Alienware M17x - Diablo 3 Discussion

Immature drivers would be the most likely culprit.

 

Hi,

I have followed your steps, but with no luck i have m17x R1 with GTX 280M. My settings are played on default and i'm getting 7-20fps, I've installed 296.10 drivers running 2gb graphics using PhysX (with SLI disabled)

I've set to the lowest settings, unticked anti-aliasing and ticked low-FX. I'm getting with no monsters 30-50fps but with a big cluster 7-28fps.

Am i suppose to Dedicate the PhysX to a particular section? Anyone that can help me?

 

Awesome man i'll do that!

What is the top end temp wise i should be pushing my 260m then, i know they run notoriously hot, so is in the 90 C okay?

 

Same here, im running on R2 and the FPS drops down to 14-20

 

hello guys im new to this forum ...
joining here because alot of problem with my M15x Alienware Laptop ...

regarding to the topic here ...
i have same problem problem lagging playing Diablo 3.
but now i finally play it smooth ...

from FPS 20 around now up to 85-120 FPS (CTRL-R in game to see FPS)
here what i do ...
For the laptop setting :
1. updated my VGA software NVIDIA / ATI RADEON
2. set my base laptop resolution 1600 x 900
For the Diablo setting :
1. set diablo resolution ingame 1280 x 900 (16:9) Widescreen. i found it abit laggy if i chose (16:10)
2. check Letterbox ...
3. uncheck Vsync ...
4. chose other setting Low ...
n for the final reboot ur laptop first ...

i hope im not repost here, cuz i not checked all the reply yet ...
just wanna share my experince hoping some1 have same problem ...

 

I'm really glad I spotted this thread on Page 2 .

with a month old R4, I'd expect to be running this game on ultra, 1080p, max AA,

but I had to scale it down to 1600x900, no shadows. Odd.

 

From my knowledge certain hardware components are not optimized , so you might have to wait awhile.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

 

I have everything maxed out on a 2 week old R4, zero problems.

 

I was having horrible stuttering issues with my M17x R4 in Diablo 3 but I now have it working flawlessly, I'm pretty certain it's the issue with Diablo not buffering anything and constantly streaming from you HDD, and when your swap file accesses the drive the game stutters, well today I got my SSD in, put my OS on that, also put Diablo 3 on the SSD and put my swap file on the HDD now in the 2nd drive bay and it plays perfectly smooth now, the only other actual change is I also upgraded the ram from the stock 6gb to 8gb, but since even with Diablo 3 running the system is only using around 2.5gb the added ram wouldn't have made a difference.

 

Hi,

I have had my Alienware M17R3 for just over a year now. Everything has been good so far, last night when I was playing Diablo 3, suddenly the frame rate dropped to a unplayable level, and the graphics were slow to draw on load up.

I have never had problems with the game before last night.
These are my specs:
- Processor : Intel Core I7-2820QM @ 2.30 GHZ
- Ram: 16GB
- Harddrive: 1.5tb (614gb spare)
- Video Card: AMD Radeon HD6900M 2048 MB (no overclocking)
- Driver Version: 8.950.0.0
- Windows 7 Pro (all updates)

Also the laptop is always on a cooler, idle fant temp is around 50-55%

When I rebooted, I recieved a message saying that I need to use the right power supply for the laptop. That the laptop will run in a power saving mode till I plug in the right adaptor. I have been using the same adaptor that I recieved with the machine. After reconnecting the adaptor the message does not come again.

I checked in the power settings, still seems to be running at high performance, so not sure if that is it.

any help would be awesome

 

Hey dude, I had the same problem the past two days. Also an R4 with 7970.

I play with external monitor etc and with the laptop lid closed. Upon opening the lid to cold-reboot the computer when it froze last time, I noticed the keyboard was waaaay too warm.

I have since been playing with the lid open. Keyboard is heaps cooler and diablo 3 has not crashed again -yet-

I hope this helps.

If anyone else has solutions, Im listening

-Tristan

 

In my case for example the keyboard is not hot and the temperature of the GPU is about 70º and it still crashes. It doesn't crashes on any other game just on Diablo 3. So as someone said I also believe it is inmature drivers.

 

But what if its not the GPU temp causing the crash? There are so many other temps to worry about.. even motherboard chipset temps for example.

Diablo 3 is a unique game in that the demands on computer resources are quite different to most other games. GPU is quite un-stressed in diablo but other components get more of a hammering.

Anyway, I hope for both our sake its driver related as that should be an easy fix in the near future.

-Tristan

 

I am playing Diablo 3 with the HD4000 without any problem so I am not sure if it is other hardware issue.

 

Glad to hear this worked for you. I've come to the same conlusion and performing the same solution. Already in route to me now are the following upgrades for my system..

Crucial 128 GB m4 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive SATA 6Gb/s CT128M4SSD2

CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 1600MHz PC3 12800 Laptop Memory(CMSX8GX3M2A1600C9)

Cooler Master NotePal U3 Notebook Cooler with 3 Fans R9-NBC-8PCK-G

Here are a few things affecting some users about D3...

CURRENT DIABLO III PERFORMANCE ISSUES

"Three performance-related issues in Diablo III seem to be centered around using the Vsync setting in the in-game video options, disk asset loading stutters, and a possible overheating issue.

Vsync: Vsync stuttering is normally caused by a machine being unable to maintain 60fps, falling behind and then alternating between 30fps and 60fps. When this is the cause, the player may want to limit the frame rate to 30fps, or reduce system and graphical settings. Ongoing optimizations by the developers will also help on this front.

Disk loading stutters: We’re working on the disk asset loading stutters as well. In an upcoming patch, some of the prefetching in the game is being changed which should help with the stuttering.

Overheating: There are some people having what appear to be video driver resets leading to long pauses as Diablo III reloads assets and then resumes playing. We're working to reproduce the issue internally. For now, we believe it could be due to the video card (GPU) overheating. Many users have addressed this on their own by limiting the frame rate and underclocking their GPUs."

... and of course the D3 servers are also a big culprit, not just the latency.

 

From what I've seen on the Blizz Diablo 3 forums, if your HDD can't keep up with the streaming of the game, you'll get stuttering and lagging.

Since I upgraded my R4 w/a Crucial M4 256Gb SSD and 16Gb of RAM, zero problems, zero stuttering, GREAT performance.

 

Try changing the GPU to the "Performance" one in that Catalyst Menu.

And maybe ure power set isn't sending enough energy to the laptop.
Try to test it.

 

They said in their post that they were running in High-Performance.

Based on the message you are receiving, I would suspect that the powerbrick might have gone bad. (Hopefully)

Other possibility is the motherboard might have an issue with sensing the power supply.

 

ok so in ammendment Im getting repeated crashing with the lid open also

I tried pulling graphics settings down to give it an easier time (no aa, less detail) but that didnt help

could it be as simple as poor application of heat transfer compound on the gpu or would that be obvious in the temp monitoring apps?

or what about a problem with the gpu's memory speed/temp?

-Tristan

 

Or maybe its simply that the servers are still junk and you were getting server lag. Was your connectivity bar red/yellow or was it green. I get stuttering, rubber banding and slowdown all the time on my R2 but its always server lag. I hope Blizzard fixes this stuff soon.....and hopefully that's your issue!!!

 

I apologize for going off topic but this is for all my Chinese Diablo 3 fans

 

Well, the freezing of diablo got beyond a joke last night. I was getting between 30 seconds and 10 minutes between freezing.

To recap, this is M17X R4 7979M.

Having AA off and detail on low seemed to have no impact. However, I put the GPU to power saving mode (battery performance, but plugged in to power) and I got a reasonable amount of play time without crashing before I went to sleep.

This does seem super weird as earlier in the week, I could play for 5+ hours flawlessly.

Anyway, Ive just ordered some MX-4 thermal paste and I will install the fans onto my cooler master stand that Im already using for ventilation and see if things get better.

The odd thing is that when crashing, the fans are only going ~ half speed... not full speed. Is there a way to force fans to full speed for testing?

Still hoping this is driver related. I hate unstable hardware :|

-Tristan

 

Temp monitoring apps?

Is this some app that comes with the laptop or a desktop gadget?

 

I was referring to the third party software for monitoring temperature like CPU ID

 

I run D3 on my m17x-R3 with 6990m card, lately I'm getting plagued by PC freezes and BSOD (I have lost my lvl 60 Hardcore Barbarian to that).

I have no idea what's going on. I have cleaned the drivers and installed the 12.6. I tought it migh have helped but it didnt. I have uninstalled temp monitoring application but it didnt help neither.

I have no idea what should I do now. Its down to the point that in 95% of cases if I hibernate my laptop and bring it back it will freeze/BSOD in the 1st minute of playing Diablo 3.

 

As soon as you mentioned the same freezing but with a different GPU etc, I googled "diablo 3 freezing" and apparently a lot of people have just suddenly started experiencing freezing in the past day or two when having no problems in the past.

Im beginning to think this isnt an alienware specific issue.. maybe diablo + AMD GPU issue or something more broad.

Is the game capable of freezing the computer so that it wont even ctrl alt del?

-Tristan

 

ps. a million people describing this problem here with a wide variety of hardware

https://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5593234607?page=2

 

A lot of people are having issues with Diablo 3 currently. It's on Blizzard's side, nothing to do w/your PC.

 

Inclined to agree. I just played all night without any freezing.

 

From what I have read on the subject, one person fixed their freezing issue by deleting the cache folder in their Diablo 3 directory. It appears Blizzard pushed a hot fix/release and people started having problems. I think the release was 102 or 102a or something to that affect.

 

This is the downside to having an online-only game.

Very unpredictable in the real world with millions of people playing on hundreds of thousands of different computer configurations.

 

I'm experiencing the same crashes. I was watching the afterburner hardware monitor and it appears that D3 randomly stops using the GPU (GPU usage drops from ~93% to 0%) Maybe that's what's causing it. I'll try the cache delete and see if that fixes it.

 

I wish I read these posts earlier.. My frequent crashing and BSODs in the game have corrupted my ram.. Had to pick up 2 new sticks...

 

I have fixed all of my issues with the game by reverting to my original BIOS - A07. Game works almost perfectly now (at least no freezes and blue screens).

When it comes to stuttering - well that's just poor game design and I read that they are working on a fix that should help with this issue.

 

So the stuttering is not caused by our unit? I've been wondering about this. My average FPS is about 75, I dont see it going down but I still experience FPS stutter. I thought an upgrade in the GPU driver will help but it didn't.

 

That framerate stutter you see, especially during the initial login of the game, seems to be an issue with the way Diablo 3 streams content from the server in the background. It's a known bug, but Blizzard hasn't confirmed or denied that it exists. Blizzard probably *won't* fix it, because it seems to be a fundamental system of the way Diablo 3 was designed. If it were as easy as tweaking some code, one might assume that they'd have fixed it by now - but alas they haven't. This stutter was here during the months that I played the beta, and it's present in the final game. What does that tell you?

as far as performance on the M17x, as I stated before, Blizzard seems to have horribly optimized their games for i7 mobile processors, especially quads. Desktop users don't seem to have any issues, no matter how many critters are on screen, but for me ... parts of Act 3 and Act 4 become slideshows, in terms of framerate. It's sloppy game design, plain and simple. Blizzard also misled people with their minimum specifications: You really need a beast of a CPU to deal with all the sloppy unoptimized gameplay.

I've played Diablo 3 for a good 30 hours or so, and I'm kind of taking a break. Too much repetitiveness, the higher difficulties are kite-fests, you all but *have* to use the auction house to get max level gear because even high level bosses drop trash rares. I'd be lying if I said Diablo 3 wasn't a lot of fun with a couple other people, but a large part of the game is frustrating beyond words.

 

I have to admit I am very unimpressed with D3. I played D2 through again a few months before D3 just to get back in the mood. Now that I have D3, it feels like exactly the same game. Sure, the skill system is streamlined and the visuals were moved into the modern age...but other then that its like the exact same game. Heck it even starts out in a dark forrested area like d2...then goes to a dessert area like D2. And like D2 it has you go back to Tristram again...and like D1 it has you fighting King Leoric again.

Oh well. Oh and is it just me or is does the Demon Hunter suck? I am stuck with her now as I am like lvl 30 in act 3 but dang! I just get killed with her all the time...which sucks cause the rouge in D1 was awesome!

As for the rest of the thread...yeah this game is a programming nightmare. Frame rate for me is all over the place in the first 10 or so minutes but then stablizes after that at 100 FPS. I wonder...does everyone have a really good internet connection? I have 30mb/second so I think that after it finished the bulk of whatever it is streaming in the first place my frame rate stablizes...is that possible? I dont know, just a guess. Or whatelse would make it run perfect for me after about 10 minutes? Who knows...Blizzard is lame. I dont know why they have such a great reputation.

**Let the flame war begin I guess**

 

I have a 50/20mbit FiOS connection at home.

The game is still garbage on Blizzard's servers, lol.

 

Imagined playing hardcore! I lost 2 lvl40 characters due to their server lagging me out and killing me. So fustrating. Hating the online thing more and more as I play.

 

anyway, just to share my experience.

My system
M17x R1, T9600 , GTX280M SLi, 4GB RAM.
Bios - A06 Revision.
Bios - Hybrid SLi Bios : Enabled.
Bios - PCIE2 : Enabled.

Nvidia Drivers: 254.xx
from dell.com.my website

Diablo 3 - FRAPS
1980x1200 - settings Mid (will get more details when i get home)
Averaging around AcT1 Town: 50-60 fps

60-70º running temperature.
so far no game crashes or freezes but do have that sudden lag that come out of nowhere rarely.

- - - - - - - - - - -

it happen when one night (last week), where suddenly the CPU shot up to load 90-100% in idle. finally reseting to factory default, installing & uninstalling many drivers, tweak a lot of settings, finally somehow got it running like normal except the WLAN is somehow dead with whichever drivers or setting that i tried to use. suspect that it was the WLAN card that cause the problem in the first place.

i wanna try if switching the Hybrid off will it get more frame rates up. let you guys know later.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

update:

Resoultion: 1920x1200
Bios Revision: A07 (just loaded it yesterday)

Max Foreground PFS: 150
Max Background FPS: 8

Texture Quality: high
Shadow Quality: Off
Physics: High
Clutter Density: Medium
AA: Off
Low FX: Off

FRAPS averaging at:
non-movement: 90++
engage in battle: 40-70

will try to install Nvidia Drivers 301.42 tonight

 

hey guys, just an update. To my surprise, Blizzard has actually confirmed the stuttering/lag issue that everyone has been having since the Beta (why it took them so long to do this is beyond me, but they made a post here in the Diablo 3 forums:

Current Diablo III Performance Issues - Forums - Diablo III

To be honest though, I've got my eye on Torchlight 2. I'll check in with Diablo after a few patches, but right now it's just too frustrating to enjoy.