Gaming on the XPS 1330

[Shakey]

I'm wondering how well the Dell XPS 1330 will do with gaming.

I'm certainly not expecting it to run Crysis at 100 FPS or anything like that, but say, HL2, Supreme Comander, C&C3, and newer MMO games, with this thing cut the mustard?

Keep in mind the screen size is only 1280x800 and running Windows Vista Home Premium.

Specs:
Intel C2D 7300 2.0 GHz 4MB Cache
2 GB Ram
GeForce 8400 GS 128MB

thanks for the help guys.

 

[warezme]

I'm wondering how well the Dell XPS 1330 will do with gaming.

I'm certainly not expecting it to run Crysis at 100 FPS or anything like that, but say, HL2, Supreme Comander, C&C3, and newer MMO games, with this thing cut the mustard?

Keep in mind the screen size is only 1280x800 and running Windows Vista Home Premium.

Specs:
Intel C2D 7300 2.0 GHz 4MB Cache
2 GB Ram
GeForce 8400 GS 128MB

thanks for the help guys.

My M1330 with 8400GS will be in on Monday, I'll let you know. I'm not getting it for gaming just portable computing thats easy to tote around. I plan to overclock both CPU and GPU and I expect gaming will be decent but not spectacular if I do any on it. 8400GS is not a performance chip but I have read it can be an overclocking beast. Even then I have only read where 3Dmark06 has gone up like 600 points with an overclocked GPU. Nothing to write home about but it was still quite a bit faster than say a an ATI X800 series which is not bad.

I remember my old X800 could play Quake4, Doom3, HL2 all episodes, Prey, etc. like a scalded cat on an old Athlon XP 3200+ (overclocked of course) so I would expect the M1330 with its superior C2D 4MB 2Ghz CPU would do as well or better. I hear Supreme Commander is bear on any system, let alone one running an 8400GS.

(note. When it gets here I plan to format the drive, Install XP Pro SP3, then add Vista U. 64bit dual boot on top, just like my big system.)

 

[Shakey]

thanks, I appreciate the info.

 

[warezme]

update on M1330, I suprisingly recieved the laptop on Friday so I worked on it over the weekend...ALL weekend. It looks to be a well built machine.I didn't get LED screen so thats probably why it arrived "early". The screen is ok but I believe suffers from shallow angle viewing, its distracting. I blew away all partitions and reformated the drive. I created a slipstreamed installation of Windows XP with SP3, it worked but would not "register" properly so I blew it away and installed another copy of XP SP2 and that worked fine. I had one heck of a time finding drivers for everything but finally got everything working except the sound. I have the correct drivers but sound does not work.

I gave up for now and finished installing Vista Ultimate dual boot. I went with 32bit isntead of 64 after deciding the ordeal of finding 64bit drivers was to much to bear. I have everything working in Vista now.

Back to the sound, there was a reason I could not get sound working. I was under the belief my computer had the Creative Audigy sound as listed in my invoice but instead I found out it only has some cheap sigmatel audio. I have submitted a missing item request to Dell but don't know what they will do about it.

I have installed latest Nvidia drivers and rivatuner with a small 50mhz overclock on both memory and gpu for the video card. I installed and ran both Stalker and Oblivion just last night in Vista Ultimate. Stalker runs pretty good and so does Oblivion but there is an annoying ground texture error that I need to figure out how to fix in Oblivion.

I may have a solution for audio in XP and I will try again this afternoon to fix and put a couple of games in XP instead of Vista. I will leave Vista for productivity apps and XP for games and testing but still working in the best setup. Vista is working surprisingly fast but games are not super fast so far just good enough.

 

[Shakey]

I appreciate the info, once you've figured out the sound issue I'd love to know how. I think I might be getting the 1330, and I'd like to know where to get all the drivers from once I put a clean install of Vista on it. Also any more info on your gaming experience would certainly put my mind at ease.

thanks again for the information.

 

[warezme]

I appreciate the info, once you've figured out the sound issue I'd love to know how. I think I might be getting the 1330, and I'd like to know where to get all the drivers from once I put a clean install of Vista on it. Also any more info on your gaming experience would certainly put my mind at ease.

thanks again for the information.

You won't have much trouble getting Vista going again as the included drivers are designed for Vista and its fairly painless. However as noted I would say games tend to run about 10fps slower on Vista as opposed to XP. When the laptop is plugged in either XP or Vista most games run pretty good. When running on battery all games run horribley because I believe the processor slows down to save power.

I have benchmarked it using 3Dmark06 and came up with like 1650 score or there abouts. Compared to other systems that puts it between an Nvidia 7600 and 6600 series in game performance and better than an ATI X800 and about the speed of an X1600. None of those are bad cards at all and I remember my old system with overclocked AMD 3200+ and X800XL could only post around 1400 score in 3Dmark06. This is pretty much what I figured. It will run most games like FEAR, Halflife Doom3 very well including newer titles like S.T.A.L.K.E.R and Oblvion fairly will with some settings dialed down.

Overall its not a bad gaming little computer, just not on the level of a 7950 model.

On the sound for XP, there is a Universal Audio Adapter device that has to be installed from Microsoft which enables the function of the Sigmatel. It took me quite a while to find it and ended up tracking it down at an HP site of all places. Once installed and the driver reloaded the sound began working!!!

I am thinking of putting up a web page for all M1330 users working on these issues with linked drivers that I have accumulated for our benefit.

I am also looking for support from other users who have been misled into thinking the notebook included a Sound Blaster Audigy audio when in fact it does not. This is false advertising on the part of Dell.

 

[Shakey]

wow, thanks warezme, one last question though, do you think it will run Bioshock decently? I mean at the 1280x800 and medium graphics settings? if it will do that, then I'm totally sold.

Yeah, I had been looking at dells for a while, and I remember that switching around from it looking like an internal card to a "software edition". I also remember when they added the option to get the X-Fi card.

 

[warezme]

wow, thanks warezme, one last question though, do you think it will run Bioshock decently? I mean at the 1280x800 and medium graphics settings? if it will do that, then I'm totally sold.

Don't know about bioshock yet, I'll have to get it first to find out.

 

[MirceaD]

Hello Warez,

I'm also planning to get an xps 1330.

I'm interesed in the capabilities of the HDMI connection and the maximum resolution of the VGA out. Did you tested them?

I also got a "SoundBlaster Audigy" offer and thanks to your post I was able to ask the vendor some details about it, since the DELL configurator doesn't specify any Creative module...

How about overclocking? You said something about a list of drivers... Any news about it?

Thanks,
Mircea.

 

[theworminator]

To warezme and MirceaD, from what I've heard, although Dell lists a Soundblaster card, it's 'software' edition, meaning that, the hardware is Sigmatel Audio, but running Soundblaster software on top. If you check the site carefully, when you select the upgraded audio, it will say "software edition".

Remember to read the fine print...

 

[warezme]

To warezme and MirceaD, from what I've heard, although Dell lists a Soundblaster card, it's 'software' edition, meaning that, the hardware is Sigmatel Audio, but running Soundblaster software on top. If you check the site carefully, when you select the upgraded audio, it will say "software edition".

Remember to read the fine print...

LOL, just read your post, originally, the setup online configurator did not state this and the invoice did not either. Therefore I took it to case against Dell and Dell finally sent me a Soundblaster Xfi plug in card to shut me up!!!...hehe, to be honest, the xfi is not that great and I could have probably lived with the sigmatel but it was the whole principle of the matter and why in the world would ANYONE want to run an emulated software based audio device???

 

[theworminator]

Well, at least you kinda got what you paid for, hahah. As for the why, it lets Dell get the upgrade money essentially for free, as there is no change in hardware, and I doubt the software cost them much (or anything).