Please tell me what part is lacking :(

as above title. Im seriously frustrated... my favorite MMO Cabal Online doesnt seem to run very well, framerates of around 50-60. These other 2 systems are pushing 110+ fps easily, even with higher settings. What am i missing please tell im aware of the 60Hz refresh rate, but at times with many effects/players that FPS drops to 40-ish, while these 2 other systems are going strong.

which hardware or software part am i lacking?

system 1, Ci7 720qm, 8GB 1333MHz RAM, HD4670 (stock clocks), Win7 (laptop)
system 2, Ci3 (2.93GHz), 4GB RAM, GTS250 (desktop), WinXP

I really really dont know which part is lacking. I have already done the following:
Disable unnecessary services
Use Readyboost from flashdrive
Overclock GPU, + ATT tweaks
Lower res from 1080 to custom res
Reinstall Win7 and game completely fresh
Kept all drivers new
Disable all unneeded devices
GPU/CPU not throttling

 

Well the desktop is quite more powerful in general. So that's understandable.

The other machine however... are you sure its also pushing 100fps? 4670m is quite very much so weaker than a GTS250.

I seriously doubt Cabal would be so limited by a dual core CPU.

 

desktop i3 is better than i5-520m? i wasnt really sure about this part though..

yes the other system is easily running at 110+, minimum was 88fps i ever saw. could it be clock speeds affecting? i think the i7 does turbo to higher speeds than my i5...

 

graphics card

on a side note, 50+ fps should not be something that caused you any problems.

 

omm sorry corrected my post a bit... System 1 is also Mobility HD4670, identical to mine, but mine is overclocked much higher.

 

how can you even tell a difference at that high of a framerate?

 

MMO's can be played at 20 fps...

 

I've seen discussions like this about CS 1.6 - people complaining that their system only gets 300 FPS while their friends get 550 FPS.

Here's a pro-tip: most monitors refresh 60 times a second. 3D-ready monitors refresh 120 times a second. If you're on a typical monitor, 60 FPS will look the same as 100 FPS, or 200 FPS, or 6,893,552 FPS. 30 FPS is often viewed as the threshold of "playability", but this is subjective. 50-60 FPS is right on the verge of what's likely to effectively display on your monitor, so don't worry about trying to get more - it makes no difference.

 

Emphasis mine, and that's likely your problem. Drop back to stock clocks and see what you get as your GPU could very well be throttling.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

im aware of the 60Hz refresh rate, but during high effects times the fps drops to 40-ish, and thats quite visible. Besides, the fact that my lappy cant output 100+ fps is whats killing me lol.

rschauby: this MMO is not your average quest and raiding type game. Theres quite some player skill needed, 20fps just wont cut it

saturnotaku: nop its not a throttling issue. i've checked already thx~

 

your laptop can't output 100 fps regardless. even if the engine can render 5000 frames each second, you're capped at 60.

 

Use Vsync if you have the option to do so. It will cap your FPS at 60 and you will lose screen tearing. Like most people here said, there is no use in running a game at 100FPS if your screen doesn't output more than 60.

Sometimes the card heats up more and it can throttle if it generates large useless FPS numbers with no visual difference.

 

Buy a new laptop?

 

thebluepill: my dad would pwn me

emm maybe i should edit the original post a bit, the point is that its not up to standard with other systems, and FPS does drop below 45..

which optimization or what hardware is tying me down?

 

In game, try turning off Anti Aliasing and Antisropic Filtering.

The machine you are using just isn't spec'd high enough to go as high a frame rate as you want with the graphical settings you are using. Its like asking why my VW Golf wont hit 210mph.. Just aint going to happen.

 

Antisrophic Filtering is actually not so hard on the system. I depends some times, but AA is what you want to turn down for visual gain.

 

thebluepill: AA is off, but then, i've tried with the same settings on all 3 systems, and the result is same. The other 2 systems can push even higher settings and still stay comfortably above 60.

im wondering which part of this lappy is losing out, you see. Does 1333MHz 8GB ram affect a lot compared to 1066MHz 4GB?

 

I'm confused. Please clarify your laptops specs, and the specs of the other systems.

 

The common denominator between those other two systems is that their CPU's are notably faster than yours. That might be your bottleneck with this game, though that's not usually the case with modern games.

Otherwise, the fact that you've overclocked your GPU indicates to me that you'd know if your model had a gimped version, so I assume that's not it.

If it's not a CPU-bound game or a gimped or bad GPU (my Envy 14's first 5650m worked really poorly before crapping out entirely), then there's gotta be something else going on with your system - background processes, virus, or something like that. It could even be something in the game's config file - I've seen major and minor problems in games fixed by easy but not always intuitive config tweaks.

 

His System:
Dell Studio XPS 1647 i5-520M, HD 4670 1GB GDDR3 800/925 (8gb Ram?)


system 1: i7 -720qm, 8GB 1333MHz RAM, HD4670 (stock clocks), Win7 (laptop)
system 2: i3 (2.93GHz), 4GB RAM, GTS250 (desktop), WinXP



- That Ram is a little bit faster and can have an impact. 1333 seems to be the sweet-spot. And the i7 is faster if you have a multi-threaded app.

 

HTwingnut: woops! my system: i5-520M, HD4670M GDDR3 (800/925 core/memory), 1066MHz 4GB RAM, WD scorpio black 7200rpm

Fat Dragon: is i3 desktop faster than my i5 mobile? i was thinking this was the case too, but then usually games are more GPU dependant.. maybe this might be it. Meaning that clockspeeds are more important?

And what do you mean by a gimped GPU, as in clocks are same, but performance is lower?

 

Not knowing the generation or model (no i3's are vendor-clocked at 2.93 GHz as far as I could find), I can't be certain what the gap is, but according to Passmark's charts, most desktop i3's are about 50-100% faster than the i5-520m, and the i7-720m comes in around 50% faster. That's just based on their benchmarks and there are plenty of other benchmarks that would place performance in certain applications at certain levels, but generally your i5 offers about 2/3 the performance of those other two CPU's. Most games are indeed GPU-bound and not limited by modern CPU's, but that's the logical performance difference between the computers in question, so maybe Cabal Online is CPU heavy.

A gimped GPU usually means lower stock clocks - often supplied on lower-binned chips (meaning the silicon's lower-quality with less performance potential). Sometimes it's limited by slow memory or a slower memory bandwidth, and in a few cases, like the 555m from Nvidia, some models even have fewer shader cores. Gimped GPU's are found on certain models from certain vendors, such as the stock 450 MHz clocks on the Envy 14's 5650m. However, if you're successfully overclocking your GPU, it's probably not a gimped version, and even if it is, your overclock is probably negating the original gimping of the GPU.

 

MMORPG's enjoy high clocked dual cores or quad cores cpu's.
I think this may be the limiting factor - but I doubt it would produce such a radical drop in FPS (on the other hand, let's put that desktop aside).
Comparing the two laptops, performance should be nearly identical... unless the game wants more cpu power... in which case, your dual core wouldn't be able to keep up in certain situations.

You mentioned your gpu is overclocked... try removing the overclock and running the game on stock clocks.
Having said that, also make sure to remove any and all bloatware from your system (if you have it) and as a result processes that might be using laptop's resources.

 

thanks Fat Dragon for telling that .. so likely its CPU limiting only @@"

Deks: thanks for that info about MMOs.
Thats what i was wondering, why the difference in FPS is so huge. I think quad core or high clocks probably is the key, as my lappy can also produce 90+ FPS in lower effects situations.

Another thing i was wondering too, the other (nearly identical) laptop is full of running processes (video streaming, dl managers this and that), nearly full HDD, while mine is stark bare, only running app is Rivatuner (for OC), not even an antivirus ><

 

Off topic but damn, first time I've seen someone here playing Cabal lol. I used to play that 3 years ago, the only mmo I've been addicted to really. How is the game now and prices? I quit around lvl 14x blader, it was too much of a grindfest at that point. It was pretty bot rampant and crap at the time. Also there's cabal 2 in development.

On my old toshiba I used to manage just fine. Kind of weird you have problems with better specs. I think the only laggy portions were nation wars and chaos arena or whatever it was called.

 

ahah its the most addictive MMO everrr (IMO) .. theres too many additions since 3 years ago, you might want to install it again to see for yourself ^^

i wonder too, could CPU bottleneck the FPS due to screen resolution? i notice yours is 1280x800, while mine is 1920x1080.

seems like CPU is the cause of it all

 

Your cpu is very powerful. Your gpu is probably the bottleneck. An i5 520m will not cause a bottleneck unless paired with a gtx680 lol or playing gta 4.

The only reason I can think of it slowing down is it overheating and throttling down or your power supply cannot take your overclocked graphics card power consumption. However you seem to think that is no problem. Try with default clocks if safe and see if it improves.

If it doesn't then see if anything is running in the background like something downloading in the background that could cause slowdown or an anti-virus software.

Final thing is superfetch on windows 7 can cause lags in games.
Try disabling it and see if your fps increases. Sometimes it likes just to access all the time that may cause some games to not work well.

Disable Windows 7 SuperFetch

 

power consumption you say.. hmm this COULD be another cause too!! One difference between the 2 lappys is mine uses 90w, while de other uses 135w adapters...

i'll try playing with GPU clocks and see. As for the superfetch.. ?

 

after playing around, i find that my i5 does in fact throttle sometimes due to heat.. 18x 18x and will drop to 14x or maybe less for second, den go back up. Throttlestop does not seem to solve this problem at all. As for the GPU overclocks, by lowering the clocks indeed it put out less heat and was less problematic.

So, disabling turboboost at all would it solve this throttling issue? Only the CPU is throttling, GPU is fine

 

I hear people undervolt there cpu's and gpu's but there is no point doing it in my opinion as I like everything stock.

I know for a fact that if the psu cannot output the power needed one of the cpu or gpu will clock down unless it is running at 90 degrees which will mean it will have to otherwise its finished.
I personally think you should run everything stock and see if theres dust inside the vents or near the cpu that may cause it to throttle if it does overheat.

 

hmm ... yea i will try this power thingy. My lappy model does have this particular trouble. Its not really VERY hot. around 67C only thats with overclocks.

do you happen to know how to undervolt i5 without paying for CPU Genie?

(wish i could +rep you again )

 

Ask people who know how to do it as my brother has undervolted his q9300 but I have no experience in doing this. I just know people do this as it takes less electricity and there is not much performance difference.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...arket-upgrades/235824-undervolting-guide.html

This throttlestop guide could be useful:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...arket-upgrades/531329-throttlestop-guide.html

Advantages of Undervolting
- Cooler CPU (5 to 20c cooler)
- More battery life (15-30mins more)
- Less Fan noise & activity
- Longer overall notebook life
- Eco-Friendly