My replacement notebook has arrived

[XionTawa]

Dell has always been FTL...I have been through 2 HP laptops and the only problem I ever had they replaced all it's hardware and gave it back to me...the first one is over 6 years old and still runs great... The new one I got a year ago, runs perfect, not one issue...

 

[Blackbeard]

Glad you got your NEW Replacement in, as for the video card, the ATI wins this Battle, The Official ATI site should have the Catalyst you need and it should play the games easily, I don't like touch pads either

 

[Ember]

Okay. I can breathe easy again.
[stuff]
The second part? Resolution.
[...]
I think I can sleep now.
[...]

*HUGS* Glad things seem to be coming together, yay! (I checked this thread since I was unconscious when you came back to bed...and you were sleepy when I left for work. ^^) I hope you got some good sleep after you got your resolution!

 

[Tek7]

*HUGS* Glad things seem to be coming together, yay! (I checked this thread since I was unconscious when you came back to bed...and you were sleepy when I left for work. ^^) I hope you got some good sleep after you got your resolution!

Aye, I ended up going back to bed around 6 a.m., after resolving the issue with Dell, testing out some games on an external display, and eating a snack while watching some infomercials.

Fun times.

 

[Odale]

How does it do on gaming?

 

[Tek7]

How does it do on gaming?

Very well.

It runs Bioshock on high without any hitches and runs both Left 4 Dead and Team Fortress 2 at higher frame rates and greater image quality than my old notebook's video card.

Once I get the shiny new screen, games are going to look great (God willing)!

 

[Odale]

Very nice!

 

[Tek7]

Oy. I want to cry.

I did a quick Google search to try and figure out why the display looked so awful and washed out when playing games and I stumbled across information that leads me to believe the problem isn't a driver or software setting, but rather a limitation of the display.

The claims of display limitations I discovered when researching the problem with colors appearing washed out or faded may have been inaccurate. I'll be running additional tests this afternoon, but wanted to at least post that my original theory as to the cause of my problem may be incorrect.

I only have two concerns:

1. Video tends to stutter for a fraction of a second, just often enough to annoy me. It looks like something for which there should be a driver fix.
2. The color in TF2 looks washed out, but that might just be a matter of having the brightness set too high.

Installing the latest official drivers for the desktop Radeon HD 3650 "hacked" to run on the Mobility Radeon HD 3650, enabling VSync in certain games and/or waiting 15-30 seconds after the game fully loads to "settle" seems to have resolved my first concern.

I'll try out the Mobility Modder tomorrow and see if there's any improvement in frame rates.

The latest official desktop Radeon HD 3650 drivers I hacked to run on my laptop took some time and several attempts to install, but, after I did, I was able to set the minimum brightness to a point in games so colors did not appear washed out or faded. it appears the issue may have been related to brightness after all.

In my defense, the official drivers provided by Dell did not allow me to set the brightness low enough to keep games from appearing faded or washed out. I had to use unofficial methods and unofficial drivers to fix the issue.

Also in my defense, the claims I cited in previous posts mentioned the exact same problems I have was having with my display and a reasonable explanation. The claims also cited the hardware as being manufactured by LG; the Hardware IDs field for my screen under Device Manager began with LG, leading me to believe the screen was also manufactured by LG.