Battery & performance

[snaven]

Sup folks! question I usually use my M14X on battery but I noticed that when I use the setting for power like: Power saver or balanced my games are affected sometimes quite a bit. I played BF3 on balanced and it wasnt that great but when I plug it and use high performance all is number 1. Does the setting really make a difference or do I have a problem?

 

[xGeorgexBP]

BF3 is a demanding game, which requires the high performance option. Power saving mode you get about ~7 hours (at least I do). With high performance, you get ~3.5 hours of battery life. The options do really make a difference because you set it on the setting you're going to utilize it for. It's like asking your 200 horse power(hp) honda civic to reach 300hp on eco setting.

 

[snaven]

how long does the batery last for you guys with M14X ?? lets say average cause i know there are many options but on battery i use balanced

 

[Maelstrom]

The power saver plan does exactly what the name suggests; it increases your battery life. It does this by deliberatly decreasing your PCs performance to save energy. If your looking to game you deffinantly don't want to choose this. If your on the go and simply need to use the internet or something then this should be what you have on at all times.

High performance basically tells the hardware to forget about power usage and turn on the turbo thrusters for some serious gaming. I would have this on only when you have the PC plugged in as it will seriously drain your battery if you game on battery.

The Balanced plan is somewhat of a gimmek as you generally want max performance or max battery life. The best thing to do with this plan is set it have max performance when plugged in and max battery when not. That way you don't have to worry about switching between power settings when putting your rig on and off battery.

One last note is that you should have your laptop plugged in as much as possible. You don't have to worry about power levels and it will increase your performance even in high performance mode. You should only really have it unplugged when your taking it somewhere that you can't plug it in or if you just feel like browsing the web with out the constraints of the cord.

 

[yikes81]

Yeh it will make a difference. Power saving mode turns all the power levels down on your hardware, thus giving you less performance.

 

[Jo1445]

I also get around 7 hrs in power saver mode, but it is a beauty to play Half Life HD because the laptop does not even get warm or get noticeable lower battery. It is quite amazing in my opinion, so I'm going a bit retro when gaming on the go. If I'm really in a Crysis mood, then I usually connect it to the outlet, since it gets very laggy on demanding games, even in High Performance mode. (What I have not tried is modifying Optimus to use full power even on battery mode. Might report back the results )

 

[yikes81]

Yeh there is something with Optimus. I have not read enough to figure out what it is though.