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Poor Performance With New Laptop
So I recently acquired this laptop; mainly for college. Hardware-wise, it's supposed to be miles better than the old desktop I built a few years ago.
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Basic specs:
DESKTOP
GRAPHICS: NVIDIA Geforce 250 GTS (512)
RAM: 3072 MB (800mhz)
CPU: E8400 @ 3.00GHz (2 CPUs)
Resolution: 1440x900 (was 1680x1050 before my previous monitor died)
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LAPTOP
GRAPHICS: NVIDIA Geforce GT 540m (1GB) w/Optimus
RAM: 4096 (1333mhz)
CPU: I7-2630QM @ 2.00GHz (8 CPUs)
Resolution: 1920x1080
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Performance in games are still significantly better on my desktop than my laptop; I'd say about 20 to 30 frames better. Most recent game I've tested this on was Rift, to which both PCs had their games set on "ultra". My laptop was running 10-20 frames which is terrible, and my desktop was running 40+. I also noticed in League of Legends, with everything turned on including full shadows, I'm running at 28-30 frames whereas on my desktop it's much, much higher. Like 60+. What the hell is going on? Is this laptop deffective, or something? I should be getting much better performance on my laptop than on my desktop, shouldn't I?
And yes, my drivers are all updated.
Comments
Apparently that video card (and your specific laptop) has had driver problems since March, check out this NVidia thread and see if they ever got them resolved. (not really a laptop defect, more of a Nvidia driver issue it seems)
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?s=496d08b89c1ced198473f914ad7952e0&showtopic=195098&st=0
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laptop are set to be battery savy.(means the take insanelly little sip of battery for the power you have now.
you can adjust it to highest power you can but even then if i recall some setting you will need to check online
speedguide.net is a nice spot for w7 tip .kadaitcha also has good tip on w7
try them one at a time right witch you are doing and reverse it if you get bad result ,yes it is time consuming but it is the only way to make sure you are set best
graphic card setting are another place you might be able to optmise.but you will need to go to nvidia forum to get helpfull info
remember that premade machine are set to be the most compatible and the most reliable not to be the fastest(yes even laptop)
try to augment the power setting and you should see a nice boost just there alone!
The laptop is supposed to be better? Why is it supposed to be better? Wishful thinking? Let's compare the specs.
Shaders:
GeForce GTS 250: 128 shaders clocked at 1836 MHz
GeForce GT 540M: 96 shaders clocked at 1344 MHz
TMUs:
GeForce GTS 250: 64 TMUs clocked at 738 MHz
GeForce GT 540M: 16 TMUs clocked at 672 MHz
ROPs:
GeForce GTS 250: 16 ROPs clocked at 738 MHz
GeForce GT 540M: 4 ROPs clocked at 672 MHz
Memory bandwidth:
GeForce GTS 250: 256-bit GDDR3 memory clocked at 1100 MHz
GeForce GT 540M: 128-bit DDR3 clocked at 900 MHz.
The desktop card theoretically has 1.82 times the shader performance, 4.39 times the texture performance, 4.39 times the pixel performance, and 2.44 times the memory bandwidth. That's a complete slaughter. Meanwhile, the laptop has to do the work to render 60% more pixels than the desktop due to a higher monitor resolution, which only bogs it down more.
So why would you expect the laptop to perform better in games, again? Yes, it's a few generations newer. But it's the difference between what was originally a high end gaming card (GeForce 8800 GTS) versus a low end card not meant for gaming (GeForce GT 430). The performance difference between the high end and the low end in a given generation is a lot bigger than the difference that picking up something three generations later makes.
If the laptop card has all the graphical performance you wanted, then you should have saved $300 and gone with Radeon HD 6620G integrated graphics, which would also get you much lower power consumption, a system far less prone to overheat, and better battery life, and also avoid the inevitable future driver headaches caused by discrete switchable graphics. And all without meaningfully giving up graphical performance.
I guess that would give up some CPU performance. Sandy Bridge quad cores are very nice. And yes, your laptop processor is a good bit faster than your desktop one. But that only matters if your processor is the limiting factor in your performance, and in games, it usually isn't.
This is why you ask what you should buy before you buy it, rather than running out and buying something random, and then later asking if it is any good. Well, actually you don't. But it's why you should.
Nope, the graphics in that laptop are actually slower than your desktop. You do have a nicer CPU though. Also, your probably trying to run your games at a higher resolution on the laptop as compared to the desktop, which just makes the problem worse.
Bigger numbers don't mean faster, especially in the graphics card world. You got taken in by their marketing team.
Sorry. Try not to get hung up on playing every game on Ultra at Max Res.
Sorry Chaotic16. Everyone has to learn this lesson somehow. It's unfortunate that graphics card companies do it; it's totally confusing, it's meant to keep buyers in the dark and leech their money, and it totally rips off people (like yourself) who honestly have few resources to know any better.
The average "geek" at Best Buy (or any other box store) probably would have just shrugged assumed the same that you did: it was a bigger number and a latest generation graphics card, a state of the art Intel CPU, a 1080p high resolution screen, and therefore must provide a faster gaming experience.
Many people on these forums may know the difference, but if you go out in the real world, the people on these forums are definitely in the minority. 99.9% of the people walking down the street probably couldn't even tell you what nVidia makes, or what a "Sandy Bridge" is.
Don't feel bad, and I apologize if we sound condescending, we really do mean well, but we see people make the same mistake time and time and time again: they buy first, and ask questions later, then find out they got stuck with the wrong product. It's like when you have to get a filling at the dentist, and he says "You remember that I told you to floss more, right?" It's true, and if you had listened maybe you wouldn't be listening to that drill right now, but it doesn't make it hurt any less now that it's said and done.
Now, it's not all doom and gloom. That laptop isn't a total waste. It can still play games just fine, you just have to resign yourself to the fact that it isn't going to do so on Ultra settings in every game. As long as your willing to adjust the settings down, you can still play most everything with good FPS and native resolutions on that nice LCD screen, you just need to tweak the eye candy down a bit so that your graphics can handle it. Games will still look pretty good, and all in all you should see about the same (give or take) performance as your desktop: it has better a gpu, but your laptop has a better cpu. And it's portable, so you can play while sitting on the toilet, which has been the biggest benefit I've ever found to using a laptop.
It's not as if you even got a top laptop gaming card,yours is middle of the road.
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-540M.41715.0.html
Why even expect to play these type of games with everything blazing on a laptop unless it's a top of the range gaming laptop.
You should of bought a cheap laptop for colledge and built a new desktop for gaming.
There are some seriously arrogant replies in this thread, so I'll try to give you one that's a little more fair.
I've just done something similar actually, although, I didn't pay for mine. I got a DELL XPS LG502X (i7, 8gb RAM & NVIDIA 540M).
I looked at the generation and name of the graphics card and assumed greatness, only to later discover that it was GDDR3 (it's desktop counterpart is GDDR5), and that it had a TINY amount of shaders etc. The fact is, the OLD Nvidia 9800 512mb beats it on performance.
A word of advice though; I can get Crysis 2 running at 40 FPS if I scale down the res to 13XX x 79X. What I am trying to say is that it can and will play games at very decent framerates, just don't expect it to max out everything; that's what a desktop PC is for.
Yes...next time I won't bother to ask for help here. I'm not a moron; I've built my own desktop from scratch several times over, as well as help more than a handful of people with theirs; I've just been out of the hardware loop for a while. I haven't had to build or think about buying a computer for at least a couple years now. Hardware has changed DRAMATICALLY. I didn't have much time to decide on a laptop, because I needed one for college. However I am one who travels often, and carrying my desktop around is not an option. The laptop is a very good deal aside from the graphics card, which I'm pissed off enough about already. I don't need some puss-infested nerd-rager treating me like a child, telling me I've "learned my lesson".
I learned my lesson a long time ago, which is why I started building custom computers in the first place. However, like I said, I needed a laptop for college and didn't have much time to research. I saw the processor was a great deal, the RAM, screen, resolution and HDD were satisfactory, and heard from several people that the 540m was a great choice. Seemed like a great deal, and I assumed...hmm, GTS 250 and the geforce 540m seem like a rather large gap. It has to be SOMEWHAT better than my desktop's card.
So sue me, I didn't research the card as hard as I should have. It's miles faster than my desktop (for the most part; aside from the occasional game that gives me problems) I'm still getting acceptable frames, but some games are giving me issues, to which I think is mainly a driver issue since a lot of people have been complaining about such problems since March, when apparently the drivers started screwing with its performance.
But hey, if I was building another desktop or upgrading my current, the 540 (or something like it) wouldn't have even crossed my mind. Part of the reason why I let this slide is because I couldn't find any statistical info on the 540m right away, and of course, like I said, I was told by several people that it was a good card. I'm angry that the graphics aren't as good as it should be, but as a whole, it's a great laptop for the price. Frankly I'm quite disappointed at Quizzical. Here I am hearing posts and threads about how helpful he is, but it looks like all he is, is a pompous, disrespectful ass. If everybody followed in his shoes, nobody would bother to ask questions about anything.
Quizzical's post did make him come across as a bit of a nerd-douche.
I am finding, with incredibly similar specs to you, that I can play pretty much any game - I just have to accept that I will need to bump the settings down at times. They're far from shit; just not made for gaming unfortunately.
They run bloody hot, too. My 540M runs at 90-100 degrees celcius after an hour's gaming!
Interestingly enough my card is quite cool at all times. Whereas a typical laptop would reach burning-flesh levels, this laptop is only slightly warm. I'm pretty impressed. I can basically max out most games and stay at a steady 30+ frames (usually higher, closer to 60-70 I'm thinking), but some games give me problems. I was confused, so I came here asking if anyone had any ideas. Looks like they had flames instead.
Anyhow, I appreciate the rare civility you've shown. It's a shame that kindess, which was common in my earlier years of online gaming, has almost completely evaporated with the rise of casuals and greedy corporations.
"only to later discover that it was GDDR3 (it's desktop counterpart is GDDR5)"
The type of memory doesn't actually matter to performance for its own sake. What matters is memory bandwidth, and the type of memory feeds into that indirectly. GDDR5 is quad data rate (even though the first "D" stands for "double"), while other forms of DDR memory are all double data rate. That means GDDR5 gets you double the memory bandwidth for a given clock speed and memory bus width, though you could theoretically compensate for that by having double the bus width or clocking some other sort of memory higher. Nvidia clocks the GDDR5 memory in some laptop cards so low as to nearly defeat the point of using GDDR5 in the first place.
For what it's worth, the GeForce GT 540M uses DDR3, not GDDR3, mainly because DDR3 is cheap, as massive quantities of it have to be made for use as system memory. I'm not sure how it compares on power consumption to GDDR3. Then again, I'm not sure if GDDR3 memory still gets produced in large volumes; AMD and Nvidia surely don't have any use for it.
The trouble with GDDR5 memory for a laptop is that it uses a lot of power, while DDR3 uses relatively little. AMD and Nvidia have even equipped mid-range GPUs like Juniper and GF116 with DDR3 memory in some bins or laptop cards, to keep power consumption down. In a desktop, you can add 10-20 W for GDDR5 memory and no one is terribly bothered by the extra power consumption; in a laptop, that's a big problem if the GPU chip isn't fast enough to make that much use of the extra memory bandwidth.
"GTS 250 and the geforce 540m seem like a rather large gap"
Nvidia's naming scheme is loosely that the first digit is the generation of parts, the second digit is the performance tier within the generation, the and the third digit is usually 0, or perhaps whatever Nvidia's marketing department feels like it ought to denote that day. The "M" on the end is the real killer, though, as that means it's a laptop part, so Nvidia will make the second digit a lot higher. For example, ignoring that the laptop parts tend to have lower clock speeds:
GeForce GTX 560 Ti ~ GeForce GTX 580M
GeForce GTX 550 Ti ~ GeForce GTX 560M
Nvidia did this first, but then AMD decided it was successful enough at tricking people who didn't know what they were getting that they copied it. For example:
Radeon HD 6850 ~ Radeon HD 6970M
Radeon HD 6770 ~ Radeon HD 6870M
"but some games are giving me issues, to which I think is mainly a driver issue"
Drivers can't make up for hardware that physically isn't there. There could be driver issues caused by discrete switchable graphics, if the discrete card isn't kicking in when it should. Or maybe you've got old drivers, since discrete switchable graphics makes it hard to update them. But other than that, both Nvidia and AMD drivers are usually pretty good, at least in single GPU setups.
Now, if you're getting 3 frames per second on minimum graphical settings, then yes, something is wrong. Nearly all games should at least be playable on low graphical settings on your card. But high settings are going to be completely out of the question for a lot of games.
"I couldn't find any statistical info on the 540m right away"
If you're looking at an Nvidia card, you can check Nvidia's web site. They usually list the specs on their current cards, though they sometimes take down some old ones. You can also check Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Nvidia_graphics_processing_units
That's usually wrong about products that haven't yet released, as people fill in rumors, speculation, and wild guesses. But it's pretty good for products that are already out, which is the sort that you're presumably comparing when buying something.
The real killer in the 540M's specs is only 4 ROPs. AMD and Nvidia were putting that into low end integrated graphics four generations ago. Double that to 8 ROPs like AMD did with Redwood and it could have perhaps been called a budget gaming card.
"My 540M runs at 90-100 degrees celcius after an hour's gaming!"
That's improper cooling. You might want to check if it's clogged in dust, or a fan died, or some such. The temperature difference between the GPU chip and the ambient temperature inside the case usually gets near equilibrium pretty quickly. If it's taking a long time to overheat, then it's probably the interior of the entire laptop getting too hot, as the general airflow isn't working properly. Or it might just be that it's getting that hot in five minutes, but you don't notice until you close the game and check, in which case.
Regardless, TSMC's 40 nm bulk silicon process node doesn't handle that kind of heat well. If you're routinely touching 100 C, then you should worry that you're going to end up with a dead laptop sooner rather than later.
Gaming laptops tend to run hot because the video card puts out a lot of heat. The GeForce GT 540M has a TDP of around 35 W or so, which isn't unduly high, and not a good reason for the laptop to get that hot. 35 W isn't so bad if the card has the performance to justify it; the problem is that the GT 540M doesn't. Llano gets you comparable gaming performance, with the graphics, processor, northbridge, and memory controller all in a single chip with a TDP of 45 W.
The problem with this tirade is that it misses the point.
The problem isn't coming here and asking for help; it's with doing so after you've made your purchase. It's not a crime to be away from the hardware market for awhile, but you just plunked down $1000. That's worth a bit of checking on the components, especially the GPU since it's being bought largely for gaming.
If you had given your budget, and asked about the machine on a forum, here or elsewhere, others would have instantly picked up on the weak GPU and notified you within an hour or two, and within a few hours, you'd have had a pile of alternative suggestions. It's doubtful the situation was so urgent as to not be able to wait that long.
So sure, Quizzical was a little brusque, but his point was also valid. It's worth checking up with peers before making a big purcahse. I build my own machines too, and I clearly watch the market more closely than you do at the moment. I would STILL not make a purchase before clearing it with a forum full of people like me, because even if was as smart or smarter than every single one of them, there isn't 100% overlap in knowledge, so they'll still know things I won't. They'll be aware of deals I'm not, or alternative parts that I'm not. Maybe I've picked a great power supply for a good price, but if the next guy down knows of a better one for $20 less, then it was a few hours well spent waiting for that feedback.
This is the lesson Quizzical was trying to impart. If you don't want to listen just because he was a bit mean about it, then you don't have to, but it's a valid point regardless of his interpersonal skills.
i stick to what i said!check power setting ,use a cooling base and should play fine,yes some game can handle insane gear setting but normally game detect your machine and auto adjust it to its power!no need to fiddle but if you check nvidia or probably even rift site they will mention wich setting they recommend turning off!
It's your money bro, and your the one nerd raging because you didn't do your homework, bought a crappy laptop, and can't play your game on "ULTRA OMGZ" options.
Don't come hating on us because we are just calling you as you acted: the fool. Sorry you did it, but it was all you - we didn't tell you "You should buy this laptop", we didn't run your credit card through to charge it up, we didn't deliver it to your house, and we didn't install or try to run any software on that laptop. All we can say is "We would have told you so".
If you want to be mad or upset, you got no where to point the finger but at yourself, because you "forgot" to do your research.
the sad part is a Llano would have done better at $200 cheaper price if he was able to wait alittle:D it's more about doing the homework BEFORE you hit that buy button then anything...
it's not a bad machine, but the capabilities of the machine is lopsided.. nobody really runs ANY application on a laptop that requires an i7... the only practical application that would even push a i7 on a laptop is if you are running a full virus scan on an SSD? even then, you might only use 50% of its power... generally speaking, laptops are weak on gfx so a balanced approach on the APU is a much better solution for then the cpu heavy silicon of intel. with the APU, you end up with a cooler machine with much better battery performance. you might even be able to play a game ON BATTERY for more then 1 hr which is pretty much impossible prior to APU.
in essence, it's not the laptop that has poor performance, but it's more along the lines that the laptop is purposed for something other then what it's engineered to do. it's a poor performer for YOUR gaming needs. but it might be "good enough" for people who dont know any better:D YOU know better, so your expectations are higher then those who just look at the model numbers and say ohhh a 540 is a bigger number then a 250 so it MUST be better:D for those who only look at the model#, it might be good enough. but for most people here, they'd prefer spending that extra $200 or so they save from buying a Llano on an SSD:D
There's no doubt in my mind that Quizzical knows more about hardware than I do, but he often sidetracks into things nobody asked about assuming they have no idea and then he hits you with a wall of text as if to keep ppl from responding by simply overwhelming them. Dont take it personal.
Now, in this case maybe he wasnt too fram from the truth, but there's no need to rant and make ppl look silly.
I remember being in the same position the OP is in. I had been very interested in computer and built a couple myself but then I was in the dark for a couple of years. Sometimes you dont have the time or drive to get back into it. Luckily there's plenty of info out there. All the work is already done, google is your friend. Always check things out first, let it sink in for a couple of days "is this a good buy, what am I reall looking for?".
hehe here lies the problem:D most people dont have any idea what they are looking for:D for most "school" work, people dont need computing power beyond a old school pentium4:D a brazo is more power then any "multimedia" needs you may want on a laptop and the ONLY reason to go beyond a brazo + SSD is if you are going to play games on the laptop:D
with THAT in mind, gaming on a laptop is gfx focused. it's pretty much impossible to have "more" GPU power then CPU power on a laptop. if you actually want a "practical" laptop that CAN play games, then Llano is pretty much the only answer ATM. other "gaming" laptops wont have enough battery power to take anywhere.
so, for the OP's "purpose" he should either go with a Llano laptop, or a brazo laptop for school and save the rest of the $ for a gaming desktop.