Between Recommended and Minimum, Still Very Laggy

System Specs

i7-3630QM quad core 2.4GHz

16 gigs ram

Nvidia 670MX card 3gigs dedicated

I feel like I should be able to play with at least medium settings at 1920x1080 resolution, but the best quality I can get without making Dragon Age extremely slow and unresponsive is with all low/off settings at 1920x1080.

Is the processor holding me back here,or could it be the graphics card, DA:I being slightly unoptimized or maybe a combination of things. Any thoughts?

dragon age inquisition

Anonymous
11 years ago
A laptop GPU cannot be used to set game requirements because the manufacturers will not agree on any standards. A desktop GTX 670 would be plenty to do what you want, while your laptop GTX 670m is most likely right at the same performance as a minimum desktop card (only suited for Low Quality graphics at medium screen resolutions and only moderate animation rates),

Some laptops with GTX 660m cards may be faster than yoiur own GPU is.

3 Replies

Anonymous
11 years ago
A laptop GPU cannot be used to set game requirements because the manufacturers will not agree on any standards. A desktop GTX 670 would be plenty to do what you want, while your laptop GTX 670m is most likely right at the same performance as a minimum desktop card (only suited for Low Quality graphics at medium screen resolutions and only moderate animation rates),

Some laptops with GTX 660m cards may be faster than yoiur own GPU is.
Plicked
11 years ago
@Gorath_the_Elder wrote:
A laptop GPU cannot be used to set game requirements because the manufacturers will not agree on any standards. A desktop GTX 670 would be plenty to do what you want, while your laptop GTX 670m is most likely right at the same performance as a minimum desktop card (only suited for Low Quality graphics at medium screen resolutions and only moderate animation rates),
Some laptops with GTX 660m cards may be faster than yoiur own GPU is.
Bummer. Had this laptop for about a year now, thought it would've had a longer lifespan for being up-to-date with games. Time to spring for a desktop.
"Some laptops with GTX 660m cards may be faster than your own GPU is."
Not sure what you mean by that
Anonymous
11 years ago
Individual laptop brands choose how much cooling capacity, and thus, how much performance, they want to offer, versus how much battery life they consider more important. Only Sager branded laptops tend to really perform well, but they are a costly brand. You have to compare the core speeds, VRAM speeds, etc to shop around for a gaming class laptop.

IMO, you should buy a laptop for lightness / portability and keep it awhile, not using it for games. At home, make some space for a stationary PC. You do not have to use large, tall tower enclosures, unless you jut like their looks, but you also want to avoid "too skinny" of a machine, because of poor cooling, once again, and inadequate internal room for high performance GPUs.

You can keep the same desktop for maybe eight years, upgrading for less than $200 USD, average, each year, and save a lot over upgrading / replacing laptops three or four times in eight years!