Acer Aspire 1710 Review - Page 21

Look at the first post; Adam posted a couple of benches.

My DVD-r is on its way should be at my grandmothers house on thursday and from there it will be on its way over here to Iraq and to me. The Acer support guy was pretty nice. He did seem a little confused as to how I wanted to get the DVD shipped to me as I can't recieve FED-EX or UPS. So I had to settle with sending it to my grandmother. Hopefully it gets here quick still.

Hey guys, for those of you that has this monster. What kind of games are you playing. Anyone here play far cry? What type of settings are you using, max res, settings med, low, high? Does the game run smoothly at these levels. I have a 5690 im having a few problems with and might have to RMA it ...I really love this laptop it chews up every game I throw at it. But, Cost wise I couldn't afford two 60 gig 7200 rpm hard drives, so I have one 60 and one 40 for storage and on the 60 im already down to 38 and I haven't owned it a week yet. So im thinking of trading it for the Acer. Can anyone post gaming pic's of them playing games and with the FPS showing to give me an idea? Thanks.

games

I installed FarCry and with settings on medium I was getting between 40 and 60 fps on my 1712SMi. That uses the GoFX5700. Only played through the initial getting out of the cave part (previously finished the game on desktop) just to see how it looked. Looked good. Hope that helps.

Hey Terry thanks,
did you try playing it at the highest settings? Im just trying to figure out if im gaining or giving up from going to this unit. I don't expect it to play as good as the 5690 ...but im loving all the desk top componets not to mention that great display it has. Its a trade off I know...I guess I use Far cry as a bench mark test of sorts...but im really preparing for eq2 in september and trying to get an idea.

Thanks..

Doesn't the 5690 have the Radeon 9700 Mobility? The GeForce 5700Go shouldn't be considered a significant downgrade.

Yes it does. Thats why I was trying to get an idea of its performance. I think Adam played Far Cry on the Acer but he didn't go into any detail of how play was aside from its nice screen.

No, I haven't tried anything other than "Medium" as of now. It looked very good at that setting. Main thing I noticed was no fish or birds. Everyone here is hoping for an upgraded video card soon. Only time will tell.

Quick question - when you take the bottom off your 1710s, while the PC's off, and the battery is still plugged in, do you find that there is a tiny green LED constantly on near the back of the Laptop, near the VGA port on one of the circuitboards? I've tried following the circuit boards round, but can't really find where this goes into... I'll give it a closer inspection when I am back home tonight, as I don't think I paid enough attention. It's probably something obvious.

Last night my 200Gb drive died (WD Maxtor 9) - on the back near where on of the chips is, I found a 2mm burn mark, which looks suspiciously like a fly. Don't quite know what happened, I tried very hard to keep this away from my rotting vege collection(?) Guess he must have shorted something... probably after drenching himself in water, clearly suicidal and premeditated.

As for the 3A20 release, as someone else stated, the donwload from the Taiwanese website, when translated seems to state that the only update is to Audio DJ software stability. I have this disabled anyway, as it proves somewhat inconvenient when backpacking this laptop to find that one of the buttons on the front has been pressed, and the battery has become rundown, so I have no intention of updating yet - if it isn't broke, don't fix it.

I have tried playing the game at all the settings with everything in High detail the game is unplayable. Medium seems to be the best with maybe 2 settings set to high. Other than that every game I have thrown at this computer it has been able to handle. (of course that may change with Doom 3 coming out (I hope it will play on this)). Some of the other games I play are America's Army Operations, Neverwinter Nights (which at certain times seems to be really laggy on this system), Unreal Tournament (all), Quake (all), Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, Battlefeild 1942 (desert Mod 0.6). None of these games have any problems running. Although some (Far Cry, Neverwinter Nights) seem to have some lag issues on certain detail settings or certain screens.

Hope this helped

(P.S. My sytem has been modded with the following: 2 GB PC 3200 400Mhz Dual Channel Memory, 200 GB Western Digital Special edition 8MB Cache hard drive. Currently awaiting the arrival of my processor)

I've seen that too. Don't know what it is though.

I am pretty sure the light is just like the light on a normal desktop motherboard to warn you there is still power going to the system and to tell you it is working. So you don't fry something by working on it while it is plugged in or the battery is connected.

FYI, for those who are looking at the 1712, it has an unusual power connector. It's shaped like a D with 4 prongs inside (2 positive and 2 negative). As far as I know, there are no airplane/car adapters that will fit this connector. So if you're looking to use it on an airplane, you'll have to rely on the battery, which is only good for about an hour.

Thanks guys,
Elmolivez, Thanks that was a big help in showing me the performance difference between the two systems. If an upgrade does come I think it will be the best system out there for the money. Well actually it is the best out there for the money already lol. I just have to decide, keep the 5690 buy external lcd with larger screen or go to the acer. Hmmm...Decissions ...

Synergi, the RPG Queen.

NeverWinter nights (Orignal Aol Version)
Ultima Online (Found real life hubby of 5 years there)
Asheron's Call
Dark Ages of Camelot
Asheron's Call 2 Beta only
Horizens (still deciding if I like it)
Everquest since opening day
Waiting for Everquest 2
Want to try Lineage 2 but hate pvp

Thanks for the reply Elmolivez - As long as it's standard that's fine. My concern was because there are two LEDs there, not just one, and I can't (couldn't) understand why only one would be lit.

I've had the system operating with the bottom off, and the other LED does not seem to light up (of course I haven't used all applications yet).

Most of you probably know this already, but to disable the (Audio DJ) buttons on the front before carrying your laptop, press "Fn & F9" and again to enable...

You must be one of them manual readers

I'm not sure about most people, but I didn't know that. Thanks for posting it.

I had two occasions when I was putting it in my bag and I accidentally hit the button that starts it playing even when turned off (WHY ON EARTH DO THEY HAVE THAT???). I start off down the road and hear the muffled sound of music

I've learned to be careful not to do that, but disabling buttons that I don't use is better.

DVD writer

I have been trying to copy DVD movies using my 1712 and have not been able to successfully do it. My player will play DVD+R media since I have been able to play a disk a friend brought over. However, I have not been able to successfully write a disk that will play. I have tried DVD Xcopy Xpress, Prefect DVD Duplication, and DVDFab, but with the same result. They all seem to rip and write to the media, but I can't play them the home theater. Any thoughts/hints would be appreciated.

Some DVD players have problems playing DVD+R media. DVD-R seem to have more compatability.

Does your friends DVD+R disc play on your DVD player?

I use DVD shrink and Nero 6.0. My player (an older Toshiba) only recognizes DVD-R disks.

The DVD+R did play. However, I will try and use DVD-R media. BTW, do you notice much of a performance boost with 400MHZ DDR memory?

drpepper

While this makes an unusually large laptop, it does however make an unusually small portable CD player!

Oh, wait a minute...