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Why is my laptop so bad?
archonwarp
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I have a laptop which cannot do anything well. It can't even play Warcraft 3 at 800x600 on lowest settings without having random graphical freezing every five to 15 seconds for periods of one to four seconds. I know it's graphical because my character will race rapidly in order to catch up to the spot that I had clicked, and the sound continues to play as normal.
Here's the stats:
Pentium Dual Core T2080, which operates at 1.73 Ghz. (It's based off of the Core Duo processor, with a chopped down L2 Cache and a bit of feature loss.)
1x 2 gig stick of PC 5300 DDR2
Intel GMA 950 GPU
Windows Vista Home Premium.
1280x800 Resolution @ 12.1"
The manufacturer is Everex, who I believe used to be called Averatec. They make inexpensive small computers.
Windows Performance Analyzer says:
I've had this thing for over a year, and I've been unable to play games that could run on integrated GPUs 3 years ago. Is there any hope for this machine? I'm willing to try to install XP if it will fix my problems, or even go towards the linux route (provided it will run WC3-- I'm a big dota nut). If anyone knows any utilities specifically designed for fixing Vista to not blow so hard. Give me anything you guys could think of for improving performance. I can tell you now that I already have aero turned off.
Here's the stats:
Pentium Dual Core T2080, which operates at 1.73 Ghz. (It's based off of the Core Duo processor, with a chopped down L2 Cache and a bit of feature loss.)
1x 2 gig stick of PC 5300 DDR2
Intel GMA 950 GPU
Windows Vista Home Premium.
1280x800 Resolution @ 12.1"
The manufacturer is Everex, who I believe used to be called Averatec. They make inexpensive small computers.
Windows Performance Analyzer says:
Performance Global : 2.0
Performance CPU : 4.6
Performance Memory : 4.4
Performance Graphics : 2.0
Performance Gaming : 2.7
Performance Disk : 4.5
Performance CPU : 4.6
Performance Memory : 4.4
Performance Graphics : 2.0
Performance Gaming : 2.7
Performance Disk : 4.5
I've had this thing for over a year, and I've been unable to play games that could run on integrated GPUs 3 years ago. Is there any hope for this machine? I'm willing to try to install XP if it will fix my problems, or even go towards the linux route (provided it will run WC3-- I'm a big dota nut). If anyone knows any utilities specifically designed for fixing Vista to not blow so hard. Give me anything you guys could think of for improving performance. I can tell you now that I already have aero turned off.
archonwarp on
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The GMA950 is shit on its own merits.
It leverages the CPU for vertex shading, and a T2080 is serious weaksauce.
2GB of RAM is enough for Vista, but it's single-channel - and again, integrated graphics is fighting for that paltry bandwidth
First off, update your drivers. All of them.
If that doesn't work, try XP.
But really, the problem is the GMA950 - the rest of the system is just throwing another few weights around its ankles.
That said, what make/model of system? I'm sure it'll be a good office portable.
Can trade TF2 items or whatever else you're interested in. PM me.
As for the problem itself, as Peregrine, Wunder, Rook mentioned, the GPU sucking is a huge cause for concern. But, you were able to run these games on a shitty GPU 3 years ago. So what's changed in 3 years? Most likely, I'm going to say Vista. Either up the RAM to 3GB (the max supported for 32 bit) or "downgrade" back to XP. I'm willing to bet either of those will solve your problem.
Even with an integrated GPU, there's no reason you can't run a 7 year old game on a 1 year old system smoothly.
I've put in a name change request to PeregrinePhoenix.
Can trade TF2 items or whatever else you're interested in. PM me.
It could possibly be a driver problem. You could also try running warcraft 3 in OpenGL by using the " -opengl" switch.
Try running the game with software rendering and see how it goes (1ghz and 256 megs of ram can do War3 in software rendering so your laptop should have no issue) because this will confirm it's a graphics problem.
Also, these aren't online games by chance, are they? I'm sure with testing you'd be trying offline, but online games this behaviour (freezes, sound keeps playing, suddenly your screen goes in fast-forward to catch up to what's actually happened) sound like common symptoms for multi-player packet-loss in War3.
There's not enough lime on the boards for this post. I'm running a dell frankentop that I resurrected after my cats destroyed the HDD (don't ask), and it used to belong to my wife, who in the mean time got a different laptop.
Lemme tellya, Gametap is the only way to go for something like that (no, I don't work for 'em). Plenty of travel gaming...just nothing really, erm, current. It's important to note that the machine was made in 2000, and it's got an integrated chip. Deus Ex is about the most it can run.
tl;dr - wunderbar is right.
I still say upping the memory to 3GB is your best bet if you wanna stick with Vista. Also, shutting down the Gadget application will help too. While nice, that thing uses way too many resources for it's functionality.
Nah, there weren't really any bad posts here, just a little too black and white for my tastes.
One of the problems here is that I cannot up my ram anymore. It's one stick because there's only one slot, I guess. I suppose I could tear open the machine, but I don't know what that would accomplish, and it risks causing more hindrances.
As for Vista, I have all of the interface options turned off. As far as I can tell, the only way to differentiate it from XP right now, at least at first glance, is the start menu.
When I pull up Dxdiag, it says that there's 2,038 megs of ram available for the system, and "approximate total memory: 256 megabyte" for GPU usage under the Display tab. I'm not sure what exactly that means as far as whether or not it scales back gpu memory based upon need or what.
And you can get 3gb single sticks, but if it's the internal memory slot, you might want to have it professionally installed.
Are you sure that it will dynamically adjust for memory? I remember trying to mess with allocated GPU memory in bios once before, and just re-checked again and found out that there's no visible option in my bios-- all I can do is change date & time, and modify boot order. It also said in bios that my system ram is 2040 megabytes, which means it's allocating 8 megs of ram towards GPU (while in bios at least). Since that's about the same as when my system is turned on, I'm wondering if it's locked into 8 right now even? That could explain the impossibly shitty FPS. Should I start a search for a bios hack?
I'm not willing to shove any money into this machine unless I'm positive it will fix my problem. I don't think going to 3 gigs of ram would give me enough of a performance jump to justify that. That being said, I like getting my hands dirty enough to do it myself. Also, what I found on newegg was a 4-gig stick by Gskill for $170. I just don't think that's going to give me the performance increase and can't afford to chance it. Since it's a 12.1", I think it has one of the wicked-small motherboards that probably won't have two memory slots on it. All of this being said, what should I do?
*EDIT* After doing some digging around online, it does say that the GMA 950 dynamically adjusts memory usage. Is there a way to FORCE memory usage?
WoW is pretty much the same engine as Warcraft 3, and I've run WoW on a P3 633 XP system at 8X6 resolution, all slider settings to lowest point, with under 512 ram, and a six or seven year old 64 meg ati radeon 7500 64 meg card.
I got around 30 fps playing, more than enough, and lagged down to about 20 in auction house.
The only thing I couldn't do really well on the machine was raid, but I could pvp pretty well.
And no, I'm not sure if it dynamically adjusts. I have no experience with that, I've never had an integrated GPU.
I have an Samsung X05 that is 5 years old, using integrated graphics and only 768MB RAM. I can run WoW in 1024x768 on it if I put everything to low. Yes the fps drops in towns etc. but it is "playable" (I leveled a char to ~30 when I was lying in bed, sick). I cannot imagine that Warcraft 3 is more resource hungry than WoW.
There has to be a driver/ Vista issue.
Granted, I don't have an integrated chip either.
Vista is 100% fine with 2GB of memory. I have 2GB and have never run into ram issues.
Also does laptop seem to be getting hot at all that can cause problems. You said it worked fine at first then progressivly got worse that indicates it could be temperature.
I'm on Vista. GPU control doesn't exist in my bios. I can't seem to find anything in Vista for display properties that will let me change the allocated amount of video memory. Also, it never really was acceptable, it's just that I now have moved out of my parent's house because of college and don't have my desktop to play games on all the time.
No, I mean that warcraft 3's menu looks smooth when it's running at 800x600 opengl, but not the actual game. Sorry if I didn't relay that correctly.
There's only the options to change date/time and to change boot order (dvd drive, network, hard drive are the choices).
There may also be some 3rd party software that can alter that sort of option
- Do you have Aero turned on? Switch to the Windows Classic theme. It shouldn't, but there's a performance difference of two FPS on the average low-end machine. Those few FPS might translate to a larger performance boost on a slower card.
- This was asked before, but does this happen in the single player campaign? The "character running rapidly thing" happens frequently when there is lag in multiplayer. Security software, rogue processes, a router filtering packets, or something could be causing things to run wonky, so double check to make sure it has nothing to do with the network.
- Close down all unnecessary stuff running in the background. run "msconfig", go to the Startup tab, uncheck everything non-essential (Google is your friend here), then reboot. If you accidentally disabled some handy thing you really need, you can always go back to msconfig and re-check it.
- Defragment! I mean, it'll probably only decrease loading time, but it's a good thing to do anyway.
- Make sure your system is clean! Run "Spybot: Search & Destroy" or "Lavasoft AdAware." Update your virus scanner and do a full system scan.
- Try using an older driver for your graphics card. Yes, performance can randomly degrade between releases. Newer isn't always better.
- If all else fails then yeah, you should probably give XP a shot. Sorry. :-(