Anything I can do to improve playability?

I know my computer doesn't even meet minimum specs to run GW, but I was hoping you all could tell me how best to maximize what I've got.

This is my laptop - click on the specifications tab to see what I'm running. My laptop is still stock, obviously.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834101084

What would you all recommend? -noshaders? Can I set the affinity to only one core and see how that works? I run no higher than 20 fps, oftentimes lucky to get 15.

run GW in a window.

GMA950 should give you playable performance at 1024x768, at minimum graphics (keep texture on high, GW looks terrible with textures on medium or low).

I was given this advice a few months ago.

That helped a little. Running is windowed mode helped a little bit too. Turn down the graphics settings to lowest, if they're not already set there.

Oooooo Only person with a red user name in this thread..... :s feel outta place....

Anyway for me running it in windowed mode works great im used to dealing with crap pc's windowed always works for me

also, the GMA950 has a "turbo" mode, which you can set via the BIOS. whether your laptop allows you to do anything to the BIOS is another story.

How do I access the BIOS to set turbo mode?

depends on your laptop. for my desktop, i press the del key at bootup to enter bios. refer to your user manual if you still have it.

btw, i take no responsibility if there's no turbo mode. i know that my school's lab computers have this feature, and it uses the GMA950.

No worries. I'm just trying things out.

Uhmmm...ok. Nice try, though.

Right now I'm running in windowed (I assume 1024x768, no way to specify that) with -noshaders -fps 30 and all graphics except textures at minimum. It seems to be pretty steady at 17-20 fps, so I'll settle for that for now.

-fps 30 just limits your FPS to 30 frames per second there's no need for you to use it since you're not even getting 30 FPS, remove the command it won't change a thing. Playing on minimal settings/low resolution will be the best option. Also disable anti-aliasing you won't notice much difference.

Doesn't running it in windowed mode make the FPS worse? I mean, it has to resize and force the GPU to render in odd ways.

1024x768 windowed mode is worse than 1024x768 full screen. however, since the OP has a widescreen display, full screen mode will look horribly distorted. GMA950 SHOULD support maintain aspect ratio, but i could never get it to work properly on my school's lab computers.

btw, were you able to find the turbo feature? it might be something to look into.

I went into the BIOS but there wasn't an option to set the processor to turbo mode.

I'm out of town now but when I get home I'll give full screen 1024x768 a try.

actually, you set the GMA into turbo mode. did you look under the onboard graphics settings?

I meant GMA, yeah. There was nothing in BIOS that even looked like it would deal with the GMA, and none of the options I had said anything about a turbo mode.

Double post to bump this to the top - in the hopes that other users might see this and know what to do.

My computer's actually a little less powerful than the one I originally posted. I'm running on the following:

Intel Dual Core T2060 (1.6 GHz)
Intel GMA950 integrated chipset
Windows Vista Home Premium
1 GB RAM

At max settings, I get a lot of choppiness. I tried all the suggestions, but it didn't seem like running in windowed mode helped. Then I read something online that got me thinking. I know that there had been some issues with GW/Vista compatibility, so I right clicked gw.exe, went to Properties>Compatibility and selected to run GW in XP SP2 compatibility mode. I also checked "Disable Visual Themes" and "Disable Desktop Composition" for good measure. Tutorial can be found here: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windo...tibility-mode/

I reset the game to open in fullscreen mode, and added the -noshaders tag. I'm not positive that'll do much, but it's something you can try. I tinkered with the resolution a little bit and it looks like I can play pretty well at 1280x720. All settings are on lowest, obviously, except for textures which I keep at high. With all of these settings, I run a typical 30-35 fps, and in less graphic-intensive areas (read: sitting right next to a wall or cliff) I bump up to 60+ fps. I don't know how I played this game at 13 fps.

Thanks for your help, everyone. I'm looking forward to having a computer at some point that'll play this well when my settings are maxed.

One of the things most often overlooked is the AA (AntiAliasing) setting under the graphics tab.
AA makes the edges of things look smoother, but it requires a lot of GPU power. Make sure that AA is set to off. (Or, if it was set to 4x, set it back to 2x and try that)

intel GMAs do not support AA, so there's no need to check.

That's more a reference for really old games. GW is only three years old and is supposed to run fine on both XP and Vista. Checking "Disable Visual Themes" and "Disable Desktop Composition" will do nothing to improve your FPS. Running GW with the lowest graphic's settings and lowest resolution is the best way to improve FPS. Adding the -dx8 and -noshaders command switches will further improve FPS. Other than that there's very little you can do to improve FPS and would be specious reasoning.

Fair enough. My understanding was that there were still a few kinks to be worked out on full Vista compatibility. Ignore that section, then.