Dell XPS M1710 & Thief games...

The Game Room
1

My friend has a Dell XPS M1710 laptop on the way. What does she need to make sure she can run the Thief series?

These are the specs…

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo (2.0GHz) T7200 CPU - 667FSB , 4MB -L2

Memory: 3 GB DDR2 SDRAM , 2 DIMMS

Hard Drive: Hard Drive - 250GB

Optical Drive: 8X DVD+/-RW Drive with Dual Layer

Graphic Card: NVIDIA Quadro FX2500M (GeForce 7900GTX )Graphics with 512MB dedicated memory - BEST FOR THIS

Audio: High Definition Audio

Display: 17" WUXGA UltraSharp Display (1920X1200) Resolution

Wireless: Intel Wireless Mini-Card & Bluetooth

LAN: 10/100/1000 Ethernet controller

Ports: 1394, USB 2.0 (x6), VGA & DVI Display Port, RJ-45, Audio, Card Reader, SmartCard, 8-in-1 card reader, PC Card, Docking port

Power and Battery : 9 - Cell HI-Power Battery , 130 Watts Power Supply

Operating System OS : WINDOWS XP SP3, Comes With Recovery Media for OS,
and other Software installed such as OpenOffice.org (like MS Office), AVG anti-virus Plus, anti-SpyWare Software, Adobe, Power DVD, Roxio CD & DVD Creater
She had trouble running Thief Gold & The Metal Age on another laptop & only has 7 days to try this out before she can send it back if it doesn’t work. Thank you.

2

Not sure what to suggest really, think the only thing to do is to install it and see if it works. The graphics subsystem will be the biggest performance bottleneck, but the GeForce 7900GTX will be easily powerful enough to run a game that old. Any idea what problems she was having with the old laptop?

3

A Quadro FX 2500M isn’t the same as a 7900GTX. It’s designed for CAD. It can’t run games.

4

I’ll have my friend get hold of the seller about the Nvidia discrepancy & ask her what the issues were with the old laptop.

5

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=350387955231

This is the actual laptop, if that helps.

6

I’ve been reading various review sites & forum sites. If I had to summarize the consensus, it would be that it CAN run games but it’s not really designed to do so. A few comments are very negative & a few comments very positive, some going as far as to say that the Quadro FX 2500M is a redone version of 7900GTX.

7

The issue with the quadro cards is that they are built for CAD workstations. The software driver and to an extent the hardware is specifically optimized for line acceleration and CAD design software, NOT games.

That can mean a number of things for any one particular game. It might mean that a game will run fine, or that it will run poorly, or that it will have graphical issues, or that it won’t run at all. There will be no consistency in performance or stability, something that a gaming card and it’s (constantly updated) drivers try to do for games.

It’s a laptop so I’m not sure if this is possible, but if the card is a discreet solution, I would say take it out and sell it and replace it with something else.

Is a desktop not an option? Those $600 would buy a decent gaming rig.

8

Would that really matter in this particular case, though ? Thief isn’t exactly cutting edge tech - maybe Deadly Blue Shadows could cause problems, but when trying to run Thief 1&2 the usual problem is that the game fails to work because the hardware is too good/recent rather than not powerful or optimized enough.

9

Games don’t run because hardware is “too good.” Games don’t run because the hardware doesn’t support the code they use for rendering (or whatever). It’s the same thing with Quadro drivers. They don’t have many of the features used by games.

Maybe if he tries running Thief in OpenGL it’ll work. I don’t even remember if the Dark Engine supports OpenGL.

10

Could you cite me some references on what you’re saying on the Quadro FX 2500M & gaming issues? My friend did some research before buying this & everything she found was positive. The laptop has already been bought through eBay, so she needs to know quickly if she needs to cancel this. She has left the seller a couple of messages about your concerns. Thanks. I wish we’d done this before she’d bought it.

11

The problem is that the drivers are specialized. There’s always new games, and there’s always more performance/bug tweaking to be done. The drivers for a gaming card are updated about once a month. If you update every few months you can be sure that your games will run at their best. Quadro drivers do not take gaming into account. They are designed specifically for line accelerated engineering/CAD software. That’s all they care about when the optimize them.

So your best bet would be to check and see if someone is running the Thief games with a quadro. If yes, and they have no issues, you’re good to go. If they have issues, you can pretty much count on them never being fixed.

The thing is, that will be the case for EVERY game she gets. Is she really only ever going to play Thief? What if a new Thief game comes out? What if some other game catches her eye. Everytime she wants to try something new, she’ll run into the same problem.

Doesn’t sound like fun to me. Does she NEED a quadro? Is she doing CAD work?

12

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