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44336
July 12th, 2011 09:00
m17x r3 Poor Performance
Hi all,
Just got my new Alienware about two weeks ago and have had very poor performance with framerate in some games and all benchmark tests. This is to say that in 3D mark 11 it chugs at about 10-15 fps in all tests.
This is basically a maxed out m17x with the AMD Radeon HD 6970 2GB GPU in it and so far I'm just not seeing the performance that I wold expect from a high end machine. I guess that I'm having driver issues so I'd like some help checking if I need newer drivers and how to be sure I've cleaned out all the old drivers and have the latest of everything. I'll include some attachments of the dxdiag to show what system specs are and driver versions.
Any help figuring out what is killing my performance would be great.
FYI, Among other things:
I have tried reinstalling CCC, setting everything to application controlled, disabling CCC and MON processes in task manager, reinstalling vid card drivers, diabling powerplay, plugging into power vs battery, checked clock speeds and chip temperatures and checked bios.
Hope someone has some ideas on how to get this beast up to speed.
Regards,
Steve
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BLa5ter
30 Posts
0
July 12th, 2011 09:00
Are you in stealth mode? That is the most common cause of that, I have an M15X and its a beast playing all games, and not as highly specced as yours. Should be a touch button on the top right of the laptop that looks like a speedometer. When stealth mode is on its uses the integrated graphics rather than the powerful seperate one. Just make sure this is turned off, and your in high performance battery plan.
Steve265
2 Posts
0
July 12th, 2011 19:00
Yeah, definitely not in stealth mode, as the m17x r3 doesn't have this feature. As far as battery modes, I'm plugged in full charge and in performance mode, not power saver mode. Thanks for the input though, I know it's got to be something simple or maybe dodgy hardware.
Does anyone else have any ideas?
nels.c.anderson
3 Posts
0
July 12th, 2011 21:00
Hey man I've been having similar issues with my Alienware. I was a longtime Radeon fan though recently decided to try making the jump to NVIDIA due to their better reviews with the 3d aspect of gaming. I'm not sure if you mentioned it had stereoscopic 3d capabilities however I know if you disable 3d while gaming it nearly doubles performance. If you are not satisfied stop trouble shooting it and return it before your 21 day grace period is up. I recommend considering that as a serious option.
DamonAE0306
20 Posts
0
July 14th, 2011 08:00
I wish I could give you some advice, I have the same machine just received my M17xR3 less then a week ago specs:
Intel® Core™ i7 2820QM 2.3GHz (3.4GHz Turbo Mode, 8MB Cache)
Genuine Windows® 7 Ultimate, 64bit
8GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1333MHz (4DIMMS)
2GB GDDR5 AMD Radeon™ HD 6970M
640GB Raid 0 (2x 320GB 7,200RPM)
17.3-inch WideFHD 1920 x 1080 60Hz WLED
So far I am very happy with the performance, I did all windows updates, only thing I installed was STEAM my games are
Half Life 2
Half Life 2 Episode 1
Half Life 2 Deathmatch
GTA 4 Liberty City, and the Episodes PACK.
I CANNOT run GTA 4 with everthing MAXED, but I can run it with almost everthing maxed and it looks great.
This is my first laptop, I have been a PC-GAMER for 18-years all that time on self-built-desktops.
Due to space were I live I had to make the switch to a laptop.
Still getting used to gaming this way, my only issue is that I get EYE-STRAIN right away while playing, I never had this problem when gaming on a 21-inch CRT display at 1600x1200 85hz.
I were glasses for distance, I see fine closeup so I don't know what the problem is. The eye-strain is bad and limits me to only a few hours a day gaming, with up to 2-3 days rest in between. I'm only 34-years old but I think my eyes are shot.
In my 20's I used to game for up to 8-hours a day 5-days a week.
DamonAE0306
20 Posts
0
July 14th, 2011 08:00
The eye-strain is quite depressing, it really limits me in using this new machine.
I am already considering an external display, but its going to stink because of my space requirements and $$$ is very tight after making this purchase.
PLUS the additional space to place and external display is going to stink, I am limited to space! The whole reason I switched to a LAPTOP in the first place.
sinshiva
19 Posts
0
July 14th, 2011 08:00
Hey, i had the same eye-strain problem going from 85hz crt to a 60hz lcd. It sucks, but you need a 120hz lcd. the 15hz drop is killer for online games, too...
ReznorWire
1 Message
0
March 20th, 2012 00:00
I found a fix to poor performance issues with M17x R3 ATI 6970 2gb, and possibly other Builds of the M17x R3 with Nvidia cards or a a 6990. So like any techie, when I got my computer, I immediately went and installed the latest DELL drivers (Catalyst is a no no if its not from dell without altering code or using a file with altered texts)... So I unistalled old drivers, and Installed the new drivers... (R309894)... think they were released late 2011.
Clean install
Then... in the background... WINDOWS 7 picked up the inergrated card did not have the driver, and started to downlaod and install the windows driver (released March 2012... shows as "newer" so windows by default will override the DellCatalyst drivers)...
If your having problems, TURN OFF WINDOWS DRIVER DOWNLOADING AND UPDATING AUTOMOATICALLY.... To test if this is the problem simply disconnect from the internet, unistall all drivers, then install the Dell drivers, then reboot, and run benchamarks without recconnecting to the internet....
The thing is Windows will install a driver for the intel card that BREAKS the catalyst drivers and does its own thing, even though catalyst says it installs cleanly and both cards are showing as functioning properly over in windows device management...
Lots of games ran fine, others the intel card would conflict with the 6970 despite having the 6970 as the default card on all catalyst settings... when that happened, well SWTOR went from low 20s with stuttering in low at 1600x900 to maxed everything with AA at 60fps - 40fps even in warzones.