Graphics performance on 6130

What kind of graphics performance should I be expecting on this machine with it's Radeon 9600 mobility 64MB? I did read somewhere before I bought the machine that it's pretty acceptable for games, however I just installed BF1942 (pretty old game) and I was a bit disappointed - it seems jerkier than I expected. Mainly when moving my head to the right and left. Sometimes it sticks when I'm flying. I'm not even playing at full resolution.

And with 3DMark 2001, I only get 8900 points - should I be getting a lot more? I've read on other forums people getting 13000 with the same specs - and being disappointed with it. So what's up with mine?

And I remember playing BF1942 on my friend's machine 3 years ago - it was nowhere near as jerky, but he used to get only 3-4000 on 3DMark.

So what tweaking can I do to improve things? And will things get much better graphically if I upgrade to 1GB RAM? There's 512MB in there at the minute. Really, my specs should be more than enough to be playing BF1942 smoothly, but it's just not happening.....

 

use omega drivers for graphics, and go to averatecs site and download and install the agp drivers. this will allow the agp setting to go up to 8x, not the 1x it will be stuck on otherwise.

 

I installed the AGP drivers again, and my latest 3DMark score was 9600 - a slight improvement but not much better. Plus, on the Averatec site, they say the AGP drivers are the same ones that come bundled with the computer and they are only on the site "for your convenience". Hmmm!

 

I already have the Omega drivers installed - but the agp drivers? When I first got the notebook, the first thing I did was go to the Averatec site to update the drivers. As I recall, when I installed the agp drivers, on rebooting my computer appeared to have no graphics drivers at all - you know, when even displaying a web page takes 3 seconds....I guess I'll go and try it again though.

 

Did you try the AGP Port Driver..from Averatec's site

then switching the AGP bus speed to 8X in Omega driver's settings?

 

Maybe the setting in the game is the problem. I haven't played BF 1942, but there is probably some type of "enable hardware acceleration" or open GL setting. FWIW I've tried the Omega drivers twice, and have found them to be worse than the ATI drivers and a total ***** to uninstall. Best advice is to set a system restore point before installing them so you can roll your machine back if you don't like them. I found them to be rather poor playing Ravenshield.

 

Yep, I installed the AGP drivers, like I said. It seems to be set to 8X in the SmartGart options. Slight improvement, but not much.

Anyone else have any opinion about Omega vs Radeon drivers?

 

I've been Omega on all my ATI cards for years and have always been impressed. Although I havent gotten quite the 3d mark some have posted, i'm okay with how it performs.

 

And what would be your 3DMark 2001 score as you recall? I'm interested to hear others.

I'm playing BF1942 OK, but it's not great. Lots of stutters, especially when sidestepping right and left. And this is only on medium detail and textures, on 800x600. Should be better! Maybe I need more memory......Although come on, it's such an old game!!!

Anyone have any tuning tips?

 

I've found that turning on AnisoFiltering helps with FPS and graphics performance.. (particularly in Counter-Strike)

I haven't run 3Dmark2001, but I have run Aquamark3D score is 22,000.

Of course adding some more ram and switching to a faster RPM HD will give you better performance.

check out a review on the 6100 where the reviewer talks about the lack of graphics performance until he did some simple tweaks.

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=2139&review=AVERATEC+AV6130HS+%2D+P4+3+GHz+%2D+15%2E4

 

Just found this GREAT site which deals with Radeon tweaking and set up in general.....

http://www.tweakguides.com/ATICAT_1.html

Great reading!

 

Liquid, what setting do you have your anisotropic filtering at?

 

For CS 1.6, i found that 4x worked the best... even turning on Antialiasing was good.


HL2 ran fine too, gotta love games that are able to utilize the 1280x800 resolution [8D]