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[Huron Fal]

Hello. Thought I would share with you guys how I got my non-gaming laptop to perform okay playing this game. I use an Acer Aspire 5749 Laptop with 2.5 GHZ processor (4 core) and 8 GB RAM. I run Windows 7 64b OS. This is a fairly newish laptop but it is not by any means designed for gaming.

My problem was that even when I turned the game all the way down to the lowest settings and my laptop all the way to the highest settings, I was still getting only about 7-10 fps with horrible FPS hangups whenever I moved the camera. I was able to get about 15-20 FPS with these tweaks and hopefully it will work for you. Cheers!

Power Settings

(Note these are step by step instructions for Windows 7, for other Operating Systems the exact steps might be a bit different but all the settings should be the same.)

1. It is best if you make a custom energy management profile under Power Options, this prevents jacking up anything that you have by default and it makes it easy to switch to "MWO Mode" whenever you want.

2. Open the Power Management panel and select your custom energy profile. Then, click Change Advanced Settings

3. Look for the Graphics Settings drop-down menu. In my case it says Intel® Graphics Settings. Select "Maximum Battery Life" for both options. This prevents the card from over-exerting itself and causing it to overheat. I know it seems counter intuitive, but if your laptop is like mine this is the most important thing to turn down, and will gain you the biggest FPS boost. (Note: changing this to Balanced is also an option, but in my experience this causes more heat which will inevitably lead to your graphics card throttling itself anyway in order to cool off.)

4. Find the Processor Power Management drop-down menu, select it and change the following values. Set Minimum Processor State to 0%, it is okay to set Maximum Processor State to 100%. Since the max is at 100% your system will use that if it needs it and less when it does not, this saves energy and reduces heat which (should) increase your performance.

5. Under the Processor Power Management drop-down menu, select System Cooling Settings and make sure it is set to active. Obviously this prevents your card from getting too hot, which in my case was why my performance was taking a hit in the first place.

Screen Resolutions:

It is important to note that the lower you set your resolution, the better your game will run. The lowest available setting in MWO is 1024 x 768. Select this resolution along with "Full Screen" to increase performance. Setting your desktop resolution (usually done by right clicking your desktop and selecting resolution or graphics settings) lower is also helpful, I run it at 1024 x 768 to match the client, you can run it as lower resolutions (like 800 x 600), but I have not noticed any sizeable difference between the two. If the resolution looks absolutely hideous at these settings try setting the client to "Full Window" instead, it might look a bit better.

Advanced Settings:

(Note these are step by step instructions for Windows 7, for other Operating Systems the exact steps might be a bit different but all the settings should be the same.)

In addition to the tips above I also tweaked a few of the performance settings on my laptop. It is hard to quantify whether or not these help the MWO client perform any better, but these changes are easy to implement. Warning: these steps will make your windows look ancient so if you are a fan of the Win7 asthetics then I would pass these over. If you could care less / like the look of Win95 then by all means follow these steps.

1. Click the Start on your taskbar and then click "Computer." At the top of the screen under Computer there is a button that says System Properties. Click it. On the System Properties page, look to the lefthand side of the screen and click Advanced System Settings. You may have to approve a User Account Control Action, if so click yes to continue.

2. You should now be on a multi-tabbed panel labeled System Properties. Find the tab named Advanced and click it. Under Advanced there should be a Performance section with a button labeled "Settings," click it.

3. You should now be looking at a panel labeled Visual Performance. Find the tab named Visual Effects and under it click the bubble labeled "Adjust for Best Performance."

4. Also in the Visual Performance menu, just to the right of the Visual Effects tab you will find the tab labeled Advanced. Click it, and look for a bubble that says "Adjust Best Performance for Programs" and make sure it is selected.

5. These settings will make your desktop and other program bars look a little retro, but you will save resources in the process.


Shaders and Client Memory Leak

It is worth noting that there are several bugs that can impact your gaming performance regardless of what machine you use. In particular, shader cache corruption and memory leaking of the client. The solutions to both problems are very simple and well known but I will go ahead and mention them here.

Shaders:

Sometimes the game's shader files will become corrupt, if you are noticeing a lot of weird anomolies (floating objects, miscolored objects, weird shadows, or a buggy interface) then you might consider deleting your shaders cache folder. Deleting the folder is harmless and takes only a few seconds, so even if you arent sure this is the problem, you can still delete it just to be sure by following these steps.

(Note these are step by step instructions for Windows 7, for other Operating Systems the exact steps might be a bit different but all the settings should be the same.)

1. Locate your MWO folder. The default path is different for every system but mine looks like this: C:\Games\Piranha Games\MechWarrior Online

2. Under this folder, there is a subfolder labeled USERS. Open it and find the folder named Shaders.

3. Open the Shaders file and delete the entire folder labeled Cache including all of its contents. This will force the game to reload the shaders upon entering a match. It is recommended to delete this folder every few hours or so but I only delete it when my performance starts to tank. You may delete it as often as you see fit regardless.

Memory Leak

This is the term used to describe what happens when your client is open for too long and starts using excess memory to sustain itself to the point where it becomes a burden on your system and eventually becomes unplayable. The solution to this problem is easy, simply restart the client. I recommend doing this every 1-2 hours or every 20 or so matches but again as with the shaders its entirely up to you. You will definately notice a sizeable impact on performance if this starts to affect you so just reload the client when that happens.


Thanks for reading and hopefully this will work for you fellow laptop gamers. If I made a mistake or left anything out that you think is worth noting please let me know!