New gaming laptop incoming

[SHIROI RAKUEN]

I will get a gaming laptop in a couple of weeks hopefully & would like to know before that, all the tweaks that I should prob make to it before I play any games. Anything u can think of really would be appreciated. I am still a newbie when it comes to tweaks & important updates.

Btw, the OS will be windows 8, and the GPU will be a radeon 7970M dedicated(discrete), so yeah, pls talk to me about stuff like 1rst boot BIOS, drivers, windows 8 tweaks, general gaming performance tweaks, etc... maybe even some more advanced stuff also... anything u can remember

Thx

 

[Eureka]

If it's not made by a custom company, reinstall the OS as soon as you get it and install latest drivers from manufacturers. Gaming tweaks will depend on games.

Will it have a SSD? You should look into adding one if you don't have one.

 

[Sleepingforest]

Hm... don't get AMD just for Enduro. Nvidia's Optimus drivers are more mature and polished, as well as working better.

The very first thing you should do is disable touchpad edge-based gestures--their annoying and not really very useful. You can type right into the Metro screen to search, much like the old Start button.

 

[SHIROI RAKUEN]

If it's not made by a custom company, reinstall the OS as soon as you get it and install latest drivers from manufacturers. Gaming tweaks will depend on games.

Will it have a SSD? You should look into adding one if you don't have one.

It will have SSD.

It will be made by Schenker XMG. Why would I want to reinstall the OS?

 

[SHIROI RAKUEN]

Hm... don't get AMD just for Enduro.

I'm not getting AMD just for enduro, heck I don't even want enduro with all the problems that it had.

Btw, calling them now to see if like alienware they have the option to disable enduro...

 

[SHIROI RAKUEN]

Just called them. Bad news... They only have one model that does not support enduro but it's not the one I want. So, now I have the choice between :

alienware without enduro but for 1724€ or a Schenker with a 64GB SSD & for 1454€ but with enduro enabled :/ Everything else the same...

So... I'm stuck... -_____-

 

[Eureka]

It will have SSD.

It will be made by Schenker XMG. Why would I want to reinstall the OS?

The OS you get on your laptop is pre-imaged at a certain point, drivers will be old, it'll have their software on it, etc. A clean install with latest drivers is far better, and will only take you about an hour or two on a clean computer.

Also update the motherboard BIOS, generally solves any small problems down the line.

 

[SHIROI RAKUEN]

^ So, should I do it if I buy a Schenker?

 

[Eureka]

If they give you a OS DVD, then yes. Personally, I always do a clean install no matter where the computer came from, just because I know exactly what I'm installing.

However, if you decide that the laptop came clean enough, you could just update the drivers and go from there. I'm assuming Schenker is a small business that does custom builds, so they won't stick a lot of junk software, if at all. If I had to choose one computer to not reinstall, it'd be a small company.

 

[SHIROI RAKUEN]

I will get a gaming laptop in a couple of weeks hopefully & would like to know before that, all the tweaks that I should prob make to it before I play any games. Anything u can think of really would be appreciated. I am still a newbie when it comes to tweaks & important updates.

Btw, the OS will be windows 8, and the GPU will be a radeon 7970M dedicated(discrete), so yeah, pls talk to me about stuff like 1rst boot BIOS, drivers, windows 8 tweaks, general gaming performance tweaks, etc... maybe even some more advanced stuff also... anything u can remember

Thx

Uuuhhhmmm... guys?

 

[Sleepingforest]

Yes? I think Eureka answered your questions pretty thoroughly--though you haven't told us why it must be a laptop yet.

 

[SHIROI RAKUEN]

Eureka just talked about reinstalling the OS. But there are many, many more tweaks than that to max performance on windows 8 & for gaming.

So, pls help, I'm all ears...

 

[TheStu]

Well, maybe you should get the laptop first, and then find out if tweaks are necessary?

 

[Sleepingforest]

Wait... how can you know that there are more tips? I mean, many of these tips are more about personal and aesthetic tastes than raw performance performance--re-installing the OS is just to get rid of bloatware and background programs that might slow you down.

Security wise, I adivse you leave Windows' warnings up and manually authorize everything that runs on your PC. You also want to create and primarily use a Standard account rather than an Admin account.

 

[SHIROI RAKUEN]

What about msconfig? Should I mess around with that?

 

[TheStu]

What about msconfig? Should I mess around with that?

Immediately after a clean install? No. In fact, if you have to ask the question, the answer is also no.

It isn't rocket surgery (It's a thing look it up) by any stretch of the imagination, but it does take a modicum of experience and sense to know what is good and what is bad.

Or, simply googling everything in there that doesn't seem right.

But no, don't mess with msconfig.

When was the last time you got a new computer? I ask because a lot of these tweaks are unnecessary anymore, haven't been needed for years and years. Modern hardware is so stupidly fast, especially if you pair it with an SSD, that any tweaks you make will either be a: detrimental or b: make an impact measurable only in microseconds.

 

[SHIROI RAKUEN]

^ Thx for the info