m17x r2 extremely poor performance in Final Fantasy XiV: A Realm Reborn...

Aloha from Hawaii. I'm new to these forums and had a few questions regarding my Alienware m17x r2 which I have owned for about 2 years, now. I was wondering what my options were to increase the performance of my machine since it has been getting extremely low FPS (under 10 to about 30 with lots of tearing and stuttering) while playing my new addiction: Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. I'm trying to see if I can somehow tweak my system to make the game run better, or, find out if and what upgrades I can get for my machine. I have a Intel Core i7 x920 and 2 ATI Radeon 5870 HD Mobility Crossfire. Thanks for looking. :hi2:

 

Are you using the stock Dell drivers for your 5870M's? Have you also flashed the vBios of your cards to custom ones where it allows you to install the drivers straight from AMD? If not, check: http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-17-m17x/734549-should-i-buy-m17x-r2-3.html

Read from the 3rd page for a general idea of what to do, and on the 5th page maxslo posted a link to the vBios and how to make a bootable usb stick for them.

********EDIT********

Ok, after you flash your vBios you can be able to overclock your 5870's from CCC, I installed these drivers and they seem to be working with my card: http://www.guru3d.com/files_details/amd_catalyst_13_11_beta1_(13_200_16_september_26)_download.html

After the install, go into CCC, then Performance>Clock Controls>AMD Overdrive - and there you can overclock. Any 5870 is capable of at least 800/1075, so start there and work your way up. maxslo in the post I linked before was able to get to 935/1290 with a single card, and you have 2 so you should be able to handle that. If your M17X freezes or blue screens, just lower the clocks a bit. Good Luck!

 

I just did the whole boot from USB thing, but, how do I know if it worked?

-EDITED-
I downloaded CCC from the link you provided and reinstalled it, but, when I go to the performance tab, all it has is "AMD Crossfire X" and when I try to click the enable button, it goes back to "Disable AMD CrossfireX?"

 

Pretty much just download GPU-Z GPU-Z Video card GPU Information Utility
After that check if you have vBIOS version "012.020.000.027.037640" - that means the flash worked.

However, I forgot to tell you, there is also another vBios package made my maxslo which I personally use here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-17-m17x/734549-should-i-buy-m17x-r2-5.html#post9421159
This is the vBios that allows the highest overclocks on the 5870, sorry again for forgetting to post this one

Anyways, in the download package copy everything to the usb EXCEPT "REV0.ROM" and "REV1.ROM" <--- those are the vBios that you already just flashed on your cards, the other 2 ROM files are the new overclock vBios

Flashing literary takes less than a second, and at the top of the screen it will say that the flash was successful.

 

I don't see the overclocking option in CCC?

 

With the new beta drivers i linked it should be here:


If you have not installed maxslo's custom vBios, that may be why it's not there, as those vBios are meant for overclocking.

If you have and it's still not there, then you will have to do a clean uninstall of CCC and then reinstall:

1. Uninstall old drivers via Control Panel -- ATI Catalyst Install Manager.

2. Boot into safe mode (press F8 on startup) and run DriverSweeper. Reboot.

3. Clean registry with CCleaner. Reboot.

4. Re-install the beta CCC drivers.

Driver Sweeper link: Guru3D - Driver Sweeper
CCleaner link: CCleaner - PC Optimization and Cleaning - Free Download


******EDIT*******

On a side note, if you don't end up gaining much of a FPS boost from this in FFXIV, there is always the option of throwing in dual 7970M's. The M17X R2 in my opinion is the best 17" laptop Alienware made, the new 17" models don't support dual graphics and this one does. You already have the i7 920 so no need in upgrading that, and you don't really need more than 8GB Ram for gaming. The 7970's in the R2 are able to pull off 84fps average on ultimate settings in the new Tomb Raider, which is unheard of on a laptop . 7970 upgrade thread is here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-17-m17x/720908-m17x-r2-7970m-crossfirex-ultimate-installation-tweaking-guide.html

 

Wow, it would cost like 2 grand to crossfire 7970M.

 

LMFAO! Where are you seeing these prices ?

On Ebay they average about $500 per card: Promotion Alienware AMD HD Dell 7970M 2GB GDDR5 FOR M15X M17X M18X Upgrade | eBay

You don't even need to crossfire, one 7970 alone is still a beast

 

The version number has changed and I'm installing CCC from the link you provided, earlier. I stumbled upon this: http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...-enabling-overdrive-undervolting-your-r3.html and I hope I don't have to resort to that. I hope the overdrive option becomes available with this install of CCC.

-EDITED-

Can my system even handle a 7970M? And will it just be plug and play?

-EDITED AGAIN-

Still don't have the Overdrive option in my performance list in CCC.

 

So, I guess I'm looking at overclocking my crossfired GPUs if I don't want to shell out $500.00 or more to get a new GPU (if I'm going to do it, I'm going to go with the 7970M). I really don't see how having a crossfire setup is allowing me to have such poor performance and low FPS. Is there a safe way to boost my FPS by overclocking both of my 5870 HD Mobility GPUs without using CCC, since I don't have that option available? I'm worried about bricking my video cards.

 

Have you tried checking the temperatures? it may be throttling. Is that the only game having issues?

 

Ok, that's really weird that there isn't the Overdrive option available in CCC for you, however, Overdrive isn't the only thing you can use to overclock your 5870s

Try MSI Afterburner: http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/download.htm

Just download and install, and once you open the program you should be able to overclock from there. And don't worry about bricking your cards, just don't put the clocks higher than the tested max levels so you don't over-stress the cards.

As with the 7970s, it isn't just plug and play, you have to flash the vBios of the card. But that is really easy and the thread I linked has a full tutorial on that.

 

Now I'm getting a black screen when trying to turn my laptop on. I got a few BSODs last night after flashing the vBIOS while playing the gane and just went to bed. Tried to turn my laptop on today and got nothing but a black screen.

-EDITED-

Removed the battery and put it back in and the system booted fine. Had me scared for a bit.

 

No, just in general. Seemed sluggish in just about every game. And the temperatures on both cards sat at around 47 degrees according to GPU-Z.

 

I downloaded MSI Afterburner, installed it, and tried to run it, but, it freezes my system.

 

Ok, well I have an M17X R1 and you have an R2, so that may be why you cant overclock with your drivers, even though we both have the same card. All I can really think of right is if your motherboard has it`s bios up to date. I remember 2 years ago or so I had graphics issues, and a motherboard bios update fixed that. I currently have my motherboard bios updated to the latest version, so if you have never done this then that may help. You can download the bios off the dell website when you look for drivers under your service tag, if it doesnt show up, then just look under all m17x r2 drivers, it should be there.

If you still can`t overclock, then sadly you will have to do what I did to find the working CCC drivers.... spend hours installing, deleting, and reinstalling CCC drivers until you find a version that works. I went through several blue screens, 2 reformats/reinstalls of windows until the drivers worked for me.... so I really hope that you don't have to do that because it sucks.

I know CCC 13.4 works without issue from this post: http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-17-m17x/735303-m17x-r1-5870m-can-i-use-new-amd-drivers.html#post9419200
So if anything just start with those drivers, or try them out now.

links to all CCC versions are found here, just download the mobility versions: Videocards - ATI Catalyst Windows 7 8 and Vista

 

What's really weird is that after doing that vbios, I could run the game with a huge increase in FPS... For a while, before it froze up and gave me BSOD with something like MACHINE_SOMETHING_EXCEPTION and something along the lines of error occurring on a secondary processor. Maybe my cards are just shot and I need new ones.

 

Heavy gaming does eventually degrade your cards, so that may be factor. These are laptop cards, not desktop cards with all the extra cooling and airflow after all. Just as a final measure try a few different CCC drivers on a fresh install of windows, if that doesn't work, then it is probably just your cards that need to be replaced. Maybe it is also just one of your cards that is dying, try gaming without crossfire aswell.