What games does your m-ITX system run adequately?

[mcwildcard]

Last night I tried installing Battlefield 2142 onto my Zotac 9300-itx system and it ran surprisingly well on high settings at 1280 x 768 (I know that's not exactly a super resolution, but it's enough to look pretty decent on my 720p telly!). It was a bit jerky, but that's possibly down to my 2GB of ram (some of which is used by the 9300 gpu).
Once I get up to 4GB again I'll see if I'm right, but all I wanted it to run was that and King's Bounty (which also runs well at that resolution), so I'm happy as larry!
Anyway, I noticed when I was researching my build that there's not much info on specific games and how they run for m-ITX systems, so thought I'd start a thread to possibly give a bit of info to those who are looking into it.

My system spec:

E6300 @ 2.1GHz
2 x 1GB Geil Ultra CAS4 RAM
320GB 3.5" 7200.10 SATA2 HDD
Zotac 9300-ITX wifi
On-board graphics
On-board sound

 

[Col_M]

I'd be interested to know this too. I'm thinking of making my gf a system using the zotac 9300 board with my old components when I end up upgrading soon. She mainly wants to play Sims 3.

 

[Hesky82]

If you pair your 9300 board up with a cheap 9800GT you will be able to take advantage of the hybrid SLI feture built into your board
Once you have it all configured your hardware will run in Hybrid Power mode. This basically works by shutting down the main dedicated graphics and running just from the onboard igp when your surfing or playing back media which in turn allows your machine to run cooler quieter and more efficient. Fire up a game and and the dedicated gfx card kicks in allowing you to play games at much much higher resolutions and quality settings.

Of course the size of your case and psu can limit you somewhat.

 

[Black Hat]

If you pair your 9300 board up with a cheap 9800GT you will be able to take advantage of the hybrid SLI feture built into your board
Once you have it all configured your hardware will run in Hybrid Power mode. This basically works by shutting down the main dedicated graphics and running just from the onboard igp when your surfing or playing back media which in turn allows your machine to run cooler quieter and more efficient. Fire up a game and and the dedicated gfx card kicks in allowing you to play games at much much higher resolutions and quality settings.

Of course the size of your case and psu can limit you somewhat.

Currently only AMD systems are compatable with the Hybrid power technolodgy, intel systems are limited to the geforce boost feature which is virtually useless with a card such as the 9800GT it only really makes a difference in certain games with a low end GPU such as the 8400GS more info here :

http://www.nvidia.co.uk/page/hybrid_sli_desktop.html

 

[Hesky82]

Your spot on Black Hat, I didnt realise hybrid power only worked with AMD systems, I totally overlooked the lack of ticks lol thats just pants!
I know it worked with an AM2 GeForce 8200 board so I just amused as Zotac state there Intel 9300 board utilises hybrid SLI to you could setup up the hybrid power feature.

I was sort of looking forward to running a Zotac 9300 ITX board and 260 gfx card in that configuration

Does your 9500GT scale better with your 9300 board if you have GeForce Boost enabled??

 

[Tute]

It's the same as the 9400M used in the MacBook right?

If so, World of Warcraft runs fine on medium settings. Gets jerky with a lot going on, but rest of the time it's fine.

My Macbook also cuts through Sims 3 at a good frame rate. The Sims games have always been sensitive to CPU and RAM more than GPU.

 

[Black Hat]

Your spot on Black Hat, I didnt realise hybrid power only worked with AMD systems, I totally overlooked the lack of ticks lol thats just pants!
I know it worked with an AM2 GeForce 8200 board so I just amused as Zotac state there Intel 9300 board utilises hybrid SLI to you could setup up the hybrid power feature.

I was sort of looking forward to running a Zotac 9300 ITX board and 260 gfx card in that configuration

Does your 9500GT scale better with your 9300 board if you have GeForce Boost enabled??

Unfortunatly the 9500GT doesnt support hybrid sli according to thier site i cant say i have tried it tho.

 

[Hesky82]

I just don't understand why Nvidia have half-arsed implementations of pretty useful features like hybrid SLI.
To many exceptions with unsupported current hardware make it pointless try out or just simply not possible

 

[Black Hat]

I just don't understand why Nvidia have half-arsed implementations of pretty useful features like hybrid SLI.
To many exceptions with unsupported current hardware make it pointless try out or just simply not possible

Yep couldnt agree more complete waste of time, works with the 8500GT but as that has 16 shaders and the onboard has 16 that would = 32 shaders which is the same as the 9500gt has so i figured it was a waste getting it working after i read some reviews, hybrid power i can see would be worth it i just dont get why they have made support for AMD and not Intel .