Problem with running games on bootcamp? [Archive]

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nickjw

Oct 26, 2009, 08:37 AM

Heyo,

I just bought myself a new imac (24 ", 2.63GHZ, 4G Ram, 256 graphics)
Ive loaded xp on using bootcamp and have tried to install NWN2, and The witcher and both run but are waaayyy too laggy to get any enjoyement or playability out of. I've sussed it out as much as possible (even turning most of the graphics to as low as possible) and still I don't get any love.

Has anyone experienced these problems before?
And if so, what should I do?
I really want to play these games and from what I can see I don't believe that this imac can't hack running these two games?

Cheers

Nick

Sambo110

Oct 26, 2009, 08:40 AM

You did install the drivers right?

nickjw

Oct 26, 2009, 08:41 AM

im pretty sure.

I've gone through the bootcamp process and nividia is up and running?

Sambo110

Oct 26, 2009, 08:42 AM

Once Windows is installed you have to put in one of the discs I think to install all the Windows drivers for your hardware.

nickjw

Oct 26, 2009, 08:44 AM

one of the mac disks? Or the windows ones?

Sambo110

Oct 26, 2009, 08:46 AM

One of the discs that came with your Mac.

nickjw

Oct 26, 2009, 09:21 AM

i just tried putting in leopard and installing drivers for bootcamp but its still really laggy???

Sambo110

Oct 26, 2009, 09:48 AM

So you definitely installed the drivers? If you go to Add or Remove programs is there a list, normally down the bottom, of drivers? Should be quite a few, one for ethernet, sound etc.

nickjw

Oct 26, 2009, 09:55 AM

Yup, theres a big list of drivers, including the new updates for Nvidia that I just installed??

It should be running well hey.

Sambo110

Oct 26, 2009, 10:18 AM

Hmm, it should be. What graphics card is it? It isn't integrated is it?

nickjw

Oct 26, 2009, 10:38 AM

Hmm not sure.

Its an Nividia 9400M?
I'm quite baffled about it hey.
Unless general useage halves because of the partition but i don't see how

Sambo110

Oct 26, 2009, 10:54 AM

The 9400M is integrated, but it should still run well, like this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AT-InZ6HE0M&feature=related

No idea what the problem is sorry.

Huntn

Oct 26, 2009, 12:23 PM

One of the discs that came with your Mac.

There is a boot-camp control panel in Windows. It pops up periodically with updates. I wonder if it looks at applicable drivers when it updates?

The 9400M is integrated, but it should still run well, like this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AT-InZ6HE0M&feature=related

No idea what the problem is sorry.

Does the 9400M have it's own dedicated VRAM? I thought the 24" iMacs were supposed to be decent with games?

nickjw

Oct 27, 2009, 08:32 AM

i couldn't find out any info on the vram.
Yeah i'm stumped on what to do. and a bit bummed that I cant play games on this machine.

Huntn

Oct 27, 2009, 10:09 AM

i couldn't find out any info on the vram.
Yeah i'm stumped on what to do. and a bit bummed that I cant play games on this machine.

Are you familiar with the Profiler? Click on the Apple in our top menu bar, select "about this mac", when the window opens, ask for more info and a profiler page will open. (The profiler app is found in the Utility Folder which is accessible through the "Go" on the top system menu.)

Look under hardware>graphics displays. You'll get info on your graphic card including VRAM.

As I said, I thought the 24" iMacs were capable gaming machines. Lots of people seem to use them for that purpose and you have 4GB RAM which should be plenty. Even though drivers have been discussed, it would be really good to know what kind of drivers you have in Windows.

Are you familiar with Windows? If so you could right click on "my computer" select "properties", find the section with video/graphic card specs (called displays?) and see what it says and report back here. If for whatever reason, you don't have adequate video drivers installed, you game performance in Windows will be marginal.

Blair230

Oct 27, 2009, 11:23 AM

I believe the 9400M does not have dedicated VRAM. It is not a great gaming card, but is capable of handling most games at low to medium settings. The two you are trying to run should run fine as long as you dont crank them up too high.

Try lowering the settings on the game. Make sure Anti Aliasing is off and try lowering settings as well.

You also can download updated drivers from the nvidia website. They even have a driver detector on there as well.

Let us know how it runs.

Huntn

Oct 27, 2009, 11:48 AM

I believe the 9400M does not have dedicated VRAM.

I'm not an expert on this. Would having 4GB RAM on the computer, overcome the fact that the card does not have dedicated RAM? In other words, should it get what it needs? Also with a card like this, is there max RAM it can use?

My understanding is that anti-alias and view distance has a huge adverse impact on frames in some games.

Consultant

Oct 27, 2009, 12:38 PM

Blair230

Oct 27, 2009, 12:48 PM

I'm not an expert on this. Would having 4GB RAM on the computer, overcome the fact that the card does not have dedicated RAM? In other words, should it get what it needs? Also with a card like this, is there max RAM it can use?

My understanding is that anti-alias and view distance has a huge adverse impact on frames in some games.

Having the 4GB RAM will help with running programs etc., but in this case will not really help out the video card. When the card pulls from system memory, it can pull up to the specified amount (in this case, 256MB). With video cards however, it is not as clear cut as amount of RAM as to how well they run.

Not getting too technical (as I have only some knowledge in this area), video cards are more judged now on their own processors, how many "pipelines", cores, clock speed, etc. You can check specs/reviews here:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-9400M-G.11949.0.html

Also note that just because a card is newer, it doesnt mean it is better. With the nvidia family for example, the second number is more important than the first. For example...the 8800 is vastly better than the 9400M.

In the case of the 9400M, it is not only the RAM that limits its performance (although pulling from system memory is a big hit), but the processor itself.

As far as anti-aliasing, that is a BIG framerate killer (slows it down quite a bit). Resolution too is a framerate killer as well.

Huntn

Oct 27, 2009, 02:09 PM

Ram doesn't matter if you don't have a dedicated video card.

Having the 4GB RAM will help with running programs etc., but in this case will not really help out the video card.

I thought on a dedicated card, it shares RAM with the system?

Blair230

Oct 27, 2009, 03:25 PM

I thought on a dedicated card, it shares RAM with the system?

I think you have it reversed. Integrated graphics shares system RAM, dedicated cards have RAM that is seperate from system memory.

nickjw

Oct 28, 2009, 08:01 AM

Rodus

Oct 28, 2009, 06:58 PM

Firstly make sure that NWN2 is patched up to the latest version, Obsidian did try to give it some performance boosts, then go into the game options and turn off 'Wait for Vertical Sync'. This can give you a big fps boost.

Huntn

Oct 29, 2009, 12:24 AM

I think you have it reversed. Integrated graphics shares system RAM, dedicated cards have RAM that is seperate from system memory.

Yeah, I said it backwards. :o

Blair230

Oct 29, 2009, 02:21 PM

Yo,

The Vram is 256M.
All drivers are updated for the card.
So i'm just guessing that the video card isn't good enough.
Although when i ran it on my pc (2.6 single core, 1G ram and 128M graphics) it ran at the same quality as i'm getting now.

grrr
frustrating!

Yes but WHAT video card did you have on the old PC? Remember that the 9400M is not a great gaming card...for exampleyou can have an 128MB Geforce 8600 (as is listed in Huntn's profile) and that card is actually a better gaming card.

Also what settings are you trying to run it at? Please list and we will try to help.

Thanks