The Alpha itself has a smaller footprint than any console on the market. Some games require a keyboard and mouse during installation, even though you can play them with a controller.īooting up takes quite long, possibly because of its slow 5,400rpm hard drive. There is no optical drive - Steam games are downloaded - but you can attach an external DVD drive. To sweeten the deal, Alienware added several controller-optimised games, including Payday 2 and Metro: Last Light, when you log in to Steam on the Alpha for the first time.Īs a console, the experience is good, but not perfect.
However, the Alpha is still a Windows PC, so you can connect a keyboard and mouse, and use it like a computer with the Windows desktop environment. For instance, to close an app using Window's ALT + F4, press the controller's four shoulder buttons together with the Down button on the directional pad. You can even use the controller to execute some common Windows short cuts. The last option will run Steam's TV-optimised Big Picture mode.Īlienware has done a decent job of ensuring you can start playing Steam games without having to ever see the Windows desktop. It has four options: Settings, Help, Power and Launch Steam. The console interface is enabled upon restart. The first time you switch it on, you have to configure the wireless connection and display resolution. A wireless Microsoft Xbox 360 controller is bundled with the Alpha. To ensure users enjoy a console-like experience from boot-up, Alienware created a custom console interface. So, Alienware repurposed the Alpha as a Windows gaming machine. This Linux-based operating system is an alternative to Windows 8, with a console-like interface optimised for TV.
Something is not right.Alienware built the Alpha as a Steam Machine - a PC game console running Valve's Steam OS. During the benchmark the gpu was at 90% utilization and was around 80c. yet i average around 30 fps in a non demanding game like cs go. I also ran the Metro last light benchmark at max settings and i was getting an average of 31fps. maybe i was using the onboard graphics all along. also what i noticed is that if i scroll down through msi afterburner it says gpu 2 which i assume is the 860m. That means it's detecting the intel hd graphics. Not sure if relevant but msi afterburner shows a core clock of 405 mhz on the memory and on the core clock. Your battery life will still be lower when playing CS:GO than before, but battery life isn't usually a priority in gaming To avoid that, we can change this setting for CS:GO alone, by changing the setting in the "Program Settings" tab instead of the "Global Settings" tab. Notice that selecting the maximum performance mode will lower you battery life. Try seeing if changing that solves your porblem. According to Nvidia's support page, this can cause incorrect throttling of the GPU, which would affect your performance. However, I did notice that the power management mode is adaptive. Verticle sync-use the 3D application settingĪll right, DSR is not the problem, then. Texture-filtering-trilinear optimization-on Texture-filtering-negative LOD bias-allow Texture filtering -anisotropic sample- off Multi-display/mixed gpu acceleration- multiple display performance mode Maxiumum pre-rendered frames- use the 3d application settings. This is very odd because literally every other game plays just fine so far.Īnisotropic filtering-application controlled I opened msi afterburner and the gpu was being used at 61% while i was playing cs go. If this does not work or I'm wrong, let me know and we can try a different approach.ĭid it, nothing changed. This should be more or less the steps to force CS:GO to run on the Nvidia GPU. Instead of "Auto-select", choose "Nvidia high-performance graphics".Ħ. There should be another menu that lets you choose which GPU will be used when the program launches. You might have to add it manually if it's not on the list.ĥ. In the dropdown menu, find the executable file for CS:GO. One option in the tabs is "Global Settings" and the other is the one you want.Ĥ. Select "Program Settings" or something like that. Open Nvidia Control Panel (either right click on desktop, or look it up on the start menu/screen)ģ. I don't have my Nvidia laptop with me, so I'm going by memory. Even when the recommended settings for the game are maxed out. How do i do that? i've optimized the game in GeForce experience and i still get bad fps.