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    Weird: High Quality gives more FPS than High Performance in a couple games

    Discussion in 'Alienware M11x' started by DeeVu, Aug 8, 2011.

  1. DeeVu

    DeeVu That Compsci/Psych Major

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    hey guys,

    Just stumbled across something a little strange. When setting some games to high quality rather than high performance I get a significant performance boost (10-20frames in some cases). I thought this was strange.

    For instance in Orgrimmar (WoW) I'd get 20-30frames on Ultra while on high performance mode but 35-40fps in the same area with the same population. No overclocks.

    Same thing happens in a couple other games. Could it be that High performance forces a reduction on textures and causes it to use more resources? or is this just a weird occurance?
     
  2. Zuu

    Zuu Notebook Geek

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    Maybe alienware just likes looking pretty? Not sure... that's very odd, I wonder if this is true with all games and not just WoW? I'd test it out tonight but I had to restore my m11x already.
    Let me know if you find any other games like this!
     
  3. DeeVu

    DeeVu That Compsci/Psych Major

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    I just tried it out on crysis and i get equal performance with High (shadows low) as I do with High performance on medium.
     
  4. BuToNz

    BuToNz Notebook Geek

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    Very weird, I also get the same a good average of 8fps more in Need for Speed Hot Pursuit (2010)...What the hell?
     
  5. DeeVu

    DeeVu That Compsci/Psych Major

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    Haha glad I'm not the only one!!!! Better images and MOARRRR FPS!!! Everyone wins. Time to test in BC2
     
  6. Rockwell B1

    Rockwell B1 Notebook Evangelist

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    My R3 should be here on Wednesday, I'll have to test this out in RIFT, AVP, and a few others. I'll take better quality with more frames that's for sure. :D

    Wonder if this happens with my MBP as well... lol
     
  7. DeeVu

    DeeVu That Compsci/Psych Major

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    This occurs on my R2. My R3 comes wednesday or thursday too. i'd be excited to see this on it as well.
     
  8. Radam

    Radam Notebook Geek

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    I think this has been discussed before as being becuase higher performace settings takes the load of the CPU and give more work for the GPU to do. As the GPU is more powerful, FPS increases!
     
  9. DeeVu

    DeeVu That Compsci/Psych Major

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    Yeah that was my theory on the matter. Glad to see it. I do not see why it wouldn't take effect in the R3.
     
  10. Zuu

    Zuu Notebook Geek

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    Are you changing any additional settings in the nvidia control panel?
     
  11. DeeVu

    DeeVu That Compsci/Psych Major

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    Nope. Just high quality and high performance. Pre-rendered frames is set to 0 in both cases. Everything else is the same.
     
  12. Zuu

    Zuu Notebook Geek

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    Alright, I also downloaded the newest driver after restoring my m11x yesterday... maybe I will notice more change, I'll test it out.
     
  13. Normhimself

    Normhimself Notebook Guru

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    Im going to try this on BC2, but quick question. What does pre rendered frames do? I haven't messed with it so I am guessing changing this to 0 helps performance? I think BC2 does well on my machine, only times I see a stutter is in very large fire fights, and when someone mortars my area.
     
  14. DeeVu

    DeeVu That Compsci/Psych Major

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    Pre-rendered frames renders frames ahead of time. It boosts performance to turn it off. In FPS games especially. It can lead to input lag.

    BC2 faired better when I tried it yesterday than when I had it on High performance.
     
  15. zmarselle

    zmarselle Notebook Guru

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    I tried this with Homefront..I can report I did not receive any FPS boost, but my FPS seemed to be much more stable in general.
     
  16. Oww

    Oww Notebook Enthusiast

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    Couldn't it be because of the option under high performance for cooling of the cpu is set to active instead of passive which ramps up fan speed before slowing the processor down which cools the cpu more so it can mantain higher clocks without throttling
     
  17. DeeVu

    DeeVu That Compsci/Psych Major

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    You are thinking about battery options. High performance in the NVidia Control panel is different. It has to do with how the GPU renders.