Help a PC gaming noob PC game better

[Raydeus]

Re: Help a PC gaming noob PC game better

I've found out that an Oblivion with low settings and a Texture optimizing replacement mod looks pretty good and it's light enough for a laptop. There was one that made textures look much better while reducing their actualy size at the same time, there's also one for Skyrim and the Fallout games. Just check the Oblivion nexus site. Just kill shadows and AA and play with field of view and texture filtering settings.

I mention Oblivion because it's the only game of that type I've actually installed on a Laptop, along with other games like Half Life 2 and HL Source.





PS > And yeah, Steam is pretty good for getting good games cheap, but if you are not careful you'll spend a lot getting more games than you can actually play. Just like me. orz

[Icemage]

Re: Help a PC gaming noob PC game better

You said "save" and "Steam sales" in the same sentence. Does not compute.

At any rate, what I said earlier still stands; unless your laptop PC has a dedicated graphics chip with its own resources, there's not really a lot you're going to be able to do to get it to run something as horrendously inefficient as Oblivion. Doesn't mean you shouldn't make the attempt, but you should at least be aware you're playing with the deck stacked heavily against you. A non-gaming laptop from 2008 is going to struggle to run anything released in the past 5 years that isn't an indie game no matter what settings you use (and might even cough up a hairball on a few of those).


Icemage

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Help a PC gaming noob PC game better

BBQ already said he will work towards building a gaming rig down the road. So I think we should focus on helping him get the most from the (temporary) PC gaming device he currently has. <_<;

Yeah, I'm glad you're focused on that point. I'm not exactly aiming high with a 2008 laptop here. Persona 4 Arena and some future Skyrim downloads are the last 360things I'm buying, everything else goes to PC savings, 3DS XL, Wii U and a Vita. Once I have the gaming PC that's adequate for Skyrim running at full blast with HD textures (or maybe I should be setting the bar over at Watch Dogs now), its Steam sales that will go a long way toward helping me save for upgrades while helping me get a fix on third party games.

For now its simpler things this laptop can handle. The point of starting the Steam library was to get the ball rolling and shake me out of paying the idiot tax on PS3 and 360 games.

[Raydeus]

Re: Help a PC gaming noob PC game better

BBQ already said he will work towards building a gaming rig down the road. So I think we should focus on helping him get the most from the (temporary) PC gaming device he currently has. <_<;

[Icemage]

Re: Help a PC gaming noob PC game better

While it's certainly true that laptops can't be upgraded beyond RAM/storage drives/optical drives, Asus's g-series laptops have decent specs and are fairly priced. They're quite heavy and thick though, so it depends on you consider portable. I suspect the reason so many laptop GPUs underperform is that they're too thin, and have to throttle down the CPU and GPU to avoid overheating.

They're reasonably priced and have decent specs at the time you buy them but the way PC gaming works is that your cutting-edge hardware becomes unable to run games at max specs released 6 months after you buy it, and everything else goes down 1 rung on the ladder respectively. All PC gaming hardware is only reasonably useful for maybe 2-3 years from the time you purchase it before it needs to be upgraded (or you can't run the latest and greatest games at anything faster than a slideshow). With a desktop PC, you can sort of stagger that cost by replacing a motherboard/CPU, then replacing the GPU at a later date while keeping pretty much everything else (mouse, keyboard, monitor, maybe even the power supply).

With a laptop, you don't get that option - you have to buy a whole new machine for that, and you pay a significant price premium for your trouble. Beyond that, laptop components tend to be less capable hardware, since laptops generally are optimized for lower power consumption and not for computational power, so even with the extra cost you still get less bang for your buck compared to a desktop unit in the same price range.


Icemage

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Help a PC gaming noob PC game better

So for the breakdown is:

Deus Ex - runs perfect
Invisible War - Choppy and more blocky than I remember.
Morrowind - Choppy but probably fixable
Oblivion - Stops responding on first loading screen.
Torchlight - Runs perfectly, so put me down for Torchlight II.

So I'm going to focus on getting Morrowind up to spec and see if I can't get Oblivion working. I'm fairly sure I can get all of them stable, but I can see its mostly smaller indie games or GoG with the laptop til I build or buy something much better.

Portal 2 was by far the choppiest when I had it, which was odd considering it runs on Source and that's rather basic stuff today.

[Armando]

Re: Help a PC gaming noob PC game better

Your first problem is "laptop". Laptops that aren't designed with gaming in mind are difficult (if not outright impossible) to upgrade up to an acceptable "gaming rig" spec, and even dedicated gaming laptops tend to become obsolete fairly quickly, with few to no viable and cost-effective options to keep them current. If you're serious about wanting your PC to displace your current home console for the next 5 years, you're going to have to ditch the laptop and build a proper PC with parts that you can upgrade later.

While it's certainly true that laptops can't be upgraded beyond RAM/storage drives/optical drives, Asus's g-series laptops have decent specs and are fairly priced. They're quite heavy and thick though, so it depends on you consider portable. I suspect the reason so many laptop GPUs underperform is that they're too thin, and have to throttle down the CPU and GPU to avoid overheating.

[Malacite]

Re: Help a PC gaming noob PC game better

Personally I've noticed Laptops just don't perform as well either. Long gaming sessions drains the battery quickly and causes your laptop to heat up a lot more as well.

I'm not saying you can't/shouldn't do it, just that you should be aware that for serious gaming a Desktop *is* the best choice. And yeah, even the best on-board GPU's are garbage.

[Icemage]

Re: Help a PC gaming noob PC game better

Wii U + 3DS + PC will probably cover a majority of game releases in the next generation, though it's anyone's guess where the gaming industry as a whole goes from here.

Your first problem is "laptop". Laptops that aren't designed with gaming in mind are difficult (if not outright impossible) to upgrade up to an acceptable "gaming rig" spec, and even dedicated gaming laptops tend to become obsolete fairly quickly, with few to no viable and cost-effective options to keep them current. If you're serious about wanting your PC to displace your current home console for the next 5 years, you're going to have to ditch the laptop and build a proper PC with parts that you can upgrade later.

As for settings, what's likely is that you're running an on-board graphics chip which is sharing resources with your CPU. If that's the case, there's really not a lot you can do settings-wise to make it run non-optimized games without serious chugging. Turning off anti-aliasing and shadows and similar settings "helps", but you can't squeeze blood from a stone.


Icemage

[Malacite]

Re: Help a PC gaming noob PC game better

What are you laptop's specs?

I still think it's likely the processor, but it could also be drivers, RAM type, your GPU or even the settings you're using for the game. And Dualcore's suck, I got my PC back in 2007/2008 and it's a Quad. Aren't Bethesda's games resource hogs?

[Raydeus]

Re: Help a PC gaming noob PC game better

Yep, gotta go to Intel, download it, then uninstall the old driver and reboot, then run the installer for the new driver and reboot again (even if it doesn't ask you to.)

Fortunately you are running Windows 7, so the process is way less risky than on XP.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Help a PC gaming noob PC game better

I was updating by internet, so I take It I need to go through the Intel site, then?

[Raydeus]

Re: Help a PC gaming noob PC game better

How are you updating the driver? Because if it's automated it will not download the latest drivers from Intel, but instead download the latest drivers from the manufacturer, and they tend to stop updating fairly soon.

Most of the times BIOS setup is F8, just spam it as soon as you turn the laptop on because most manufacturers hide the boot (POST) messages behind some lame logo screen. Also, if you are lucky you should be able to turn that off too unless the manufacturer messed too much with the BIOS.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Help a PC gaming noob PC game better

Latest driver was 8.15.10.1930 and it won't update further.

Can't seem to pull up BIOS for RAM. I just did a start-up with F2 and 12 to try to find it but no luck. Or maybe I'm just looking in the wrong place.

So far it seems Deus Ex and Torchlight run at full blast. Then again, DX is just that old and Torchlight was made by people that worked at Blizzard, so the game just acclimating to your system is to be expected.

[Raydeus]

Re: Help a PC gaming noob PC game better

The latest driver version for that chipset seems to be 15.​12.​75.​4.​1930 so you can update if you have an older drive. But I'm having trouble finding the actual 3D settings for this chipset. Are there any settings you can adjust for it? <_<;

- - - Updated - - -

PS > Also, how much ram do you have assigned for graphics on the BIOS? Because they usually take a portion of the installed ram for the graphics.

- - - Updated - - -

You're only using a dual core?

That's your problem. You need at least a quad these days, or if you want good performance without getting too pricey an Intel i5 series will do.

What chu talkin about? Dual core works well with many older (before 2010) games. I have set some laptops for my family that run all their games at normal laptop resolutions without problems. They may not play Shogun 2 in all it's glory, but they can definitely run good games like a non-modded Oblivion.