Y410p How to get MAXIMUM performance?

I recently got this laptop and installed games. I'm disappointed so far. My 3 year old desktop computer runs games a lot better than this on a 23 inch monitor... This is my first laptop, so I don't know how to get maximum performance on this laptop to run games. I have it plugged into my outlet. I installed counter strike source and I was getting constant 60 fps and thought that vertical sync was on but it wasn't. I figured out that if I changed the power plan from balanced to high performance I get an increase of fps. But it seems to be locked at 100 fps on high performance, balanced at 60 fps, and power saver at 30 fps. How do I get rid of locked fps and get unlimited?

In Nvidia control panel > manage 3d settings > Global settings >> Should preferred graphics processor be selected on auto-select? I have everything on default. Should I set "program settings" tab with the games I have installed or just run it on default? Also Manage 3D settings has a lot of different settings I do not know like antialising, triple buffering, texture filtering and such. What should I set them to? They are all currently on default. I'm really confused because I usually change game settings in my game instead of using nvidia control panel. Is this is a normal thing you have to do with laptops?

 

Update your video drivers first off. The 750m is fairly new and the drivers they had on release are kind of lousy. New drivers may help. They've also got a program from Nvidia that will autodetect your settings for popular games.

If you want max performance and aren't concerned about heat or battery life just set everything to the dedicated card. Auto Select seems to give people problems. Also, Counterstrike probably isn't the best benchmark for performance. Don't worry, this is a pretty capable machine for gaming.

 

Set your Laptop to High Performance Mode, Nvidia GPU only, and possibly OC the GPU a little, rumor has it you can squeeze 5% more FPS without generating any significant additional heat. Do the latter at your own risk, and i have to agree with the above, CS is not performance benchmark. AFAIK it is probably a single threaded app that runs on legacy code and can't benefit from more than a single 2.4ghz core non-turbo'ed.

 

Thanks for the replies, it was helpful. Updated graphics and everything looks amazing now. Factory drivers were garbage. Should I update any other drivers?

 

Updating Power Management can be a little useful, maybe 1% more battery life and better battery health. Dont update the wifi drivers, or you will have issues.