Gaming performance

[ITOscar]

I have a Gateway MX7525 and it runs great except when i try to play certain games like command and conquer: generals. When i play games like that performance becomes so bad i can't continue playing. It becomes extremely choppy. This laptop comes with a 100 GB hard drive but it onlys runs at 4200 RPM. My question is would upgrading to a 7200 RPM solve this problem or is my problem not hard drive related? Any advice you can give is greatly appreciated.

 

[chocobocorey]

well your going to need to list more specs.. aka does it have a real vid chip and other specs. but a 4200 rpm hdd sure isnt helpign performance.

 

[ITOscar]

Here is a link to the system specifications:

http://support.gateway.com/s/Mobile/Q106/Shadow/5964sp3.shtml

The hard drive is the only thing i can think of that would cause the problems i am having. I can play other games just fine but any help you can give me is greatly appreciated.

 

[swifty_morgan]

These cocksuckers aught to be shot for the crap they put in machines and sell th the unsuspecting public.

The memory is slow, and that friggin harddrive may have been fast back in the eighties, but its crap now. 7200rpm minimum is norm, 10,000rpm is better.

The video card isn't the greatest either.

 

[mpjesse]

I doubt the issue is related to ur HDD. Hard drives generally only operate in a game when something (like a level) is being loaded. during gameplay hard drives have almost no impact in frame rate (if any at all!).

There are a couple things to consider here:
1. are you playing the game on battery power? if so, CPU speed and GPU speeds are dramatically reduced when on battery power. hence you will get bad performance.
2. drivers. i would suggest going to ATI's website and downloading the latest catalyst drivers. OEM's often ship the "most compatible" and "older" versions of their own drivers. performance can be dramatically increased using catalyst drivers.
3. Mobility radeon x600 GPU- certainly it's no slug, but it's not exactly the fastest either. if you're trying to play this game at high resolutions with max settings, frame rates will be slow. go into CC Generals setup/options and try laxing up some of the settings like texture, anistropic filtering, and FSAA.

Hope this helps...

-mpjesse

 

[mpjesse]

STOP the madness. He's using a laptop. a 7200rpm hard drive is NOT the norm for laptops. and 10,000 rpm drives aren't even made for laptops.

 

[swifty_morgan]

Here's one

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822145097

and if you look, you will find a notebook with one in it.

Yes, madness, in both senses of the word. Shame on me for that.

I quickly overlooked the notebook part, but if you know what your intentions are going to be before you purchase something, don't sell yourself short .

Also, harddrive speed does make a difference, imo.

 

[ITOscar]

I am not running the laptop on battery power - i plug it in while playing games so that i get max performance. I also had a desktop with PC2700 in it and the desktop ran that game just fine. I hate to hear that this laptop is a piece of crap but it is mine now. That hard drive was the one i was thinking about buying but if you think it is not going to solve my problem then i will save my $135.

 

[swifty_morgan]

I was only using that hd as an example. Do what the other guy said. Update everything, and don't forget to update the onboard chipsets, as they may be hindering some performance.

Also, shut down any apps you may have running in the background.......like an anti virus program or whatnot.

If you are going to make hardware changes, make sure they will work in your notebook....connections...whatnot.......

 

[FITCamaro]

That system should be more than capable of playing C&C:Generals. I have a Sager 5680 w/ a P4 3.0, 1GB DDR400, 60GB 7200rpm drive, and an ATI9700 Pro Mobility(128MB). I play WoW on it fine.

He's got a better CPU and GPU than me. PC2700 isn't great but its still more than enough. In a game thats constantly reading from the HD, that 4200 rpm is gonna suck but yeah in a game like C&C: Generals it shouldn't hurt to much.

Are you sure heat isn't throttling the CPU? To see how much the game is pulling from the harddrive get a tool that monitors disk I/O.

 

[chuckshissle]

For gaming the main parts are cpu, graphics card and ram. Having a faster hd would give you faster downloads but not to actual peformance during gaming.

 

[linux_0]

Yes indeed

The OPs CPU is very respectable and is great for games.

I'm not sure how well the X600 performs but I think it's decent.

Please run SPECviewperf, sandra, prime95, superpi, etc if you can and less us know what kind of scores you get.

http://www.spec.org/gpc/downloadindex.html

 

[mpjesse]

I'm not denying that 7200 rpm notebook hard drives are sold, just saying they are far from the norm. The majority of notebooks still use 5400 rpm drives. And for bigger drives (like his 100GB) the rpm is lower because of the higher density and number of platters. To increase (or keep the same) MTBF the rpm needs to be lower. Heat is also a factor.

But yes, 7200 rpm drives (thank god) are gaining popularity in notebooks very quickly.



-mpjesse