Overclocking the GT 555M card.:-)

Hi Jon yes your right for newer games 16x9 would be more suitable but I tend to play some of the slightly older games more. I will be trying Crysis 2 and Deus Ex though at some point and will heed your advice.

Played Resident Evil 5 at 1080p DX 10 V sync on all settings high plus AA 8Xc and getting an average of 50 fps in benchmark.

Batman Arkham Asylum 1080p AA x2 all settings very high and physx on normal average 47 fps on benchmark.

These results are very pleasing I didn't expect anything like that from this laptop.

 

What sort of clocks are people using that is stable with the latest driver? (285) as i am yet to try it, although i dont feel i need to during games but its nice to compare the difference.

Nice results btw Matt especially at 1080p!

 

Just tried a 760, 1520, 970 clock in fallout 3 and got about a 10fps increase with only like 3c increase which isnt bad.

 

Hi Sam

Using the latest Beta driver I have mine OC at 770, 1540 mem 980. I been playing BF2 today and temps didn't go above 66 C so I think from what I have read anything below 70 c is very safe.

I'm using the MSI Afterburner software. The highest it will allow the OC is 970 it would be interesting if it wasn't limited to this as I think 980 maybe hitting a max of 70c or under wouldn't be out of the question.

I was sat next to my wife tonight playing while she was watching TV and she didn't even notice the fan noise. I think that I have been lucky with my fan as it doesn't constantly spin up and down as others have complained about.

My laptop is silent during normal use and the fans only kick in when I game and even then I don't find the noise intrusive.

I fired up the original deus Ex earlier today and played it using the Intel HD chip the game ran really well and because the Nvidia chip wasn't being used I was gaming in near silence.

Overal I am very impressed with this laptop.

I have a reasonable desktop PC which uses a 920 Do stepping clocked to 3.8GHZ, Gtx 480, 8GB ram and SSD. This can pretty much max any game.

But in comparrison to that this laptop is still very impressive.

 

you have your core clock at 970?! christ :-O

 

Yeah how the heck did you manage that? Have you overclocked the voltage? I thought msi stopped at like 7 something. And btw Matt your temps are really low, i normally get low 70's when gaming up to about 79 which is classed as normal. So are you living in a fridge? Lol

 

@ Jon & Sam Lol what a numpty I got my numbers well wrong there guys, no wonder you were shocked.

I've corrected it now.

@Sam no an igloo. lol not really just a normal temp home.

 

@ Jon & Sam Lol what a numpty I got my numbers well wrong there guys, no wonder you were shocked.

I've corrected it now.

@Sam no an igloo. lol not really just a normal temp home.

 

Woah I don't know what happened there multiple replies. That's weird how can I delete them as I cannot see an option?

 

Well I've been doing a bit more tinkering and just hit 14111 in 3D Mark 06.

Temps 61c no artifacts but need to test more with a more stressfull gaming run.

If it is stable and not over 70c I will leave it at that I think.

790
1580
970


NVIDIA GeForce GT 555M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-2670QM Processor,Dell Inc. 0XN71K score: 14111 3DMarks

RE 5 1080p Vsync On All settings High 8xCAA 47.2 FPS @ 62C
Batman 1080p Vsync On All settings High 2xAA Normal Physx 46 FPS @ 63C
Dawn Of War II 1080p Vsync On All settings High 36 FPS @ 65c
Gears Of war 1080p Vsync On Maxed out Average 55 Fps @ 65C

 

nice and yeah your temps are really low... playing crysis2 and whatnot can hit 80 sometimes

just as a heads up... can clock memory to the max (1080) without issue, have been experimenting, am running 770core 1000mem now and am kinda worried at how overclockable this card is although it definitely starts complaining once the core's over 780-ish, stress tested with crysis2 for a few hours and ended up crashing

kudos for breaking the 14k barrier though, think my last run threw up around 13900 and that was with the core at 760 and mem at 960

 

Those clocks are more like it. Still really low temps, nice result though! I might push mine to that clock and see what its like.

 

@ Jon yes I was hoping to hit the 14k i'm pretty settled on this now. I'm going to try a heavy session on Crysis 2 later and see how that goes fingers crossed.

Your CPU is better than mine which would account for your score at a lower clock. You'd probably hit about 14.5 at my clocks.

@Sam yeah still under 70c which is amazing I think I have been pretty lucky with this laptop.

Just to be clear to everyone I'm now using EVGA precision software instead of MSI afterburner.

My laptop runs on Optimus most of the time and I'll only run the EVGA OC profile on games that require a boost. I don't intend to use the OC all the time as I don't see the point if a game doesn't need it.

My initial aim was to get this laptop at a point where I could game comfortably at 1080p and I feel that I have achieved that now.

 

Well i am glad you can now comfortably game at 1080p. I have the 900p screen so tbh i havent really found a game that NEEDS a boost, even at max settings. I still overclock occassionally to see the differences etc.

Btw how do you like EVGA compared to msi? Does it have better features etc?

 

running 770/1000 now... staying with these clocks, comfortably crosses 14k in 3dmark06 so am happy :-D

 

770/1000 - I am using these clocks for months now. Very stable.

 

@ Sam

I actually prefer it as I find the fonts and colours better. Also it doesn't limit the OC so much.

Well tried out Crysis 2 last night using 1080p res with tesselation pack and High res packs installed and running. Setting Very High. Average 30fps but tha's with not much happening would not be playable once the action heats up.

So for me it is unplayable at that resolution however even at 16x9 it's not that great lower resolutions are fine though.

I only count around 45fps being playable as once any action kicks in a framerate drop below 30 is very unpleasant.

Heat wise max was 67C averaged around 65C so all ok and no crashes or lockups.

I read earlier in this thread that someone was playing at 1080p with vsync on and getting 30-40 Fps that's utter nonsense.

 

you dont have optimus right ??? I love down of war 2 but i can run it only on low,same with heroes 5,detect only Intel GMA.and i see no way nvidia to release fix for that problem.

 

Right click the executable, and select which GPU for the program to run on.

 

Yes i have done this many time.Twiking with nvidia control panel,but with no luck.The games are made that way and since they are old neither nvidia will made drivers fix neither devolpers will made patch .But no problem now there is StarCraft 2 and heroes 6.

 

Yes I do have optimus.

Both of those games run fine using the 555m.

I went into the nvidia panel and entered managed 3D settings then program settings choose game from list then select which card to use hit apply then all done.

 

Yes this is all you need to do. But make sure you select the games .exe otherwise it will not change.

 

Question: For those of you running the 770/1000 settings did you leave the shader clock @ 1520 MHz or did you allow it to go to 1540 MHz?

Decided to check out EVGA Precision after Matt GB mentioned it, so far I like it better than MSI After Burner, Thanks for the Tip.


..

 

shader clock's locked to double the core when using nvidia performance tools so it's 1540 for me

 

Thanks, it's locked in EVGA also but you can unlock it and set it back to 1520 if desired.

 

And why would you want to leave it at 1520? Is your GPU acting up at 1540? I'm asking because I'm forced to use 750/1500 clocks or I'm getting artifacts and I'm wondering, which setting is the culprit - core clock or shader clock. I might try EVGA to unlock the sliders and try increasing the clocks separately.

 

I'm not sure why you'd want to go back to 1520, I just noticed it was possible with EVGA and wonder what others were having success with. Also with EVGA you can increase the shader clock higher the 1540 if one so desired.

EVGA is a lot like AfterBurner with the ability to do even more tweaking, even the properties menu's look exactly like AfterBurner's do.

..

 

Hey does anyone have the settings for Skyrim?

 

Skyrim runs terrible on mine.

I don't think it's using the Gt555m card as i'm only getting around 30 fps at 720p with lowest settings.

Yet Crysis 2 and other higher games can run at that on high settings at 1080p.

So somethings not right.

I've tried everything.

 

Matt GB: I assume you tried adding the .exe in NVidia Control Panel to use the NVidia card? Have you also tried right-clicking on the game executable and selecting "run with high-performance card" or whatever the wording is? Grabbing the wrong .exe to use in the Control Panel will cause it to ignore that setting, you have to get the actual game executable.

 

Seems like this is the best place for Skyrim performance discussion so:

Just a couple of observations that have helped with Skyrim performance so far.

Is Skyrim a little too quite for anyone else? Even at max volume the sound was a little wimpy compared to what I normally get out of the L702x. If you want to vastly increase volume level do the following:

1. Go to 'Playback devices' in Windows. (right-click the Volume icon next to Window's clock.)
2. Select your default audio device and click the 'Properties' button.
3. Go into the 'Enhancements' tab and check "Loudness Equalization".
4. Press 'OK' and 'OK'.

I also clicked fake surround sound, anyone else have any luck with this?

Next I've disabled V-sync in the nvidia control panel and even though it introduced more tearing, the improved responsiveness has been great.

Sp has anyone found that sweet spot for skyrim yet? I'm nearly happy with where I have it but would love to see some other people's configs.

Lastly, shadows is anyone else experiencing flickering shadows during the day? Skyrim Shadow Flicker / Strobe Bug - YouTube

 

Thanks for trying to help Matt.

But i have tried all that already. I have the Steam version so no option on the .exe to right click etc. I set it too Gt 555 in Nvidia panel but it just doesn't work I also tried using the YouTube fix no good either.

I did have it running on it at one point but after a while it just switched back to the Intel HD could tell because the fan went quiet and GPU was cool and framerate nose dived.

Set Global setting to Gt 555m and Laptop power to max but alas no good either.

Wish I'd bought the damn 360 version now Grrrr.

 

Matt GB:

You should be able to get at the exe for steam games by navigating to:

*install directory*\Steam\steamapps\common

In my case its: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common

Hope that helps.

 

Hi Jennings once again thanks for trying to help this forum really does have some very nice people on it.

I had already tried that solution but alas no luck it still eventually switched to the Intel HD weird I know.

Anyway I eventually sorted it out after much trial and error. What I eventually did was to uninstal the Dell Quickset software and voila now no problems. I suspect that the Quick set's power management was interferring with the GPU.

So all sorted now and runs really well, I've just lost the use of my FN volume adjuster and of course wave studio key.

But i'll have more of a fiddle and see if I can reinstall it without it causes issues.

Thanks to all that tried to help though.

 

Matt GB: I figured you'd tried. Figured I'd mention it anyway, you never know.

One thing I've found with Steam games: sometimes the .exe that you think launches the game is not actually the right .exe. I don't know the correct one for Skyrim though, so sorry.

 

He there Mat try adding the steam.exe in the controll panel to the the nvidia chip that should help

 

on the topic of Skyrim and the GT 555M, I've noticed a few things,

1. As Jenings mentioned, the sound is very quiet, I've had to really turn the volume up on my L702x to hear the ambient effects etc.

2. I hooked mine up to my 32" LCD and I've noticed that it looks a whole lot better (quality wise) than it does on my laptop screen. Take the smoke for example on the title page, you can make out the edges of the smoke on the laptop screen, however on the LCD it looks very very smooth.

3. Shadows! urghh they look about the same on ultra as they do on low, however having them on ultra = taking a big FPS hit. The shadows kind of 'flicker' every now and again. But I think this issue has been brought up in Skyrim forums and I reckon a patch will be out to beef up the ultra shadows.

As for my own settings, I have the whole thing on Ultra apart from shadows, which are on low. I'm running it at 1920x1080 and I'm getting around 20-30 FPS on average (with the overclocked settings on the first page).

I also read that the PC port of Skyrim is using the CPU to work the graphics, instead of the GPU which is why PC users are noticing huge drops in FPS. But I'm not really clued up on all of that so I'm not so sure

Andy

 

Hi Matt that is a good point so I've listed the correct exe info for the Steam Version below as it might help others.

D:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\skyrim and use the TESV Icon for exe.

 

andyguk, did you try the volume normalization? It fixed the volume issue for me. And how are you running it on Ultra at 1920x1080? I've overclocked to what seems to be the regular rates and at 1920x1080 it runs too slow. If I bump it down to 720p it runs really well with most options cranked up.

Here is my SkyrimPrefs file from C:\Users\**Username**\Documents\My Games\Skyrim

Whats yours?

Code:

[Display]
iTexMipMapSkip=0
bFXAAEnabled=1
fMeshLODLevel2FadeDist=3072.0000
fMeshLODLevel1FadeDist=4096.0000
fSpecularLODStartFade=800.0000
fLightLODStartFade=1400.0000
fTreesMidLODSwitchDist=0.0000
iShadowMapResolution=512
fShadowBiasScale=0.5000
iShadowMaskQuarter=3
iBlurDeferredShadowMask=0
fShadowDistance=2000.0000
iMaxDecalsPerFrame=30
iMaxSkinDecalsPerFrame=10
iAdapter=0
iSize W=1280
iSize H=720
iMultiSample=2
iMaxAnisotropy=2
iPresentInterval=1
bFull Screen=1
fInteriorShadowDistance=3000.0000
bFloatPointRenderTarget=1
fGamma=0.9200
iShadowFilter=3
fDecalLOD2=1500.0000
fDecalLOD1=1000.0000
fShadowLODStartFade=200.0000
iTexMipMapMinimum=0
bTransparencyMultisampling=0
iWaterMultiSamples=0
iShadowMode=3
bTreesReceiveShadows=0
bDrawLandShadows=0
bDrawShadows=1
fLeafAnimDampenDistEnd=4600.0000
fLeafAnimDampenDistStart=3600.0000
fMeshLODFadePercentDefault=1.2000
fMeshLODFadeBoundDefault=256.0000
fMeshLODLevel2FadeTreeDistance=2048.0000
fMeshLODLevel1FadeTreeDistance=2844.0000
iScreenShotIndex=0
bShadowMaskZPrepass=0
bMainZPrepass=0
sD3DDevice="Intel(R) HD Graphics Family"
[Imagespace]
iRadialBlurLevel=1
bDoDepthOfField=1
[LOD]
fLODFadeOutMultActors=8.0000
fLODFadeOutMultItems=7.1000
fLODFadeOutMultObjects=7.0000
fLODFadeOutMultSkyCell=1.0000
[Grass]
fGrassStartFadeDistance=4000.0000
b30GrassVS=0
fGrassMaxStartFadeDistance=7000.0000
fGrassMinStartFadeDistance=400.0000
[Decals]
bDecals=1
bSkinnedDecals=1
uMaxDecals=250
uMaxSkinDecals=50
uMaxSkinDecalsPerActor=40
[TerrainManager]
fTreeLoadDistance=40000.0000
fBlockMaximumDistance=150000.0000
fBlockLevel1Distance=40000.0000
fBlockLevel0Distance=25000.0000
fSplitDistanceMult=1.1000
bShowLODInEditor=0
[BlurShaderHDR]
bDoHighDynamicRange=1
[BlurShader]
bUseBlurShader=0
[Launcher]
bShowAllResolutions=1
uLastAspectRatio=3
[Water]
iWaterReflectHeight=512
iWaterReflectWidth=512
bUseWaterDisplacements=1
bUseWaterRefractions=1
bUseWaterReflections=1
bUseWaterDepth=1
[MAIN]
fSkyCellRefFadeDistance=150000.0000
bGamepadEnable=1
bCrosshairEnabled=1
fHUDOpacity=1.0000
bSaveOnPause=1
bSaveOnTravel=1
bSaveOnWait=1
bSaveOnRest=1
[GamePlay]
bShowFloatingQuestMarkers=1
bShowQuestMarkers=1
iDifficulty=2
[Interface]
bDialogueSubtitles=0
bGeneralSubtitles=0
bShowCompass=1
[Controls]
fMouseHeadingSensitivity=0.0260
fGamepadHeadingSensitivity=0.5800
bAlwaysRunByDefault=1
bInvertYValues=0
bGamePadRumble=1
[Particles]
iMaxDesired=750
[SaveGame]
fAutosaveEveryXMins=15.0000
[AudioMenu]
fAudioMasterVolume=1.0000
fVal7=1.0000
uID7=0
fVal6=1.0000
uID6=0
fVal5=1.0000
uID5=0
fVal4=1.0000
uID4=0
fVal3=0.5000
uID3=466532
fVal2=0.8000
uID2=554685
fVal1=0.8000
uID1=1007612
fVal0=1.0000
uID0=94881
[Clouds]
fCloudLevel2Distance=262144.0000
fCloudLevel1Distance=32768.0000
fCloudLevel0Distance=16384.0000
fCloudNearFadeDistance=9000.0000
[General]
iStoryManagerLoggingEvent=-1
bEnableStoryManagerLogging=0
[Trees]
bRenderSkinnedTrees=1
uiMaxSkinnedTreesToRender=40

 

I'll try the normalizer thanks I'm currently playing on Ultra at 1920x1080 with the overclocked settings on the first page of this thread. I have turned shadows down to low though as they aren't better on any other setting, but you gain FPS from having them on low. I get 20-30 FPS whilst playing.

I will try to get a readout from afterburner or fraps for an exact average

 

the overclocked settings (770/1000) which I've been using for all games actually caused the GT555M to clock back down to stock clocks on skyrim after an hour or two - have dropped back to 760/960 for now but I may try and crank it back up again at some point

I had the same issue as the OP with the game not recognising the GT555M and running with the intel HD card... there are 2 exe's in the steam/steamapps/common/skyrim folder, one's the launcher and the other's the game itself - adding the game exe to the NVIDIA control panel whitelist works, even though the launcher config shows the Intel HD card the game does launch with the GT555M. (same problem as sonic generations... although sonic doesn't let you force the nvidia card, complaining about hardware config changing, grrrrr)

settings-wise I've set it to "high" at 1600*900, disabled antialiasing then under "advanced" settings turned on FXAA which is like the BF3 post-process AA which smoothes the image without a performance hit, never drops below 30fps, averages around 45fps and looks stunning.

I too have the issue with sounds being waaaay too quiet, even at 100%, which considering the l702x can pump out a load of volume is a bit unusual. Will try the fix posted above when I get home

oh, and running the game with a 360 controller works a hell of a lot better than a mouse and keyboard

 

I haven't had a chance to try this out yet but this supposedly makes Skyrim utilize more than 2gb of ram -supposed to offer a performance boost:

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=134

 

Im using a 760/1050 overclock and get nearly a 10fps increase in skyrim. With gpu staying at 75c. Cpu is 85c though after a few hours. Ive also noticed the game is quite quiet. Not much background sound. I use a 360 controller and it is a lot better.

I have set the exe to use more than 2gb but i havent noticed ANY fps increase. Just stops crashing apparently.

 

right click the sound icon in the task bar, go to playback devices, double click the active "speakers" option, go to the "enhancements" tab and click "loudness equalisation"

just turn that on before playing skyrim and the sound will be sorted, remember to turn it off when you're done

760/1050 yeah? using the new beta drivers at all? got an external cooling pad?

had 760/960 going for a while and that clocked back down too... currently haven't had any downclocks from 750/950 :-(

 

used the exe patcher to allow more than 2gb ram... also set my GPU clocks to 750/1000 as I think the problem was the core being at 770

haven't had a crash so far (and was crashing a LOT)

will let ya know

 

NO beta drivers or cooling pad and no crashes. I'll give that sound fix a go thanks. Mine hasnt downclocked by itself before, perhaps 770 is just too high.

 

Sam_A_1992, I'll have to try the non beta drivers, I've been overclocking with the latest beta drivers to 760/950 and getting artifacts followed by eventual hard locks. This is with a cooling pad.

 

Yeah the 285 driver works fine with my 760/1050 oc, no lock ups or ctd's. And only a few degree increase to about 75c. Its the cpu which takes the heat, it got to 86c yestarday after a couple of hours.

 

was doing the same with me dude, am also using the beta drivers... was getting frequent downclocking/crashing and have done 2 things which have stopped those all together

a.) have taken it from 770/1000 to 750/1000, if the core's 760 or above for me it downclocked after a while

b.) did the exe patch to enable the use of more than 2gb ram (large address patch)

since doing both of those I haven't had one crash - don't know which fixed the issue but it's fine now. If the core clock was the problem is may be that the combination of the GPU and CPU being hammered simply overwhelmed the internal sensors (as the GPU temp was never over 70degrees at the time of the downclocking)

either way, difference between 750 and 770 core clock is minimal

 

btw. every chip is different.

The one can handle 840/1080 an the other one stops at 770/1000 or even lower.

That is just normal and caused by different quality of the chips.

Mine seems to be stable at 800/1080 with 74°C