Playing Thief with NVIDIA Quadro FX2500M card...

[FriarTed]

I've already ordered this Dell XPS M1710 & I have some concerns with the card on it. People on another forum tell me that the NVIDIA Quadro FX2500M card is not good for gaming as it is designed for CAD & the drivers do not get updated. This was sold to me as a gaming laptop & I need to know if I should cancel the order. Have any gamers here played with this card & what has been your experience? My main games are the Thief series, Morrowing, & Sims 2 (looking at moving to Sims 3). This is an improved version of a thread I already posted but the title & the focus are different so please let this one remain & if need be, cancel the other. Thanks.

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

[Peter Smith]

If you want a gaming PC, then I think you should buy a gaming PC. Your other source is right. Quadro is not intended to be a gaming card, and it is intended for CAD. It may work -- I really do not know. Nevertheless, I think the focus on Quadros is on OpenGL, not Direct3D. They cost more than GeForce because they are "professional," but I don't know if that means anything. Besides, 7950 is pretty old technology these days. I bought an 8800 GT around 2 years ago. Also, I would not buy a PC unless it came with a full OS disk, not "recovery media". You never can tell when you will need a full rebuild of the OS on a new hard drive. I thought Dells did come with a full OS disk.

[FriarTed]

As it was, I was able to cancel the sale & get a full refund. Thank you for your advice. It was indeed advertised as a gaming laptop but apparently it was not.

Now I am looking at this... a Dell XPS 2010 with Video Chipset ATI Radeon Mobility
X1800 256MB Video Card... Is this advisable?


http://cgi.ebay.com/DELL-XPS-M2010-C...item3cb041b4c5

[Peter Smith]

I would look seriously into whether the ATI mobility RADEON X1800 video card that it contains would work well for games and Thief. It is strange that Dell does not mention this is a gaming computer. Do Google searches and the like. You may find that it will work but needs to have DDFIX installed to either run Thief or render it well.

My fist impression from what I have seen is that a better video card might be preferred. Still, it might work (no guarantees), and it looks nifty if you want a "barely portable" PC.