For those curious, R2 runs Borderlands 2 great

About ten hours in and I'm happy to report the M14x R2 is blowing Borderlands 2 out of the water, but with a few caveats. Running a system with the base i7, 8 GB of RAM and the 2 GB GT 650m.

The game is running pretty much a constant 60 fps with v-sync and triple buffer on, with every setting to high and at 900p. For some reason you'll have to set the triple buffer to on through the Nvidia panel from desktop, because the game has no toggle for it. The frames per second can actually get up to the 90's if you have v-sync and triple buffer off, but the screen tearing is really noticeable.

The only things keeping it from being perfect is that ambient occlusion pretty much cuts the fps down 10-15 frames. You can literally pause the game, go to the settings and turn it on and off and see the details appear and disappear, as well as the corresponding FRAPS dip.

Of course, this means the game is still running well above 30fps (which is what the console versions are bottlenecked at), but it is a very noticeable drop. Fortunately, the occlusion in the game isn't so great a visual asset that you'll miss it when it's gone.

Something else to consider is the GT 650m is not the greatest with the Physx. It works well enough on low, but get it to medium and high and you'll see similar dips like with occlusion.

Still, everything is well above expectations. I ran the test at the Nvidia site and I was worried when it told my the 650m wasn't optimal. Well 60fps seems pretty God damned optimal Nvidia.

Oh, and the game's f'ing gorgeous. And we're all very fortunate the PC version is far and away superior to the console version in every respect. No crappy port here.

PS, the anisotropic filtering in the game is a joke. In that it does NOTHING, and doesn't affect performance in any way, at any level.

 

I'm going to try out Rage once I have a larger SSD in the primary bay

 

results from my y580 to compare. The game has very weird frame drops:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ideapad-essential/689575-y580-borderlands-2-performance.html

 

I have to agree that performance with BL2 is awesome. I purposefully set mine up to run at 60fps and up, tried to get used to 30-60 and just couldn't do it, so I gave up resolution rather than graphic options.

I am running at 1280x720 on my external 1080 monitor, I tried 1600x900 but either the GPU or my monitor doesn't like it, and is distorted. I hate using 1080 since when I'm unplugged I have to reset my video options and remember what I had them at in each game, I prefer to just use 900p and below.

I have all graphic settings maxed, except the physx is on low, and I don't use vsync so it is off. It can play on medium physx fine (40-60fps), but I prefer the constant 60+ fps. It is even playable on high (25-40fps) but again, I just can't get used to it.

What I like most about the R2 is it never overheats so I can play for hours at a time

 

The problem with running it above 60fps is that the M14x's screen is limited to a 60 hertz refresh rate. So, even though the system can push the game well past this all you're gonna get is massive screen tearing, which could be the distortion you're talking about.

For some reason the game itself won't turn on triple buffer and turning on v-sync in game won't actually turn it on. So you have to do these things manually from the Nvidia control panel. BUT, doing this, and setting frame rate to unlimited, will pretty much glue your FPS to 60, eliminating screen tearing completely. And the system can keep it there indefinitely as long as Physx is on low and ambient occlusion is off.

 

Thanks man. I really wanted to try it using Physx (high) but I see now that's not possible

 

No, you can use it on high, just don't expect anywhere near 60fps. But, it'll be around where the console version is (though it might dip lower in really heavy scenes). Still, low and medium looks really nice.

 

Hey everyone,
Just got a nice deal on BL2 for $37.50 and was hoping how my R1 with i5 would handle the game. What would be the best settings to set on the nvidia control panel for best frame rate without sacrificing too much quality?

 

I would expect the GT 650M to handle any Unreal Engine game flawlessly... Unreal really isn't a heavy engine and Borderlands isn't exactly a highly detailed game...

 

Cant wait to try out Borderlands 2 but waiting on pay day at end of the month :L
Glad to hear it works nicely

 

Thanks for sharing this good info. +1 Rep for the time taken