Weird Problem with a Laptop...

[Dark_Advent]

This is kinda strange, my Presario 900 has no problem playing games that use the Quake Graphic Engine, but games that use a Unreal Graphic Engine go all 'Hyperactive'. That is, the animation is to quick for the sound.

All the software drivers, DirectX, and all the other crap is up to date, can anyone give me some tips.

BTW, i did email compaq, and they were as useful as boobs on a bull.

[colin]

I'll mail you my nVidia Geforce 1. Maybe then you'd be able to play unreal or half-life.

[Dark_Advent]

oh, one more thing, Half Life works fine. Games like UT and Deus Ex act like they are on a double douse of Speed.

[Panda]

Define Hyperactive... does the animation stay at a steady rate over the norm (aka x2 speed) or varying? (aka sometimes x10 speed, other times x2).

If it's varying, a possibility that comes to mind would be that the engine is having a problem getting synced to your monitor... especially considering there is no physical tracing to sync to (aka, CRT monitors sweep an electron beam accross the screen, usually 60-85 times per second... whereas LCDs dont). Some methods of keeping time will fail as the game expects to be limited by the framerate if it waits for the 'vertical retrace' (the time where the electron beam switches from the bottom right corner of the screen to the top left, to repaint the screen anew).

If you have any sort of advanced tweaking options available, check out anything having to do with "retrace", "sync", or for that matter, anything Hz/kHz related. "Frame Limiter/Limiting" also.

I've had a few different games have this problem with me on another laptop (midtown madness springs to mind). I suggest trying to find game patches, as these may solve your problem.

A quick search on google makes it seem you have a RADEON IGP 320M chipset? A quick google around gave me greif... aka I found nothing muc.

Note however that this is an ATI chipset, so you may be able to take the issue up with them instead of comcast...

It's been forever since I've played a UT engine based game... if it supports another mode (aka, OpenGL instead of DX... hell, even software) try those and see if they give you any different results.

Just by 3 cents, hope it helps.
      -Mike

[colin]

Sounds like a framerate problem. Something that has nothing to do with your videocard and everything to do with the game itself. I had a similar problem with gta3 a year or two ago. It allowed me to change the speed of the game itself in an options menu or something. I know I'm not being very helpful. Just hoping you could derive something from my post or be inspired to try something new that may help.

[Panda]

Sounds like a framerate problem. Something that has nothing to do with your videocard and everything to do with the game itself. I had a similar problem with gta3 a year or two ago. It allowed me to change the speed of the game itself in an options menu or something. I know I'm not being very helpful. Just hoping you could derive something from my post or be inspired to try something new that may help.

The problem is indeed with the game, but I'm guessing as to why the game is having problems on his computer is due to assumptions the game makes about the videocard.

Note that this problem shouldn't appear on desktop LCDs (connected with the normal VGA cable anyways), as those pretend to have a refresh rate to read in the data from the card, which is sent as per normal. Integrated systems don't need to pretend, and thus can omit that pretending, and thus can lead to problems with games assuming that this refresh rate exists.

[colin]

[off-topic]For my computer I have the option of changing the refresh rate. What do you think would be the best refresh rate to have?

edit: the default is 60 hertz
[/off-topic]

[OntarioisBurning]

Hey, I have sorta a like problem with UT, i dont know about Deus Ex cause I havent played it on my laptopt. I get texture degradation on my Toshiba satelllite 5200, UT workd ok for a while but then all the textures start to decay. I have an nVidia Geforce 460 Go and I read somewhere that UT was having problems with this graphics card no matter what computer it was in and that the only cure was to get an updated driver for your graphics card. problem is that nvidia doesnt support it and toshiba doesnt have any updated drivers for it so, in other words, im screwed

[Panda]

...problem is that nvidia doesnt support it...

Where'd you get the silly idea that nvidia dosn't support it?

http://nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp

Step 1: Select "Graphics Driver"
Step 2: Select "GeForce and TNT2"
Step 3: Notice that under "Products Supported:" at the bottom, is in fact listed the Geforce 4 MX 460, as well as the GeForce FX 5600, which is what matches up with the hardware spec sheet for one such submodel of the 5200 series, found here:
http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles/view.php?cid=14&id=789&pg=
Step 4: Select your os.
Step 5: Click "Go!"

I think you can get the rest. I'd also like to note that this is not a framerate issue of any sort and is off topic, and thus deserves it's own topic. However, since the answer is solved in one reply, it's not a problem. Most hardware issues can generate many replies, and having 2 topics discussed in 1 thread is confusing... which is why I even bother to bring this up.

[off-topic]For my computer I have the option of changing the refresh rate. What do you think would be the best refresh rate to have?

edit: the default is 60 hertz
[/off-topic]

At least you have off topic tags... . If when playing games, you only play games, set the refresh rate to the highest possible (= more fps = smoother graphics).

If you like to run things in the background (P2P software, compiler software, webservers, etc) then set it to something that's comfortable. over 60Hz is probably overkill, and under 30Hz is probably not enough.

[OntarioisBurning]

Notice that under "Products Supported:" at the bottom, is in fact listed the Geforce 4 MX 460, as well as the GeForce FX 5600,

Is there a difference between the GeForece4 460 GO and the GeForce4 MX 460? cause I have the 460 GO

[Dark_Advent]

ok here's the nuts and bolts of everything i've tried:

Uninstalled the game, removed the folder, defraged and scaned my HDD.

Installed the game[full install], tried Direct3D mode it was running at a constant 5x, tried the OpenGL, same thing, tried Software mode, got nothing but studdering clip city.

went into the Deus Ex advanced preferences, uped my Max Frame rate from 24 to 60, no difference.

Emailed ATI, just wateing on them to reply, but not expecting any real help. My experence with tech support has been less then happy.

Ever have a day where life seems to be standing over you with a bat, grinning.

*Update* Got an email back from ATI last night, no help, they sent me a copy of their Games FAQ, something i have already read twice. I told you ATI CS was the shits.