Subpar Gaming Performance

Recently, I've been having a large number of issues with my laptops gaming performance. The issues that I am having are most pronounced in World of Warcraft where I can barely hold 60 FPS with everything turned down to the lowest settings in a secluded area with nothing happening. I've completely reinstalled Windows and have no software installed other than the games and the suggested drivers from Dell.com so I am not really sure where to go from here.

 

How old is the gpu?

Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 2

 

You mention you have the drivers as suggested by Dell.

What about your AMD drivers? I would use the most current from AMD, not the ones posted on the Dell drivers page. Your BIOS is current?

Have you run any benchmarks (3DMark, etc)? It would be interesting to see if your 3DMark numbers are in range with other 7970M's.

 

The AMD drivers are the most recent Catalyst drivers. The BIOS is the most recent unlocked version (A11 I believe)

I'll run the benchmarks now.

 

covering all bases.. what are your temps.. and when was last repaste & fan/dust cleaning?

 

Try the DELL drivers instead. Or an older version of the drivers.

 

I did a repaste a few weeks ago with no noticeable change in performance. I have a raid tonight, I'll monitor the temperatures during it.

After about a half hour of playing,
Graphics Card Max Temp: 66 Celcius
CPU Core 1 Max Temp: 62 Celcius
CPU Core 2 Max Temp: 64 Celcius
CPU Core 3 Max Temp: 66 Celcius
CPU Core 4 Max Temp: 66 Celcius

Framerates were terrible as usual. I'd say I averaged about 20FPS in fights.

 

CPU throttle maybe? Try throttestop, my 3630QM goes up to around 80 °C under load.

I would recommend reverting the killer wifi card to microsoft windows drivers (v. 3.x.x.x) they seem most stable or go onto ethernet for gaming tbh

 

I do play on Ethernet while gaming, my wireless card is almost always disabled. I'll download Throttlestop now.

Edit: It doesn't seem to be CPU throttling, Throttlestop shows my CPU always running at 3100 MHz, the temperature still hasn't gone above 66 degrees while playing.

 

GPU usage/temp graph showing a time period where the issue occurs please.

 

The issue is constant, I never experience above ~40 FPS playing on the lowest settings. The GPU temp is also constantly between 62 and 66 degrees Celsius (Although I can graph it if you'd like).

 

Just a note, I think that there may be something wrong with my internal GPU or the driver install. I just bought Next Car Game on Steam and when I attempt to launch it I am given the following:



As you can see, neither of the listed graphics adapters are my 7970M. What would be the best way to check for proper functionality/force disable the Intel adapter? I have an Ubuntu install which works fine with the proprietary fglrx drivers so I'm fairly sure that the adapter itself is functioning as intended. I've tried the graphics card switching button but the English in it is awful and as such I can't figure out whether it is enabling or disabling Enduro.

 

It might be misinterpreting the fact that the dedicated GPU is not active as not available. You should look be able to switch to the dedicated GPU easily through the function keys and reboot.

Sent from my One using Tapatalk

 

Is there any way to force disable the HD 4000? The Fn+F7 switch seems to have no effect on the cards listed in Next Car Game.

 

If the 7970 is anything like the 6970 it will have a nice habit of downlclocking and getting stuck at 400/900 clocks (default is something like 800/1050). Check it with GPU-Z when playing to see what the clocks are. If they are stuck down there you need to use something like Sapphire Trixx to overclock the card slightly which will free up the clocks to normal.

 

This is what I'm shown in GPU-Z

 

Looks fine but is that what your getting in games?

 

I just played about 20 minutes of Crysis 3. The clocks stayed at exactly the same rate and the temperature jumped to about 68 degrees Celcius and then stayed there. Are both sides of the computer meant to have fans running? The left side of my computer is nearly silent whereas the fan(s) on the right side seem to be running full tilt.

Edit: GPU-Z and Afterburner both show 0% usage of the 7970M while gaming. AMD Catalyst doesn't even list the 7970M as a card that is in my computer.

 

It seems as though Fn+F7 is having no effect at all. Switchable Graphics are shown each and every time that I reboot with it and none of the settings are changing in my (Unlocked) BIOS.

I tried the following last night, none of it fixed the problem:
1) Setting the Video Switching Scheme to Fixed and Full in the BIOS. As soon as I changed the switching mode in Catalyst to change based on the current power source I was left with Microsoft Basic Render Driver shown as the only graphics device and a non-functional Catalyst Control Center. I got back to the current state by completely uninstalling both the AMD graphics drivers and the Intel graphics drivers and then reinstalling them.
2) Setting the Default Display to PEG and disabling the integrated graphics device. This left my computer unable to boot due to 8 beeps. I got back to the current state by pulling out the CMOS to reset the BIOS. From my understanding this is not an option as the Muxless nature of the M17x R4 requires the integrated graphics to be enabled as a pipe for rendering done by the dGPU.
3) Of course, trying Fn+F7 multiple times. It shuts down my computer, turns it back on for a second, turns it back off, and then boots to being exactly the same as it was before. I did this about five times just to make sure it wasn't a fluke bug causing it. I've tried running SwitchGPU.exe as Administrator and also in compatibility mode as Windows 7.

I'm really at my wits end with this, it's extremely disappointing that my $2,000 laptop can play games at about the level of my $300 work laptop.

 

Sounds like a possible card failure I'm afraid. Have you considered a BIOS flash? Did it always do this?

 

I have updated the BIOS to the official A12 and it hasn't had any effect. It worked fine up until recently, I'm not sure exactly when it started doing this as I haven't been paying enough attention to it.