MSI Dragon Gaming Center overview

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Dragon Gaming Center is a nifty tool to set a bunch of settings that are available on the G series MSI Notebooks. The idea with this article is to break down the settings and explain them.

The first thing that meets you when you launch the Dragon Gaming Center is the System Monitor screen:

It does pretty much what the name says – it gives you system parameters in real-time, such CPU load, RAM use, battery status, etc. You can also switch SHIFT profiles and monitor your temperatures and network usage.

Screen 2 is the Utility screen – from here, you can launch applications, with the ones you see in the screenshot are preset. In addition to these, you can add your own applications.

Instant Play comes with four tabs – the first one is ”Instant Play”. Here you can assign the P1 key shortcut to launch a specific application or game.

Tab 2 is Display & Audio, where you can adjust speaker volume and microphone levels, as well as display brightness and gamma.

Tab 3 is Mouse – you can set pointer speed, double-click speed and scrolling properties.

Tab 3 is Mouse – you can set pointer speed, double-click speed and scrolling properties.

Lastly, Device Setting comes with the possibility to turn on/off the Windows key on the keyboard, and enabling/disabling the high performance profile. Finally, you can once more choose SHIFT modes.

 

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[Folarin]

Awesome

 

[Mk786]

Cool stuff. Thanks

 

[cerebus]

Matrix Display – setup and model chart

This time, it’s time for a little repetition – we’ve been noticing a bunch of questions on how to set up Matrix Display (the ability to use several monitors on MSI Gaming notebooks) lately, and we’d like to show you all once more. Basically, it is very simple, but there are differences in how to enable this on different models.

The procedure for the GT series can be found here.

GS and GE.

Worth noting is that different models have different capabilities when it comes to outputting video. Below, you can see which model is capable of what.

GT72/GT70/GT60: Built-in display + 3 external monitors
GS70 + GX series: Built-in display + 2 external monitors OR 3 external monitors
GS60, GE60, GP series: Built-in display + 2 external monitors

Matrix Display is yet another MSI feature that not only helps you with your gaming experience, but also boost your productivity, with a minimum of three monitors supported across the range.

 

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Thunderbolt 2: Performance

Intel’s proprietary multi-purpose interface Thunderbolt has always been a high-performance solution for connecting up your external devices, although it has never really made an impact on the consumer market. In other words, it is an interface for mostly professional users, and one we proudly feature in the MSI Workstation series, and you can clearly see the performance benefits in the chart below.

USB 3.0 is undoubtedly a big step up from USB 2.0, but if you often transfer large files back and forth from your workstation, Thunderbolt 2.0 will save you time counted in days rather than hours over the course of a year.

Thunderbolt 2.0 is available on the MSI WS60.

 

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Shortcut Manager

Have you heard about Shortcut Manager? In brief, it’s a tool to make your life easier on the workstation series of notebooks. You can launch applications with a simple key press, or record and run more advanced macros and/or commands, all customized by you for the applications you use.

You can create fully portable profiles, transferable to other systems with Shortcut Manager. Each profile can hold up to 8 hotkeys, each with its specific feature. You’re also able to customize the time between keypresses, as well as which speed they’re executed at.

The main window – where you choose your profile keys:



The ”Shortcuts” window – record a succession of keys to be launched by pressing the key you chose in the main window.



The Commands screen – input any key combo to be run at any given time.



Lastly – the Launch key – choose an application to be launched at the press of your key of choice.

 

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Quadro K2100M vs GTX 970M

Ever wondered why workstation graphics are so expensive? While it is true that regular gaming graphics are good enough for most people for home and recreational use, a proper workstation graphics solution will still kick the snot out of a solution that comes with much higher performance where it matters.

We lined up a WS60 with a Quadro K2100M and an i7-4710HQ CPU against a GE62 with GeForce GTX 970M graphics and a slightly faster i7-4720HQ CPU and decided to fire up a Siemens NX CAD benchmark. Not only did we get to see some nice car bodies and drive trains being rendered, but we also got a result with which we can prove our point, see below.



True, in gaming, the GE62 would be about as dominant as the WS60 is in this test, but still – workstation graphics work. Also, we ran this test out of curiousity ourselves, as you don’t see that many comparisons out there.

 

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Useless Gamer: Dying Light

At MSI, most of us are gamers in the true sense of the word – we spend a lot of our free time playing the latest and greatest titles, and many of us even keep track of what’s going on in e-sports. Not because it’s work, but because we’re simply passionate.

Logically, therefore, we’re forcing one of our more technical marketing guys who’s not really a massive fan of games, but more of an occasional gamer, to play games. And record his mishaps. We’ve named the project “Useless Gamer,” because frankly, he is useless. Find out exactly how useless from his Dying Light video introduction with commentary below.



[video=youtube;QYNDhedbeOo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYNDhedbeOo[/video]

 

[cerebus]

Useless Gamer: GTA V

With the launch of GTA V we figured another one of our “Useless Gamer” videos was in order. We basically set out on a mission as the highly lovable Canadian-in-denial Trevor and decided to check what sort of framerates the GT72 and its GTX 980M delivers. Hint: we’re running at “Very High” settings with no issues.



Link to the video:

[video=youtube;H6mEIph_GTc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6mEIph_GTc[/video]