New P-7807u.... now what???

Hey there folks, I'm relatively new to the gaming laptop world and need some help figuring out how to get my computer up to capabilities. My last computer was an HP Pavilion 2000 that was in no way a gaming laptop, so I didn't optimize it at all. Now that I have a friggin sweet new set up with the Gateway P-7807u FX, I have no idea what to download so I can play my games to their full potential.

So I come asking for some advice: what drivers/updates/other important tools will I need to download to get my rig going? I have a general idea of what to do, such as official nVidia graphics drivers, but I know that I must be missing somethings. Go ahead and call me a noob and whatever else, but for real please help me out with what I should do. Thanks!

 

It should run perfect right out of the box aside from normal window updates/driver updates. I run All my games on high with no problem.

 

Congrats on the new computer. If you are trying to squeze more performance out of it you'll want to head over to the definitive driver upgrade guide in this Forum and grab the Nvidia system tools for overclocking. I would also read through it too so you can get an idea of where to start. Youll also want to adjust the nvidia control panel settings to try and find what works best for you between performance and quality. If you just read this info displayed for each option most of it is self explanatory. I would download HWMonitor if I were you to check out your temps, especially after overclocking your GPU. Remember that 100 C is around the thermal limit for both CPU and GPU when using that tool. Your CPU should only get into the 60-70s and GPU 70-80's occasionaly into the low 90's max. MAKE RECOVERY DISC's! Seriously use the Gateway recovery manager and make them. Use a program like CCleaner to rid your rig of initial bloatwear. And install and play your games! Oh one more thing I did. I noticed the screen isnt the best so I also usde the Nvidia Control Panel to adjust the Contrast and Digital Vibrance to get better colors on the screen. It works pretty well. Good Luck

 

Undevolt, lowers temps and increases battery life. I was about to do it to my refurb P7805u, but now the graphics are acting wierd, dont wanna invest that much time only to return it.
Heres the guide
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=235824

 

Are the DOX drivers worth it or should I go with regular nVidia? Based on the conversations around here it seems like nVdia has gotten pretty good.

 

Yeah I usually stick with Nvidia myself. Any optimisations done by Dox, arent that major otherwise Nvidia would have already done it themselves. My theory is, how to get the most stable drivers? Go to the source. Everytime it is modded by someone else you increase the chances of human error. So I go to the source.

 

Heh, unfortunately the source is not always doing the best work, which is why the modded drivers I use XFastest myself, as they fixed a game crash problem for me that was caused, admitted to, and eventually fixed in the Nvidia drivers. Eventually meaning months later lol.

Oh and sadly, they haven't ever fixed the nvlddmkm driver crash to my knowledge. I have a friend to whom I gave an EVGA 8800GTX 768 meg card, at the time the second fastest game card in the world. He was unable to play his favorite game (Everquest II) due to this error crashing him out, and his Googling for help turned up an amazing amount of reports of the same error across different games. After a year of dealing with it, his solution a few months ago was to buy an ATI card

 

lol the dreaded driver stopped responding thing is not always the driver. my proof to me was when i experienced this problem and tried lots of drivers to no avail. in the end it ended up being my ram was the culprit. i changed out the ram with a different brand and all was good in the land of my desktop. so its not always what you think it is.

 

DOX seems to usually optimise them for average/minimum fps. Nvidia provides drivers that work for the most scenarios. There is a big difference, if you don't believe me, try them. Record temperatures, min frame rate, max frame rate, and average frame rate. Then switch to DOX and note all the differences. Different driver versions also have different characteristics, but that's no different from Nvidia drivers either, or xfastest etc.

Nvidia drivers are made by humans also. If you're gonna start at the source every time you might as well ride horses everywhere. Automobiles are assembled by humans so they have a chance of error, so you better just avoid cars all together...

I DEFINITELY prefer Dox over regular Nvidia drivers. If you're a gamer, you're better off with drivers made for gaming.

If you are a regular user and want regular drivers, go to Nvidia and get the basic ones.

 

Honestly its a laptop not a full fledged PC. So keeping the heatsink capabilities in mind I would simply stick with the stock settings. what you can probably do is just update the graphic driver to the latest Nvidia and upgrade to windows 7 RC. That should do more than enough.

 

DOX seems to usually optimise them for average/minimum fps. Nvidia provides drivers that work for the most scenarios. There is a big difference, if you don't believe me, try them. Record temperatures, min frame rate, max frame rate, and average frame rate. Then switch to DOX and note all the differences. Different driver versions also have different characteristics, but that's no different from Nvidia drivers either, or xfastest etc. I have tried DOX, I dont notice hardly a difference that anyone who wasnt completely obsessive compulsove would notice

Nvidia drivers are made by humans also. If you're gonna start at the source every time you might as well ride horses everywhere. Automobiles are assembled by humans so they have a chance of error, so you better just avoid cars all together... Wow you totally missed my point, Im saying that the less hands they go through, the less chance for human error.

I DEFINITELY prefer Dox over regular Nvidia drivers. If you're a gamer, you're better off with drivers made for gaming. This purely shows you have no idea what you are talking about, graphics drivers are made to execute graphics functions, they see no difference between a movie and a game their is no such thing as gaming drivers, some perform better than others and thats the extent of it.



Honestly its a laptop not a full fledged PC. So keeping the heatsink capabilities in mind I would simply stick with the stock settings. what you can probably do is just update the graphic driver to the latest Nvidia and upgrade to windows 7 RC. That should do more than enough Of course its not a full fledged PC that is why a GTX 260 has about half the clockrate in a laptop as it dose in a desktop. They are already designed with low heat in mind, why not use what you have?

 

If you recorded FPS like I said, you would SEE the difference.

There is no point to what you said, I understood what you said, but apparently you can't seem to connect that to my analogy. What you said is not a fact, there is no proof that the more hands it goes thru the more chance there is for error. You could just as easily argue the opposite, stating it as a fact just like you did with the above statement. Your POINT is an opinion, and you are trying to state it as a fact. There is just as much of a "CHANCE" that they will FIX more problems, the more hands it goes through. There is no proof of either, there are far too many variables, it is impossible to calculate the chance in that situation.

I did not say there was a difference between gaming and movies...

I said that Nvidia makes video drivers that work for the most situations, while DOX, xfastest, and other optimised driver developers create drivers that are made for average/minimum fps, some are even designed to create less heat from the GPU. They will work in less situations, but they will perform better. That is all in comparison to regular nvidia drivers from nvidia.com.

BTW you should really learn how to use quotes.

 

A GPU works by creating images and throwing them at your screen using buffers. It dose not matter if you are playing a game, watching a movie or staring at your desktop your GPU is still doing the same thing. The variation will be in clockspeeds and that is about it, that is controled by the BIOS. Games use the same pixles as everything else and therfor if a driver performs better it is only becuase it is reading the data differently from your CPU, usually in a more optimized way. None of these DOX or XFastest guys are going to that level. They may disable powermiser so you dont throttle or delete unesesary files, but they are not reprograming these drivers. If they were they could just make their own and not be "optimizing" Nvidia ones.

It is true that my statement about human error could go either way. How ever I have never seen a custom driver fix something that Nvidia messed up. I prefer to trust the drivers that are made by the pro's that work for Nvidia rather than those same ones played around with by someone I dont even know is quailified to do it.

I have recorded the FPS between the drivers, one game may give me 1-2 FPS more on DOX, and 1-2 less on another game. I will do this and take screenshots and post them for your veiwing pleasure later.