M17X R2 Crysis Low Performance

Hello Everyone. I recently thought I would give Crysis a try on my M17X R2 (see sig for specs). I ran through about half of the game with high settings, 1920x1200 res, no AA, and vysnc on and got about 45 to 60FPS which was good.

However, since I've hit the aircraft carrier level (Reckoning), FPS has dropped significantly and is mostly unplayable during fights with the big spider walker alien and the mothership. Now my FPS is around 30 and drops even lower during these fights. Plus during these 2 fights I have had several crashes where the laptop locks up and I have to hard boot. Even with detail set to medium and res dropped to 768, I have the same crappy performance.

I have looked at some forums and they talk about patches and some tweaks. I bought this game through Steam so it is fully patched already I think (v1.1.1.6156). I did notice the game appears to run as 32bit instead of 64. Some forums said there is a command to change this to 64bit but I cannot figure out how to input commands with Steam.

Anyone else with an M17X R2 with similar specs have problems? Are there any tweaks you could recommend? I have updated AMD 11.1 CCC/drivers with new Dell vbios (see attatchment).

This game is soo awesome! I can't believe I waited so long to try it. I have to finish the single player and move to Warhead. Can someone help?

 

You really shouldn't be running with V sync on. That is quite a resource hog. The whole point of Vsync is to keep FPS at a CONSTANT 60. Your GPU is trying to maintain that framerate and can't do it so why not disable it and jump your FPS up a few so that you don't go below 30!

 

Thanks. I should have mentioned, I have turned vsync off and the problems continue. That added to the lower detail medium setting, the lower resolution setting and the performance still sucks. It's almost no different. I'm wondering if something is wrong with my cards. But the temp checks I have seen during gameplay indicate that they are running normal at about 88 C each. Which is hot, but about the same as if I were playing BFBC2.

 

To be honest I just got my R2 and am finally able to play this game and am still trying to find the acceptable levels of detail and resolution as it really isn't that maxable. I have heard that the later levels are much more intensive. I would rather play with low resolution and high settings than medium settings and native resolution. If you lower the res, you will become more CPU bound and your GPU will have a lot more room to push the software as it wont be working on trying to fill all that screen real estate. Try playing at 720p at 1280 by 720, high details and 2x AA. I find that you can have the very high texture settings and very high shaders and you can sacrifice post processing, sound, and particle effects to lower settings and still "visually" have a very great experience. So mix up the settings that aren't so visual and then lower the resolution to still "HD" but enable a low AA to eliminate some of the jaggies.

 

Have you tried monitoring your clocks to see if they are consistent as well? If not run gpu-z in the background, click the save to log option, and upload the log once you've got it. The log will help us see what the clocks, temps, etc are doing while you are playing. There's a slight possibility you may have some sort of corruption in the game install as well.

 

What sort of FPS are you seeing? Have you reached the Reckoning level? When I tried to lower the settings and res the last 2 nights I received very little improvement. I haven't even turned AA on. I know this game is graphics intensive, but I've seen people post that they play it on high details and res on the M17X with good FPS. I can't believe that the M17X can't get through the tough levels on medium at 1920 x 1200. I'll drop the res down to low and details to low later on to see if I notice any improvement. But if I can't play through the most graphic intensive levels on low res/low settings that would indicate that something has to be wrong.

 

No I haven't. But I can try that and post some logs. Should I do this at 1920 x 1200 res and high or on lower res and settings?

 

It's entirely up to you, it shouldn't change what we're seeing much as either will most likely put the GPU to 99%+ usage and the same clocks no matter what the settings are.

 

If your CPU is being throttled, try this tool:
ThrottleStop - Performance Adjustment Tool for Core 2 / Core i CPUs - XtremeSystems Forums

 

Throttlestop won't do anything for me because I don't have an extreme CPU. I have already tried. But thanks for the suggestion.

 

Well I just ran it during lunch at work. It actually played really well, averaging anywhere from 30 - 70 FPS with 1280x720 res and medium details. It was definitely playable which is much better than it was the last 2 nights. I did start the game off with volume muted because I am at work. Didn't want gunfire and f-bombs eminating from my desk.

HWinfo32 showed my GPU's at 99% and 75% utilization at their max. The log file is attached for GPUZ. It looks as if my card is at 700/1000. I don't see where it captured data on the second card.

I'm really surprised at the good performance I got though. I'm wondering if maybe it is a heat issue. I've attached my HWInfo log as well. I only ran the game for 5 mins. Compared to 1 or 2 hours like I normally do.

 

rememeber people are playing and benching the game usually in the "island type" stages as the vegetation is really something to look at; though less instensive than the later stages. Plus, 25FPS is playable on this game due to the motion blur. Some games 25FPS sucks; some it's playable. Crysis is one of those games. People playing Very High at native resolution are getting "up to about 40ish" frames a second but will have spikes below 30ish. You are averaging 40-70FPS which isn't necessarily needed for a "smooth" experience with this particular game. FRAPS will affect a few FPS as well if u run that.

 

I have to concur with daveh98 because I truly have a great experience playing crysis on max settings including vsync with no AA achieving 30-40 fps with the occassional dip to 25 and this is at native res 1920x1200p. I guess since i have an xtreme cpu that helps but if I were you I would go into ccc and change some settings to try and fix the issue. Maybe your experiencing the dips due to you havin an 820?

 

if youre having problems with crashing on the last level (have same problem) you have to change it so the game is running on dx9 instead of 10. i dont know if it is an issue with dx11 or not.

 

Thanks for all of the replies. I didn't realize this until just now, but I'm on the last level, fighting the last enemy (the mothership). So it's not as bad of an issue. The last level is very graphics intensive and maybe that is the problem. Everything else played great up to that level. If I can't make it perform better, at least I can beat it and move on.

Since it looks like my cards are working normally and BFBC2 still works great, I guess all I can do is adjust the game settings. I was just interested to find out what other M17X R2 owners experienced.

I'm going to tweak some settings and play through that level again to see if I can get better performance. I really did expect that the M17X R2 with CF5870's would chew through Crysis, even though it was a beast in 2007/2008. Guess I was wrong. Hopefully Warhead isn't worse.

 

Sorry to say this but despite what you may hear Warhead runs exactly the same as crysis 1. But don't feel bad its not the fault of your laptop its the game, even high end desktop cards struggle with the mess that is crysis.

If you want to see good graphics on your M17x get Just Cause 2, Metro 2033, Far Cry 2, Dead Space 2, Mass Effect 2, Dirt 2 or Dawn of War 2

I have personally tested all of the above games and you can run them all at between 40-60 fps 1920 x 1200 very high graphics settings including 8x AA in some cases. I'm going to post the results of my benchmarking soon. I have the same laptop as you by the way.

Ps. I'd advise to use D3d overrider to force v sync in all games because I can;t stand screen tearing I don;t know how anyone can game with it off!

 

I guess I started to freak out because I played all of the earlier levels on high settings with 1920x1200 res. It seems that my M17X really doesn't like the final checkpoints in the last level (Reckoning) where you are battling the aliens on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier. I was able to play through it with medium settings and 1280x720 res. It was a pretty awesome game. Started playing Warhead. Currently running it in 1920x1200 on high. Guess I'll turn it down when the aliens come.

Thanks to all who provided info. I added some rep to those who I could.

 

I had this problem originally, and it was specific to crysis. My gpu clocks would be forced to 200/250 for some reason, and the game performance was dismal. now I have all power management options disabled while plugged in, and have my gfx cards (4870x2) overclocked to 630/1050 and I get great performance in crysis at native res with V.High detail settings, no AA

 

I have the same problem with Reckoning (albeit on my M15x) and I have just come to assume that it is a problem level.

 

The game for me freezes on and off after the level where you infiltrate the KPA base to free the scientist along with Psycho (at the end of Recovery). Kinda odd since everything prior to the level runs great at Very High and 2xAA. Probably a corrupt install.

I don't really care since the game was poorly coded and kinda old, but it'd be nice to play it again lol. Oh well, Crysis 2!

 

This is just an issue with Crysis. That last level is riduclously intense on hardware. My desktop with CF 5870s and an i7 Extreme 965 displays the same slowdown during that level and is WELL past 60 fps the rest of the game (All settings maxed no AA). I also got a couple out of memory warnings from windows (Crysis has a memory leak). I have seen this behaviour on several different GPU platforms. It is just the lack of optimizations in the game. Your hardware is just fine. All I can recommend is lowering the detail for that last sequence.

 

has anyone had problems with CF on this game? I just monitored my temps and my GPU 1 is 79 and GPU 2 was 50.....that thing isn't even working basically? Other games are fine and my 3dmark06 19657 proves CF is enabled just fine.. whats up?

 

update... I am noticing that the second GPU has a utilization that is 41% on some games. Is there a way to increase utilization or is that just the way CF works? I find it strange to have GPU temp being 80 with 99% utilization and another card being utilized at 41% with a temp of 50. Something just doesn't sound right but this is out of my area of knowledge (mostly a single GPU guy)

 

Try reinstalling your driver to make sure the Crysis CF profile is there

 

I downloaded the CAPS but in the CCC I don't see ANY profiles? I am running 11.1.

 

You wont see them in CCC. Will show up in Programs and Features though

 

does the real life mod work in windows 7? I installed it and went to the right directory to execute the .exe and didn't see any of the entrys. Seems like all the mods are for XP/Vista. Scook9 thanks for the help but what is Programs and Features? Tell me that isn't a folder or something in my computer and I am being a complete nubstick Cuz when I do programs and features it takes me to the uninstaller?

 

It is the Windows 7/Vista version of Add/Remove Programs....lol

 

I dont see any Crysis profile in my uninstaller. I see the game, my drivers and the CCC and profiles app. Nothing specific to Crysis. Sorry for the noob questions but I am not used to using profiles or anything and this is my first CF system...and experience with Win 7. But my temps do not adjust on this game for the second GPU. I am running 1900 by 1200 with high settings except for very high textures and shadows and am getting 25-45. No AA and No V sync. Seems like with a 920 and CF 5870 people get those frames with all very high and no AA

 

All of the profiles are in that one Profiles app, not listed separately.

Most likely they are not needed though. Are your drivers updated properly? What version of Crysis are you running? I have found that 1.2 works best

 

Oh ok thanks scook9. I am running the 11.1 with crysis 1.2. I tried downloading the reallife mod but it appears to only run in xp/vista as when i extracted I couldn't find the .exe files in the /levels folder. I don't know why my GPU is not really kicking in during that game. In another thread I am posting my 3dmark06 being 19670 with the second gpu only going to 45 while the first hitting 70. In CS:S and L4D2 they both hit 70s. Maybe crysis IS working OK but I would just assume my second GPU would be getting hotter. I dunno, I am about to throw crysis out of the window!