Using Throttlestop For SC2

With the config I have in my sig and my video cards running @ 1.02v's I play SC2 on high texture and high graphic settings. On high, or even ultra, I maintain a solid 60 (I use vsync) FPS unless I'm in a big battle. Depending on the size of the battle, my FPS may drop down to around 40-45 (on high. Its -5 fps on ultra). 40 should seem fine, but it isn't. Its not a slide show by any means, but it just doesn't feel smooth in any capacity. Since this game is CPU intensive and I believe only uses 2 cores (I think), how could I go about setting up throttlestop to boost my FPS up in battles. I don't want it to overheat my machine or anything, or make it draw too much power that it will throttle, but I'd like to try setting something up that will increase my FPS in large battles. Doing that would also allow me to play large team games without as many issues. Thanks in advanced.

EDIT: I'm not sure if there's something I should do in BIOS or whatnot, but I will say that I don't really see any performance gain whatsoever when doing the 5% BIOS OC. I felt that it may have actually caused more issues so I removed it. Does throttlestop set the default TDP/TDC to 62/62? What SHOULD my computer's TDP/TDC be? Will the values be what they should be as long as throttlestop is turned off? I'm not sure how any of that work, honestly. I'd hope that throttlestop doesn't interfere with anything unless you turn it on, and that when you turn it off everything sets back to the way it was prior to ever opening the program.

 

I believe stock values without throttlestop in the R2 is 62/62. When you open throttle stop, if you have changed the default settings in ThrottleStop, those settings will be applied when the program opens. To avoid this you can change the values on another profile, and leave the default Throttle Stop profile alone. Now when you close ThrottleStop, the adjusted values will remain active until you reboot the system. If you want to avoid this you can set another profile to default values and apply that profile before closing throttlestop. But simply turning it off will not reset the TDP/TDC to stock.

As for starcraft, One thing you can do is increase your TDP, and your multipliers. I would increase one multiplier at a time and see if that helps your FPS in SC2. You can increase it for one or two cores, and leave the others stock. It really will take some testing on your part to figure out the best combination, just monitor your temps as you test.

As for the Bios OC, gains will be more noticable if you increase the multiplier. However the bios OC is great for fine tuning as it adjust the base clock, rather then the multiplier. But if you don't notice much of an improvement, I'd leave it alone.

 

I notice a huge increase in SC2 performance when you increase the TDP/TDC.

The way I test is doing a 4v4 you and 7 CPU to push the cpu then when the game is finished load the replay and do a FPS benchmark, with fraps run the replay in play perspective mode (so it follows the player camera) run it a x8 then after 10 mins (in game time) stop FPS benchmark and see what my min max and average FPS is.

When I increase the TDP/TDC to 95/85 I get a large improvement can’t remember of the top of my head (at work) but its big jump. I don’t really mess with multipliers as you have to increase the wattage in the bios or you BSOD. Also starcraft 2 makes use of all 4 cores.

you will need to make sure that your temps are ok I had to do a repaste with MX-4 to be able to do this and my temps get to around 95 ish with wprime doing 1024m test but stay around low 80s in most games.

Also my cinebench 11.5 scores jumps from 3.60 ish I think to 5.2ish form doing this

Hope this helps

 

Wait - in order to increase multipliers you have to increase wattage? Also, are you sure SC2 makes use of all 4 cores?

Also, you're not raising those numbers too high? I'm @ 62/62 right now. I don't want to blow my machine out lol

 

Keep an eye on your core temperatures when playing with the TDP/TDC settings and you will not hurt anything. Intel sets the TDP to 130 watts for similar Core i7 desktop CPUs like the Core i7-920 and enthusiasts overclock these to 4 GHz and beyond. It is the exact same technology. The only difference is that desktop CPUs have much better cooling solutions so Intel can increase the TDP comfortably without having to worry about the core temperature becoming an issue.

If the TDP is not set high enough in the 920XM, it will continuously throttle back the maximum turbo multiplier when loaded. Power consumption is capped at 62 watts by limiting the speed. Increasing the multiplier is not nearly as important as increasing the TDP so the 920XM can run at full speed for a bigger percentage of time.

Run a ThrottleStop log file while playing your favorite game. Increase the TDP 5 watts at a time and then go back in the log file and have a look at how high the multiplier is averaging and have a look at the core temperature. Adjust the TDP higher until you are comfortable with the temperature your CPU and GPU are reaching.

For games that are GPU limited, the increase in heat might not be worth the small or non-existent increase in performance. For games that are being limited by the CPU, increasing the TDP is the best way to go faster.

 

What about the TDC? Same thing? Keep it even with TDP?

 

all i was saying about multiplyers is that when i've tryed incressing them on stock wattage (you change this in the bios) I get BSOD but as Unclewebb said its more about the TDP/TDC do as he says run a temp monitoring program like HWinfo64 or even use the one in Throttlestop its self and just rasie the TDP a few watts at a time and see what temps you max out at most people want to keep it around 85-90. if you cant get comfortable tempratures then do a repaste of the cpu (i advice MX-4 its great much better than Artic silver 5).

and yes SC2 defantly takes advantage of 4 cores. there is a thread somewhere on the internet where do a dual v quad core test and having a quad core defantly helps.