Laptop struggles - help please

[Geckomayhem]

Hi guys. I have a three year old Dell Inspiron 1720 (Core 2 Duo T9300 2.5GHz with 4Gb RAM and a GeForce 8600GT). I've set everything to low, but the game is nigh on unplayable. Is there anything anyone can think of, short of getting a new computer (impossible for at least another six months, if not the next year), that will actually allow me to enjoy the game; or am I boned?

Thanks. I'm kind of out of the loop with computer stuff these days, and there is no way I have any other option but to chug along on this old lappy. I hardly get time to play (early access last Saturday, didn't get to create my first toon till Wed...), but I'm really looking forward to progressing through the story and hopefully meeting new folks in the game to chill with.

[brbrainerd]

You can try GameBooster, which will disable unnecessary services and will give you a performance increase. Whether it will be enough I couldn't say, but it's worth a shot I think in your case.

[Bombercloner]

I was having the same issue. Turn shadow completely off. went from ~5 FPS to ~25. hope this helps you!

[Geckomayhem]

I was having the same issue. Turn shadow completely off. went from ~5 FPS to ~25. hope this helps you!

Thanks, I think everything is set to just low. I haven't checked through to see if I can actually switch anything completely off. I might give that GameBooster app a shot, too. Kinda sucks not being able to enjoy something I've looked forward to as much as this. Here's hoping I can improve performance enough to actually progress!

[Deleted]

try playing on a lower resolution - the game will look crap but you might be able to play, i used to have a really old pc that would run wow at like 30fps if i played on 80x600 :P

[Musta Kyy]

Do you have the newest drivers for your graphics card?
Another cause for low fps might be that your computer is using your integrated graphics card automatically and not your dedicated one.
You can make sure that you have the right GPU for SWTOR in the nvidia control panel (3D settings), it looks like this http://i.stack.imgur.com/ekrto.png you have to look for the SWTOR's exe and then choose the setting for it.

[Geckomayhem]

Thanks for all the tips! I kept it at 1440x900, but with no shadows and running GameBooster it has become playable (maybe 20FPS with some lag spikes and slowdown in certain places). That is, provided I close Chrome. Which is a bitch, but that's my only choice.