Whitelisting question/Am I getting appropriate FPS's? Please help (thanks)!

I am not educated in computer hardware, but I learn quickly so any help/advice/comments are appreciated.

My Alienware m14x came yesterday, and I have installed Dragon Age: Origins, Fallout: New Vegas, and The Witcher 2 (it has Portal 1 as well). I have read that sometimes the computer will use the integrated graphics card for a game instead of the 3.0Gb NVIDIA GeForce GT 555m that I have (everything on my laptop is the highest possible for the m14x including SSD and flamethrower). So my laptop is basically the best m14x you can buy.

I could only run The Witcher 2 on low settings with acceptable framerates, but the game just does not look interesting knowing that the graphics are meant to look much better on high settings for that particular game.

With the Fraps program I tried New Vegas on Ultra-high settings and my framerate was acceptable to me with a range of 40-60 fps. Dragon Age: Origins (a relatively older game) runs at about the same framerate as New Vegas (it is acceptable). My question is: is 40-60 fps on High or Ultra-high settings the expected framerate for this laptop given my graphics card? Should it be more than that? With Portal 1 my framerate is over 100 for high settings (my screen resolution is 1600x900 by the way), and 300 or more for lower settings. However I could run Counterstrike Source on really old equipment so I do not think that is a good way to tell.

So please let me know if 40-60 fps is an expected range for the framerate on high and ultra-high settings for a game like Fallout: New Vegas or Dragon Age: Origins. Am I also to understand that the m14x cannot handle The Witcher 2? It is a very demanding game so that is not a surprise, I would rather play that particular game on a desktop anyway.

So, to sum up:

1) When I whitelist a game that has a launcher file and another .exe file, do I have to whitelist both the launcher and the main .exe file, or just the main file without the launcher? When I right click on each .exe file, it says that the main file is set by default to run with the high performance graphics card, but that the launcher is set to run with integrated card by default. When I run through the launcher, I still get 40-60 fps on high settings.

2) Is it a bad idea to use NVIDIA Control panel to GLOBALLY make EVERYTHING run on the NVIDIA high performace card?

3) Please tell me if the framerates I have stated above are expected or too low for this machine.

I truly appreciate any and all assistance and I have looked through this forum and already learned so much already.

 

By the way my computer is NOT overclocked.

 

Dragon Age: Origins gave me similar fps on my M14x, usually in the mid-40s (lower during combat). A mild overclock of the GPU (mine is 700/1400/1080) gave a nice 5-10 fps improvement.

 

Your laptop won't be very "mobile" if you do this, it will eat your battery very quickly.

 

But with the Optimus tech, once the plug is off, M14x will automatically downclock the GPU no matter what setting your on, so no it will not eat your battery much.

BTW I also have FNV install, and my average fps is between 50 - 60, max setting, but I can guess it can go beyond 60 IF the screen isnt cap at 60.

 

I dont have everything maxed out on my m14x and i do not overclock but i run the witcher 2 at medium-high settings at 1600x900 with a few tweaks at 28-32 fps,dropping to around 26 when there is a lot going on eg the massive fights.I personally think 25+ is acceptable for a laptop on a very resource intensive game such as this,there hasnt been any point were it was unplayable for me or ugly either.

 

on new vegas make sure you have the latest update1.07 and also theres a mod that boosts your framerate i cant think what its called. ill have a think...
witcher 2 is a pain in the a** to run. i have actually given up and prob just buy it for 360.

 

So how do you get those fps's with the Witcher 2? I ran on medium settings but every time I look around the world (like in the beginning when you exit the tent) it is very choppy.

 

So if I do this and keep it on the charger, and then change it back to the original option (I think it is called auto-select or something) when I am on the road, that is "safe," correct?

 

Where do you download the updates? The launcher does not seem to have any link for that (sorry I am new to PC games that are not CounterStrike as I have never had a computer capable of running them)

 

did you get the steam version? steam should auto update it i thought.
also ALWAYS make sure you game when you plugged into the mains.

 

Yea I got it through Steam, so I assume it updated already. Anyway, it runs very smoothly. I once tried to run Fallout 3 on an HP laptop that did not even have a graphics card (only the integrated card used for viewing pictures) and I probably got like 1 fps lol.

I just with that I could run the Witcher 2 on at LEAST medium settings. The problem is it gets choppy (I did not run FRAPS on it but I assume it was low) If anyone has an idea how to do this let me know. Low settings do not do the game justice at all.

And thanks for your help

 

I haven't tried The Witcher 2 on the M14x myself, but I've heard that turning off SSOA does wonders to the framerate. Not just for The Witcher 2, but any game using SSOA.

 

witcher 2 is a pain in the a** i have it on low there was a thread on here who said he has it steady fps using modded graphics file.
also try overclocking the graphics card

 

Hello,

I am playing older games to catch up.
Right now I have The Witcher 1, Neverwinter Nights 2, Oblivion, Portal 1, Civilization 4 and Mass effect 1 (from Steam) installed on my M14x.

For all these games, I rarely breach 35 FPS. NWN2 reaches 25-30 max, all maxed except for shadows on low/medium.

Even ME1 is 25-30, all maxed.

Cutscenes for Witcher drop to 10-15 FPS.

Is this normal?

I used the NVidia Control Panel to force dedicated graphics, but I think those frame rates are lower than they should be.