Star Citizen vs. Razer Blade 2015 QHD+

Hi all, new here and just got a Razer Blade 2015 QHD+, my first PC in quite a few years (I switched to a macbook pro for a few years and limited gaming to consoles. Then got rid of macbook pro and just had an ipad which served me about as well as the MBP in terms of what I used it for.)

My question is:How do I get Star Citizen to work on the Razer Blade 2015 QHD+?

My efforts for now have yielded no results so any help would be appreciated. I contacted razer support and they gave me a one-line reply saying I should set Nvidia to the preferred graphics card. I haven't had a chance to try that but will tonight, though I dont know where that setting is either.

Any advice and tips on recommended settings would be greatly appreciated!

 

Whats not working? Is it crashing? Not scaling correctly?

 

It is definitely not scaling correctly, not sure how to change the resolution both in game and on desktop to get that right. Also not sure if it can handle the max resolution.

Once I'm in the hanger, it lags tremendously, though everything does load. The arena commander lags less but doesn't play great either.

On a side note, the graphic settings also set themselves to low automatically.

 

Yeah, like Razer support, I would recommend setting the computer manually to use the dedicated GPU. I would also update your Intel drivers, and set the resolution down to 1080 or similar and make sure it runs just fine at those levels before bumping back up to native.

The intel driver update should be able to handle native desktop and 1080 in-game just fine, without black borders unless Star Citizen is one of those 'exception' games.

 

Thanks, I already updated the intel driver so I'll give it a shot tonight. I'm not sure how to set the computer manually to use the dedicated GPU though....

The interesting thing with Nvidia's geforce experience software was that it detected the other games I had on there but not Star Citizen. I saw it wasn't on their list of supported games so I guess thats why but not sure if that affects it.

 

Use the nVidia control panel to set Star Citizen executable to use only the nVidia GPU, also don't forget to hit the apply button at the bottom (it's not included in the image)

 

Thanks for the help rimark and hfm. So I did as hfm shows and also set the desktop and game resolution to 1080p. Its still pretty laggy though I read that the "hangar" part of the game is incredibly laggy even on some better computers. The "arena commander" part of the game works better, though I must really suck at flying because I cannot figure out how to control my ship. Might also be, at least in part, because the mouse still lags when I move it around.... Not sure if theres anything else that can be done?

I guess all of that might not make much sense if you dont also play Star Citizen haha. Not that I know what I'm doing. For now I'm just regretting having spent money pledging for it....

At least the laptop is awesome with my other games

 

Hmm, I almost feel like the Razer should be able to handle Star Citizen, at least on medium 1080 settings flawlessly. I understand that Star Citizen is graphically pushing limits, but I don't think those features have been added in yet - I don't follow it much anymore but I have pledged for the base ship.

Once I'm done figuring out my possible overheating / virus / benchmarking, I'll see if I can download Star Citizen and test it out to make sure my results are the same. Might be a week or so before that happens though - 30 day return ends this Saturday and I need to do a load of tests still.

 

I would hope it can handle Star Citizen since the game is heavily advertised on the razer blade product page! The only other games I've tried for now are WoW which I can set to 4k resolution and Ultra settings on most everything, and Portal 2, which also maxed out, but thats an older game I guess. But at least that means my graphics card is working fine right?

If you do test it out, feel free to reply again or make your own thread! I'll keep an eye out for it. Thanks again!

 

That would be humorous if it didn't play it well at all seeing as most of the photoshopped shots of the display have a Star Citizen image..

EDIT: Based on the reqs on the Star Citizen "BUY" page (no way am I spending $45 to try this out, already don't play Elite: Dangerous which I pre-ordered..) the Razer should definitely play it. Really.. DX11 card with 1GB.. there are some CRAP DX11 cards with 1GB out there. At least mention a minimum GPU model from each AMD and nVidia.

• Windows Vista (64 bit), Windows 7 (64 bit) or Windows 8 (64 bit)
• DirectX 11 graphics card with 1GB Video RAM
• Quad core CPU
• 8GB Memory

 

Hahah, so odd the way they described their minimum specs, especially since you get so many people touting how this game is supposed to be the next 'Crysis' in terms of pushing computers to its max.

Just for comparison by the way Kelevra, when I played Star Citizen on my desktop like half a year ago I played it just fine (dog fighting module n everything), yet my desktop struggles with Dying Light max settings 1080. The blade on the other hand destroys Dying Light max settings 1080, so that's where I assume it should be able to play SC just fine.

 

Really no idea why it's not working then...but what little I played for now doesn't have me too interested so I can wait. I've read about how its supposed to be the next Crysis too but for now I don't see why really considering that there's not much going on in the hangar which is the part that lags the most

 

Alright, just tested it (had to uninstall two huge games for this!), and I got even FPS for both the hanger and in space. By the way, optimus defaults to the integrated graphics card, and would recommend to anyone reading this to force Windows to use the integrated GPU as 'hfm' outlined above.

At 3200x1600, the hanger was running at around an un-playable (in my eyes) 20-24 fps. In space I got the same sort of performance at 20-24 fps.
At 1080, the hangar was running around avg. 50 fps (min. 40, max 60). In space I got, again an average of 50 fps.

So, I would never play anything at less that 30 fps, so I would default to 1080 all the time, needless to say. But at 1080, it's definitely very playable and smooth.

PS: I noticed they added like, G forces to the game? Pretty cool! I didn't know what I was doing and was spinning out of control, and my screen went red and hazy n stuff.

 

Thanks for letting me know how it went! So all you you did was change the desktop and in-game resolution to 1080p? And make sure its using the integrated GPU like hfm says? Guess I'll have to try again though I'm pretty sure I did the same....

So thats what that red haze was huh? I was wondering what the hell I was doing wrong haha. Out of curiosity, did you play with regular mouse and keyboard or a joystick? Just saw today that people claim a joystick is the ideal way to go. I'm very new to this kind of game so clearly I should have read the flight manual and done research first.

 

I've done my best with a keyboard and mouse, and briefly tried a joystick, but was really bad at it. I think a joystick would be an amazing experience to play SC with, but the learning curve was too great for my interest/patience with the game. Keyboard and mouse was easy enough for me to be decently good at the game, but if I was to play seriously, I would probably put in the time with a joystick to get a true space sim feel.

I would read up on all the different functions definitely though, one of the cooler ones I found was decoupled mode - which basically means you can turn your ship around adrift without using engines in that direction (ie. going forward, and turning a little bit to the right to shoot, yet velocity stays in forward direction)... confusing, but fun.

 

My issues are similar in that I don't have the patience or time really to spend too much time researching a game before playing it. But that's my fault for jumping into an Alpha build too. I assume the final release will have some form of in-game tutorial. And like you said, if I end up loving it maybe I won't mind spending on a joystick since that does look like the best way to play. Playing with a joystick sounds so 90s (80s?) old school haha.

Anyway, maybe I'll give it another shot once I upgrade my hard drive. Its a long way to release anyway!

 

Well after successfully upgrading the SSD I decided to give Star Citizen another go and with the tips above I managed to get it to work this time! Thanks again hfm and rimark

 

Nice! If you don't mind me asking - what SSD did you go with?

 

Don't mind at all! Based on recommendations in hfm's other thread I went for the Crucial MX200 M.2 500GB. The whole process was quick and painless once I figured out the proper steps.

 

Thanks! I'll be doing the same thing soon - 256 just ain't enough it seems haha. (Star Citizen test confirmed this lol)

 

Haha yeah especially for games like Star Citizen which is apparently going to be about 100gb if the creator is to be believed!