***ENVY 14 Gaming Lounge***

There is an obvious difference between most hollywood films (24fps) and TV shows (30fps), to provide one example. Ever noticed how the production of the video "feels" different between a movie and TV show? That is why.

 

thank you flipkun... someone knows the truth... Either way, as long as the lowest FPS you get is 30, you'll be golden

 

I stand corrected and I apologize that I offended a few of you. My original posted has been edited and that incorrect factoid has been removed.

 

To be fair, the same thing has been said millions of times before you said it. Many sites seem to regard 30 FPS as playable and make little distinction between 30 and 60. Personally, I'm used to sub-par GPU's, so 30 FPS will be a treat for me - I played through F.E.A.R. and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. on my current system and often dealt with sub-15 FPS, so I'm stoked to finally have a computer on the way that should run most modern games at a decent frame rate - playing modern games will be a new experience for me

 

Totally know where you're coming from... this will be the first PC I have ever owned that has a dedicated gpu.

I am going to be so happy not having to play WoW anymore at ~20 FPS, not to mention trying out all the other PC games I have never been able to play.

 

Has anyone tried Left 4 Dead 2 highest settings 1600x900 resolution?
I'm hoping it plays smoothly.

 

This is one of my previous posts on the Owners Thread. I figure it better belongs here:

Benchmarked Left 4 Dead 2 - Boy is this a fun machine! I have a secondary monitor setup to 1080p that I used to monitor CPUID Hardware monitor while playing the game on the native 1600x900 screen.

Settings:
4xMSAA
Anisotropic 8x
Everything else maxed out

Playing on laptop screen, with secondary screen also running
Min, Max, Avg
24, 61, 40.000

With the secondary LCD Turned off the numbers I got were: (same level)

Min, Max, Avg
28, 60, 43.100

With V-sync Turned Off:
Min, Max, Avg
24, 72, 42.450

I'm really quite pleased! Temps were very well managed too:

Max CPU Core Temp was 76c, and Max GPU core temp was 74c

For comparison, On these same settings with my Vaio Z11 Temps reached 92 CPU Core and 89c for GPU Core. (i5-520m and GT330m) Best recorded FPS on the vaio were (with v-sync turned on):

Min, Max, Avg
21, 60, 35

This is such a blast! I'm very pleased with the ability of the E14, but the killjoy will be this processor whine. As soon as I stopped playing and went back to firefox, it started up again.

 

In regards to the above, i'll also say that I wouldn't recommend playing without v-sync turned on - There was a lot of screen tearing, especially when aiming around any type of fire or water effects.

 

Thank you, alaskajoel! I missed that in the owner's thread.
I don't apply AA or AF in any game I play so I'm confident now.

 

Yeah it plays very fluid when I turn those off. I don't usually use them either, but that was about the max configuration I could setup before the FPS regularly got below 29. (which I consider the bare minimum in order to play...and those only happened when there was a horde coming through fire / water...like when you open the elevator doors on the first chapter of the hotel campaign.)

Also, I ran the final fantasy XIV benchmark....definitely not too impressive there...gave me a score of 820. Tomorrow i'm going to try a mild overclocking of the graphics card and see if I can get it a little higher. I'm also going to try out Dirt 2 with some of the fancy DX11 eye-candy..(tessellation, etc)

 

Will installing a few games on my Envy 14 cause the overall system to slow down at all beyond the slight speed decrease from loading up the hard drive?

 

When counting CPU cores here, do you count virtual cores created by e.g. Hyper Threading or do you mean actual physical cores? That is, with your experience with this game, do you reckon that i5 processors will suffer from its lack of cores compared to i7's?

 

No. The 2 things I can think of that "might" cause any sort of delay would be A.) Games that use a launcher to load at Windows Start (example: Steam) or B.) if you were performing a Virus Scan. More files on the darddrive means more a slightly larger scan time.

 

It shouldn't at all. However, if you install them with Steam and Steam is constantly running in the background, that will use up a small amount of resources.

Now, if you're using an SSD and you overload the drive with game folders, I hear that will slow your SSD down a bit, something like 60-70% (I believe) is the cutoff before it bogs down a bit, although I've also heard that the average end-user won't notice the slowdown in real-world usage.

Edit - Ha! Answering a 6-hour-old question and I get beaten by seconds! I'll add that you can set Steam to not run at system startup if you don't want it eating resources while you're not playing a game.

 

Well for anyone interested in starcraft 2.


I'm in the beta.

the beta ends monday.


but my envy should be here today (friday).


Looks like we'll get to see how it plays after all

 

I am interested in how the Envy 14 will perform in Starcraft 2 be sure to let us know.

 

I will.

Side note: Beta is having a few performance issues right now so my numbers may not be accurate (beta's optimization went kinda downhill for phase 2 because of something they did. They're scrambling to fix it).

 

Thanks, I may actually look into getting Starcraft 2. I saw my friends playing it, and it looked like a good game. I guess it depends on how well it performs on the Envy 14, and on whether I get the Envy 14.

 

Starcraft II Final System Requirements:

Final Starcraft II System Specs via Kotaku

Now just need someone to translate these Desktop Specs into Laptop Specs...

 

I got 3 beta accounts to sc2 works perfect on my laptop.
I am hoping it will work the same on Envy Especially FF14 and Diablo3 :O

 

Oh boy.. I'm really hoping I can run FF14 with no problems on the Envy14 I just ordered. I ordered mine earlier this week not realizing the differences between the ATI models. I'd really like to run the game at above average settings at the least. Max settings would be ideal, but from what I'm gathering on various threads is that the 5650 isn't that great, at least for FF14 n similar games. Someone tell me I'm mistaken. =/

My Envy14's CPU & RAM
• Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-740QM Quad Core processor (1.73GHz, 6MB L3 Cache) w/Turbo Boost up to 2.93 GHz
• 8GB DDR3 System Memory (accidentally went overboard on RAM)

 

The benchmark I ran was pretty much no dice. (score of 800) According to the system requirements though, we should be able to run it to some extent

 

Thanks alaskajoel. Guess I'll have to think this one over.

 

Will I be able to max out The Witcher and Dragon Age: Origins at 1600x900?

 

There has to be a driver issue or something. With a slight 5650 OC, Hendrickson got a score of over 2000 with the I5 430M in his Acer 3820TG. Hell, people with a M11xR1 are getting around 1500.

There is no reason you should have gotten something as low as 800. I'm sure the envy 14 will run FFXIV perfectly fine at medium settings, maybe even high. Plus that benchmark is a bunch of bull. There were people with GTX460s being outscored by 5770's on neogaf.

 

According to this website. A core i5 520m was able to achieve consistent 42 fps at 1600x900 resolution. Not sure what to make of that but I'm pretty sure the results with the envy will be comparable since Im getting the 450m. right?

edit: playing Battlefield Bad Company 2 at medium settings.

 

I sure hope you're right. This gives me some hope. I'll have to wait until mine arrives to see for myself. Until then, I'll be reading the forums.

 

If I can get my Envy 14 in before the FF14 beta ends, I'll give it a test. I haven't even started playing yet because of work. I placed my order this week so I'll probably get it by early next month hopefully.

Oh yea! I should have it by the time SC2 is out. Gonna give that a test too

 

Wish I was in the FFXIV beta. I signed up the day sign up began lol. I have the CE on order so hopefully they give out invites to preorders someday soon. I would love to try it on my Envy

 

My build date is the 22nd. With two day shipping. I hope I'll have mine up and running for SC2. : )

 

Same here, PSICOM. I got invited as a beta tester but all I have is my 2006 Macbook Pro. I attempted to install it anyways on Windows XP OS... but it crashed. lol

 

I'll be glad to try it out on my Envy on the 20th if you want me to lol

 

Depends on which laptops they used to test (since it looks like they use a few).

In the HP Owners forum there is a nice bit of info between the 520m & the 450m. I believe the difference between the 2 was a performance difference of around 10%... check there. I wouldn't worry too much about it, I went with the 450m myself. I don't need the 2 additional features that the 520m has and I don't plan on needing turboboost to go up to 2.96.

I recall an article in either this months or last months PC Gamer stating that you want to run games at a native resolution of the screen. Changing the resolution to something other than the native resoultion makes the GFX card work harder because it is sending additional instructions to change the resolution (of course the article didn't indicate if this was in reference to desktops/laptops or both). However, have read several posts indicating that lowering your resolution will increase performance.

My personal preference is to run native resolution and turn quality setting down for performance. If that fails, then change the resolution down.

Of course without having an actual Envy sitting infront of me with tests to prove/confirm any of this it is just "what I've heard".

 

Well I just fired up wow for the first time to do some running around etc and test things out. Something is way off though. My screen is very pixilated and looks grainy when you move too fast, and the color seems way off. Very greenish to me. I tweaked all the settings and fixed the resolution, but it still just looks off. I wonder if I need a new driver. I am still using the one that came with the envy.

 

I'm very confident you guys are correct about the FFXIV benchmark issues - There is no reason for this machine to be THAT low.

And yes, the benchmark is whacked - My HTPC (see sig) Beat out a buddys i7-980 OC'd + X-fired hd5870s.

I'm wanting to try out some different GPU drivers anyway - none of the overclocking tools i've tried to use have worked. In fact, everyone of them has caused the entire system to crash.

 

well so far the current catalyst drivers won't install. The installer believes that the 10.3b drivers we have are up to date.

 

Weird why would WoWs colors be messing up?

 

I have no idea.

 

Okey dokes. Off to head home and do SC2 tonight. Need some practice as I'm dying like crazy!


I'll be looking forward to SC2 tests later today. PEACE!

 

I just played Crysis demo for about 25 mins..cores got to about 60C average and GPU was 67C palmrests are still COOL to the touch. I had everything on high except shadows which was medium at 1600x900 looked really nice but the game is super boring =( Cant wait for SC2 to come out!

 

crysis runs alright?

I'm impressed.

Installing sc2. Gonna test phase 1 before testing phase 2 (meaning hey skirmish ai thing before I patch up to phase 2 and it's performance issues)

 

Crysis ran well at high ???!!!

 

I never played crysis before so I couldnt find where you could see the FPS but I am assuming it was above 30 fps since it wasnt choppy at all..

 

SC2 gets 30fps at the start in ultra.


so yeah. don't expect full ultra for SC2.

medium plays fine. High plays alright with a few tweaks (drop shadows down as far as you can, etc)


edit: this is phase 1 no patches done to beta SC2.

not sure how it'll do in phase 2 online (patching sc2 right now)

 

Yeah, i'd be happy if any game ran well at medium.

 

lemme be a bit more detailed.

Medium plays at approx 80 fps.

not sure how it plays with a ton of guys on the screen.

High 40s-60s depending on how you mess with stuff.

ultra. mid 20s to 30s.

Ultra is actually demanding.

drop shadows and ultra bumps up to 40.

but this is with no one but my 6 starting scvs mining still.

 

So for now, medium's the sweet spot, eh? Good enough for me.

 

medium is the "most likely playable even when there's suddenly 50 billion roaches knocking on your door" spot.

 

oh and believe me.

there will be 50 billion roaches knocking on your door (they are 1 supply again I think)

 

800mb patches take awhile.

(map editor is in the patch and adds 300 to it)