***ENVY 14 Gaming Lounge***

****ing Zerg rushers.

 

well it's not really a rush there.


that's more "Oh you killed all my guys. Good thing I was stockpiling larva. INSTANT REPLENISHMENT OF FORCES!!!"

'course zerg is sorta balanced this way anyway.

 

That's definitely reassuring. I thought the envy 14 would have trouble running some games because of its higher resolution but since sc2 is sort of demanding and it is very playable. That puts my last concern to bed. (Besides all the lemons coming in of course.)

 

SC2 gets 45 fps on medium in phase 2 of the beta.

Phase 2 everyone's fps dropped by various amounts 'cause blizzard is running extra code in the background for debugging.


also there's some other fps bugs in it (menu can get locked below 30 and/or below 20 sometimes).

game performance can be iffy as well.

should be fixed by the time live comes out. I hope

 

(also yeah that's an fps drop by halfish compared to what it was in the original beta with no patches. It should be closer to phase 1 fps info when the game goes live)

 

i have to say im a little disappointed actually in the gaming performance of the envy 14. i remember many people saying sc2 would run on ultra flawlessly. so now were looking at medium?

i tried the crysis demo and it had some issues even at low-med.

i also noticed when i adjusted the sound using the keyboard it would take me out of full screen and stop the game. this could be a thing with crysis im not sure but that would be very annoying if it does that in other games like say SC2(magus care to test it?). im use to adjusting the sound with keys like i did with my dell and it never took me out of games.

 

we're looking at medium to high depending on how much you can modify the shadows and if the variables.txt file works correctly again come launch.

 

also yeah the volume controls minimize out of sc2.


I blame HP's overlay stuff. It doesn't pop up for brightness.

HP's overlay stuff can probably be turned off/deleted and it won't pop you out of a game anymore

 

Still no BF:BC2 benchmarks? arg.

edit: nvm

 

The same thing happened to me with the sound but I played the crysis demo with no lag at all on all high settings for the most part except medium shadows and it was at 1600x900 resolution.

 

one of you may have been using crysis 32 bit, the other crysis 64-bit.

or something.

 

thats really annoying. i hope there is a way to stop it from doing that.

 

hm that is strange. we have the exact same specs(the second one i ordered has 8gb ram, this one has 6gb like yours)

 

ugh ugh ugh. Ive heard only good things about the gaming performance of the dv6tse because of its lower resolution. But I don't think I'm willing to sacrifice all the perks of the ENVY 14 just for better gaming performance.

 

I am going to DL WoW again and test it out ..

 

How are games running/looking if you run below native resolution (i.e. 1366x768)? Any issues?

 

Currently trying the Mass Effect 2 demo, TF2, and WoW.

How do you get FPS to appear while gaming besides using fraps? Someone said ctrl + alt + f? If so I cant get it to appear.

 

dunno.

lemme try sc2 windowed (on account of "hell maybe it'll get back to 70-80 in phase 2)

 

also ctrl+alt+f only works for SC2 since it's a command in SC2

 

Ahh, alright thanks.

 

yeah sc2 gets back to 75-80 if you go to windowed in phase 2.

 

*tries bioshock, watches mouse jump all over the place*

2k Gaaaaaames!! *googles the mouse acceleration fix*

 

@Magus,

Don't forget to run PCSX2 and Dolphin for (meEeee)

 

ok this laptop runs WoW with no problems..ultra settings except shadows on medium because they are annoying but they do raise fps by about 5. Max GPU temp was 72C and 70C for the cores. Left palmrest is still cool to touch which is really nice since you are using WASD right palmrest is warm but not too bad, I use a mouse anyway. 60+ FPS in 5 man instances and around 35-40 FPS in dalaran with a good amount of ppl in it, so this will play cataclysm no problem. Next in line is Just Cause 2

EDIT: Performance definitely decreases when you switch to battery power with the GPU still on. I was around 20 FPS flying around outside dalaran but it was really choppy. It doesn't matter to me since I would only game if I was plugged in. I was at max charge and in like 5 minutes I was already down to 90% with max brightness.

 

So tempted to play wow again... this computer won't help with that one teeny tiny little bit. God i was addicted to that...

 

I hate it now lol I only installed it just to see it on ultra settings I only used to play on all low settings =( Looks pretty nice tho

 

Alright... We need to see some screenshots of these games with some FPS overlays...

And just for some other people that dont know, you can install a program called "FRAPS" which puts the FPS counter in the games. Also, since the E14 has an ATi card, you can use ATi Tray Tools which does overclocking and also shows the FPS... Just an idea.

I would really like to see some Crysis benchmarks from you Magnus since the other two are having two opposite performances. Also, Bad Company 2 would be nice to see... Just some suggestions. Also... Dolphin would be nice to see...

 

Anyone in the FF14 Beta wanna tell us about it

 

Can someone test out Fallout 3 and Bioshock 2?

 

Doesn't fraps lower the framerate drastically?
For source games I know net_Graph 1 shows a bunch of info along with fps and ping
also cl_showfps 1

 

How do you reapply thermal paste? Do you take the old (original) stuff off? How?

 

Has anyone done any tests with Resident Evil 5. If not I will provide later today. thanks.

 

For anyone that wants to know -- this was one of my big concerns when I was buying the Envy 14...

The Envy 14 can handle StarCraft II at Ultra settings with very playable results. It is not done with EASE. The movements seem less smooth than when played on a Medium graphics setting. But it is just as smooth playing Ultra than my old TOSHIBA L505-S5984 can play on Low settings. Ultra is very good on the Envy 14 and although I'll be keeping my competitive Battle.net Quick Matches on Medium settings for the best possible fps, I'll definitely be playing my campaign mode on Ultra.

And my configuration:
i5-450, ati radeon 5650, 320gb 7200rpm hdd

 

I got 30 fps in ultra with my envy on an unpatched beta.


sub 30s with phase 2 since phase 2 is crappily optimized mess. 'cause well. dey be doing it on purpose to debug (and some bugs got in with the new ui)

 

I just played WOW and I must say that it performs extremely well. It runs better on the E14 than my Nvidia 8800GTS desktop does... lol. However, the temps did get up to 70 degrees Celsius for the GPU and CPU. The area to the right of the power button gets very hot. Is this what you guys are seeing?

 

sounds about right.

 

league of legends ran very smoothly on all High settings

and for anyone unfamiliar with LoL, it is a free stand alone DoTA-like game.

i tried the crysis demo again and it ran nicely on medium

 

Arctic Silver 5's website actually has some pretty good instructions on reapplying thermal paste. The only thing they seem to omit is information on getting the heatsink and the CPU separated, which will require removing some screws and removing the heatsink assembly from the computer entirely, and should be done very carefully to avoid damaging the CPU (hint: if you need to remove the CPU to separate it from the heatsink, make sure to unlock the socket before you even think about removing the CPU).

There's an element of risk for someone who has never worked with the inside of a laptop, though - as long as you're careful, it can be relatively easy and even fun.

 

I played dragon age origins last night on highest settings with max res and it looked great!

 

DA:O will run well at max?


I know what I'm getting come christmas steam sale.

 

Fallout 3 is running very smoothly at 1920x1080 on 4x AA and other 'high' settings.

 

well that's good news.
Fallout 3 was one of the games I reallly wanted to run well on here.

 

i hope this lives up to my expectations. If not, I guess I'll just get the 17

 

6878 3dmark06 score.

cool.

...also uh....


the hell 3dmark06. You made firefox kill aero.

BAD 3dmark06

 

Someone list all the good games out there!
I only bought AC1 so far.
What else is good?
I'm down for some good FPS

 

Bioshock 1 runs flawlessly.

hell yes.

edit: flawlessly minus the mouse acceleration...but...meh. that happens for everyone with like a g5 mouse or something

 

Bioshock and Bioshock 2, Fallout 3, Battle Field Bad Company 2, Counter Strike: Source, Assassins Creed 2, Crysis, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2...

Those are good to start

 

*tosses in Deadspace even though it's a third person shooter, also borderlands and source engine stuff (HL2, TF2, L4D1 and 2, etc)*

 

@Magus

My man, please post some good news in our What CPU for PCSX2 thread

 

come back later when I have a ps2 emulator