10 replies to this topic

[karrade85]

Hi,

I'm hoping some of you who have a more technical background in computers or apittude towards such things could help me with some issues I'm having. Though I have been only playing for 2 weeks I feel I've hit a wall that is really limiting my potential in the game and I feel it’s more a technical issue. While gracious for the time some of you took to include me into your training and 1v1's it has only confirmed what I already feared.


My ability to properly aim or turn my torso with my current mouse or a track ball is severly hampered although it may be a combination of things but I’ll get to that. It’s so bad that me using anything but LRM's or streaks is pretty pointless. It's why I gravitated to using the mad dog and stormcrow as they have good missile boating ability's and it's great that I can LRM boat pretty well. However the inability to make use of any laser or ballistic is an enormous disadvantage especially in Community warfare and group play.


Today I took a crow with laser vomit into a training session agianst a heavy mech and no he wasn’t playing a heavier weight class to be mean. He proceeded to move around me in a fairly close sparing distance while only shooting back occasionally so that I could practice trying to hit while on the move. Now he and others quickly pointed out some good advice for improvement straight away as they watch me attempt to kill his heavy.


Unfortunatley the advice while sound is currently impossible for me to do such as…. aiming to take off hard points or going for crit’s, torso’s, avoid spreading damage whenever possible and don’t sit still. I’m lucky if I shoot a laser on the move that hits anything! Aiming for a specific point on a mech is like asking me to throw darts at target 20 yards away. In addition I went at this for about 20 minutes or so without doing anything but missing a lot of shots and spreading about 450 some damage without killing or even maiming him lol.


Now for a background on me I’ll confess I have more console experience than computer but I’m usually not what you call a casual gamer. I love RTS games and am usually above average in them and first person shooters after a little work up time. I have familiarized myself for a couple weeks through the games forums before I even started playing just to get basic understandings on tactics and mech builds. Keep in mind I was a big EVE player back in the day so the learning curve here is way better lol. I have also been asking many questions to confirm what I thought I understood and learned from those forums as well with you guys, which by the way have been very supporting and helpful so far.


All of this has led me to believe that my issuses are more a hardware or tech issue rather than something that can be gained by practice or experience. So currently I’m using a bare bones $300 dollar laptop that’s 2 years old from Walmart and wireless trackball mouse. Things I’ve done to improve so far….


1. My internet speed is fairly good, and I have already turned down all the graphic settings in the game.
2. Just ordered I higher end wired gaming mouse and pad.
3. Ordered a nice cooling pad for the laptop to help offset heat issues.


Questions…

1. How do I find out my frame rate and what’s a good rate?
2. Ways to improve my setup like hardware that I could connect thru USB to laptop for a boost?
3. Ways to help boost laptop or improve on settings for streamline gaming?
4. Because I know your gonna ask for this information later…How do I find out what my laptop is working with? Graphics card, memory, processing ect…..

[FlipOver]

Hi there.

1 - F9 key - Good FPS is usually above 25
2 - Not much you can do about the hardware except get a better CPU or more (and better) RAM
3 - For streaming, you need a good GPU and CPU (in this game at least) ... an i5 gen 3 would be enough I suppose.
4 - type "dxdiag" on the "run command" and you'll see that info

Extra tip: Lower your graphics to the minimum, play a few matches, check the FPS count, and then start fiddling with the graphics in game increasing them as much as you can consider a good play experience.

Also - Check your mouse sensitivity settings. Most users have found that a minimum sensitivity works best in most cases. Find your settings using the training grounds and walking around a mech just trying to shoot only one arm or leg.

Hope this helps

[Durant Carlyle]

Steps to improve MWO performance on that two-year-old bargain-basement laptop?

1. Throw bargain-basement laptop into garbage.
2. Buy gaming laptop with real graphics card and high-end processor.

Other than turning all graphics options to their lowest settings, there is nothing you can do to make that laptop run MWO acceptably. The hardware is simply too weak.

[i am a bore]

If you can afford it, buy a desktop. If you can't afford it (A good desktop can run you ~600 dollars and play this game on high settings, peripherals not included.) Otherwise buy a new laptop.

If you can't do either of those, crank those settings down to low and leave them there. You need at least 25-30 FPS to be any form of real help to your team, any less then that and you're really little more then a walking target that sometimes gets lucky.

To answer your questions though....
1. F9 to see it, you want to see 25-30 stable. More is better.
2. No.
3. I don't understand the question, if you're talking about increasing performance from your laptop: No. If you're talking about wanting to stream: No, you're struggling to run the game, which isn't that hard to run on most things, so you will not be able to stream with it.
4. Click Start>Right click "Computer>Properties will give you most of it, besides the GPU, otherwise do what FlipOver said. To open the Run Command hit the windows key+r. (It's the key between right CTRL and ALT/Function with the windows logo on it.)

[karrade85]

Durant Carlyle, on 29 September 2015 - 06:06 AM, said:

Steps to improve MWO performance on that two-year-old bargain-basement laptop?

1. Throw bargain-basement laptop into garbage.
2. Buy gaming laptop with real graphics card and high-end processor.

Other than turning all graphics options to their lowest settings, there is nothing you can do to make that laptop run MWO acceptably. The hardware is simply too weak.

Yeah I understand that is the straightforward answer and solution but for a decent gaming laptop how much are we talking. At the moment I flat out don't have the cash but I may in a few months, that being said.... Gaming laptops never seem to get cheaper, every so often I look and it's always the same drop a grand.

Yes maybe I could find one a bit cheaper that runs better than what I'm doing now but I'm not interested in cashing out 700 bucks for something that will run somewhat smoother/acceptabley but not greatly improve the quality of gameplay and graphics. This game is fun and there are big advantages for those players with quality systems and big screens but sadly times have changed. It's not like my EVE day's were I had money to spend for a gaming space with a fancy desktop with it's oversized dual screens and high end graphics. The American dream with the wife and kids in that white picket fenced house has a high upkeep these days. I'm pretty sure father of the year award doesn't go to the guy who says little joey don't need new glasses or clothes this year so that I can game lol.

[bayoucowboy]

Here's a link to a little program I've been using for years called Belarc Advisor - it will give you a breakdown of everything in your laptop.

http://www.belarc.co...e_download.html

For laptops, gaming ones are getting a little cheaper - ex Lenovo Y50 with Nvidia 860M, but are still gonna cost you more than desktop components. - Quick ebay search about $750 used/refurbished - I just bought a Sager with an 860M Jan 2014 and it runs MWO fine on med settings

Hear your gaming budget pain - still, it's cheaper than golf (father of 3 here)

[karrade85]

bayoucowboy, on 29 September 2015 - 11:50 AM, said:

Here's a link to a little program I've been using for years called Belarc Advisor - it will give you a breakdown of everything in your laptop.

http://www.belarc.co...e_download.html

For laptops, gaming ones are getting a little cheaper - ex Lenovo Y50 with Nvidia 860M, but are still gonna cost you more than desktop components. - Quick ebay search about $750 used/refurbished - I just bought a Sager with an 860M Jan 2014 and it runs MWO fine on med settings

Hear your gaming budget pain - still, it's cheaper than golf (father of 3 here)

Thanks for your reply, the linked program will be very helpful so I can gauge what needs improving if I do buy a new laptop.

Now as for used ones I'll admit I'm not to keen on the idea. How reliable is something like that used? When I think of all the issues a used computer can have like spyware, viruses, overheating it seems a real big risk to buy used. especially with the lack of ability to return or refund.

[bayoucowboy]

You re right about buyer beware. Software issues (spyware/viruses) could be an issue, but I would recommend a full wipe of the hard drive (not just deleting the programs) or even replacing hard drives to be sure - just make sure you have a set of OS/other software disks before you do that.

Overheating should not be a hardware issue if it's survived for a while (intentionally vague) - make sure there is at least a short warranty if bought refurb (because it may have been that issue that caused the return) I have an old Dell Vostro with an AMD 8600M that is still kicking after running hot for years (55-80C) - now used by the kids for minecraft

All (imho) gaming laptops run hot - they have to push the envelope in performance without the room for great airflow

Always a tradeoff in risk (used equip) v reward (cheaper price)

Good luck

[Kira Onime]

FlipOver, on 29 September 2015 - 02:44 AM, said:

1 - F9 key - Good FPS is usually above 25

Sorry but no, 25FPS is horse crap. Might of been good 10 years ago but not anymore.

[bad arcade kitty]

set all the settings to lowest, especially particles and shadows etc stuff, but generally everything

turn off vsync and cockpit glass

use fullscreen mode, possibly turn off the sound, don't have anything running on the background, the game may get slower after 2-3 hours of play for some people (due to memory leaks, i personally didn't experience it) if it's the case, regularly restart the client

if it doesn't help... lessen the screen resolution (preferably while keeping it fullscreen)

for the hardware, the first thing which you should consider it's a new gpu i.e. video card
it's much easier to upgrade than cpu and has a much stronger effect on the game performance too
this game doesn't really need a lot of ram, it's gpu and cpu depending

Edited by bad arcade kitty, 30 September 2015 - 04:48 PM.

[Durant Carlyle]

bad arcade kitty, on 30 September 2015 - 04:47 PM, said:

for the hardware, the first thing which you should consider it's a new gpu i.e. video card
it's much easier to upgrade than cpu and has a much stronger effect on the game performance too
this game doesn't really need a lot of ram, it's gpu and cpu depending

Good advice for a desktop computer. Laptops like the OP's aren't upgradable though.