Any 1520 + 8600 gt game results yet?

Anybody tried any games yet with a 1520 with an 8600 gt? What can we generally expect in terms of performance?

 

I've had my 1520 for one day now. Keep in mind my point of reference or comparison is my 7800GT in my desktop. Games I have installed are Stalker, Battlefied 2 and Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2. My desktop (7800gt) plays these games smoother on high settings than the Inspiron does with its 8600m GT. I'm slightly disapointed in the performance, but that is not to say it does not run these games well. I just had to sacrafice some game detail and settings to get better fps.
My initial thought was "Is this because of Vista?" I heard many reports about how much better XP is at playing games right now, so I thought...why not just dual boot XP and get a comparison that way. This is proving more difficult than I thought! The Inspiron ships with 4 Primary partitions on the hard drive. Guess what? Thats the limit in Vista for primary partitions! Sheesh!

So when I use Vistas handy volume shrinking utility (Fancy words which basically means partition manager) in disk management, I'm able to create a new volume, but am completely unable to make it active and therefore can not install XP in a dual boot setup. argh! The error message when creating a new simple volume is "There is not enough space available on the disk to complete this operation." This is a widely reported issue on the microsoft forums and it seems the only way to get around it is to delete the 2 gig partition that contains Dell's media direct...so effectively you're saying goodbye to the laptops media buttons and pre-boot media functionality.

If anyone has any advice on dual booting XP on the 1520, please share!
As for games, so far the only one i've semi-benchmarked is battlefield 2 by typing "renderer.drawfps 1" in the console. In SP with 16 bots in Dalian Plant with all settings on high I was getting between 15-20 fps

To add insult to injury, Dell does not have XP drivers for the 8600m GT. There are 3rd party drivers on the net, but until i get the dual boot happening, I can't get any XP benchmarks on this system sorry.

 

You could just get the 8600gt drivers right off Nvidia's website you know...here's a direct link:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_158.22.html

 

Thanks for the reply. My first issue is getting dual boot happening though with XP before I worry about drivers.

 

can't you have an extended partition instead of primary one and install xp in that partition.

 

Nope, Vista won't let you. You prepare the size of the partition, the partition is created, then you select "New simple volume" and follow the prompts through until it fails and gives you the error message, "There is not enough space available on the disk to complete this operation."

I was going to just format the drive and start from scratch as its easier to install the older OS first, but instead I just deleted the 2gig dell media direct partition (which i would never use anyway) and now XP is installing as i type this. Fingers crossed. I intend to run benchmarks on the stock nvidia drivers and the modified ones from http://www.laptopvideo2go.com. I'm interested to see the scores between the stock out of the box scores (in Vista) compared to XP with diferent drivers.

I guess the significant upgrades I got from dell were ->
7200rpm 160gig HD
t7500 2.2ghz, 4mb cache, 800 mhz FSB
widescreen WSXGA+ 1680x1050 display.


Edit-> Xp just finished installing fine. lets hope all the drivers can be found.

Edit2 -> Stock drivers from nvidia.com refused to install. The custom ones from laptopvideo2go.com are working.

 

As far as I know Dell has both XP and XP64 drivers for the 1520. Did you check the website??? I checked and the links were there...

 

I've searched by the laptop model number and then by XP drivers and no video or sound come up. There is for Vista though of course. Can you provide the link please?

 

http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/index.aspx?c=ca&cs=cadhs1&l=en&s=dhs

select windows xp from the list - but I don't see any nvidia drivers

 

Well, here's a 3dmark '06 score under windows XP with the http://www.laptopvideo2go.com drivers. Not exactly.....amazing.
As a point of reference, my desktop with a 7800gt scored 4249.

 

kysterama: I read in an issue of maximum pc, I think, that you can dual boot Vista and XP, but XP must be installed on the computer first for it to work.
As for my gaming performance, so far I've only tried Command and Conquer 3. I ran it at 1280 (WXGA) with all effects at highest settings and it ran perfectly smoothly. Didn't do any benchmark testing, but I'm very happy with it so far.

 

just a question but... I read somewhere else that having 3GB of memory increased graphics performance (Think it was an Asus laptop) - however has anyone tested this theory with a 1520 etc?

 

^Hey I saw your screenshot and noticed your driver shows '%G84...' even though you have an 8600. I have an 8400 on my HP dv6500t, and my driver shows '%G86...'. Weird...

 

Mmm, wonder if its detecting the wrong gpu then with these drivers. I've been doing a little more benchmarking under windows XP with battlefield 2.

My results using the Fraps benchmarking utility are thus far ->
(16 bots - Sharqi Peninsula level - 10 mins gameplay each test)

1024x768 All settings on High, No Antialiasing = Avg of 69 fps
1024x768 All settings on High, 8x Antialiasing = Avg of 44 fps
1280x960 All settings on High, 8x Antialiasing = Avg of 34 fps

This screeny is on the last settings above.
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e142/kysterama/bf2_screeny.jpg

So far so good. Soon i'll get the same test conditions under Vista and see what happens.

 

thats the code name for the core of the GPU. 8600M GT, 8700M GT, 8600 GT, 8600 GTS are all G84 core, and 8400 series are G86 core.

 

Very interesting thread Mr. Kysterama!

I'm looking forward to read what u will discover during this prosess!

 

Doom 3 timedemo:

Windows Vista
475/400 - 1440 x 900 - High Quality - No AA/8x AF - 58.9fps
475/440 - 1440 x 900 - High Quality - No AA/8x AF - 62fps

Windows XP
475/400 - 1440 x 900 - High Quality - No AA/8x AF - 63fps

For some reason I can't overclock in XP.

 

Nice.If you get a chance could you find the fps for games like FEAR, BF2, Oblivion etc. ??? Appreciate your help

 

thanks kysterama and Osserpse for the benchmarks. reppppppppppp. the card doesn't seem too bad...it looks like it'd whoop my X600 XT on my desktop (haha that's old technology now isn't it? well it kicked butt back in the day..3 yrs ago).

 

Hey guys, I'm just gonna say I played CS:S with all high settings w/o AA/AF, and it ran very smooth, very smooth.

 

for you if you put on 16x AF and 8x AA I guarantee it will still play smooth =]

 

regarding partition problem I think it is possible to have 4 primary partition and 1 extended partition since my laptop(6400 with vista) was shipped with 4 primary partition and 1 extended partition.

 

it is not necessary for installing xp first before vista but you will have to work little harder for installing xp after vista for dual boot. You can search for this in google and you will find many help pages for doing so.

 

anybody try supreme commander or COH yet?

 

OVER CLOCK IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


let see what you get with OC, and post core/mem

 

Cool, I didn't know that. Thanks I may look into that.

 

anyone have any medieval 2 or company of heroes results?

 

Couple of points -

Firstly, i dont think its fair to make people overclock their new laptops unless they are happy with doing that, could cost them a lot of cash.

Secondly, regarding laptopvideo2go, which drivers work with the 8600m GT?

 

Nice post but i have 1 comment, expecting better results from the 8600m gt is not fair at all. The 8600m GT is not a "gaming" card, most people compare it to a 7700m i believe. To expect it to outperform a 7800 desktop gpu is just not realistic, higher number doesn't mean better performance.

 

The 8600m GT is a gaming card. What other kind of card could it be?

 

From what i hear it is not considered a "gaming card". It is a performance(?) or something. These are merely a way to "classify" the card's strength. The 7950gtx, THAT is a gaming card, generally anything ending with <800 is not considered "gaming". AFAIK

 

Very well. My 'performance' card games fine.

 

Absolutely, but all i was saying is that it is not fair to compare it to a desktop 7800 card which should have far better performance.

I am happy with any dedicated graphics card, my desktop is integrated.

 

Just go to "download drivers", choose XP, download the latest one. Also download the modified INF file on the same page.
Extract the driver set to a folder, and then copy the INF into that folder replacing the one in it. Click SETUP and thats it

 

So.....how about those game results?!

 

mobile graphics cards never hold up to the same speeds of desktop. The only way to get desktop performance is in the super high end laptops that put actual desktop gpus in.

 

Some quick GRAW 2 benchmarks under windows XP:

These are the settings are the default settings when you start the game->
res: 1024x768
physics: normal
texture Quality: Medium
Filtering: Antistropic 8x
Effects: High
Dynamic shadows: High
Dynamic lights: on
Post effects: High
AntiAliasing: Off
Average FPS =39.733

I stepped up the resolution to 16:9 widescreen (1280x720) and turned on AA:Edgesmoothing and my results bottomed out to 15fps (avg) This also wasn't my native screen resolution so the game looked quite blurry.

I changed the res to 1680x1050(my native screen res) and turned off AA and the game looked ultra sharp but unfortunately that also resulted in 15fps avg.

The initial settings were very good though and the game played very smoothly and looked quite good.

 

kysterama do you realise that even at nvidias full gddr3 specs for the 8600m that the 7800 gt card is faster. ITs suppsoed to be because the memmory bandwidth is higher on the 7800 card.

So if the 8600m was performingthe same as a 7800 then i would be worried that the 7800 was not working right.

 

Oh so the 8800 GTX isn't a gaming card for the desktop?

 

wow!!! the "detected" settings are pretty good for such a value lappy

 

Sorry I may not have been clear in my earlier posts, I just said that all I had to compare it too was my desktop card, not that it would be better than it. My initial disappointment was only because of Vista and my ignorance to how well it actually was supposed to perform, heh. I now realise the 8600m gt shouldn't be beating my 7800GT desktop card but somewhere in the back of my mind i was hoping! lol

Also, small edit -> I thought the above graw2 settings were the "Detected" settings, but I realised later when actually clicking on the "detect" button it upped the settings to 1680x1050 and resulted in 15fps, so the initial settings must have been the graw2 "default" settings.

 

now that is something I can completely relate to. I am running a old Athlon XP 2500, and just upgraded to a 7600Gt on my desktop, so I am hoping to at least get comparable if not better performance then this thing can do.

 

I'm running an athlon 64 3200+ with a 7600gt and 1.5gigs of pc2700 ram(lol) and I got around 3000 3dmarks, which is pretty comparable with what stella got in her 1520 review. Too bad my 1420 won't come close to that

 

Elder Scrolls Oblivion at 1024x768 under XP
No AA
HDR Screen effects
Distant rendering All on ->
Avg of 46 fps

Same settings above except 1680x1050 resolution ->
Avg of 28 fps

Oblivion looks great at 1680x1050 and I suprised to get 28fps which is really quite playable

 

He said <800

Well, if I paid 200 bucks for a graphics card I'd expect something around that...

 

I think Nvidia classifies their cards as anything 700 and up would be "enthusiast" cards where the 8600m would be a "performance" card.

From what I'm hearing, the 8600m seems to be a very solid card. It is the most advanced mobile card to date (though they are growing fast every month). The 8700m should be the first "enthusiast" card out with the 8800m likely to follow very soon.

These things didn't even appear until two or three months ago and we're already up to the 8700m.

 

The 8700m will just be an OC'd 8600m (ie, a "binned" 8600m chip). Faster for sure, but nothing to get *too* excited about. The 8800m, on the other hand, will be sweet. Compared to a 8600/8700, the 8800 will have 4x the shader units (128 vs 32), 4x the texture units (32 vs 8) 3x the raster pipelines (24 vs 8) and 3x the memory bandwith (384 vs 128-bit).

 

Is it even confirmed that those will be the specs of the 8800M? It seems like you're just pulling the G80 (in GTX/Ultra form at that) specs. I find it hard to believe NVIDIA's able to fit the full G80 (not even a cut down one, like the desktop GTS) into the thermal envelopre required for a laptop.

It seems to me that would just be asking for near-instant heat issues.

 

remember we are on a santa rosa platform and new geforce 8M series has PowerMizer 7.0 Technology, it won't be too bad

 

powermizer only drops the power when not in use to full extent, if you have a gpu under full load, it means powermizer goes out the windows and heat shoots up