Increasing Gaming Performance with 8600M GT

RhysAndrews

In Runtime
Messages
321
Hey guys
I have an 8600M GTin my NEC Versa Laptop, and I would really like to get it performing better if possible. I primarily play Left 4 Dead and COD4 / 5 at LAN parties, and they perform adequately if everything is on minimum, but that includes resolution which just makes it really ugly.

My desktop has an 8600GTS which plays all the aforementioned games on absolute maximum with 1680x1050 resolution with zero lag, and although I know it's a model up + it's not a laptop video card, I'm just wondering what I can do to give my 8600M GT some extra umph. The card has 512MB of onboard memory and can use up to 2GB shared memory (I have 4GB of RAM in my laptop)

I'm using Vista Home Premium 32-bit, and I'm not sure whether I have DX9 or DX10, but which performs better?
 
Don't know about mobile cards but you can OC normal GPUs quite easily. Get hold of Rivatuner
 
'swhat i was thinking, erm, i didn't think drivers, cos i perhaps wrongly presumed that his drivers'd be up to date.

Does the card use a turbocache, or borrow memory from your RAM? If so you could look at a RAM upgrade in the laptop and increasing the memory overtake. Or even just increasing the RAM may provide you with better gaming performance.
 
Most laptop cards do and you may be able to Up the amount of RAM it uses in the BIOS Although because he has Vista,i think vista allocates as much RAM as it can to the GPU.
 
'swhat i was thinking, erm, i didn't think drivers, cos i perhaps wrongly presumed that his drivers'd be up to date.

Does the card use a turbocache, or borrow memory from your RAM? If so you could look at a RAM upgrade in the laptop and increasing the memory overtake. Or even just increasing the RAM may provide you with better gaming performance.
He said so in the post.
 
I have 4GB of Memory, and as I have a 32-bit OS I don't want to bother wasting money on more. The video card has 512mb VRAM + dynamically uses up to 2GB. I don't think memory is an issue as i'm not having any problems with the games, just lag.

I haven't been able to see what my laptops temperatures are like, whenever I open the temp/voltage monitor screen in PC Wizard 2008, it stops responding and I can't end the task / kill the process. But it doesn't seem to get very hot to touch (unlike HP laptops!) even when playing games.

Regarding drivers... interesting point, I don't think I have upgraded my drivers since I got the laptop 3-4 months ago. I also remember having lag issues with my desktop when I had DX 10 in Vista, so I might see if I can downgrade to DX9 (if it has DX10, I can't remember and am not on the laptop atm).

-Rhys
 
I've you've updated in the last 3-4 months the increase won't be huge, as you rightly said there is no point in increasing RAM with that kind of spec.

Run hmonitor on your laptop and tell us what temps you're seeing under load (during gameplay). Might be possible to squeeze a bit more performance out of an OC but i still wouldn't recommend it. I can't think of anything else to increase speed if the specs are as good as you're saying.
 
Again,

I recommend updating your drivers.

its fast, free, and you can gain performance.


Follow this guide (steps are a bit diff for vista)


Routine System Optimization (by LambofGod)

1. All Driver updates (examples www.ati.com , www.asus.com )

2. Windows Updates ( www.windowsupdate.com )

3. Full anitvirus scans with a program such as

AVG antivirus
http://www.download.com/AVG-Anti-Virus-Free-Edition/3000-2239_4-10596553.html?tag=pop.software

4. Full spyware scans w/ 2 diff spyware programs such as

Ad-aware
http://www.download.com/Ad-Aware-SE-Personal-Edition/3000-8022_4-10399602.html?tag=pop.software

Spybot
http://www.download.com/Spybot-Search-Destroy/3000-8022_4-10401314.html?tag=list

Windows Defender
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...ypuuCWkyIFZwdO0FivUaWMd1qwAgXMVM7oAPdOIPuUQ==

5. Msconfig the startup (go to start, run, type *msconfig* go to the startup tab)

Now disable all the services that you do not NEED to have running. For example Adobe speed launch ect…..

You can also go to the tab services, then check the box *hide all Microsoft services*
And disable service there that you do not need

(this will not get rid of the programs, just stop them from starting up)

6. Disk cleanup

Go to Start, programs, accessories, system tools, disk cleanup.

Select the drive you want to clean.

After it scans the drive select all the boxes you want to clean files out of.

(usually all of them)

Click ok.

7. Check disk

Go to start, run, type “cmd”, make sure you are on your root drive (usually C:\), type “chkdsk /f”, type “Y” .

Then restart your system

*if you are not on your root drive type “cd C:\ “ assuming C:\ = your root drive*

8. disk defragmenter

Go to start, programs, accessories, system tools, disk defragmentor.

Select the drive you want to defrag and press “defrag”

(this may take a while)


After this I would look into upgrading to a 64bit OS to take advantage of your memory, and then into overclocking if you have the thermal headroom.
 
Back
Top Bottom