M11x - WoW Performance, Issues, General Discussion

Windows just fine, but the game was very choppy on the external screen. So it didn't dedetct HoN correctly when running on the external screen.

Same with steam games (like portal), has to add them to the list or they will crash pretty quickly.

 

I hope this gets fixed aswell. Throttling is very very annoying.

 

Is there anyway to fix the throttling through BIOS?

 

I've tried fooling around with every option in the BIOS and nothing seems to help. I even manually OCed and I still get the same performance issues.

 

I remember hearing about powermizer. Will it help if we disable powermizer?

 

Quite possibly, but it will keep the nvidia card on max clock speeds at all time (not that i mind at all)

 

Was running around Dalaran with GPU-Z, and i realised that the max GPU Core cloak is only at 450 MhZ even at the most demanding locations. GPU Memory cloak max is at 780 MhZ.

 

So your saying the GPU is actually throttling? Hmm interesting

 

found this, not sure if its helpful:

World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Alienware M11x R2 i7 FPS FPS Issue

 

So can this actually be fixed or would you say that if someone wants the laptop to play WoW (the majority of the time) they should buy the R1? Very disappointed. Was hoping to have this by now.

 

I'd be optimistic that this will be resolved at some point, however when that is... who knows.

I've read that running it in windowed mode removes the issue, though, and at the cost of overall lower, but playable, fps. Have you tried that?

 

I've been holding off buying alienware until R2 as I thought it would squeeze out a few extra FPS for WoW. So the moment I heard there were problems with WoW I held off buying. No point paying more for something that performs worse in my eyes. However if the fix was simply to run in Windowed mode that wouldn't be a problem, presumably that can be maximized still?

I just don't want to rush in and buy only to spend all that money and not be able to play the game I bought it for.

 

i've had the same thought (although i already have my r2).. but i know that the issue will get fixed. the technology is just new buggy i guess.

but i could just be a stat and want the best processor in my baby, lol.

(and yes i pretty much just bought this for wow too)

 

i havent, i'll try now

 

Keep in mind it runs overall lower FPS (from what I've read), but still very playable. So you probably wouldn't beat an R1 in non-windowed mode... yet.

 

Cool this might be confirmation of whether or not it works.

 

Cool thanks for the information guys. I'll hold off a bit longer and see what happens.

 

It's not an issue of optimus not kicking in. It does. When all is good the FPS is fine, just every few seconds it drops down, no matter what is happening. So you can be walking along at 60 fps, and then for a second your character will go into slow motion as it drops down to 40 fps, and then it will jump back to 60fps. Rinse and repeat.

I tried running WoW on a 9400M and it doesnt do this. FPS is constant. Something is causing wild fluctuations every few seconds.

The reason why I was saying it happens on an external moniter is because it is not as noticable at lower resolutions. It seems to only happen when it is cranked up.

 

Yes let us know if that fix works by editing the config file THOUGH I feel this problem should be addressed rather than having users edit such a file

 

According to the update on the thread he linked (2/2/2010 - originally made 2+ years ago) it says the game removed the cap that it had in place, thus letting the OS pick. I don't think changing that setting has any affect anymore.

 

Yeah I actually just read that now. Looks like another dead end.

 

yea the fps was like 25 in windowed mode, f- that. lol.

 

i get pretty static fps with mine... it just sucks. i mean im at "good" settings (with shadows turned off, so techincally its custom), and i still get like 25-45 fps with an occasional 50-60 if im staring at a wall or in a small room. maybe i just need to watch it closer for the spike, but my main concern is just complete performance in general.

 

Mighty, are you running at 1920x1080? The drop every few seconds isnt really as noticable at the laptop native res.

 

So far I have averaged 30 fps using an external monitor with a resolution of 2048x1152 on stock settings. If I boosted to ultra i did get around 11 fps. When I played the same settings at native resolution on the laptop itself, my fps stayed between 25 and 35. This is with the beta driver from the Dell website.

Edit: I have an i7 and the fps I got was while I was in dalaran

 

That's very odd, there something definitely wrong here. Hopefully, one day, it;ll get sorted out.

 

no im just trying to get it working well on my laptop screen first, lol. i guess that would explain why i haven't noticed the drop yet. good to know there's something else to look forward to, haha.

 

Is any one having success with there wow play on the r2. IT could just be a few people having these issues out of a bunch of people? Also it might be temporary problems. Post on the wow forums about it, theres plenty of people there that are on these issues 24/7. IT shouldnt be a problem that isnt easily delt with by someone working with blizzard.

 

I have been getting bug reports on the Hybrid Graphics notebooks that point to powermizer possibly being buggy with the 256 series (256->258) drivers. It may be worth looking into for you guys and maybe even disabling powermizer (careful of heat).

 

I had WoW pre-installed and fired it up just now to test it out. I cranked everything up and was running around in one if the starting areas of Burning Crusade and it seemed to be ok. I'll try and get to a heavily populated area when I get some more time.

 

If you can, connect it to a monitor and run it at 1920x1080. Thats then the issues pop up. I don't think it's because the GPU can't handle it either, because you can be in an area with nothing going on and facing a wall and you will see 60fps for a few seconds, then the dip down to the 40s for about a second, then back to 60s for a few. Rinse and repeat. This is not seen as much at the 1366x728 on the laptop screen. Someone made a good post earlier about the CPU usage during the spikes/dips.

 

Allamar, I'll try it when I get home, still at work atm.

Also in general, I'm running the pre-installed 189.69 drivers.

 

k, Im on the new ones posted to Dell's site on 6/29. Never tried it with the pre-installed.

 

fps sucks with both preinstalled drivers, and the beta ones. (i'm in borean tundra in the 70 starting place)

 

Okay, so I attempted to run the game at 1920x1080 on an external monitor. Sudden frame drops did occur do a more dramatic degree than was happening at native laptop resolution. Again, can't really pin it to a particular core speed drop with the Turbo Boost Utility, it just drops the frames while it continues alternating between 1.86 - 2.06. No help there. Conducted this in Outlands. Don't normally have a problem there on native res.

Moving to Borean Tundra, it runs noticeably worse than on native, of course. Makes me wonder if the res bump is simply making the problem more noticeable even in areas where fps problems do not normally occur. I would ask anyone having the 1080 problems specifically to see if they also drop unusually huge numbers of frames in Borean Tundra (native). Any input from R1 owners would be great as well. I usually get around 90 FPS in an instance, for example, if those frames drop to 60 I'm not likely to notice. Bumping the res might make it more noticeable, rather than being a root cause, i.e. 60 frames to 40 being quite obvious.

Meanwhile, I have had no luck in making Beta drivers from Dell's site run WoW or 3dmark06 with the NVIDIA card. I manually added them to the list, tried right clicking and running with NVIDIA card...am I missing something here? Incidentally, the game is literally running about 3 fps lower with the Intel card than with the NIVIDIA outdoors in Northrend. Sure, I get about 40 fewer FPS indoors talking to quest givers, but as soon as I get to questing it runs almost identically to the 335. Troubling...yet hopeful? This can't be right, can it?

 

Just a little update on my primary goal in life atm (getting WoW to run acceptably): installed 500GB Momentus XT and fresh windows; all latest drivers and Beta Dell driver, which did not work out for me...reverted back to stock Dell drivers. Fresh WoW install. No improvement. No surprise. Not even going to bother with modded NVIDIA driver.

However, I will share what I have done so far as optimization goes and the effects on WoW it has had. Out of the box, I got a 6612 3dmark 06 score. Performing the steps in the R1 optimization thread on here and using Gamebooster, 6669. OC to 158 brought 6774. Nothing great. Now, by going with a modest 551/1322/841 GPU OC, I hit 7305 first run, and 7371 by OC'ing the proc again as well. Now running with GPU OC and i7 normal, to hopefully keep things cool.

This is not going in the benchie thread because I just want to point out that while us i7 owners don't get crap out of a processor OC generally, doing so to the 335m can bring some decent returns. Taking these settings to WoW, the fluctuations are still very apparent. However, it was much more playable for the time I spent, dipping from 60 down to 25-30....which is a little easier to swallow than 15 FPS. Just something to think about while we wait for a possible fix.

 

Try the ThrottleStop program to see if there is any throttling going on.

 

Or try CPUID - System & hardware benchmark, monitoring, reporting to monitor Turbo Boost on all cores. I think there are a couple of these utilities, but this is one is from CPUID.

 

I don't personally play WoW, so I went and spoke to one of the engineers here who does. In his opinion, WoW plays fine on the M11x or M11xR2. Here's what he advised:

1) The game must be in the Optimus whitelist. Remember, you must add the .EXE file, not the shortcut.
2) Make sure you have the latest GPU driver (currently Dell at 257.30).
3) Stop hacking drivers. The NVIDIA.com driver should install fine on the R2 without hacking.
4) Game settings should be on medium.
5) Lower the shadow detail (it even chokes desktop cards)

With these conditions met, it should play great at 40+ FPS.

 

medium? i am not ok with this

 

I agree with what he said BUT not the last two points. WoW shouldn't be on Medium..I mean an Intel Centrino with an IGP should play WoW on medium lol. Shadow detail though is key. Never will I have that slider all the way up, its one notch down before its highest setting.

As I have stated in the beginning of my thread, i came from a 9600m (Which the 335m is a lot better) laptop that played WoW perfectly. I up[grade to this laptop and I get a drop in performance? That doesn't sound right lol

 

/agree

.....

 

Hi erawneila, i have done all the points that you listed even before you posted them. With the Optimus test tool, i know that WoW is running on the nVidia GPU. Also, i have the latest Beta Driver from the Dell Website, and my WoW settings is even lower than Medium, its between Medium to Low.

With all these in place, during raids, even when im just idling and not doing anything, it never gets above 40(simply with the amount of people in there). During a fight, the FPS drops below 10 sometimes and never gets above 20 at any point of time. In dalaran, it idles between 18-40 FPS. Thats with all the customized settings and almost everything is on low except things that wont really affect the FPs.

Personally, i think the problem is with something like the nVidia GPU underclocking itself when it is required to perform. OR might be something else like throttling. I hope that you guys can investigate into this as it might impact other games/future games. Leaving it at "WoW should be playable" is really not a good thing Thanks a lot.

 

can you disable the intel gpu in the bios and just make the nvidia card run 24/7

 

this has been experiment and explained before. ans = no

 

released 6/30/10

NVIDIA DRIVERS 9.10.0224

PhysX 9.10.0224

ty Nautis for this.

 

What is this exactly? A separate driver? Also does WoW even use PhysX?

 

To me this is totally incorrect. It does play WoW ok but the problem is every few seconds the FPS drops and then returns to normal. Have him connect it to a monitor and try it at 1980x1020. Look at a wall on medium settings. FPS should stay the same. It doesnt. It Fluctuates wildly from 60 to 30 to 60 back again. This doesnt happen at 1920x1080 on a notebook with a 9400M!! When this happens your characters feels like it goes into slow motion for a few seconds.

Turning down the details lessons the degree of that drop when it occurs, but it still happens.

Something is going on.

 

It does not and is something you may want to bring to the attention of your engineers and Nvidia. 258.69 was closer but they forgot to add the the following device ID strings.

Code:

[NVIDIA_SetA_Devices.NTamd64.6.1]
%NVIDIA_DEV.0CAF.01% = Section050, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0CAF&SUBSYS_04651028

[Strings]
NVIDIA_DEV.0CAF.01 = "NVIDIA GeForce GT 335M"

Believe me I have been going around for ages telling everyone Optimus is great because new drivers should work with it by just downloading and installing (because Optimus is supported by Nvidia). This is only the case however if their INF is setup properly. Once this gets fixed there will be no need to modify the install information (INF) file as there will be no need.

Also not sure if WoW utilizes PhysX but there was apparently a bug in it which did not allow it to function under Optimus. It is fixed in 9.10.0224 which Nvidia has up here.

-
It is very important, as erawneila said, to make sure the proper executable file is added to the list.

 

Nope, wow doesn't. But @ least it will fix some games issues, lol. At least it means they're working on issues.