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[wobbly]

A bit of a malware/browser issue. I'm using firefox (31.0?, that's what it says in about firefox under the help menu). If I walk away from my computer, often when I come back a new window with some junk/ad has opened. Sometimes my virus checker (Avast -free version) blocks it, sometime not. Never seen it happen while using the net, only when I leave my computer idle. To my knowledge I haven't installed any thing that asks if you also want to install xyz, I tend to look for those. Anyone have any ideas what this is? I'm reluctant to download anything that checks for it, in case I'm just installing more malware.

[LordSlowpoke]

malwarebytes in safemode

[wobbly]

malwarebytes in safemode

Cool. Cheers. Um, would probably take your advice if I actually knew what it was. Or maybe not. Who knows?

[Sensei]

Get the program called Malwarebytes, run it while your computer is in safe mode.

[wobbly]

Thanks, it cleared around 90 piece of junk (About 3 individual programs), & my internet seems to be running around 2-3x as fast now, so thanks to the both of you. Hopefully it got all of the shite, but who knows.

[Sappho]

I have another question, friends, but at least this one is not related to overheating (yay!).

I discovered just yesterday that all this time, even though I have an Nvidia Geforce GT 525M video card, my system has been running all my games with the piece-o-shit integrated Intel graphics chip. Two years! Two years of that card just sitting there idle while I suffer under shitty graphics settings!

So I figured out how to enable the Nvidia card as the default and opened up Minecraft. It does look nicer, that's for sure, and it can handle higher settings than before. However, I still can't turn them up very high without the game lagging horribly. So now I'm confused all over again. What is it, exactly, that my system is lacking? The temperature has dropped dramatically over the past few weeks, so the machine isn't overheating anymore -- the highest it's gone is 75 C, which is perfectly safe. So why is the video lagging when I try to turn up the settings?

If I'm reading the specs correctly, the video card has 4 GB of available graphics memory and 2 GB of DDR3 dedicated video memory (not sure what those numbers mean, to be honest). The computer has a 2 GHz Intel i7 processor and 8 GB of RAM. Isn't that... isn't that pretty decent? Shouldn't that be able to at least run Minecraft at default settings without it choking?

Can someone help me understand what is making my games run slow? When I bought the computer, a friend with much better knowledge of hardware than me assured me that for the price of $1500, this looked like an amazingly powerful machine. Yet it runs like a pile of garbage. I had assumed all this time that it was merely the overheating issue messing everything up, but now I'm not so sure. Most of the time now, it stays around 60C even when I'm playing games.

I really want to use this beautiful shader pack in Minecraft, but it just won't work. I mean, it works fine, but it feels like I'm playing the game in slow motion. It's just not usable.

[Rose]

Have you tried any other games? The shader packs tend to be not very optimized.

[Sappho]

This one is supposedly optimized so well that it can even run on an integrated graphics chip: http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/mapping-and-modding/minecraft-mods/1291396-sildurs-shaders-pc-mac-intel-huge-update-2

And I'm using the "lite" version. Although I just realized I neglected to install Optifine. I will have to try that and see if it helps.

But even shaders aside, I can't even run Minecraft with the "normal" render distance. I have to turn it down to "short" or it lags horribly, even with all other graphics options set to low and no texture pack. I will have to try Skyrim or something and see how that runs...

EDIT: UGH. Installing Optifine is such a pain in the ass. I'm running the hungry life in the woods modpack through the Technic launcher, and I can't figure out how the hell to add Optifine to that, since it doesn't use the official Minecraft launcher. I don't suppose anyone knows how to do that? If not, I'll move this question to the Minecraft thread...

[Thief^]

Put simply, a 525M is pretty crap. Not as bad as intel, but still not great.
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nvidia_graphics_processing_units#GeForce_500M_.285xxM.29_Series
says it's similar to a desktop GT 530, which retails for <$50.
In a desktop, an upgrade to a GeForce GT 740 (<$90) or better would net you 3x the performance (or much more for only a little more money above that). In a laptop you're stuck with what you have.

(generally, speaking, the 2nd digit onwards of a gpu is how good it is, higher is better. In your case: 25)

[Sinistar]

Also, one possibly rather stupid but much needed question: did you update you GPU drivers?

[Sappho]

As far as I can tell, the drivers are set to update automatically. I haven't actually seen any updates, though, so I guess I'm not sure. All this time, I didn't even realize my Nvidia card wasn't being used, so what do I know, really. Is there a way I can check?

[Sinistar]

Hm, yes it's possible you have sort of a "silent" update mode that runs in the background and updates without you knowing. But you could probably check via control panel --> device manager --> display adapters --> choose desired graphic card and under driver tab click update. The drivers should theoretically either update or return message that they are already updated.
OR you could also check Nvidia's page if they have any sort of "scan for drivers" tool there for you to download, or you could just search for drivers on their page directly.

[aenri]

As far as I can tell, the drivers are set to update automatically. I haven't actually seen any updates, though, so I guess I'm not sure. All this time, I didn't even realize my Nvidia card wasn't being used, so what do I know, really. Is there a way I can check?

You can use this - http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us
There is dropdown list and also smartscan


EDIT: So I checked it out - and this is the newest driver for that particular GPU. It will also probably install some kind of automatic updater for Geforce drivers.

[Sappho]

My drivers appear to be updated. So: shitty graphics card is the winner! Well, I got Optifine installed, so tomrorow I'll see if I can get the shaders to work at all. If not, it's just one more reason to look forward to buying a new computer... Just a couple of months, now...

Actually, while I'm thinking of this, how good is the graphics card on this computer? It's the one I'm planning to buy. Will it be good enough to run Minecraft with shaders and mods? If not, I may actually wait another month or so so I can get a better one... http://www.alza.cz/EN/asus-cm6431-cz005s-d616967.htm

[Lord Shonus]

Easily. That one will handle anything three years older or more (that wasn't made by Crytek) with ease, and will be fine for anything newer (maybe not max settings).