The Acer Guy

As many of you will have noticed, the Aspire One comes without Skype installed.

Rumour has it the decision not to include it as standard comes down to a question of cost. Skype is free if you download it for personal use, however, if a computer manufacturer wants to install it as OEM software, there’s a licence fee to pay, which would have bumped up the cost of the Aspire One and would have made Skype the only paid-for software on the machine.

Don’t know if this is true, but if it is, hats off to Acer for saving us all some unnecessary cash.

However, that leaves us with the problem of getting Skype on the Aspire One.

Got a mail from Daniel who managed to get Skype installed on his Aspire One just the way he wanted and I thought I’d post it here so that you could do the same.

First off, you have to download and install Skype 2.0 for Linux. You can find it here. (http://www.skype.com/download/skype/linux/)

To launch it, you’ll need to enable the advance mode on the Acer Aspire One that allows the user to “go behind” the default GUI (graphic user interface) and open up the main Linpus features.

“To do this go to Files > My Documents to open the File Manager. Then go to File > Terminal.

The Linpus Linus uses Xfce, so use “xfce-setting-show” to get the Xfce Settings Manager.

Click on Desktop to get to the Desktop Preferences and choose the Behavior tab.

Now click under Menus the Show desktop menu on right click option and close the window.

This setting will allow you to bring up the normal desktop menu when you right click somewhere on the desktop. The Desktop Menu contains many more options than the limited user interface on the Aspire One.

Under System you will find Add/Remove Software which is the Red Hat/Fedora Packet Manager. You will need your password (the one you set up during installation) to access it. Now you can go nuts and install programs. It’s a pretty big selection and the files will be downloaded (you need internet access) and installed for you. If it’s an application you usually find it later in the Desktop Menu.

That will put it on your desktop but if you want it in the “Connect” area, then you’ll need to edit a XML file located in:

/home/user/.config/xfce4/desktop/group-app.xml

Opened it and look for the line concerning Skype:

Just delete the exclamation point and the dashes, reboot and there it is, the Skype logo in all its glory in the Connect Area!

A screenshot of the Homepage:

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3.7 (10 people)

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We have our first review for the Acer Aspire 8920.

I’m really excited about receiving these directly from you, and want to thank John Daniels for writing this up so soon after receiving his.

But that’s enough of me. Let me get out the way and let John tell you what his first few days have been like.

Acer Aspire 8920G-934G64Bn

Windows Vista® Ultimate”, Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T9300 (2.5GHz, 800MHz FSB, 6MB L2 Cache), 18.4″” WUXGA Acer CineBrite™ LCD TFT, 2*2GB RAM, 2*320GB 5400rpm Hard Disk Drive, 2X Blu-ray Disc™/DVD-Super Multi double-layer drive, Mobile Intel® PM965 Express Chipset with NVIDIA® GeForce™ 9650M GS 512MB VRAM, Intel® Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN (dual-band quad-mode 802.11a/b/g/Draft-N), 8 cell Li-ion Battery, 6-in-1 card reader (SD™, MMC, MMCplus™, MS, MS PRO, xD), 0.3 MP Crystal Eye Webcam, Bluetooth 2.0, Acer Bio-Protection fingerprint solution, Dolby® Home Theatre Digital Surround Sound Technology, McAfee® Internet Security Suite 60 Day Trial”

The box contains the 8920, power supply, manual, guarantee & a Sony Blu-ray demo disk with various Blu-ray movie trailers on. I haven’t included any photos of the machine as there are plenty on the Internet & Acer can take better picture than I can, but here is the box.

After 6 years using 15” screens, it looked huge, with a very attractive outer styling; only problem with the gloss finish is it shows every fingerprint.

Set up was painless, Vista took about 10 minutes to complete its install, creating a system restore & a driver restore disk, was about 45 minutes, reinstallation of drivers can be completed via the Acer Mobility Center, directly from your hard drive, as can a restore to factory defaults through the Acer eRecovery management.

It came with Vista Ultimate 32 bit SP1, there were a few windows updates to get, which downloaded & installed in about 10 minutes, there was also an updated version of Acer Arcade Deluxe which was updated from within the program.

Build quality is excellent, a different league from my old Aspire 5110, it feels very solid, & with normal use, no noticeable give on the keyboard, which is positioned nearly central, with the numerical keypad on the right & CineDash Media console on the left. Touchpad is about central with the keyboard, positioned directly under & the same width as the space bar.

The screen is a beauty, my old Aspire’s screen looks positively dull in comparison; it can be viewed from a wide angle both horizontally & vertically. The huge width takes a bit of getting used to but I find myself using Acer GridVista a lot more now as it is ideal for this screen size. The included Blu-ray demo, has a couple of comparison clips showing you the benefit of HD, watching normal definition content will never be the same again.

CineDash Media console is a bit of a gimmick, & takes a bit of getting used to but it does what it says & looks pretty cool.

The 5.1 sound works, but this is a notebook, I’d have to be 2” tall & stand on the keyboard to get the benefit, & then I’d have to have eyes at the back of my head, as the front & rear speakers seem to be swapped. The Tuba Cinebass, adds a little bit of bass, nothing out of the ordinary, but all in, not a bad sound for a notebook & probably the best I’ve heard.

Performance.

Windows experience index is 5.1, with memory operations per second being the bottleneck

Windows shows 4gb of Ram, but Everest shows only 3gb is available. I was running Vista 64 bit on my previous aspire & the WEI for memory was 5.9, so it presumably it would be the same on this machine.

It would be nice if Acer supplied a 64 bit version, all the drivers available for download from support are 64 bit compatible except the Nvidia, which I’m not sure about.

Graphics - NVIDIA GeForce 9650M GS

I ran the following tests
3DMark 05 – 8009
3DMark 06 – 4814

It should be able to handle all current games, though not on fullest effects on games like Crysis.

Battery life on the power saver plan is about 2 hours 30 minutes as per the specifications.

Very good hard disk performance from the 2 Western Digital Scorpio wd3200’s, considering they are 5400rpm disks, I had a Hitachi 200gb 7200 in my old aspire & it got the same score, 5.3

The 2 physical disks appear as 3 partitions, there are also 2 hidden partitions, presumably for acer system restore. See below

There is an Intel Robson & Matrix Storage manager driver included, but no onboard Robson (TurboMemory) & the current BIOS doesn’t allow RAID (to my knowledge anyway, I’ll be contacting Acer support regarding that) so seems redundant to me.

Improvements I’d like to see would be Vista 64 bit operating system, internal TV card (included in the next model down) RAID & TurboMemory.

In conclusion, I’m happy with my purchase & consider the price very reasonable considering the specification.

Acer seems to have stepped up a notch in terms of quality & I think they will be onto a winner with this model. Now let’s see if they can do something about their technical support.

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3.0 (5 people)

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So the wait is finally over.

Blue has landed.

No word yet back from the guys out in New York (they’re probably shattered) but I’ll post some more info the moment I hear from them.

The New York launch was way too late for me (kids!) so I set up my Google alerts and was welcomed with a flurry of sites reporting on the new arrival when my youngest woke me up at 5am (what’s a guy to do?).

Rather than re-writing what other sites think, I’d like to compliment the guys from Circle Line who helped organized the shindig despite the fact that New York is 4000 miles away from home.

Another thing that was great during the lead up to the Blue was the mails I received asking me what the hell Blue was. And not only from people outside of Acer.

My Facebook mail has been brimming with requests since the teasers went up across all the Acer sites and it was fascinating to see the predictions. Not to steal the show from what is an extraordinary product, many were expecting a down-sized ultra portable or smartphone model after the recent acquisition of E-TEN (see article below).

You’re going to have to wait a little while longer for that…

But back to the Gemstone Blue. Just in case you haven’t figured it out yet, it’s the first notebook with a true 16:9 ratio high-definition screen. What that mans is that it looks just like your widescreen TV at home and is pretty darned amazing to watch movies on. And that should also give you a pretty strong clue as to the raison d’être for this machine: Cinema.

I’ll write more on this a little later on and will try and post a bunch of photos up on my Flickr site but for now, check out the minisite.

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2.5

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I’ve been trying to sum up the courage to do this for a while, and then it came to me in one quick, blindingly obvious flash.

You know the reviews section I half put up a while back? I now want to bring it down. Actually I already have.

If you remember, I recently published 5 user reviews of the Aspire 5920 and it was, as far as I am concerned, the best thing this blog has done since it started. I mean, what better way to “engage the public” than let them tell you what your products are like? By letting real customers dissect, photograph and review their own products without editing anything more than the odd spelling mistake, I think we’re doing everyone a good service.

I know it all sounds a bit like the user review section on Amazon or some other high-volume commercial site but in reality it’s not. This is turning the tables 180°. It’s letting you tell the world what you think and giving you a place to stand up for what you said. It’s my firm belief that Acer products aren’t all that bad and that the people who buy them bought them for a pretty good reason so why not get you the user/customer to share your thoughts.

Besides, does anyone really read site reviews you can’t talk back to?

So, there it is. An open invitation to vent your frustration or sing your Acer’s praises. Please mail me at reviews AT theacerguy dot com if you have one you’d like me to post. Just keep the swear words out

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2.5

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Here’s the last of five user reviews of the Aspire 5920. Many thanks to Terry Campbell for this:

I was shopping for a notebook for college and felt what better kind of notebook to get than a ‘gamer’ notebook. Currently I am in a BA program for Video Game Art & Design, so I didn’t want just a decent notebook for college - I wanted something with at least a good video card that can handle 3D modeling and games. It needed to be something that could run software like Autodesk 3DS Max 9, Adobe Photoshop & Illustrator, Macromedia Studio, and work with a Wacom tablet. Originally I was eyeing the Toshiba X205 at Best Buy, but a tech friend of mine there recommended the Acer Aspire 5920G instead stating it was nearly just as good as the X205, but at a steal of a price – nearly $1000 less. Does it do the job?

Here is the breakdown:

Operating System: Windows Vista™ Home Premium
System Manufacturer: Acer, inc.
System Model: Aspire 5920G-6313
BIOS: ZD1 v1.3708 3G08
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T5250 @ 1.50GHz (2 CPUs)
Memory: 2046MB RAM DDR2
160GB SATA HDD
Realtek HD Audio + Subwoofer & Dolby Home Theater
1 Input
1 Mic Input
Dual Built In Microphone
1 Headset SPDIF
Toshiba Dual Layer +/- DVD-RW
HD DVD ROM (read-only)
802.11a/b/g WLAN
Bluetooth
VCM Software Installed
Bluetooth Button Installed (No Internal Bluetooth Device) L
NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT Turbocache
DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC
Display Memory: 1008 MB
Dedicated Memory: 241 MB
Shared Memory: 767 MB
Resolution: 1280 x 800 (32 bit) (60Hz)
DirectX 10
15.4” WXGA Acer CrystalBrite
4 USB Ports
1 HDMI
1 S-Video Out
1 VGA
1 Ethernet
1 Modem 56k
1 Firewire Port
1 SD Card Reader/Memory Stick Pro
1 Express Card Slot
IR Receiver
Crystal Eye Webcam

For a first notebook I mainly liked the price for all the features that came with it for around $1,000. As for appearances I liked the sleek look and finish on the outside and inside it has a sort of off-white color giving it an overall classy look. It did not feel too heavy or too wide, putting it into my backpack and carrying it around to class and work has not been a problem at all. The first thing I loved about it was the keyboard as the keys were very comfortable to type on. My only problems while typing was brushing the touchpad with my palm causing the virtual scrolling to move my screen around which can easily be disabled in the touchpad settings. Also another problem I had was accidently brushing against the bottom ‘record’ media button on the right hand side causing the cd burning software to launch, pretty annoying, so I disabled that feature. I haven’t tested if reinstalling will allow me to use the keys for Windows Media Player since I use that for my media library and accessing my Windows Media Center PC. When I take it out to class, work, or the library the battery lasts about 2-3hrs if I keep the screen brightness down to its lowest dim setting. Setting it to max setting the battery seems to last a little over an hour. The WiFi WLAN feature on the 5920G works great both in home and out in public. I tested it at the library, coffee shop, McDonalds, and some friend’s houses - all connected fine without any problems.

As for the sound it is great, but the volume seems a little faint even when maxed out. This is especially noticeable when video or teleconferencing. Either that or I need to clean my ears. Also where is this subwoofer listed on the features list? Either it is faint or again I need to clean my ears. Even with DFX software installed to enhance the sound and base – I didn’t notice a sub difference. It isn’t a huge deal to me as I don’t use my notebook to listen to music or movies since that is what I mainly use my MP3 player or Media Center PC for.

What I really do like about this notebook compared to my old desktop is I can run a lot of stuff at once. I used to be a neat freak with my old desktop and would hardly run many things at once, even the system tray would be devoid of useless software running in the background just to keep things running smoother. With this notebook, despite the 1.5GHz, I can run a lot at once in the system tray, a 3D intensive game, and some graphic design software without breaking much of a sweat at all. I also liked how easily I was able to install a wireless Xbox 360 controller as well as the PS3’s Sixaxis via the USB ports. Also underneath the notebook doesn’t seem to get hot much at all except a little warm in the bottom top left corner near the vents.

One bummer was Best Buy had advertised this model as having Bluetooth. The first month I had this notebook I never pressed the button to notice if it was actually a working device or not, but noticed all the time the Acer VCM software that supports it. Finally after getting a Bluetooth headset I noticed while syncing it and pressing the Bluetooth button on the 5920G – “No Device”. Luckily, the headset that comes with the wireless 360 controller works, but now I’m stuck with a useless Bluetooth headset. Another bummer that I am not used to is not having a factor default restore disk. Thankfully I immediately made one and you should also before you make any changes or installations to your 5920. The hard drive is partitioned and does come with software that uses that extra half for backing up. Still I would suggest to make a DVD backup of your initial factory default before doing anything else to the notebook.

The video quality is great and not much can be said accurately about the NVIDIA 8600M GT yet because the DirectX10 card chipset is seemingly still a baby to the market by 3-4 months. Not to mention Vista is not that old either and we all know how good new OS’s are to deal with until the first service pack arrives. Now I found the stock drivers to be fairly primitive, but functional. However for a ‘gamer’ notebook Acer should be prepared to release more driver support for it since not all games work well with the same drivers. Using modded drivers is at your own risk, but I am currently using the 163.44 from Laptop Video 2 Go (http://www.laptopvideo2go.com) with the August BIOS update 2708 from Acer. The main problem with most modded drivers is the game either doesn’t improve or new problems arise like the notebook won’t wake back up out of sleep mode. With the 163.44 and BIOS update I can say the 5920G does not have those problems. As for games running on this notebook, I have only tried one game and one demo so far with it. The first game was Final Fantasy XI (DirectX 8).

First it must be stated that the game was optimized for DirectX 8 and has no window mode. Because of that Windows users have had to use homebrew software called Windower (www.windower.net) to play the game in window mode, but to get it working you have to uninstall the Microsoft eHome Transreceiver as it causes it to crash as the game loads up. Luckily, SquareEnix is currently working on making a window mode for the game to release this winter along with the next expansion Wings of the Goddess. I think the delay has something to do with it being coded into DirectX 9 in order for it to work. Either way in full screen or Windower, the frame rate much like in Guild Wars takes a big dive into the single digits on both the Acer stock drivers and the 163.44 drivers+BIOS update. This was a bummer and reason I made the update. Whenever I came into heated battles the frame rate dropped from 25fps to as low as 2fps – pretty embarrassing for something that is recommended for a GeForce FX 5500. I mean Second Life runs faster than this and that is pretty sad. I am definitely ruling this one out on a combination of the current state of the drivers, the game being made for DirectX8, and perhaps also Windows Aero causing this. Then again it is nice to be able to flip the game in 3D.

Next I tried the demo for Bioshock.

For a mid-range GPU I was fairly surprised how amazing Bioshock ran on the Acer 5920G, which appeared to run at a smoother frame rate than Bioshock running on my Xbox 360. Not to mention how easily it worked with the 360 controller without any setup. I was worried about playing this demo because the first attempt at a DX10 demo was Lost Planet, which kept crashing during install. Mind you this was prior to the 163.44+BIOS update. Either way Bioshock further proves how well the 163.44 modded driver + 3708 BIOS update works.

As for my graphic design software, 3DS Max 9 works great AFTER you install the Service Pack 2 update making it compatible with Vista. However, for it to run it does disable Windows Aero. No lag or slow frame rates when animating in the software. Photoshop and Illustrator do the same thing for compatibility reasons, but the software does not have any problems running on the 5920G at all. Macromedia Flash 8 was the only software that was allowed to run in Windows Aero mode.

No problems noticed in Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator.

Overall this is a notebook I would suggest to any graphic design student or someone going into game design. The 163.44 graphics driver + 3708 BIOS update works fine for the 5920. Also if you do purchase this laptop, do not forget to make a recovery backup before making any changes or installations to Vista since it does not come with any recovery cd’s. If you do not mind dealing with a new video card chipset that will of course be a little future proof to run your games and graphic design software then this is the economic notebook to get.

Terry “TC” Campbell

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2.8 (1 person)

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The fourth user review of the Aspire 5920 comes from Canada. Again, the rules are very simple. You do it, I’ll publish it.
Here’s what Morris has to say about his….

The new Acer Aspire Gemstone, co-designed by BMW is yes, shiny. Not to mention, it is better looking in some perspectives then the older models in the Aspire series. With the “door handle” design, and the rather rigid hooks for keeping the lid closed, it becomes very functional (Not like some older laptops with cheap hooks that break so easily with only a small twitch, e.g. my old TravelMate C100) lol


Lets take a looky -

With the Shiny “Gemstone” look outside, and the beige/grayish color finish inside is not so bad of a combination. The door handle features a webcam, which gets kind of annoying, The angle is fixed unless you tilt the LCD. Before I made up my mind, I did consider that the color for the interior might get dirty easily. But after I received the product, I noticed that the color is not completely white so it made it easier to keep clean.

6.6 lbs. is quite heavy for me, but it comes with a 15.4 inch LCD that has a max. resolution of 1280×800 Pixels. I can’t ask for more! (left: my old TravelMate C100 from Acer, right: Aspire 5920, behind: my desktop with 17″ monitor).

Lets take a CLOSER look -

The High-Definition Surround sound speakers is what I call amazing! Playing Counter-Strike: Source is more impressive than ever before with the 15.4″ wide screen. With the support of the subwoofer, music playback is rather impressive even though it is just a laptop.

And the “lovely” media touchkeys on the side, you play pause, stop, next track, previous track button made it convenient while you are Word processing, gaming etc.

Some useful key buttons on the left side here allows you to toggle wireless on or off to save power, open up Internet quickly, read Emails right away, and the useless bluetooth button on this model… Both the Internet and the Email button can be reprogrammed to open up something else.

The HD-DVD ROM with the combination of multi-burner is a useful feature, with the capability of HD-DVD play back, and ability to burn DVD and CD media, great desktop replacement. Sure a HD-DVD drive, but what about the display? Yes the monitor on this laptop already has the capability to display 720p videos.

So, 15.4″ not big enough for ya? get a load of the support of HDMI port on this laptop, plug it in to your HDTV with single cable you get both sound and display XD. So on this side, we got 3 USB ports, more then enough, both RJ45 and RJ11 for both cable/DSL and dial-up connection, a 15 pin VGA port, s-video, and of course, the firewire. One last thing on this side, the ExpressCard /54 slot is available for some other device expansion.

CPU: Core 2 Duo T52520 1.5 GHz, 2 MB cache
RAM: DDR2 PC5300 2GB Dual Channel configuration
Graphics: 8600M GT 256 MB up to 1024MB (note that the 768MB is used for both system and graphics, so system still has 2GB)
HD: Hitachi 160GB SATA 5400RPM (only thing that’s actually slow on this laptop)
Bluetooth: Not included in this model
Drive: HD-DVD DVD CD multi burner
Wireless: Intel® PRO/Wireless 3945ABG 802.11a/b/g WLAN(goes pretty far to about few neighbors distance)
Sound: Realtek High Definition Audio with VirtualSurroundSound Speakers
Keyboard: 88-key, inverted T cursor layout, embedded numeric keypad, hotkey controls, 2.5mm minimum key travel, international language support
Battery: 8 Cell 4800mAh 1.5 hr high performance gaming 4 hr on low power web surfing + messaging

Other notes -
Pros: Nice battery life , 1 and half hour mobility gaming for games like oblivion is more than enough for me, 4 hrs if you use it for only web surfing, or messaging. looks very shiny when the lid is closed and all the LED lights in the interior. HDMI output and HD-DVD ROM

Cons: Shiny, but easily scratched or gets all oily with your hands touching it, hard to clean it after, hard drive slowing the whole computer down in the loading speed so it’s useless to have DDR2 technology. 6.6lbs (3.0 kg), kind of heavy for long distance traveling.

Summary.
Great laptop for University Students who would like to game or watch some movies during class break time, and with the built-in mic’s and speakers, it’s awesome for stuff like skype so you can voice chat with people easily.

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2.5

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A while ago I asked how good the Aspire 5920 was for games. The following article is Jing’s response:

Before you dive into this article I’d like to make one thing absolutely clear. Jing carried out this review on my personal request and at his own risk. We both would like to point out that changing the standard drivers could cause your notebook to malfunction so this should only be done by experts and neither Jing nor The Acer Guy blog shall be held responsible for any damage caused by readers attempting to repeat the contents of this article.
This article was written for fun and is in no way recommended by Acer or associated with Acer. You have been warned: change your drivers at your own risk!

OK. Boring bit over. Here’s what Jing’s been up to lately….

UPDATE: Quite a lot of you have asked for Oblivion to be included in this review. Jing’s sent it, but I’m having trouble downloading it from where I am. I’ll get it up as soon as I can OK?

UPDATE 2: Finally got Jing’s Oblivion review up. Enjoy!

—————————-

Michael thought it would be a good idea for prospective buyers of the 5920G to know how good the 8600M GT is at gaming. Don’t expect me to tell you the best tweaking tips (though I’ve heard RivaTuner works well) for over-clocking, or to provide industry standard benchmarks. You won’t get that in this particular review, but if like me you play the occasional game, then you’ll want to read this just to put your mind at rest, if you’ve been wondering whether the 8600M GT is a worthy purchase in your next notebook, as you probably know, dedicated Graphic cards can add a significant costs - if not one of the greatest costs - to your new notebook.

I currently own an Acer Aspire 5920G Notebook. It is my first notebook, and contains one of the newest Nvidia offerings, the 8600M GT. I am using it with a 15.4 inch screen at the native resolution of 1280×800 in windows, and where possible in games.

I am using modded laptop display drivers instead of the Acer Stock Display drivers, as I have had numerous problems with the Acer drivers in games. I’ve had no problem with the current drivers I’m using, but it has taken a lot of trial and error to get here. Some drivers I’ve known to disable the laptops ability to hibernate, or recover from standby, or cause the screensaver to play, when it should be disabled in Windows Media Player, so you have been warned!

For instance, in “Sims 2” the “smooth edges” option or Anti-Aliasing option as it’s more commonly known is disabled. In Halo 2, there is numerous texture flickering in the title screen, cut-scenes and actual game environments. And to round it off, poor game performance. Halo 2 runs at unplayable frame rates, and Guild Wars suffers frequent frame rate drops.
Halo 2 is one of the first Vista-only games. So it seems fitting to start off with this.

HALO 2

Using a program called Fraps, I captured the screen above at the highest resolution available to me (1280×720), not true 16:10 widescreen, so the image remains stretched vertically, giving the game environment a heightened appearance which in no way detracts from the experience, but 16:10 at (1280×800) resolution would have been nice. All other graphic options were left on default.

I expected Halo 2 to be a performance hog based on playing Halo 1, which demanded the most of your hardware, without actually looking like it needed this power. After playing Halo 2, I found it difficult to label the performance. If anything it’s totally average, which in games is a blessing or a curse.

Halo has no way within the game to turn on vsync like in Halo 1, the frame rates vary WIDELY from the low 20s, to the lower end of 40. I have no complaints about the frame rates being within this range, as it reduces tearing. In terms of playability, it’s perfectly fine. Image quality is pretty much on par with Halo 1, apart from a few updated textures, such as the armour on elites, which I describe as “shiny” graphics which seem all the rage on Xbox/Ps3 games. Texture models are not pretty and feel unpolished. For example grunt uniforms have depth but have no sharpness when viewed up close. Textures are very bland and blocky and you may be hard pressed to see any difference at times between Halo 1 and Halo 2, apart from little details such as the new weapon models, and improvements in lighting (those shiny textures!) and water effects.

An Elite Covenant in a load of trouble with the Bosses… “Mummy…”

The 5920 handles Halo 2 well. In complex fire-fights the frame rate can fall to 20, but there is little slowdown and the controls remain manageable. Strangely the AI suffers at times, which may be down to the programming, or because the graphics and environment require so much power from the CPU. For example, in Halo 1, elites always dive out the way if you lob a grenade their way. In Halo 2, they sometimes just crouch where they are standing. Other times, they fail to notice you, even when you tempt them into close combat with a few knocks of your gun butt.

Issues with Acer Stock Display Drivers

-Texture flickering on title screen
-Texture flickering on certain surfaces in the game
-Texture flickering during cut scenes
-Low Frame Rate leading to major slowdowns
-Extreme Tearing

GUILD WARS

Not much to say about this game, except it’s the best online MMORPG, for the fact there is no online subscription. Okay, you might want more info…

Guild Wars, runs perfectly with the default settings on native resolution (1280×800), with 4AA turned on, and all other settings on high except shadows which default to medium. The frame rate is silky smooth at 60 FPS with Vsync turned on. I tried turning it off, and the frame rate remained at around 60 FPS with the only effect being slight tearing when looking around the games environment. Even in crowded pre-searing Ascalon, there were no texture buffering issues when turning around, or brief frame rate drops.

Graphics are crisp, hardly any jaggies - that’s graphics whereby you can see the sharp unattractive outlines to objects rendered in 3d. And the only problem is that sometimes when interacting with objects, they go within the player. For example, when your player carries a chest as part of a quest you can see the chest go through their back from your 3rd person perspective. I’m pretty sure this is simply an issue with the game engine.

Issues with Acer Stock Display Drivers
-Frequent frame rate drops when exploring environment.

LOST PLANET DIRECTX 10 DEMO

*This screenshot was not taken by me, but it is a virtually perfect representation of graphic quality on the Acer 5920 and at identical played resolution (1280×720). Credit to tech2.com

I uninstalled this game pretty quick last month when I realised it wasn’t playable on my pc. I couldn’t be bothered to download it again, but here are my comments. This has been deemed by many to be a poor port of an Xbox game.
Here are my comments from another Acerguy Article:

Lost Planet DX10 Demo performance test on the default settings which ranged from high and medium led to
Snow Level: 16 FPS Average
Cave Level: 22 FPS Average
Real world gaming was a worse affair. The game kept telling me to reduce settings, so I set most video options to low. The resolution was kept at 1280×720.

I got an average frame rate of 14-17FPS outside which strangely did not drop when encountering many enemies. With Average of 22FPS indoors, in the garage with all the spider creatures.

That said, the game looks beautiful. Regardless of the very visible jaggies on creatures and objects, the blur motion effect was amazing, the first I had seen from a game, and despite being nigh on un-usable, looked amazing. Firefights and explosions indoors, where the frame rate was playable (just about) were the best I have ever seen, being both realistic and cinematic in effect. I can envisage the Nvidia 8700M to be just about capable of running this demanding game. For the 5920, it’s a game to avoid at least untill better drivers are released, or until you upgrade the 8600M GT card in the future, as it is possible to upgrade.

Issues with Acer Stock Display Drivers
-Not tested with Acer Stock Drivers
-Can assume VERY low frame rates

TOMB RAIDER LEGEND

Tomb Raider Legend. Seems to run the best of all the games I have on the 5920. Graphically amazing, even more so with Next Gen Content Turned on.

I ran this with all graphic options turned on except Next Gen Content. This includes Full Screen AA and Vsync. The frame rate seems fixed around 30 FPS. Very smooth animation and extremely playable.

The next screenshot is taken with all graphic options turned including Next Gen Content. Note lighting is very accurate. Surprisingly, the game is still quite playable with this frame rate at least with a controller. The mouse can respond quite slowly at this frame rate. Both TR:Legend and Halo 2 work perfectly with the Xbox 360 controller for Windows with all the buttons automatically configured.

It’s not just the graphics that are pretty here…

If you leave Next Gen content off, you will miss such a lot of artwork that I have played the game twice to see. It really makes you think “Wow, imagine what Dx10 titles could look like”, but also disappointingly, you may also realise, as I have resigned myself to, that apart from Crysis, the 8600M GT will not be capable of playing many modern DX10 titles in the near future, at least with medium-high settings. They should be playable with the resolution lowered and low-medium settings, but that is normally the case with mid-range, mainstream notebook graphics. It should comfortably play modern DX9 titles well for some time.

Spot the differences…

Issues with Acer Stock Display Drivers
-None apart from lower frame rates
-Full Screen AA greatly reduces performance to unplayable
-Not even worth trying to turn Next-Gen Content On.

COUNTER STRIKE: SOURCE

Only the most popular online tactical shooter in the world. Even less to say about this than Guild Wars. It runs on virtually any pc made in the last 5 years and beyond. No exception with the Acer 5920 and its 8600M GT. Frame rates are on average around 80-90+ with 16xCSAA Anti-Aliasing (gets rid of jaggies) all options to High, Vsync off, and Filtering options on Tri-linear. I chose one of the most intensive sections of the game to test frame rates. As CS:S players know, smoke can really reduce the frame rate, due to the amount of calculations that take place to simulate the effect. Frame rate dropped to about 45FPS. Never went below 40.

Issues with Acer Stock Display Drivers
-None
-Slightly lower frame rate, unnoticible.

HALF LIFE 2: EPISODE 1

Similar performance to Counter-Strike Source regarding the Half Life 2 game. Frame rate locked to 60FPS with Vsync on. Varying anywhere from 40-90 FPS with Vsync off. Tearing is very noticible.

Silky smooth performance with all options high, 4xMSAA, Tri-linear filtering, simple reflections.

Cheeeeese… “Do we have to take it again… as I’ve… a speech to recite in…Oh.. are we live?…uh what do I say again…oh oh no don’t tell me, yeah I remember…uhum…Rise and Shine Mr Freeman…….”

Episode 1 is slightly more hardware-intensive. It has notable improvements to graphics, most significantly introducing HDR DirectX 9 lighting effects that adapt in order to mimic the process of the iris when experiencing light to dark. With everything turned to high, reflect All turned on, and Tri-Linear filtering, the frame rate falls to around 30FPS with Vsync turned on. It can drop to 23+ in demanding situations, such as when many objects are on the screen. Very smooth gameplay though.

It plays much like Half Life 2. There are a few minor slow-downs when running on these settings using the Acer Stock drivers, otherwise it looks near identical.

Based on playing the game a few weeks ago, haven’t got it installed at the moment, and essentially can’t be bothered just to take one or two screenshots. I got the frame rate info last month from using the “net_graph 3” command from the in-game console.

Issues with Acer Stock Display Drivers
-Rare slowdowns when a lot of action takes place (HL2:EP1)
-Heavy texture flickering (HL2)

Doom 3 + ROE Expansion

This game was released before Half Life 2, and despite this, can be much more taxing on the system at the higher settings. I thought I would test this game on settings that users of new graphics cards would usually try, from the very highest settings falling, until an acceptable tradeoff between quality and performance has been reached. In this case, I had no reason to use the low or medium settings, which is a positive outcome for the 8600M GT as Doom being a 2-year-old game should not be beyond the capabilities of a DirectX 10 card.

The screenshot above was taken at Ultra-High quality, with a screen resolution of 1024×768. No widescreen options were available. Image quality was adequate, with significant jaggies. Vsync and AA turned off. The performance was relatively fine, except for frequent pauses attributed to textures being loaded into memory. Whilst no warning was given, Ultra High quality requires a graphics card with 500MB of graphics memory. Note the 8600M GT has 256mb built in. I thought this would be an ideal situation to see how effectively the 1024mb turbocache worked. Very poorly it seems. Once textures are loaded in game performance is fine. However, every time a new area is entered, there is heavy stuttering, and frame rate drops. Turbocache was making up for the lack of dedicated Graphics memory, but Doom 3 on Ultra High quality really needs a card that can unpack 500mb textures. That said, where textures had been loaded, frame rates were a respectable 55-66 FPS.

Staying on Ultra-high quality (above), I tried turning on AA to its max, 16x AA. The frame rate drop was enormous. The frame rate was still playable, if a bit jerky, but coupled with the frame rate drops, became very annoying. Image quality is hardly improved, with the smoothed-out jaggies giving a blurry look to the game, instead of sharpness as AA in games such as CS:S do. The costs far outweigh any benefits of turning AA on. I recommended 2/4xAA the max.

Playing the game on high quality (above) at an adjusted resolution of 1024×768 seems perfect. Image quality differences between Ultra-high and high are negligible. Frame rate seems locked to 63, even though Vsync was turned off. Or it may simply be the upper limit for the graphics card at this setting. Either way, there was very little tearing, and performance was great. The only noticeable difference from playing on High settings was the lack of frame rate drops due to textures being loaded into the graphics card memory.

The ROE expansion of Doom gives a warning when trying to run the game in Ultra High Quality. This is a message that was absent from Doom 3, but would have helped those people thinking they were getting a good frame rate, only to realise that Ultra-High quality required a graphics card with 500MB of memory bandwidth or above, something very few cards truly have, the 8600M GT included.

Deciding to forego trying Ultra-High quality again, I stuck to high quality with AA and Vsync turned off. First off, the graphics are perhaps slightly improved, with less jaggies by default. Performance was on par with Doom 3. No slowdowns or frame rate drops when encountering enemies the first off which were flying head creatures. In all very impressed with this expansion pack which maintains performance whilst delivering a better experience.

Issues with Acer Stock Display Drivers

-Not tested

Oblivion (The Elder Scrolls IV)

I really wanted to know what the fuss was about to this game, so I thought now was as good a time as any to get it. Essentially a RPG, with a necessary storyline that fathoms disbelief (as well as being reminiscent of LOTR) I felt Oblivion would emerge into a solid game as I got absorbed into the game play, but was initially underwhelmed in the dungeon “tutorial” which felt very linear. I’m assured by those who have played it, that this changes pretty soon, with expansive outdoor environments and many free-roaming quests.

So you want a game that contains Rats as big as Dogs? Welcome to Oblivion.

The screenshot above was taken at the highest resolution available (1280×768) which like many games is not true 16:10 ratio, but you would be very hard pressed to notice the difference. Coupled with V Sync, and all Distant Rendering turned on. The in-game graphic settings were left at their slider defaults. Strangely it was only possible to turn on HDR lighting effects, or AA. Otherwise using AA, you are limited to Bloom lighting, which is no way as satisfying knowing HDR effects are there. For the majority of these screenshots, I chose AA at the highest quality (8 Samples) with Bloom. In the dark dungeons you are initially released, HDR effects are not worth turning on, due to their ineffectiveness. However, I will give an idea of how both look, and let you decide which you can live without.

Personally, I still haven’t decided which I prefer. AA makes the game look so much better, giving weapons definition and characters sharpness. But outdoors without HDR, makes the surface look flat. The trade-off being better lighting or aliased (jaggy) object outlines. I can’t believe games like Half Life 2 Episode 1 allows both to be used, but Oblivion is locked to only one.

The visual quality (HDR Off) with all settings turned on is very playable and all of the screenshots, bar one have been taken using 8AA. The actual in game Despite Vsync being turned on, a majority of the time, the frame rate cannot keep to 60 FPS which frame rates are locked to. It cannot even lock to 30 FPS. The graphics are pretty with AA turned on (below), but can look downright poor with AA turned off in favour of HDR.

Thus most of the time, you will be left with a frame rate indoors of between 25 and the lower end of 40. Which is usually around 25 when combat occurs. The amount of enemies makes a difference, and controls can get laggy when a lot of action takes place.

The image above has AA 8 Samples turned on, with bloom lighting. Very pretty. However, as you can see, from the second screenshot (below), HDR has a lower performance hit resulting in a lower frame rate. However turning AA down to either 2 or 4 Samples with increase the frame rate at the expense of increase aliased objects.

Whilst the above HDR screenshot looks similar in quality to the AA of the same, the jaggies are more present, but not overly bad. Reminiscent of playing a game at 1024×768, and not being able to do anything about the sharpness of the graphics. Yet, I find myself whilst playing to be drawn towards using HDR effects, because they just look damn good, whilst giving better performance. An extra 10 FPS makes a difference. Plus HDR lighting looks more natural as objects transition from light to dark. Without it, weapons go from two - tone light to dark depending on the direction of the sun.

If anything, upon reflection, the performance of Oblivion is very similar in visual appearance, handling and performance of Halo 2. Note the similar frame rates achieved in both. In fact, I’m convinced somewhat that Oblivion is Halo 2 in disguise with swords and magic, as opposed to guns and grenades…I mean the Giant Rats are sort of like Covenant Grunts, whilst Goblins similar to elites, instead of ships we have castles…you get the picture, plus both have that blocky graphics feel, however no “shiny” textures here…Anyway…

The 5920 runs Oblivion fine. It struggles at times, especially if using the maximum 8X AA outdoors, but keep it to 2x or 4x and the game is very playable. You can adjust the options in-game to reduce details etc…but I rarely like doing this for games, but if you wish to squeeze every last frame rate out of the game, go right ahead. I’m not one to chase frame rates unless a game is already unplayable.

“Don’t come any closer matey…look, I’m backing off!” (Warning: Please do not play this game if you have a phobia of giant pest…I have a feeling there’s going to be a giant spider creature anytime soon…at which point I’ll have to stop playing and tell myself its not real…)

“You were warned! Eat my Magicka giant Rat!, that’s what you get for following me until I killed you, or you got me” (Actually why not just call it Magic…unless Magic The Gathering copyrighted that word…who knows…)

Rate this:

2.5

106 Comments »

This review of the Acer 5920-6313 is written specifically for TheAcerGuy.com. The reason I mention this is because TheAcerGuy already has an excellent user review on the European version of the 5920 and I do not intend to cover all the same ground in my review as was already done by Jing Yeow since they are in the same case and very similar. Rather, I will highlight the differences between the model he reviewed and my model, the 6313, which is available in the U.S.A. from Best Buy. I will also go inside the computer with an eye to upgrades.

At First Glance: It’s sleek. That was my first impression of the Gemstone design. When it is open the top of the screen sits lower than one would expect of a laptop of this size. This is due in part to the down-sweep of the case just before the hinges for the screen, and, I expect, an optical illusion created by the large keyboard area and smooth curves of the machine. The outside is classy and smooth like an old-time gangster or a Man-In-Black.

The much screamed about indefinably-whitish interior color is very pleasing to the eyes; almost calming. I like the way it looks and I think that most of the pictures I’ve seen on the net do not do the Gemstone justice. I’ve also heard it criticized as a tad heavy. This is something I simply do not understand. At 6.6 pounds (their spec I didn’t weigh it) it feels light and easily carried to me. But hey, I’m in the military and the uniform I wear to work every day weighs more than this laptop.

My Reason for choosing this computer: Bang-for-the-buck. Just that simple. I’m a family man, I’m in the military (notoriously not the best paying job for some reason), and I needed to replace my old machine which had died a sudden and horrible death. So it was down to what was available on or about July 7th and the wife had further limited me to a budget of approximately $1000. I spent two days surfing the web researching and comparing. The results: specs to price nothing else was even close.

At that time I didn’t care two wits about the design. I made my decision and ducked in on the Lucky Sevens sale Best Buy was running and saved myself a tidy $200 by placing my online order in the last hours of the last day of the sale. Even had I hesitated that extra few seconds and lost out on the sale, I would have still been happy with the value for price (assuming I had been able to squeeze an extra $200 out of the wife). Seriously, I looked at Toshiba, Dell, Gateway, Alienware, Sager, you name the brand I looked, and for $999-1300 I could find nothing to compare to the Acer 5920-6313 specs.

What the American 5920 brings to the table: Ok, first off the processor is only 1.5 GHz (Core2 Duo T5250), so yeah it is a bit slower than the European model. The Wi-Fi card is only an Intel Pro ABG variety, and not draft N. It has no blue tooth and may or may not have turbo memory (I’m still trying to figure that out). The Best Buy website mentions Turbo Cache memory in conjunction with the video card but nowhere else.

Another website I browsed through mentioned that it could take advantage of the on-board Robson turbo memory, but I do not see the controllers for it in the device manager. The install.exe for the turbo cache memory DOES exist in the drivers folder, so someone out there tell me, do I have it or not? I don’t know. It has a fully functional 5-in-1 media card reader, good for me since my digital camera uses a supported card.

Some of the European models appear to have a non-functioning dummy slot in this place. Despite the fact that Best Buy says it does not have a Firewire port, it does. I have not tested it for functionality and it may be a dummy, but the device manager states quite clearly that it has a “Ricoh OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 host controller” so I guess that settles that. She sports a 4800 mAH 8-cell Lithium-Ion battery for Energizer Bunny-like endurance.

And lastly, the American computer gets a Toshiba Dual Layer +/- RW&HD DVD ROM (Burns dual layer and +/- DVDs but is read-only for HD DVDs). This drive lets you take full advantage of the HDMI port on the left side because, it occurs to me, the native screen resolution means the HMDI is pretty much the only way for you to REALLY enjoy HD DVD with this machine.

What I’ve done with it: Not as much as I would like so far. I have played about 5 hours of Doom 3, and about 1 hour of Thief Deadly Shadows. I know these two games are not exactly the most demanding on the market anymore, but they are the toughest games I have. On max settings for both games this machine didn’t even break a sweat (well, once I turned AA up to x16 on Doom there was a minor drop in frame rate, but it was still quite playable).

Seriously, it was barely even warm. Jing said that his model stayed warm over the left hand side of the keyboard while word processing. Maybe that’s because he has a 2.0 GHz processor to my 1.5, but my gemstone stayed cool as a cucumber. The only time it warmed up at all for me was when it was charging the battery hard after I used it up on a test.

What test? Why I put in a DVD (not HD) and watched a movie (Hellboy) and then I watched some Japanese Anime. I enjoyed right at 3 hours of constant DVD video in a non-air-conditioned room at 88 degrees F. on my ship before it warned me that is was about to shut down. It was also a pleasant room-temperature to the touch. While playing Doom and Thief, I noticed that it was very easy to tell which direction a sound was coming from (very important in those games). I know the speakers have been praised by many before me, and I agree with them, the sound on this machine is excellent. I also hooked up my 22” flat LCD desktop monitor to it and cranked the resolution up to something ridiculous and she took it like a champ. No problem there, just need the screen.

Undressing the Gemstone: I will be uploading pictures along with this review, hopefully they will make it and you get to see her in all her naked glory, but if not use your imagination. After shutting down, removing the power cord and the battery, I’m ready to open her up. About two-thirds of the back of the case is one removable lid. The first thing I noticed was that the lid retains its screws.

YAY! No need to worry about losing them. It also snaps very easily loose to a gentle tug around the edges of the lid. The first component to reveal itself is the fan in the upper right hand corner which quickly led me, via its heat-pipe to the heat-sink and the processor below. I have no heat-sink compound so I will not be removing the heat-sink. My first concern was the wire that is threaded right through the fins of the heat-sink. I would not have thought that to be a good place for the wire coming from my Wi-Fi card. The hard drive is easy to identify in the bottom right hand corner and the RAM sticks are stacked square in the middle of the whole thing.

I was a little concerned at first about the lack of space behind the bottom RAM chip due to the leg of some bit of unnecessary-looking support piece that seems not to be used for anything hugging up close to the back of my RAM. That was, until I undid the clasps on the RAM and it popped up obediently to a 45 degree angle to assist me in its removal. Sweet! Upgrading the RAM will be easy. I spent a good half-hour looking at this mysterious card to the right of the CPU, above the hard drive and below the fan. What is it? It has logic chips from the same manufacturer as the RAM (are they, therefore, memory?).

Could this be the vaunted Nvidia 8600m GT, or the elusive Turbo RAM? I still don’t know; can anyone clue me in? What can I say, she looks good in the nude. I see lots of room for my big ol’ fingers to move around in there if I get the urge to pimp my ‘puter, the components are easy to identify (ok not that one thing) and conveniently placed. This laptop will be easy to upgrade.

What I don’t like: Yes, there are a few things. I’m having a little bit of trouble with sticking keys on the keyboard. I just had to delete a line of J’s that volunteered their services; all in the same place. This has happened four or five times today as I played Doom or typed and it is my number one gripe. I’m also concerned about the plastic rails on the side of the DVD tray.

Maybe I’m just spoiled since my last laptop had nice metal rails and felt solid. This thing feels cheesy when I slide it open or closed. It doesn’t roll smoothly, it just sort of drags along on its plastic rails. Guess I’ll have to be careful. Like some other people, I don’t like the touch-sensitive media buttons. I have them set all the way to their least sensitive setting and I still can’t seem to avoid hitting them once in a while and getting that awful beep.

Oh well, no big deal. With a little practice I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it. Lastly, and I really feel silly complaining about this, but that’s what this section is for, I don’t like the sound and earphone jacks being in front. Yes, I know this make them easier to get at, but it also makes them in my way when I use my headphones. I would have much preferred them on the sides or even the back, which is where they would have had to go seeing how very busy the sides of this machine are.

Summary: at the end of the day not only do I like it, I really, really like it. Maybe even love it. There’s no doubt in my mind that if you want a great laptop that won’t break the bank, this laptop is an excellent choice. Even if you want a higher performance laptop, you could still buy this one and hot-rod it up to higher specs and still spend less money than you would have on a comparable computer. The screen size and resolution are the only things you can’t change and hey, you can always use an HDTV or your Desktop’s monitor.

Admittedly, if you are a power user and you have $3000+ to spend you can do better, but if you want value and bang-for-your-buck I think you’ll be hard pressed to find a better deal.

Rate this:

2.5

45 Comments »

This is a great idea.

I lo