Curse

Alexandra-Sweet · Jun 07, 2008, 06:39 AM // 06:39

I've been searching for a way to Death Level while asleep for almost a year now

So last night I decided to start death leveling on my laptop, and then put my laptop in a medicine cabinet, strangly enough it worked, my wireless connection made it through the night, and my laptop wasn't even that warm (probably because there's a sink 10cm ontop of it and water pipes running next to it)

I've set all the graphics of Guild Wars as low as possible, and unchecked all the boxes.

I left Guild Wars running in windowed mode and then pressed Windows Logo + L (not exactly sure what it does in Vista) then closed the lid and put the laptop away.

However I do want to know how I can make life more easier for my laptop.

Because all my graphic settings are low my FPS reached about 120~
The more FPS = more graphic processing = more heat?
Tonight I am going to try to manually set the FPS to 15~ (sounds resonable right?) with the command line thingy.

I'm also wondering if running in windowed mode makes a difference, since my laptop's screen shuts down once I close it.

I run Vista on my laptop and Vista is suppose to be awesome for laptops so does Vista have some kind of option to lower performance?

Thanks in advance and any other tips would be appreciated as well (unless those are tips on why I should not mistreat my laptop).

FXCW · Jun 07, 2008, 07:09 AM // 07:09

I have left my laptop on all night running various games, or downloading torrents and have never run into any overheating problems.

I personally would not close the screen though as I do not like the idea of the heat generated by the machine always being in contact with the screen.

As far as how to lower the amount of power being used there are a few thing sI have found work well.

First of all run the game in windowed mode ad then minimize it, this really lowers the amount of resources required by the program.

Secondly, I would recommend you set up an "overnight" power plan(click the plug icon in the notification area of the taskbar). What I have done with mine is lower the maximum amount of cpu which can be utilised and I also set up the machine to turn of the screen after a minute and other tweaks. As far as graphics are concerned I have never bothered with any modifications in that area and my computer has never gotten hotter overnight than it usually does during a normal day, if anything it might be a little cooler.

I personally do not use Windows+L which locks Windows and takes you to the login screen as there really is not point in doing so.

I also use wireless and have never lost connection with it, so I have never had to make any allowances for that.

Alexandra-Sweet · Jun 07, 2008, 07:16 AM // 07:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by FXCW

I personally do not use Windows+L which locks Windows and takes you to the login screen as there really is not point in doing so.

Reason I lock Windows is because when I run Guild Wars minimized and maximize it again after a few hours Guild Wars freezes (probably because it has to load everything that happend the last few hours)

Gift3d · Jun 07, 2008, 07:22 AM // 07:22

http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/-image

There's a few more options you can use to lower the processes... don't know if you have done this already, but you can set it to dx8, disable sounds, etc. etc. Just a tip.

PRNG · Jun 07, 2008, 07:37 AM // 07:37

If Guild Wars freezes, one thing you can try to save your death-level session is to force a disconnect and then try to reconnect to the server. It may not always work, since there's about a 10-minute time window before it will no longer allow you to reconnect to your instance. In other words, if the game froze for 20 minutes before you found out, you will lose the death-level session.

To force a disconnect from the server (at least on Win 2000/XP, not sure about Vista), bring up the Task Manager by pressing Ctrl + Alt + Del and click Task Manager. Select Guild Wars, then click on End Task. Restart Guild Wars, and if the 10 minutes isn't up, a pop-up window will show up asking if you want to try reconnecting to your game. Click Yes, and you'll be back in your instance, hopefully still death-leveling. Kill Charr, start next death-level session...

Snograt · Jun 07, 2008, 12:35 PM // 12:35

V-sync would lock your FPS to 60...

isamu kurosawa · Jun 07, 2008, 01:31 PM // 13:31

you could see if the -fps switch still works and lock your framerate down to about 10fps. Enough to see whats happening the next day but low ebnough to relieve strain.

Just tested it myself, it does indeed still work. to do it use this:

"c:\program files\guild wars\gw.exe" -perf -fps=10

The -perf switch isnt needed put makes it easier to see the fps.