6860 Gaming Performance

Alright, I've made some posts here before about small problems with my 6860 and I have another one. To me, it seems that my 6860 isn't on par with what others have posted as far as gaming performance. I would think that this laptop should be able to run WoW at max settings at 60fps minimum. Well I can run 60 in some areas and all, but for the most part I seem to average 30-40fps. While this is still playable by all means, I was expecting a little bit better.

Also, I re-installed the OS first thing and I can't seem to get my microphone to work. Anyone know where I can find a driver for it?

Thanks.

 

what drivers are you running for your videocard ? also do you have vsync enabled in WOW? that maybe why your running 60 max then it will tank down to 30fps if it cant run 60 try and turn vsync off if you can and if its enabled .

 

put the newest drivers on it look at the driver thread animal made
and put the laptop on high performance power wise

 

From all the time I've spent playing WOW it seems that how much the game stresses the gpu can vary greatly and therefore fps can become erratic.

In most games you can run an in-game scene to test graphic settings and once you hit the sweet spot the game will run very close to those framerates most of the time. It might dip down when you get a much larger area, there is alot of smoke or shadows, or there is some special effect like an explosion but the game will run smoothly.

But in WOW you could test your graphics settings when you first get the game, you are in the old-world which is less graphically demanding, or just out soloing and run at 50-60 fps all the time and think everything is peachy. Then when you enter a major city with 50 people on-screen or enter a 25-man raid with many extra spell effects constantly occurring like seed of corruption you notice fps dropping because there is much more stress being put on your gpu.

To me it seems the biggest killers of fps in WOW is the level of multi-sampling you have enabled and how high you have spell detail on (I would leave this on all the way since if you cut it down too far it makes some spells nearly invisible and can get you killed).

And yeah it wouldn't hurt to change your graphics driver and as far as getting the mic working I would suggest making sure you installed the driver for it. It can probably be found at the Gateway site and I'll link it later if I find it.

 

there is a thread around about mic problems, its quite common after reinstall.
use the magic search option

 

I can't seem to find any threads about the built in mic. The only thing I can find is problems with the MIC jack on the side of the notebook. Yes, I tried using the search but nothing seemed to come up with my problem. I also couldn't find a driver for it on Gateway's website.

If anyone has a link to any of these threads I would greatly appreciated it. Thanks.

 

Are you joking me? my grandmas dishwasher could run WoW. why does everyone use this as a benchmark....

 

soul is right. Why Does everyone use it as a benchmark?

Oh yeah.

Cause everyone plays it.
I dont though

 

Here ya go man. I think its for vista64 though.


http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=277459

 

I never stated this game was a great benchmark, actually I think its a bad benchmark since because of all the variables it can never be fully replicated and compared, and I never stated it required a high-end computer.

Sure you can run WOW on intergrated graphics but I guarantee that if you set all graphic settings at max, run it at 1440x900, cut multi-sampling to 4 or above, and then stand close to a 25-man raid target (like a melee dps) and then watch your fps while spells are exploding all around you it will drop drastically even with the 8800M gts. I didn't say the game would become unplayable I was simply stating that without V-Sync on I can see well over 120 fps then enter a raid at the same graphics settings not 5 mins later and notice consistent dips below 30fps. This isn't an extremes scenario either, this happens to me a few times a week, the fps aren't crippling they just have a wide (erratic) range.

So someone could have reported that they ran at 120fps (which I can do soloing in the old-world) and the OP checked and he was only running 40fps (which I get hovering in shat) and think that something is wrong while in fact both fps with the same hardware are possible.

 

Well I downloaded everything and it works now, but when I test it in games like CS: Source or in TF2 I can actually hear myself finally but there is a lot of interference it seems like. I mean it's a huge improvement from what it was before, which was all static, but it's still kind of bad. I mean I guess i can buy a mic for it but that kind of defeats the purpose of having a built-in mic...wouldn't it?

 

For your mic issues...never use a built in mic from your laptop for gaming due to the 'noisy' environment of the components of your laptop...it's much preferred if you by a headset. I had the same problems too with the static issues in steam but with my headset mic also. I believe it was steam itself because after one of the steam updates, the static/screeching stopped. So I hope this answered your question about your mic. The only time I would ever use the built in mic is when I am on the road doing a video chat/conference which is very rare.