stuck now. I'de be VERY grateful for any suggestions as to what I should check. I've no idea why the laptop doesn't deliver as it is supposed to. Thanks again for any helpful comments.

 

3DMark06 is a better measure of graphics performance, not PCMark05.

To be honest, their score of 3600 cannot be correct one bit. If you look at the other laptops they compare it to, the Vostro with a T8100 and 8600M GS gets a 3596, which is lower than for the 1525. This makes absolutely no sense. Both the T8100 and 8600M GS are significantly more powerful than the T5500 and X3100 in the review notebook.

I don't know much about Fable, but I know that GTA San Andreas and Vampire Bloodlines both are fairly graphics intensive and will NOT run well on a X3100, sorry. You can check to make sure your power plan is set to "High Performance" if you're using Vista, but that's about it.

Sorry for the bad news, but welcome to NBR

 

probably getting 05 mixed up with 01 or something.

Edit: BTW there is an X3100 gaming thread here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=128777

 

Thanks a lot, I'll have a look at 3DMark06. A friend of mine has the same sort of basic laptop, although a generation newer, and with the x4500 graphic card or whatever the successor of the 3100 is and he runs these games no problem

Anyway, I'll have a look at the new benchmark figures. I was thinking about reinstalling Windows but I had to set up BIOS so that the USB slots are only recognised once windows has started up (otherwise my external drives wouldn't work properly) and now I can't press a key to boot from the CD

 

scratch that, the laptop has a built-in keyboard... i'm such an idiot sometimes

 

I tried 3DMark06 as per your advice and the results are better: I got 439 points compared to about 25% better in the quoted review. Still, it says here ( http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4154) that the x3100 should be able to play half-life 2. Admittedly, that is on XP... Any suggestions welcome although I'm starting to think it's a Vista problem.

 

yes I played HL2 perfectly on xp with my X3100. vista shouldn't be too different.

I know that you have the latest driver supplied by dell but there is a newer driver on intels website, you can install that one for a performence boost. It should definatly improve HL2 performence.

 

turn the resolution to 640x480, turn everything to lowest, plug in the laptop, try again.

 

Really, you're out of luck with the X3100. It's not meant for gaming. See this review for more info: http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4154

 

Hmm....I'd think that his laptop should at least be able to run Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines.

My desktop which runs a Pentium 4 3.2Ghz, 1 Gig RAM, and a not so awesome Radeon X300 can run it with no problems at all. I'm pretty sure when I ran 3dMark06 on it, it was even lower than 400...

 

Thanks to everyone for the useful comments. I installed XP and got a 10% better score on 3DMark06. More importantly, I can now run San Andreas, Fable and Bloodlines. The latter is playable even on 1280x800 with all graphic options set to max! I have read somewhere that the X3100 was optimised for XP rather than Vista, but I never expected such a difference. On the other hand, I do realise it's not a gaming card - I bought it specifically so I wouldn't be able to play and then I could concentrate on work when I'm in front of the computer. I bet you can all guess how that turned out. Anyway, thanks again for all the help!