High temps? Low battery gaming? Try this.

The best way to limit heat output and increase battery life is to limit the amount that your computer has to render.

V-sync does this though with the unfortunate effect of dropping your frame rate to 20fps whenever the game dips bellow 30. If your card is too strong then the game will run up to 60; thus we have little control over the actual frame rate.

I found a nice little program that limits the frame rate to your specification called frame limiter.

Download FPS_Limiter_0.2.rar from Sendspace.com - send big files the easy way

It runs through java and the DX8/9 API. To run it simply have java installed and run the .JAR file in the extracted folder - note NOT the .EXE as that won't work.

After you have run FPS Limiter GUI, find the executable that you want to run and the program will create a batch file to run the game with your specified frame rate.

Note that this will not work in DX10/11, only DX8/9. The program will only work with games that can be launched directly and not through a launcher. Most games off of Steam unfortunately will not work, although Far Cry 2 did work for me.

If you limit the frame rate to 30fps you will get a consistent/steady gaming experience and your notebook should run cooler while using less power.

Games that I have used Fps limiter with:

Far Cry 2
Mass Effect
Fallout New Vegas
Crysis
Alice: Madness Returns

 

Gaming on battery is stupid, and having the FPS limited isn't going to change that either.

 

Come now bearclaw, don't be a negatron.

 

LOL, that was funny!

 

I can play mass effect at 720p for 2 hours @30fps how bout you?

You're very foolish if you think limiting the fps will not save you battery life. Gaming on battery is probably stupid if your laptop is out of power by the time the game loads

 

I'm not talking about battery life while gaming. I'm saying gaming on battery is stupid on its own.
If you can sit somewhere for 2 hours, there's probably a AC plug there.

 

How long can you play without the limiter then? Need some kind supporting evidence here if anyone is going to throw you a bone.

 

Lots of games support FPS limiting anyway, you just need to know how to use it.

 

1:45 minutes without the limiter.

Battery life isn't the only benefit though, my 6550m tops out at 55c in Mass Effect with the frame limiter.

I don't need a 'bone' per say, I'm just sharing something that should help people's gaming experiences. You seem to have missed the point here.

As far as games having frame limiters, yes some do, but many don't, so use FPS limiter with those games

 

When I travel across the country in airplanes there's rarely a plug, and airports are rarely replete with them. Or a long car ride (you really should get an AC inverter though).

 

Just because you don't do it, doesn't mean no one else does. If you have nothing to contribute, then don't post, Negatron.

 

Isn't this the same thing as V-sync? Or is it actually limiting the number of frames the game actually processes by making the process sleep?

 

I'm not entirely sure of how of it works but it does it through the directx API. it isn't like Vsync because it will not try to round of the frame rate to a multiple of your refresh rate; examples being 20fps, 30fps, 60fps.

I can say that there is 0 performance loss considering the Java program uses almost no CPU cycles.

Just try it for yourself I suppose.

 

FPS limiter won't help matters. System is still rendering same amount, but just displaying frames at a fixed interval.

BTW, M11x is what gaming on battery is all about. On battery, can get a solid 2.5 hours with most demanding games and system doesn't downclock at all.

Java and no CPU cycles is an oxymoron.

 

You are very wrong, the system is not rendering the same amount...

The difference between rendering 60fps and 30fps can add up to almost 50% GPU load.

GPU load + CPU load = less battery life + more heat.

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I have an M11x. You cannot get 2.5 hours out of the most demanding games without using the power saver mode.

The m11x R1 tops out at 55wh with full load.

Crysis consumes about 40wh in my tests with stock 335m clocks and the CPU @ 1.6ghz.

That is a little over an hour an a half of full power gaming with a 65wh battery.

 

So here is my experience:
FPS limiting has a small effect on the battery life. But the negative effects are that the game feels unsmooth 30FPS are the limit and the game LAgS.

It much more senceful to undervolt the GPU/CPU.

 

It still renders at the full frame rate it and only displays at whatever the limiter is set at. I doubt this java program can get within the GPU and game code to do otherwise. With my M11x, I gamed on battery playing Bad Company 2 for over two hours and still had over an hour of battery life left for surfing and whatever.

 

Bad company 2 is severely cpu bound. The 335m is simply not able to stretch its wings and run the game on full load. An m11x R2 running at high performance will get much less battery life because the CPU will be able to feed the GPU more information and thus increase its load. From what I have read the r2 averages 10fps more in bad company 2 and thus will likely get less battery life than you.

If you don't believe that you are gpu limited then run MSI afterburner and check your GPU load while playing the game.

Crysis on the other hand is not as limited by the GPU. With the exception of a few of the later cpu bound levels, the game squeezes out nearly 95% of the GPU at stock clocks. You can't really compare the stress brought by Crysis to Bad Company 2.

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No, the GPU doesn't simply render the frames and not display them. What ever frames are limited are simply not rendered. If that were not the case then computer graphics would be very redundant. The DirectX API simply tells the GPU to render 30 frames in the scene and not any more.

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30fps is not laggy by any means and your saved battery life will depend on how much fps you are actually saving. if you normally get 35 fps then limiting it to 30 will only give you an extra few minutes. On the other hand, if you are averaging 60 fps and you limit it to 30, you will save a ton of battery life.

just try it out and see for yourself.

 

I will try it on my M11x next chance I get. So considering I can exceed 2 hours easily with BFBC2 I should be able to exceed 3 hours by your estimation.

 

You wont get an extra hour from BC2 because you are already playing at or under 30fps most of the time. Try a game that is not cpu limited. It won't be as much of a difference in any game where you are already at 30fps.

all in all don't expect huge gains, I gained 15 minutes in Mass Effect. Still, 15 minutes is 15 minutes.

In something older like doom 3 or half life 2 you should theoretically get much more since you can actually run those games at 60fps with an m11x.

 

Maybe Duke Nukem Forever. I haven't gotten too far in that game.

 

You will get some nice gains in Fallout 3/New Vegas, so long as you don't max out the graphics.

The frame rate is all over the place in those games, outside it can be 30-45 but inside it jumps to 60. It gets on my nerves personally.

 

Whatever makes you happy dude