M17x R2 5870M CFX GTA IV slows down momentarily

Hi,

Although i'm a newbie on here, i'm an old timer regarding Dell/Alienware products:

I've recently migrated from a truly wonderful XPS M1730 with X9000 and 9800M GTX to a M17x R2 in Red with i5, 8GB and 1x 5870M, to a M18x in Black with 2x 460M GTX, and finally on to my current baby........

a M17x R2 with 940XM and 5870CF

It took me a while to settle on a suitable replacement for my 1730, the red R2 was nice, but I gave that to my girlfriend when I bought the M18x.

I sold the M18x after 2 short weeks because I hated the colour (in comparison to red) and was dismayed with the screen quality upside of the RGB LED variants fitted to the R2, plus the microphone issues.

Anyway, to the point.

My recent acquisition would play GTA IV flawlessly would it be not for frequently slowing down.

I have encountered similar issues with a XPS 420 and a 3870x2, framerates are nice, but slow almost to a crawl for periods at a time.

All the posts I've read say that the problems lie with the game being poorly coded and preferring nVidia GPU's, but i'm not sure that is the issue here.

If I didn't know better I would say that the problem lies with Powerplay running in 'Balanced' mode during gameplay, thereby lowering GPU and RAM clocks during gameplay.

I have tried disabling Powerplay, but the GPU's don't run at full speed and framerates are consistent but much slower.

It would be easy to assume that maybe the GPU's are being throttled due to overheating, but I've ran GPU-Z in the background and both GPU's run at about 50-55C when GTA IV is running, but fan noise is high.

I've ran Furmark in windowed mode which apparently doesn't use crossfire, and the primary GPU exceeds 85C, but in full screen when crossfire is supposed to work the temps drop again.

Apart from the slowing down issues i'm very happy with the system's performance as I was with the red one I had.

I don't play many games, but the ones I do play I expect to play them properly, namely GTA IV.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I have considered stripping the machine down and applying AS5 to the GPU's as the machine was second hand when I bought it.

 

Download throttle stop and increase the cpu TDP. That should help as that game is really cpu reliant. May have to monitor temps as well and adjust your heatsink and change thermal paste. But throttlestop i think should help.

 

GTAIV is a console port, and a poor port at that. Do as DR650 says. That should smooth things out a bit. Move your three bottom sliders each to 20 and disable shadows. You can have everything else maxed out. See where you are when the dust settles.

 

I know that is said about GTA IV, but my girlfriends M17x R2 with i5 540M, 8GB and 1x 5870 plays GTA IV better.

I noticed that on my old 1730 that GTA IV played better with SLI either disabled, or running in single GPU mode.

I have tried disabling crossfire on this but that doesn't make any difference, i'm still convinced the GPU clocks are slowing during gameplay due to power play or sumet like that.

 

Sorry guys (and gals), found the problem - CPU reaching 100C and throttling back.

I've only just got this machine you see, and it appears as though it needs stripping down maybe and reassembling with IC Diamond paste.

 

Well if your going to go through the trouble of disassembly and repasting, here is my suggestions. Follow the instructions below. I'm copy and pasting because I posted this in another thread a week or so ago, and don't feel like retyping...and I'm just that lazy.