PoolCleaningRobot said:
I think I may have quoted the wrong person initially, regardless it worked out okay. I should start by pointing out that the Nvidia chip in your laptop, even if it's the same series as its desktop counterpart, is going to be the lesser M series chip. It more than likely has less shader abilities, and probably has lower clock speeds/will downclock to prevent overheating and damage. On the HDTV, I play at 1920x1080. My TV (a Visio) hates 1280x720, and will upscale it and make it look like ass if I try. I put my computer sideways on my entertainment center, flanked on both sides by a 360 and a PS3. I have a wide behind-the-couch style table in front of the entertainment center with the keyboard and mouse on it. All the computing, including work and chatting with you guys, is done this way in my living room, right when you walk in the door. I just have the cleartype font at 125% scale (150% doesn't gel with 1080p). I don't get headaches or anything, and it's a joy to fix customer's computers remotely this way. Even if I got a monitor, I don't know that I'd let go of being able to have my office in my living room. When I want to sit on the couch, all I have to do is switch the video input and it's all good.
If I may suggest the seemingly dangerous way I pulled this off, most of the parts came from Ebay, and I've been doing it that way since I built an Athlon XP Nforce chipset computer years ago. If you only bid on items in unopened boxes, you have 2 means to cover your ass if something's broke. You can file a claim with Paypal and get your money back from the seller, or (because you're the one who opened the box) you are covered under warranty and can get a replacement through the manufacturer. The only problem I've ever had is that I had to replace the thermal compound on this GTX 465 after a few months because it was hitting 80c load (which isn't really too hot to play, I just don't like it).
While I understand that elitism is everywhere (I play Dark Souls, on my PC...holy shit plebs!), if I considered myself some kind of PC ambassador, I get much more joy out out of making the PC seem less expensive and intimidating than it really is. If you isolate and scare people away, that's less people that end up choosing the platform, which is a lower attachment rate for publishers to decide to bank on. I'd say the worst thing that happened here was that people decided to take Yahtzee's "master race" joke out of context and wear it as a badge of honor. It has multiple, horrible connotations and makes others want no part of it.
About your laptop again, I'd suggest reading up on tweakguides about your Nvidia driver utility. Some games might be using the Intel imbedded video chipset, or a setting or two might be bringing the frames down with little to no benefit. He's also got a nice BIOS guide, you might want to raise the amount of system RAM that the video chip is borrowing if that's too low (512 at a bare minimum if you can). You might also be served well by replacing a 1GB or 2GB stick with a 4GB, and raising your Windows paging file to 1.5-2x the amount of your system RAM, as that paging file in combination with the Nvidia chip is liable to leave you with too low an amount of system RAM to handle its business. All your parts are in synergy, and too little of one can be enough of a bottleneck to disallow the other parts to shine and do their thing.
If you have any questions for me, I'm more than happy to help out and see you satisfied with your gameplay. This is what I do for a living, I live and breathe it, and it's impossible to bother me. At the worst I'm just happy to have someone to talk to.
