11 réponses à ce sujet

[Lancer360]

I have the game settings turned down to the lowest setting for 16:10 and I still can't seem to get the game to run smoothly.   I have the latest driver from NVidia and the latest sound driver from Dell.  I thought it might be a problem with the sound, but even disabling the sound card didn't show any improvement.  I'm watching the CPU performance on my G15 keyboard screen and all four cores are spending most of their time at 85% to 100%.  Occasionaly the game will smooth out  for a second or too when the CPU usage drops into 60-70%, but then it spikes right back up to 85-100% and starts lagging and stuttering.  Any other ideas on what to try?

Dell M6400 Covet
Processor: Intel® Core™2 Extreme CPU Q9300  @ 2.53GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.5GHz
Memory: 8192MB RAM
Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_rtm.101119-1850)
Card name: NVIDIA Quadro FX 3700M 1GB

[Lancer360]

Forgot to mention I have already shut down every process and program I could find that wasn't needed as well as disabled my virus scanning software.

[Gorath Alpha]

You do not have a gaming graphics card, and you do not have a current design. That card is the modified commercial production development version of the G-92, Geforce 8800, second model. It runs better with "old" drivers than with newer ones.

http://www.notebookc...0M.14962.0.html

There may have been a way to re-flash the card's onboard BIOS to be able to use normal drivers, although still the 197.xx and older ones, but that was coming up four years ago when both were still new. Perhaps with Google and / or Yahoo, you can run down those work-arounds to the performance problems.

Modifié par Gorath Alpha, 28 mars 2011 - 08:35 .

[MaxPayne37]

Gorath Alpha wrote...

You do not have a gaming graphics card, and you do not have a current design. That card is the modified commercial production development version of the G-92, Geforce 8800, second model. It runs better with "old" drivers than with newer ones.

http://www.notebookc...0M.14962.0.html

There may have been a way to re-flash the card's onboard BIOS to be able to use normal drivers, although still the 197.xx and older ones, but that was coming up four years ago when both were still new. Perhaps with Google and / or Yahoo, you can run down those work-arounds to the performance problems.

Should be able to modify a driver .inf to be able to use normal drivers, rather than flashing the card's BIOS. As for older drivers, that's debatable. I'm running a GTX 260M, and the only way I can get the game playable in DX10 are the 267.59 modded .inf drivers or above.

[Gorath Alpha]

The GT200s apparently are similar enough to the GTX400s that the drivers haven't been "Breaking" games the way that is true for the 8n00 cards, plus the refreshes of those cards with the 9n00 and 1n0 names.

Modifié par Gorath Alpha, 28 mars 2011 - 10:51 .

[MaxPayne37]

Gorath Alpha wrote...

The GT200s apparently are similar enough to the GTX400s that the drivers haven't been "Breaking" games the way that is true for the 8n00 cards, plus the refreshes of those cards with the 9n00 and 1n0 names.

Well, the GTX 260M, being a mobile card, is only based on the desktop 8800GT, G92.

[Lancer360]

I was running an older driver and the game was crashing upon loading everytime. Once I installed a new driver everything seemed to work, just very slowly. I have a 2.53 GHz processor and when I'm running other software, I can watch the processor speed vary from 1.595 GHz to 2.53 GHz using CoreTemp. When I run Dragon Age 2, the processor speed locks in at 1.595 GHz and doesn't fluctuate at all. With the CPU at 85-100% load shouldn't the processor speed be at 2.53 GHz or is something causing it to throttle back?

[RaenImrahl]

Lancer360 wrote...

I was running an older driver and the game was crashing upon loading everytime. Once I installed a new driver everything seemed to work, just very slowly. I have a 2.53 GHz processor and when I'm running other software, I can watch the processor speed vary from 1.595 GHz to 2.53 GHz using CoreTemp. When I run Dragon Age 2, the processor speed locks in at 1.595 GHz and doesn't fluctuate at all. With the CPU at 85-100% load shouldn't the processor speed be at 2.53 GHz or is something causing it to throttle back?

Actually, if this is a laptop, then you have an Intel QX9300, which is the mobile chip based on the Q9300 desktop.  The QX9300 features some Intel power-saving system... I forget what it's called (it's not Turboboost) that will throttle back processor speed unit the chip deems it's needed.

Since DAO and DA2 are not "officially" supported on laptops, it may be that, for whatever reason, your machine isn't kicking into high gear when you're playing the game.

There may be some way to override it-- I'm just guessing here.  Perhaps something in either the Windows Control Panel ("Power Options"), under some Dell proprietary software, or maybe in the BIOS itself.  You might have better luck on the Dell forums, or doing some Google searches.

A note:  If you're running a laptop at max power/processor speed for long durations, you're going to generate A LOT of heat.  It's like cars... you may be able to reach 8000 RPM... but should you?

[MaxPayne37]

RaenImrahl wrote...

Lancer360 wrote...

I was running an older driver and the game was crashing upon loading everytime. Once I installed a new driver everything seemed to work, just very slowly. I have a 2.53 GHz processor and when I'm running other software, I can watch the processor speed vary from 1.595 GHz to 2.53 GHz using CoreTemp. When I run Dragon Age 2, the processor speed locks in at 1.595 GHz and doesn't fluctuate at all. With the CPU at 85-100% load shouldn't the processor speed be at 2.53 GHz or is something causing it to throttle back?

Actually, if this is a laptop, then you have an Intel QX9300, which is the mobile chip based on the Q9300 desktop.  The QX9300 features some Intel power-saving system... I forget what it's called (it's not Turboboost) that will throttle back processor speed unit the chip deems it's needed.

Since DAO and DA2 are not "officially" supported on laptops, it may be that, for whatever reason, your machine isn't kicking into high gear when you're playing the game.

There may be some way to override it-- I'm just guessing here.  Perhaps something in either the Windows Control Panel ("Power Options"), under some Dell proprietary software, or maybe in the BIOS itself.  You might have better luck on the Dell forums, or doing some Google searches.

A note:  If you're running a laptop at max power/processor speed for long durations, you're going to generate A LOT of heat.  It's like cars... you may be able to reach 8000 RPM... but should you?

The system you are thinking about is called SpeedStep I believe, but I have a laptop, and haven't encountered this "inappropriate throttling" problem.

Anyways, have you tried to set the CPU priority/affinity on the Dragon Age 2 .exe after you start it up, or check your advanced Windows power options?

Modifié par MaxPayne37, 29 mars 2011 - 06:07 .

[Lancer360]

Hmmm, I went in and checked the power plans, but it looks like when plugged in the maximum processor speed is set to 100%. I'm going to reboot in a minute and check the BIOS settings and see if there is anything there.

[Lancer360]

I checked the BIOS and all you can do with speed step is turn it off which defaults the CPU to its slowest setting. Through some more research I have found that Intel considers it a trade secret at what temperature a given CPU will start throttling back. The Tjunctionmax for my CPU is 105C which is the temp that the CPU shuts down completely to avoid permanent damage. I was able to find an article about a i7 CPU where a company did some temp testing while monitoring the CPU speed. The processor had a Tjunctionmax of 130C and they found it started throttling back at 100C. Being that I am seeing temps in the mid 70's to occasional jumps to the low 80's I figure I am above the minimum temp where the CPU starts throttling back. I'm going to check on a few things and try to see what I can do to clean the air vents. If this doesn't work, I may have to do some research and see how effective the various external cooling systems for laptops are. I'll try contacting Dell and see if they have any specs on the temp range when sitting idle. This computer has been worked on by Dell a couple of times (including a MB replacement) so there is a chance that a heat sink didn't get fully seated, but as long as the laptop is working I doubt I will be able to get them to look at it.

[Lancer360]

I used some canned air and blew out all the vents I could find. I did get some dust out, but not an extreme amount. I am also running the laptop with the screen open but turned off even though it is on my docking station. Between the the two my idle temps have dropped 10 degrees and the game is running much faster. I'll slowly start increasing the settings until I find a happy medium. Thanks for the input.