6990M doesn't feel as fast as I think it should...

QUESTIONS: Since we are on the conversation of fps...is it worth it in say a game like Skyrim to use mods to create better visuals and instead of taking a fps hit, lower the games visual setting? Is there any point to add the mod if you were to do this (like will you still notice the mod's visual upgrade with lower game settings to off set the loss of fps)?

 

And opinion it shall stay. Mind you, you've repeatedly broken the site rules about double posting, instead of simply editing your one post.

Back to the first sentence though, that really is just an opinion, since half the site, at minimum, will disagree with you heartily. I for one, think that a 6990M, matching a GTX 460, at stock should be considered Desktop GPU performance. And overclocked as is in Yiddo's build it surpasses a GTX 470 even... so you should seriously consider commenting again since his machine matches most $1,000-$1,200 Desktops. Granted you need to pay the premium for the laptop design and smaller size, but that's what we're here for.

Also, if you think that a 6990M is not considered High End on it's own... you've lost it. You're the kid who probably just states what he wants to use and has a machine that can barely put out.

 

Higher FPS(say in the 60 range) will have drastically higher visual quality in a number of key areas over running at half the framerate(30ish range) with "graphic quality" settings set higher.

 

@imglidinhere although I wholeheartedly disagree with the majority of what he is saying the fact remains dual cards vs a single card for the same price is of course going to be a better deal because you will be futureproofing yourself further than a single card would, I disagree about the FPS and quality settings because I like everyone else on here is maxing comfortably with a single 6990M but the deal is only as good as it is if the option comes with an SSD.

Which it does not.

CPU/RAM etc are all just added extras that will not damage a benchmark result like a second GPU would but the SSD IMO is the single most valuable upgrade you will get because of its ability to run at 5-6 times faster than a 7200RPM drive with 0 noise.

There is no point having the fastest most powerful system in the world if it is not responsive, and does not boot and load fast in fact I have a SATA II SSD in my netbook and it makes a 7200RPM look a slump which is why the option to have one single 6990M which is more than enough for anything you throw at it and pair that with other upgrades that will make sure your entire setup is upto date in every area. This is why I say ignore the hype of having 2 GPU's which will only give the desired performance increase in games that utilise Xfire and get the single card version with as many upgrades as you can.

A 7200RPM should not be an option for a gamer anymore, and if you have played Anno 1404 and sat there looking at the loading screen for 5 minutes you would agree too

 

I consider a video card "high end"(or card setup)when it can play all games available at 60fps or better with all settings maxed. A 6990m alone is not capable of that. Its a very good video card and its capable of producing 60fps fluidly on many games, but there are alot of current gen games(and some games already quite a few years old)that it not capable of doing that with.

 

lmfao. very funny topic now

ntrain. I beat the game with my 6990m I always have fraps on. It does not drop into the teens period. name one area of the game or scene that would dip below 30fps and ill goto the scene and show you a fraps screenshot with the framerates. your kind of hard to understand.

I own crysis and a 6990m, you do not. my opinion on this is more of a fact while your opinion remains opinion(flamewar opinion)

edit to make you less credible. I use an ultra high config that maxes the game further and it rarely drops below 30. sometimes for a second to 28-29.

 

Yes, yes, yes and YES. Modded Skyrim is so much more beautiful than unmodded version. It creates an entirely different experience. If you have a mid range graphics card, just try to get the medium res textures mods when they are available and avoid some mods that cause a serious FPS hits for a small improvement. It's still a huge improvement over vanilla version of the game, no matter the FPS hit.

I use STEP - Skyrim Total Enhancement Project at Skyrim Nexus - Skyrim Mods and community this guide as a baseline to update. The guy who made it should release an entirely new update during the next week. I obviously get the most demanding mod versions for my Desktop with 2GB Radeon 6970 and lower res versions when available for the laptop.



My thoughts about gaming laptops:
Not so long ago, I was also salivating at those huge gaming laptops with either a single Radeon 6990M or Crossfire setups. However I picked up a desktop instead over the Thanksgiving holidays for about $1300-1400 total including monitor and accessories. My single GPU outperforms Ntrain's 6970M Crossfire for a much lower price. I think that right now I have the best of both worlds, a powerful desktop with a portable light laptop (Y470) capable of some gaming. Although I'd love to get LG P330 instead of Y470, I can't really justify the cost. So my total expense for a high end desktop and a laptop was $2000. I might upgrade my desktop to Crossfire in the future, I did buy a PSU with that possibility in mind. However, there is always an issue of microstuttering with dual cards which really bothers me. That doesn't show up on the benchmark scores, and even though you might get a higher FPS counter, the gameplay will actually be choppier in comparison to a single card. There isn't any real need to upgrade it so far, because it can run anything I throw at it comfortably.

So whenever someone is looking for a gaming laptop around that $2000 price range, I'm always tempted to suggest them to get a desktop + laptop combo instead. Obviously everybody is in a different situation regarding mobility and specific needs, however, in my opinion it's the best way to go unless you move around and travel a lot. Lugging around 18.4" inch 12 pound laptops (probably closer to 18 pounds with a power brick/accessories) like Ntrain's in order to take notes on a miniscule desk in a classroom is not my idea of fun. On the other hand traveling somewhere with a Macbook Air and being unable to unwind and play your favorite games for the duration of your trip is also depressing. So I picked something in between and so far I'm pretty happy with the results. I feel that my Sager is becoming obsolete in terms of actual practical use. I still use my good 2.5 year old buddy at home in the bedroom because it has a much nicer screen than Lenovo, but it can't even compare in portability.

You can read about microstuttering here: Micro-Stuttering And GPU Scaling In CrossFire And SLI : Micro-Stuttering, Multi-Card Scaling, And More! There is a good chance that Ntrain is experiencing that with his laptop as well, although I'm not really sure.

 

Try the mods SkyBoost (newer) or TESV (older) for a steroid injection in performance.

 

Post a video up of it running...........please.

 

i did check my "something crysis 1 fans might like" thread in gaming section.

it runs at 30 while recording 1080p video with fraps.

edit.

oooooooooooooooooooooo burn


did it hurt?

here dude

Crysis.mpeg - YouTube


the config is way beyond veryhigh and that picture is a very demanding scene

edit heres the config



con_restricted = 0
r_driver = Dx10
r_displayinfo = 0
sys_spec_Full = 4
r_SSAO_amount = 0.9
r_SSAO_darkening = 0.7
r_SSAO_quality = 2
r_SSAO_radius = 0.3
r_PostProcessEffects = 1
r_HDRBrightOffset = 6
r_HDRBrightOffset = 10
r_HDRlevel = 0.6
r_GlowScreenMultiplier = 0.20
sys_physics_CPU=1
e_precache_level=0
r_ShadersPrecacheAllLights=0
r_ShadersAsyncCompiling=0
e_level_auto_precache_textures_and_shaders=1
r_GeomInstancing =1
r_TextureCompressor=0
r_CullGeometryForLights=1
e_terrain_occlusion_culling_max_dist=200
e_scene_merging_max_tris_in_chunk=128
e_scene_merging_max_time_ms=1
e_scene_merging_compact_vertices=0
ac_templateMCMs=0
r_ShadersIntCompiler=0
e_max_entity_lights=2
e_sky_update_rate=0
e_terrain_normal_map = 1
r_LightsSinglePass = 1
e_view_dist_ratio = 65
e_max_view_dst_spec_lerp = 2
e_view_dist_ratio_vegetation = 45
e_detail_materials_view_dist_z = 128
e_detail_materials_view_dist_xy = 4096
e_shadows = 1
r_ShadowJittering = 0.6
e_shadows_max_texture_size = 1210
r_ShadowBlur = 0
e_gsm_lods_num = 5
e_gsm_range = 3
e_shadows_cast_view_dist_ratio = 2
r_ShadowsMaskResolution = 0
e_shadows_on_alpha_blended = 1
e_shadows_from_terrain_in_all_lods = 1
e_gsm_cache = 1
r_shadowtexformat=4
e_shadows_water=1
sys_LowSpecPak = 0
r_DynTexMaxSize = 50
r_EnvCMResolution = 2
r_EnvTexResolution = 3
r_TexAtlasSize = 2048
r_TexResolution = 0
r_TextureLodDistanceRatio = 0
r_TextureLodMaxLod = 0
r_TexturesFilteringQuality = 0
r_ReflectionsQuality = 3
r_VegetationSpritesTexRes = 32
r_EnvTexUpdateInterval = 0.3
r_TexturesStreaming = 0
r_DynTexAtlasCloudsMaxSize = 12
r_DynTexAtlasSpritesMaxSize= 18
g_joint_breaking=1
e_cull_veg_activation=300
p_max_MC_iters=2000
e_phys_foliage=2
es_MaxPhysDist=200
es_MaxPhysDistInvisible=25
e_phys_ocean_cell=0.5
e_foliage_wind_activation_dist=0
g_breakage_particles_limit=250
p_max_object_splashes=1
p_splash_dist0=15
p_splash_dist1=80
p_splash_force0=10
p_splash_force1=100
p_splash_vel0=4.5
p_splash_vel1=10
v_vehicle_quality=4
p_max_substeps_large_group=3
p_num_bodies_large_group=100
p_enable_triangle_cache = 0
p_sleep_speed_multiple = 32



nearly anything that could be raised was raised.

that my dear friend is a fact. if this were a court case... well....

 

46 FPS? Or is that number something else? (sorry, don't play Crysis)

Interesting thread.

 

yea i was getting 46 fps and i wasnt staring at the ocean or ground or sky. thats what i get when i crank the settings beyond veryhigh. ntrain probably doesnt even own crysis.

 

Awesome, great to know the most demanding game runs very smoothly. The games I play probably won't even dent the 6990m.

 

Thanks for the reply, links, and info.....I plan on building a desktop for fun within the year and I'm sure whatever I build will prob be 2/3 cheaper and a lot stronger than my laptop. I like all the toys though. Lol

 

Ntrain, although you seem knowledgeable and seem very passionate about being opinionated(so much passion/vindictive tenacity that you ignore the edit button).
You come off as a know it all, who in fact, does not know it all.

Furthermore, I bet I can still stomp you in ANY game thrown at me, 1 v 1 even if its my first time. Ill play at 30fps, you can play at 10000 for all I care.

True story.

 

Thats a very demanding scene? LOL! With like no action going on in it? LOL! Sorry, looking that "recording" over, something is quite amiss and settings are not maxed, or the resolution is lowered. When I play Crysis, things look alot smoother, and without all the jagged edges I saw in that recording. Take a real video, in a heavy action scene with the actual fps counter displayed next time. Wouldnt hurt to include the settings page shown in that video as well.

 

You have dual 6970M's care to explain how you compare them to the performance given by a single 6990M. Oh yes I forgot you said on the other page that there is minimal difference between them and the 15% more shaders and higher clocks do nothing.

If you are upset that you spanked all your money on cards that got replaced shortly after release with a much better card I have a spare tissue here for you if you need it. Stop hating its getting boring.

The proof is in the pudding.

 

The problem is there is "no pudding" there Joey. Anybody can cherrypick a scene and easily get 30-40fps on Crysis. Hell a single 6970m will run Crysis at full max settings now with the latest drivers at around 30-40fps on average, but it still runs into too many scenes where the framerate drops where gameplay and graphics are compromised.

When someone can post an actual video showing the machine, stats(GPU-z is a nice program)of the hardware, and the game being set to 1080p native resolution with maxed settings and a game that can play straight for 5-10 minutes smoothly without any major drop in framerate, Ill gladly post my error in statement. SOmething tells me though, that this will never happen. Hell'll post a video myself with a pair of 6970m's where it plays in the 40-50fps range maxed and it still runs into many scenes where the framerate drops significantly.

Sorry Im not playing the role of fanboy on these "high end" laptop video cards. Im just being realistic on what they can do.

 

Sorry, I lost interested after the word ''compromised''.

But I assume you went on to say something about the 6990M being crap and that you need the FPS only your amazing Crossfire setup can produce to be able to game at 1080p otherwise we will all suffer extreme eye strain and die a horrible painful death. The end.

What I didn't see is your response to how you know ANYTHING about the 6990M when you dont even have one?
Or how about some comparison results to show that your opinions are actually true?
Also be interested to see your highest overclock benchmark results on one of your single 6970M's that you own so that I can compare mine to it. As you claim it is only a slight performance increase. Lets see.

3DMark Vantage and 3Dmark11 will do. And leave Tessellation on.

 

Please use Spoiler tags for big images according to the forum rules.

They also have to post their social security number, address and current job position they hold. They are also required to hold up today's newspaper to verify the date, and that they don't come from the future

Free version of fraps only allows 30 seconds of video recording from what I remember. So that person is also required to pay for the full version, or else it doesn't count. All of that just to prove that Ntrain is wrong, which is the most important thing in anybody's life.

Your drops in performance are probably due to microstuttering, like I specified above. Radeon cards have actually the worse case of microstuttering in comparison to Nvidia.

 

Ive never called the 6990m crap. But Im not going to praise it as a high end graphics solution when on its own it is not. It plays many games great with all the eye candy turned on at 60fps, but there are quite a few where it cannot do that. Its as simple as that. If someone wants a true high end solution, they are going to be needing a pair of them(or the Nvidia versions), to truely have a laptop with the performance of a good desktop with an upper tier graphics card.

 

Obviously not, but if you go on youtube or another place with benchmarks being shown on video's there are OBVIOUS procedures being met. And if your not smart enough to figure out that the above video leaves numerous question marks at hand, then thats your own problem. Like I said, it doesnt take too much time or effort to post a video up that leaves NO ROOM for doubt and skeptisim.

And to add, how can I have microstuttering when Im only running and comparing one card? Have you actually ever owned a computer that ran an SLI config? Microstuttering is an overblown phenomenon that isnt going to be anymore noticeable on 2 cards when framerates drop as it would be compared to a single card that chops badly when its own frame rates drop. Both issues can be fully avoided when your cards are run at their optimum in game settings for smooth gameplay. And that means making sure you quality settings are properly set up.

 

Oh gee look - we're comparing laptop GPU's to desktop GPU's. How original ^_^

 

Yes lets not get onto desktop vs notebooks. Because desktops always lose that argument

 

ntrain are you blind ?

I was getting 30 fps running around recording and running at 1080p settings completly maxed and did you even look at the config settings?

during intense action nothing slows down nothing. im not making a video just for you. i could... but i wont because your not exactly a priority.

if you want to be ignorant..well no ones stopping you.

edit.

I found a scene where it dips to 22fps during a cut scene for less then a second. during intese fighting? have you played crysis before

key words LESS SECOND

also crysis 2 is more demanding than crysis 1 by a few frames. check this video out

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swhnDahul30

your knowledge of the 6990m is non existant.

 

All I saw was you cherrypicking a scene with no action, and pasting "settings". For a high res 1080p picture there was alot of jagged edges too. If your going to post a video, do one with the machine and settings verified. I could have easily posted something similiar and claimed anything I wanted to just as easily. Just saying, it is what it is.

 

Actually Im glad you posted that video. And btw, that video was done WITHOUT the DX11/tessellation pack installed. And still regardless its not what I consider very smooth, looks like a PS3 game running. Its not super fluid at all. Maybe some people think this looks great, but I dont when I know how much better it looks and plays at double the framerate.

 

You forgot to add with your amazing crossfire setup.

Anyway back to my requests to prove your ignorant opinions. Get to work.

 

too funny. hes always got something to say. im not attacking you dude.

no dx11? thats not the point. the point was in text (crysis 2 vanilla is more demanding than crysis vanilla) his framerate was locked at 30fps and i didnt see any single digit drops or even teens drop or even 20s drop during intense scenes.

I think I figured your mind out after 2 seconds of thought.

you own dual 6970ms and you play all games maxed and you paid a fair amount for it.

you are upset that a single 6990m can max every game out without aa and for a much cheaper price. you feel as though you made a poor descision and are trying to justify it to your subcons mind.

6990m maxes everygame minus aa 1080p 30fps ect every game any game except metro 2033. so if you think its intelligent to spend the extra 1000 dollars for one game then you are correct in buying crossfire. I however beat metro 2033 and do not even like the game and have no need to waste 1000 more just to have a graphical feature turned on that is invisible to the naked eye.

kudos to you for having a strong opinion without facts.

edit.

where are the mods? do they see this as trolling or flaming?

Its like me hijacking a desktop thread telling people their cards will average 3fps with SWKOTOR 1.

"im sorry dude but your 590 gtx will not be able to run minesweeper"

flaming/trolling/hijacking at its finest

 

My ignorant opinions huh? LOL! I just think I have much higher standards than you. Some people PRIDE themselves with higher standards, other people don't.

Regardless, I dont overclock, especially on a laptop where cooling systems are far from optimal and chips run significantly hotter due to less optimal cooling. I feel that if you need to overclock to get the performance needed(or at least approaching that feeling)for your machine, then maybe you bought the wrong machine(or card) to begin with. And its no secret that a pair of 6970m's is going to have better performance than a single 6990m. The only reason why I picked up my P180hm with the 6970m's though was because I paid less money for it than if I would have bought a P180hm with a pair of 560m's. In fact I probably paid alot less than you did for your 170 on top of that, so when I do upgrade the cards to something worthwhile(which the 6990m's aren't)my overall investment will still remain relatively small since the 6970m still sells fast on Ebay for $250-300 a piece and will probably net about $200 a year from now.

 

A month ago(when ntrain96 joined) hes crawling around NBR asking for help and now he seems to know everything with his godly encyclopedic knowledge.

 

LOL! Read the above post.

 

Absolutely I was, Ive been out of the gaming scene for years, but it doesnt take much time to get back up to speed on things. I mean these computers may not house Nvidia TNT's anymore(The 16mb AGP version), and 3Dfx and the VoodooII cards a thing of the past, but other than technology scaling, things are still pretty much the same in the grand sceme of things.

 

There you go OP he said it dont get crossfire because it runs too hot you heard it from the horses mouth.

The single card overclocks perfectly well with the cooling supplied and does not go above 82oC with my clocks and setup sig, considering that is 22oC below the T junction for a GPU I concur that the single card is the better choice.

 

One thing you have proven to do is to avoid certain points I make, while managing to take other things I state out of its meaningful context(And a few other ppl brought out valid points as to my based opinions as well with nary a word from you).

So let me expand. I dont card if you run a single card, dual cards, Ati, or Nvidia, a Sager, or an Alienware or MSI, or any other laptop. I dont believe in "overclocking" on a laptop. No laptop has a great cooling system. Whatever the OP chooses to get, I would never recommend overclocking on a laptop period. Get a graphics system that covers your needs unclocked, simple as that. As for temps, the 180HM for a laptop has a good cooling system. In game play I never hit over 80c, even so 80c is still pretty hot.

 

Actually anything below 90C is perfectly normal and safe for the GPU. Anything above 95C is dangerous. If an overclock results in a significant performance boost and stays below the danger temperatures, I see no reason not to do it.

 

ntrain your outnumbered. no one agrees with you if you are capable of typing then you should be capable of reading. NO ONE LIKES YOUR opinion

 

actually anthing under 110c is safe

 

Been skimming through this thread and I'm finding it funny how everyone is ganging up on ntrain.

Maybe my expectations were too high to begin with, especially since this is the first gaming laptop that I've owned, but I've had my 8170 for several months now and have been underwhelmed with the performance of these machines. Barely any modern game, or even a lot of older demanding games run at the holy grail of 60 fps on these things at 1080p, at least not without turning a bunch of settings down, and most DX11 stuff pretty much completely own these notebook gpus. Only way to have anything close to a desktop experience is with a Crossfire/SLI setup. There really is just no way to dispute this.

But like I said before my initial expectations for notebook gaming were unrealistic. However, once I was humbled by a lot of games and brought back down to reality on the limitations of these things, I've since been able to enjoy many games at ~30 fps. You don't need 50+ fps on everything for it to be playable. As a matter of fact, I tend to cap my framerate on a lot of games using DXTory for 1.) greater stability (in order to avoid constantly fluctuating framerates) and 2. less heat (because face it, these gpus can get quite hot, and less frames rendered equals less work for the gpu).

Of course, getting more fps is always better than less, but sometimes you just have to settle for what you can get. nTrain may come off as an elitist to some, but it seems to me that he's just more 'hardcore', so to speak, when it comes to playable framerates.

 

ANything under 110c is safe? LOL! The Ati silicon chips are rated to 105c........love to see how long your GPU lasts at or above that, LOL!

 

Hehe, "hardcore" no, but conservative and REALISTIC on real world performance and expectations yes. Ive seen alot of threads where one OP bought a recommended a laptop with a graphics solution that was just not fully capable of what he really wanted(A crowd similiar to this one in this thread)while there were plenty other BETTER solutions available in his budget. He was recommended a higher performance machine by a select few, but they were riduculed in one way or another for recommending something other than what the majority was trying to lean him towards. In the end the OP ended up picking up the upgraded machine.

I recommend realistic scenarios and give opinions based on someone having high standards like myself, its as simple as that. From my own experience I have found most of the single card GPU solutions in laptops to be lacking in some of the newer games.

Hell, in SC 2, playing the "All in" episode on single player campaign I had to turn the settings down to bring the framerate back up to 60fps because it was chopping down to the mid 20's in a few instances(THe majority of the game it was running well above 60fps)with heavy action onscreen. This is with a single 6970m, when I run with 2 cards, the FPS pretty much stays well over 100, but during the same scene will still drop to the 50 range.

 

Sorry folks. Had to delete a few posts.

It's just graphic cards, people. Nothing to get all worked up about. Counter with facts not personal attacks.

 

Uhhh, I'm playing Skyrim comfortable on high with a single GTX560 Ti, I really don't see what the big deal is with having tri-sli GTX580s or anything. Granted I think my monitor is 1600x900 and not 1080, but it still looks really good to me.

 

That's a desktop gpu, it out performs a GTX 580m, which is more powerful than the single card in question. We all agree that single desktop gpu's can be more than powerful enough to run modern games very well.

 

AFAIK, the GTX 580m is modeled after the GTX 560 Ti, if overclocked to match the GTX 560Ti's clocks the 580m performs the same.

The 6990m lags behind the 580m by 5%~10%.

I'd say there's something else at work here, an OC'd 6990m shouldn't differ too much from a stock GTX 560 Ti.

 

Just curious here. What evidence do you have to back up that statement? I have a P150HM (my work laptop) that's vbios modded at 875/1100 1.1v under 3D load. It never gets above 80 degrees C while gaming. That's a very high overclock with amazing temps.

My P180HM stays below 85 degrees C at 825/1100 on both 6990m's. And the fan's don't go above 80% unless they hit 90C. I'd say that's pretty good cooling for a crossfire laptop when I can't even max out the fans. (clevo bios)

 

Those are great temps. I tend to agree with you that just because it's a laptop does not necessitate poor cooling, just as a desktop doesn't mean great cooling. For instance, I have SLI'd GTX 470's in my desktop, but due to the closeness of the PCI-E slots, the second card has to be right up against the heatsink on the first. Therefore, I often see temps around 85-90C. Keep in mind these are first generation Fermi cards which are known to run hot and power thirsty. A 580m should be very close to the 470 in terms of performance, so the good temps there are a decent comparison point.

 

I said it once and I'll say it again, ntrain, you're fighting a losing battle. Two stock 6970Ms score around 20k in Vantage. One decently overclocked 6990M scores around 16.5K in Vantage. Stop complaining about how your twin GPUs are outperformed in Crysis by the faster single card.

Also, as I said beforehand, Crysis likes Nvidia cards more than ATI cards. A 4870x2 is just barely slower than the GTX 295, however CrossfireX doesn't kick in very well for the ATI card and it just falls waaay behind the Nvidia card.

Proof

Also before you say "This is about notebook GPUs, not desktop GPUs!" this is a direct comparison of SLI vs CrossfireX in Crysis and how CrossfireX does NOT activate properly in Crysis. BTW, this problem was NOT fixed. The desktop 6990 and CrossfireX 6990Ms get the same FPS in Crysis with max settings.

Two 580Ms will not have this problem. And as an FYI, I'm pretty sure the Clevo design was built with overclocking in mind. Otherwise, they wouldn't ship it out with the option of building it with the 2960XM. Just sayin'.

I still don't know why you're going on and on about this anyway. Use a DX11 game to test this theory out. Use AvP or Skyrim or Crysis 2 with the high resolution texture pack (DX11 patch). Crysis is know for its horrid optimization. Look up the first videos of the people trying to max it out on Tri-SLI 8800GTXs back when it first came out. It made the test machine crash because they couldn't handle it.

 

This thread is good comedy.

Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk

 

Disagree my 6990M does not lag behind a 580M by 5-10% percent.