Am I missing something? Where's the speed? AW 17R2

Received my 17R2 last night, 4980 processor and 980 GPU. Pulled the HDD and installed a Samsung 850 Pro ssd.

I was ready to game tonight!! Started with World of Warcraft. Ran it using the 980m. Recommended graphics setting were all showing they should be set to good (about medium setting). OK, maybe it just wasn't reading right... I went ahead with custom settings and bumped view distance and a couple other settings to ultra. Sitting in my garrison with no one around and not moving, I'm around 40 fps. So that'll be about 20 fps if I go to any populated area/city/raid/battleground. As it is now, my 5 year old stock xps 17 runs WoW as well, if not better than my new AW 17R2!

I've set the GPU to 'prefer max performance'. Set power mode to high performance and adjusted that mode's settings accordingly. Granted I'm still using the 180 watt PSU, but I can't imagine that's going to jump my fps up to 75+ where I would have expected this laptop to run WoW at on max graphics settings (minus AA).

Any other settings I'm missing, or is this really as good as this $3000+ machine is going to run WoW on medium graphics settings? Laptop is going back if this is the best it can do.

 

Have you run on-screen display to watch what your CPU and GPU clocks are doing in real time while gaming? Maybe one or both are downclocking and lowering your FPS. That, or maybe WoW is just poorly optimized. (I don't play WoW or any other MMORPG, so I don't know.) You should be getting around 75 FPS in more demanding titles like BF4 and Crysis 3. Have you tested any other game? I have noticed that some games just don't like 980M as much as 780M. Same was true moving from Fermi to Kepler. Some games did better (higher FPS) with 580M than 680M.

Edit: Something else you might check. Confirm v-sync is not enabled in the game or NVIDIA Control Panel and also check to confirm the LCD refresh rate is not accidentally set to 40Hz rather than 60Hz. (I have actually seen it set to that from the factory in error before.)

 

Also make sure you are not using the integrated graphics

 

I set it up in nvidia control panel to use the 980m. To be safe, I also right clicked WoW and told it to run using the nvidia.

I haven't test any other games yet. Hopefully I can try something else out tomorrow and see what happens. Also, I double checked and v-sync is off.

 

Are you using the new BIOS?

You should try to get yourself the 240W PSU also.

 

This is a known issue - Blizzard game will use the iGPU instead of the dGPU, even though you set Optimus to use the high-performance dGPU.

A quick Google on Blizzard/optimus will get you a fix for this. I've experienced it in the past, highly annoying.

Not sure why this happens on some systems and not on others. I experienced this on some of my laptops, but not on others.

 

Wow, I'm running WOW WOD on my 2 day old ANW 17R2. I went into the Nvidia settings and forced it to always use the GTX970m. I always use the Nvidia Geforce Game Optimizer program. It set my graphics to Ultra, I was running 146 FPS when I logged into my Garrison last night. That's on 1080 res.

BTW, I'm using the updated bios for the ANW17 R2, also, Nvidia JUST released a new graphics driver about 1-2 days ago. Make sure you are using that one.

brash

 

Yeah I can't touch those FPS you're seeing even on medium settings. Did you do anything different other than picking wow.exe and telling it to use the "high performance nvidia card"?

I'll try the bios update and the nvidia driver. Where is that game optimizer located? Any chance you have a link to the bios still?

Also going to google the blizzard/optimus issue.


Thanks to everyone for the help so far. Hopefully we can get this hiccup ironed out.

 

I'll walk you through it when I get home. For the optimizer, go to NVIDIA website, always go there for drivers, not a third party company. Down load the latest driver, just a couple days old now. When you put the driver in your computer, it will ask if you want the geforce optimizer, click yes and go from there.

 

Got the optimizer, but already had the latest driver. Optimizer basically bumped all my settings to ultra. My fps didn't budge, which is good and bad lol. I'm still no where near your fps, but I am on ultra now while still getting 40ish fps.

As much as I didn't want to since there's no telling what bad stuff is in the new bios, I'm installing that now.

 

I'd put some blame on the PSU, but there may be an underlying issue.

 

Also, depending on your add ons it may effect frame rate. Quickly though, go to desk top, right click, pick NVIDIA settings. There will be 3 headings you can open. Just click the first, use the drop down and make your NVIDIA the default gpu...i can't remember if you did that. Don't forget to hit apply or it won't save.

 

I was in ashran when I saw the 146 fps also

 

Oh yes, one more thing. In the 3d settings for the game itself, make sure you have it set for 60hz screen. I almost clicked 40 when i was setting it up

 

When I right click desktop, I don't have nvidia settings. The only thing I have is nvidia control panel.

 

Thats it.use the control panel. It's the first of the 3 headings. You can set the computer to always use the NVIDIA card.

 

In there, mine is the second heading. And unfortunately I had already set it to use the nvidia card there for both global settings and for WoW specifically.

 

Soon as I get some time ill log on and check all my settings and post em up for ya. What kind of latency are you getting?

 

I'll check it shortly. Just wrapping up a complete nvidia uninstall and reinstall

 

So....I currently have an unknown 3d video controller...aka my 980m. However when I try to install the driver, it tells me it can't find any compatible hardware. Tried doing it thru device manager as well.

Is my bga GPU toast already?

 

Never mind...it just wouldn't take the driver posted yesterday (which ironically is several versions older that the newest version number which was posted February 10th.

 

Usually for OEM things like that, it won't detect the card, you have to mod the INF file yourself to get it to take it. Nvidia recommends OEM drivers (the old ancient Dell ones that never end up updated) over their own. Laptop2go's website usually has the drivers with the modded INF files. There are some tutorials for modding your own files on this site too I think if you look for them.

 

Latency is 37 ms. Fps still a smoking 45. I'm completely out of ideas at this point. 2 days with the new laptop and so far nothing but banging my head against the wall due to the lack of performance. BEST....EXPERIENCE...WITH A NEW LAPTOP....EVER!!!!

 

DUH! It's Alienware, THIS IS THE BEST! Guaranteed a FULLY THROTTLED gaming experience! Do you have a 240W PSU coming?

 

ROFL!!

Yeah I do have a 240W PSU coming...I'm just afraid its not going to jump my fps up that much.

 

OK. Just got home. Check to see if in your device manager you disabled the Intel Graphics. If you did, your Nvidia will not be recognized and won't work. That's the first thing.
Second, I'm going to post a couple screen shots to help you set your system to get how mine is running. I also discovered something. When I was checking FRPS, it comes down to where I am and what I'm doing. I was mounted and moving through my garrison at one point and got all the way up to 180 on the FRPS, where at other times the lowest I hit was in the 50's. So, I think it comes down to just where you happen to be, and I'll show you some examples.

I've come the conclusion that if I'm in the 50's or above, I'm gold. BTW, my home system runs : CI7 3770k
16gb 1866 RAM
Nvidia (yes actual Nvidia branded) GTX 970
650W PSU
I'm also set to ultra on that computer and getting exactly the same results. Remember this game is not mainly GPU Driven, it has more to do with your CPU.....

 

Let me know if you get similar results!

 

Crap...my 980m is maxing out in the low 50s and staying in more of the 40s range. My settings match yours also.

 

Did you upload the new BIOS?
Also, did you turn your sound to the soundblaster system in the sound controller for game?
Last, what is your internet speed, I don't think this should effect much, but mines running at right around 100 MB DL, 30 MB UL.

Check your Killer Network Manager. I have mine set for everything at 1000

 

Check to make sure that you have the Nvidia MultiFrame Sampled Anti-Aliasing turned off in your Geforce Experience Program...its the last setting on the scroll down. Your's might be on since its the 980

 

t FYI, I'm using Driver 347.52 from Nvidia. When you downloaded the driver, did you take it straight from Nvidia's website, and also did you specify it for your particular card and operating system..Win 8.1 64

I have the power on the computer set to balanced, not energy saver

 

OK, last thing. Since you have the 980, your ultra settings might be different than mine....since I'm using the optimizer, it says ultra, but some settings are on high, not ultra. I'll walk you through mine and see what you get!

 

I'm betting your optimizer has you at everything super ultra....set yours to my settings on graphics and advanced and see if you get similar FPS. I hope this finally works.

LAST THING....if it's not getting any better, go to the tab SSAO, disable, apply and then check FPS. If it suddenly goes up....what is happening is a GPU bottleneck. If it stays the same, then its your CPU.

 

Thanks for all the work there brash! I'm going to go step by step thru them in the morning...its 3am here and I was planning on being up by 6 or 7 lol.

I did flash the new A02 bios, and I'm running the same nvidia driver version as you, which I got from nvidia by specifying my OS, GPU, etc... Don't think I've tried any of the tips past that point, so I'm excited to dig back in here in a few hours lol! I'll let you know shortly how it goes!

 

Ok, first thing I tried was toying with the Killer settings. I disabled that bandwidth control and tested. I'm instantly up to 60-62 FPS (from 30-40 fps), so we've already doubled! You are outstanding, my friend! Going to try some of the other tips to see if there's anymore performance boost!!

 

The rest of the settings were the same. I need to get out and explore to see if I ever spike up in the 150's like you did. Seems like with me being in the 60's now, we're hopefully on the same page.

 

I know this is probably dumb and you know it but turn off vsync and see how many fps you get

 

Stays about the same with vsync toggled off or on. Been out playing in the snow, so I still haven't gotten to run around in wow and see if I at least hold 60 if not jump up some more like brash.

 

You will probably stay at about that range...spiking sometimes like I do in certain areas. If you fly into old areas I noticed that FPS goes way up, but the new content stays in the 50-80 range most of the time, with the momentary spikes into the hundreds. WOW is a CPU not GPU intensive game, so I can see why your FPS went up when you opened up your internet speeds. More info coming into the CPU I would guess.

 

50-80 will be great if it will hold at least there. Those 30s and 40s were worrisome given how much they drop in intense raids and Ashran.

 

So how'd it working now?

 

I'm up to around 70 fps after disabling the desktop mode for the battery. Still haven't found the trick to getting up to 100+ fps like someone else reported.

 

So how's your WoW experience going? I'm in the 100s when I'm in a calm area. 50s in the garrison. Dungeons anywhere from 120 all the way down to 40s. And Ashran...oh Ashran... Just running events with no opposition, I can hold 50-80 usually. But any large scale alliance vs horde battle, I always tank to upper teens and low 20s.

What about you in Ashran? Discover the fps drop when there's several raids all fighting it out for control of the road or an event site yet? It's ugly when you start skipping around due to the low fps.

 

How are you disabling desktop mode... I feel stupid for asking this but I have not seen that anywhere.

 

One thing I forgot to look at. When you are on your settings for your graphics in WOW, there is a box that turns on RAID, BG settings....is your box checked or not?

 

You should right click on the Battery icon down on the low right corner, and should be the first option

 

Oh wow thank you! This is effecting performance why??