Why is my m11xR2 slower compared to ALL of you guys?

While I was playing some shogun 2, I was frustrated that even though the game is awesome, the game looks TERRIBLE on low setting (aside from unit sizes).

So I decided to browse this forum to see what can I do to atleast play on some medium settings.

To my shock, I found that people with lower specs than me can play on low-medium settings without too much lag! Since people have some other preferences of "Stable Frame Rate" I decided to check some videos out using similar or worse M11x rigs. And lo and behold, they have MUCH better performances

This not only applies to Shogun 2, but various other games. It seems like my rig just isn't as good as anyone else's.

Currently Im overclocking 166 at a daily basis, but not only that I am using throttle stop AND I'm using SetPLL to overclock my alienware further to 177, yet I still cannot get the performance I see on youtube

For example

YouTube - ‪Total War Shogun 2 on the M11x‬‏

With the settings this user has, my Shogun 2 runs at 10-15 FPS, which is significantly lower than what he can do!

These are my current M11x R2 Specs

Overclockable Intel Core i7 640UM (4M Cache, 2.266 GHz Max Turbo Frequency)
8GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 800MHz
1GB NVIDIA GeForce GT 335M
500GB SATAII 7,200RPM

My NVIDIA Control Panel Settings

Ambient Occlusion - OFF
Anisotropic Filtering - 4X
Antialiasing Gamma Correction - OFF
Antialiasing Mode - Application Controlled
Antialiasing Setting - Application Controlled
Antialiasing Transparency - OFF
CUDA GPU - ALL
Maximum Prerendered Frames - 3
Multi-display/Mixed GPU Accel - Compatibility Performance Mode
Texture Filtering Anisotropic Sample Optimization - Prefer Maximum Performance
Texture Filtering Negative LOD Bias - Clamp
Texture Filtering Quality - High Performance
Texture Filtering Trilinear Optimization - ON
Threaded Optimization - AUTO
Triple Buffering - OFF
Vertical Sync - Force OFF


Also my computer system score is 2.8, which I also noticed is lower than you guys, what am I doing wrong?

 

First of all your 2.8 is correct since the desktop intel graphics are responsible for that. R1 users usually have higher WEI scores since they are set to dedicated graphics manually.
I have never played shogun but it looks like a CPU intensive game. You seem to know what your doing but just verify your CPU clock speeds first(you probably already did this)
Next I would check and make sure the GT335M is running while shogun is running. On the Nvidia control panel click 'Desktop' and then 'Show Notification Tray Icon' while shogun is running it should verify the 335M is also running.
Sorry if this doesn't help, you seem like you know what you are talking about.

 

Im betting Optimus didn't swith to the 335M and you need to whitelist it.

 

Make sure that CPU-Z shows 2 cores and 4 threads. More than 1 person has accidentally turned off one of their CPU cores in msconfig. Post a screen shot of ThrottleStop while running TS Bench or Prime95 or wPrime at full load. What TDP/TDC settings are you using?

 

Here you go... I do have the 2 cores it seems

Also Kevman, that is the first thing I check when my game is running slow

 

Figured. Just in case, hah. I'm sure unclewebb will know what to do with those screenshots.

 

Quick little set guide.
Ambient Occlusion - OFF
Anisotropic Filtering - OFF
Antialiasing Gamma Correction - OFF
Antialiasing Mode - Application Controlled
Antialiasing Setting - Application Controlled
Antialiasing Transparency - OFF
CUDA GPU - ALL
Maximum Prerendered Frames - 8
Multi-display/Mixed GPU Accel - SINGLE Performance Mode
Texture Filtering Anisotropic Sample Optimization - Prefer Maximum Performance
Texture Filtering Negative LOD Bias - Clamp
Texture Filtering Quality - High Performance
Texture Filtering Trilinear Optimization - ON
Threaded Optimization - AUTO
Triple Buffering - OFF
Vertical Sync - Force OFF

 

i have my maximum pre rendered framed at 0, whats the difference?

 

would be great if the problem was because I was an idiot and did something wrong, not a tech problem

I'm overseas and it would suck if the solution was only to go to the techies

 

TS looks like it is set up correctly. No problems with your CPU that I can see.

 

Maybe it's throttling for some unknown reason? Are temps okay?

 

im guessing its your CPU, i see that your clocked at 167 but your TS bennchmark is 4 seconds slower than mine. @167 i receive a score of 36sec and with setpll at 180 i get a score of 26sec. significantly better that yours, and im using the exact same processor. This could be numerous reasons.

Your CPU is throttling,
You have way to many processes/services running in the back round
Also try overclocking GPU (recommend EVGA precsision)
Also could possibly be your config of the game. it maybe only using 1 core instead of two. try downloading the latest patch, at look at the forums specific to that game

 

SParky323, Throttlestop (And Unclewebb can back me on this one) Is VERY particular about what you have running in the background. Its not very good for determining the actual speed. In fact, turning everything off on my laptop increases my TS time in 32mil by about 6-7 seconds.

It is possible that his cpu is throttling, but it would seem more plausible that something else is causing the lower frame rates. One thing I would try to do is disable the out of game control in Nvidia's control panel and allow the game to choose the settings first to make sure there was not a conflict there.

Secondly get intel's burn test and run it to see what your temps are looking like.

Simple things but we can figure out what causes this with some basic trouble shooting.

 

the demo ran fine with mines, and I wasn't even OCing. It's all about having the right settings in game. I noticed the important thing to have on High were shaders. Big visual difference.

 

1) Unfortunately I'm not THAT good with computers and have no idea what throttling means.

2) Actually it's the other way, I do not like running alot of programs at once.
When I'm playing games, I actually turn everything off except Throttlestop and the game

3) Overclocking GPU? I had no idea you could do that... Huh I should give that a look but the thing is as the video I posted said, the OP who is also a member of this website did NOT overclock ANYTHING.

My main issue is that how could he do so much better than me when he didnt even Overclock

4) Game settings are fine


EDIT: Oh right my temps

My Temperatures are fine, I've always roamed around 50 to 57 degrees
The highest I've ever gone was 61 or 63

 

Those temps are fine, but what are those temps from, (CPU, GPU, what program are you using to monitor?)

Try the intel burn test, it will test for instability as well as if there is actually a heat problem.

Can you post a screenshot of the in game settings?

 

Throttle is the way cpu reduces it's clock to save energy, I think.

Overclocking GPU just improves your performance a little.

Did you switch to performance mode and have plugged in while playing?

 

Well I figured out why my computer was so slow in Shogun 2


I had every graphics setting to low and I decided to actually read what I did wrong. So i mouse over to the last setting by the name of "Shader Model 3 (low)"

It said on mouseover "To improve performance, increase the number of shaders" which my only option was Shader Model 3 (High)

When I clicked on it, lo and behold, my ingame graphics were not only great but my game also ran much better! I even turned overclocking OFF (Plus no throttlestop and SETPLL) because I thought I was doing something wrong.

My game runs perfectly now

Question is why does a higher setting (is it?) increase my FPS and gameplay performance while making my game look much better?

 

It is possible that the shader model in the game just didn't agree with the card though I am far from an expert in the matter. The 335m has a 4.0 shader model, maybe the high setting utilizes that and the compatibility with the card goes up. Sadly I have never had time to sit down and truly test how different shader models effect different cards.

Are you running SetPLL on a daily basis? If you are then please check here. Try running that and see if your timings are off, its a common problem on laptops when running SetPLL/SetFSB and can throw off just about any game.

The timing being off can have different effects but as far as I know it can make games look like they are running badly when they really are not. Let me know.