Just braught new laptop for oldish games

Hey. yeah so like the title says, i just braught a new laptop so that i could play oldish games.

heres the laptop specs:

• 
  HP Pavillion dv9500 Notebook PC
  Windwows Vista home premium 32bit edition.
  AMD Athlon 64 X2 duel core TK-55 1.8Ghz
  2GB RAM
  NVIDIA MCP67M = GeForce 7150M/nForce 630m
  This is what is in the graphics card adapter window:
  total available graphics memory: 559MB
  Dedicated video memory: 64MB
  System video memory: 0
  shared system momory: 495MB

ok, i know the graphics card is crap, but it should be sort of ok as it can share with my ram, and i got 2GB so there no prob there...

but i have tryed playing both really old games world of warcraft and GTA san andreas and they both lag to hell. dont rly do much more than 25fps..its horrible.

i was not expecting a gaming system..but comon...

could anyone tell me why they think it could be laging this much? or anyway that i could improve the games performance, oh and i ahve changed all the graphics card options to give it better performance, but it doesnt.

 

tried updating the videocards drivers? these are important updates specially for vista users as they need to keep updating the software to fine tune the performance of the card

Mines a Go7200 32mb dedicated memory + turbocache and i can play CS:source and wow with minimal lag. The only time i lag in WoW is if i enter crowded towns thats when my fps dips to about 25fps min, goes about 60fps max and 40ish fps average during gameplay. I never touched any of the gfx settings since i installed cause i was happy with the quality and fps so im not too sure if its on high/low settings, im guessing mid.

Ive also installed GTA:Liberty City (not sure if San Andreas requires better specs). I can play it on the highest res/settings as possible with zero lag whatsoever, i had to turn fps limiter on cause everything would run too fast

 

how strange. i have tryed updating my gfx drivers and it said i had the latest version. also i went onto the bios and changed the amount of dedicated graphics from 64MB to 128MB, and it has made no difference what do ever.

i just dont get it, the performence on games is just as if the 2 cores arnt running together or the graphics card is performing as it should, and your laptop has only got a slighty better gfx card than mine.

any other ideas?

 

haha ur gonna have to turn off aero.i have the same laptop and when i first started to try games i noticed they lagged to all hell,but i read somewhere that this guy turned off aero and they ran smooth.i have basic on,but even if i were to play games id put it to windows classic.

update ur graphics from the hp site.

 

You can't expect the Nvidia go7150 to perform that well. It's an integrated card with no physical discrete memory of its own so it relies on system memory.

Do you have the settings cranked up for the games? Try medium to low settings. I know Warcraft III games work fine on high settings. But GTA and WoW may be pushing it.

 

As times stated, if you turn off Aero you will gain performance. Aero takes up a lot of resources and turning it off should help you out.

 

i think i have already turned Aero off, and it hasnt made any difference. just in case i havnt can u tell me how plz.

 

maybe you should lower the settings... or resolution.

 

First I gotta say this:

Lag is the term used when you're playing an online game and the connection gets slow or interrupted and it messes up the gameplay. Lag is NOT to be used when talking about bad frame-rates. I wish people would get that right.

Anyway, GTA:SA had some pretty stiff requirements, despite being an upgraded PS2 game. Any integrated card will not be able to run it smoothly unless you drop everything to the lowest settings. Even a dedicated card like the GeForce 8400M GS has trouble running it at full detail at higher resolutions.

WoW, while I don't play it (can't stand the game, ran a 14 day trial and gave up on it after 3 due to sheer boredom), is a pretty unoptimized game. You need a relatively decent GPU to run it. In this case, a GeForce 8400M GS will run it smoothly without frame drops at just about any resolution with proper detail settings. However, "lag" will still be entirely dependent on your internet connection, but your frame-rate will be smooth.

 

ive ran wow with the 7150.the only thing i turned off was shadows and maybe the lighting,cant remember,but didnt change anything else.the game is boring after awhile.

 

well i have to put everything on low on every gam, and everything still slows down too much to play properly.

 

Did you update your directx?

I didn't see it mentioned, so I thought I'd throw that out.

Also look up gfx benchmarks for your card on the web, and run the benchmarks yourself. If the numbers are really off, my guess is there's some gfx setting or driver issue.

 

I have the same problem.

I have a dv9500t, and every game which uses the unreal engine is just ultra slow. My desktop pc with a AMD XP3000+ (2.16GHz) and GeForce 440MX gets better framerate than my dv9500 on games like UT1999 and Postal 2.

I have no figured out how to fix it.
*Ran the game at 640x480 and low settings in everything and still no improvement.
*Aero is off and has been off for a while now.
*Drivers updated with the latest nVidia drivers.
*Ran the game using only one processor.


No clue...

 

A couple things everybody needs to realize when it comes to computers (not everything I mention has a huge effect):

-Laptops get hotter than desktops because of the lack of air flow. The hotter components get, the slower they run. Therefore, the processor and the GPU might be running at a slower clock speed to try and reduce the heat.

-In the situation Tokar is talking about he is probably running XP on the desktop and Vista on the laptop. Vista does take up a lot more resources than XP. This could take a small chunk out of the performance of the machine.

-Prebuilt Laptops and Desktops purchased from manufacturers have a ton of bloatware (Although the business line of laptops and desktops have little to no bloatware otherwise companies wouldn't purchase them). Bloatware is installed because software companies pay manufacturers, such as HP, to install their software so the customers see it and hopefully use it. In the end, this bloatware slows your computer down a considerable amount and that's why in this forum you see threads to do a clean install and we tell every newcomer to do a clean install to reap the full benefits of your computer.

-Depending on the RPM speed of the HDDs you purchased this could have a tiny effect on how fast data loads, which can have an effect on how fast programs run. Also, Cache on desktop HDDs (3.5 inch) is greater and allows for data to be loaded faster.

-Video Cards on laptops are slower than their counterpart in desktops. In order for a video card to be used inside of a laptop its size has to be reduced. That's why you'll notice that the newest video cards in desktops aren't available in laptops right away. It takes time for technology to advance and allow the manufacturers to try and keep most of the performance and fit it into a smaller physical shell.

-Even though the 8600m GS is a ok video card (the best one they offer other than the HDX and the business line) it is extremely limited based on the specifications (if you really want to know the difference in specifications look it up in the forums here). If HP had half a brain they would have at least put the 8600m GT model in their laptops.

These are just a couple things to keep in mind, and like I stated, they don't all effect performance drastically.
If you guys haven't already you might want to do a clean install. Also take a look at getting a notebook cooling pad to help with heat dissipation.

 

@Envision:

Its not a heat issue. UT2004, UT3, Sim City 4, etc. all work fine and they are more graphics intensive. Older games have problems.

Its not a bloatware issue. I used an HP Recovery DVD i got from them and canceled out of the bloatware install, so all of that crap software was never installed.

Its definitely not an HD RPM issue. For the consumer based applications we run, the performance difference between 5400 and 7200 is marginal, especially for notebook computers. Yes, I understand that games requires more power, but the difference in rotational speed is not enough to cause a game which should run at 100fps to run at 5fps.

Its not a video card issue. As I said with my case, my desktop uses an ancient INTEGRATED 32MB shared video GeForce MX440. My dv9500 is using a dedicated 256MB GeForce 8600M. If anything, the 8600 should be able to outperform the 440 more than 10 fold in old games.

 

damn thats a shame that your dv9500 doesnt put out the expected performance you should be getting. I thought you would be able to play any recent games out there specially with your specs.

Anyway most people are using vista and the video drivers arent fully optimized. The hardware can only go as far as the software that controls it tells it to go

 

Its not recent games which are the problem. UT3 works great.

Its older 3D games that are problematic. In particular: UT1999, Postal 2, Blood 2, etc.

 

@shaunpat90

Have you tried doing a clean install for the OS? Maybe theres a lot of crapware loaded into your system.