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    8265-S, 8970m, 14.4 Catalyst low GPU usage, + Intel HD driver question

    Discussion in 'Sager and Clevo' started by csand, Jul 22, 2014.

  1. csand

    csand Notebook Guru

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    Hey all,

    I am currently running 13.12 Catalyst which seems to run OK. Basically the only game I play here is Mechwarrior Online, which, I will admit, isn't exactly a shining case of optimization here. That said my FPS on ultra settings seems to usually hover between 45 and 60 depending on the level of action.
    Last night I (foolishly?) upgraded to 14.4 Catalyst WHQL and man.. FPS dropped by literally 20-30 across the board and GPU-Z reports at most about 50-60% GPU usage. I removed the 14.4 driver and put back on 13.12, and GPu usage went back up to 91% (which still seems low to me, but I chalk that up to the game) and my FPS was back to normal. (In fact, I believe the 13.151 AMd driver from Sager yielded higher FPS, which I will check tonight).

    Can anyone think of any reason why I would see such a drastic change? Catalyst settings (including switchable graphics settings) all stay the same on both versions but the performance hit is insane!

    Anyways, since the AMD technically kinda runs "through" the Intel HD graphics on these laptops... should I be updating my Intel drivers as well when I update the AMD? Do they work together so to speak in determining performance?

    Right now I am on the latest Intel driver that is available on Sager's website.

    System specs in my sig... Windows 8.1 Pro 64 bit.
     
    csand, Jul 22, 2014
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  2. csand

    csand Notebook Guru

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    A small update:

    I decided to try the OEM AMD Catalyst drivers for this laptop from Sager.

    My god. Best performance I have seen so far on this machine (in Mechwarrior, which is the only game I care about, lol). GPU is maxing out at a nice %100 usage at times. Music to my.... eyes.

    Damn.

    Thank you Sager, lol.

    I didn't install the "PX Profile Driver update" part of them though, because I have never seen that before. Anyone know what it is/does?
     
    csand, Jul 23, 2014
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