m15 R2, FPS drop

Question

My laptop is m15 R2 with RTX 2080 MQ, i9-9980HK. Recently, when I played some games (such as rdr2, MH:Rise), there was a serious fps drop. At the beginning, the game runs smoothly, but when the game runs for 5-10 minutes, the fps drops to only 20-30 instantly, and the gpu usage instantly becomes 100%. As shown in the figure below (running MH: Rise), the usage rate of gpu1 is only about 30% at the beginning, and the fps is stable at about 90. But after 6 minutes, the game dropped to 20 frames instantly, and the gpu usage immediately increased to 100%.     p.s. All drivers are up to date and passed ePSA test and test in SupportAssist.

crimsom · Answer

Hi @JemjemzzZ welcome to this free user to user Alienware laptop discussion forum. This is not Dell Support.

The Alienware m15 series has Hybrid Power Design. The design intent of Hybrid Power is to allow the Alienware m15 to maintain full system performance under extreme heavy loading conditions. It does this by allowing power to be drawn from system battery, when on ac adapter power.

Alienware 15 R3/15 R4/17 R4/17 R5/M15/M17 performance issue or battery drain while AC adapter is connected | Dell US

Without hybrid design, when the system power needs more than just ac adapter power, then the system will throttle due to lack of power. With hybrid design, it prevents system throttling (Until the battery capacity drops below 20%), by using power from the battery to support additional power needs by the system.

JemjemzzZ · Answer

Hi, crimsom Thanks for your reply. So for this situation, how can I solve the fps drop, because I have used this laptop for almost two years and never met this problem.

crimsom · Answer

Hi @JemjemzzZ thank you for sharing update.

You recently played some games (such as rdr2, MH:Rise) and this problem made its first appearance. It seems that these games are very resource hungry. Please select the game performance level that your system can tolerate. thank you.

JemjemzzZ · Answer

Hi @crimsom. But I played these games a week ago and they ran smoothly. And I never changed the in-game graphics settings.

A51-06 · Answer

Hi @JemjemzzZ ,

I recommend doing these steps:

Set power plan to Balanced.

Set command center fans to preformance.

Turn off any overclocks in command center or any other program like MSI afterburner.

Update your NVIDIA Game Ready driver and make sure to do a clean install of the driver to clear any corrupt files.

Try these settings in the Advanced 3D option in the NVIDIA control panel and set it to use the Advanced settings only.

Image Sharpening

This setting increases the overall sharpness of images and enhances the visual quality of the games. This option should be turned ON for the best image quality. Select the Sharpen level to 0.5 and the Ignore film grain to 0.17. Also, enable the GPU Scaling option. Click OK to apply the settings.

Ambient Occlusion

This setting improves the depth perception and adds realism to the in-game scenes. This also provides a soft shadow for images inside the game. This setting should be turned ON and selected to Performance.

Anisotropic Filtering

This setting improves the overall image quality by eliminating all kinds of blurred textures that appear at certain camera angles. The setting for this option should be Application Controlled.

Antialiasing FXAA

This setting improves the in-game visuals and reduces the performance effect on other aliasing settings. This should be turned OFF.

Antialiasing Gamma Correction

This improves the visual quality of 3D images by enabling Gamma correction for antialiasing. This setting should be turned ON.

Antialiasing Mode

This setting allows you to determine how antialiasing is applied in your 3D applications. Select this to Application-controlled.

Antialiasing Transparency

This setting allows you to minimize the visible aliasing on the edges of images with transparent textures. This should be switched OFF.

CUDA GPUs

This allows you to select the applications where CUDA cores are used. This should be selected to All.

DSR-Factors

DSR or Dynamic Super Resolution enhances the image quality by rendering images at high screen resolution. This setting decreases your FPS and increases Input Lag. This setting should be turned OFF for better performance.

Low Latency Mode

This setting reduces latency by limiting the number of frames the CPU can prepare before the frames are processed by the GPU. This should be turned ON for higher FPS and lower Input lag.

Max Frame Rate

This setting limits the FPS of the games to a certain number beyond which the FPS cannot go. This setting should be turned OFF for better performance.

Monitor Compatibility

This setting selects the technique used to control the refresh policy of an attached monitor. It is only applicable if you’re using an external monitor. For laptops, this is turned OFF by default. For desktops, select G-Sync Compatible if available or else select Fixed Refresh Rate.

Multi-Frame Sampled AA

This setting makes overall sample patterns irregular by re-programming the coverage sample locations. This setting reduces the FPS of games. You should turn this OFF for better performance.

OpenGL Rendering GPU

This setting allows you to select the GPU for running OpenGL applications. This setting should be selected to your NVIDIA Graphics Card.

Power Management Mode

This feature allows you to select the Graphics Card’s performance level when running Games and 3D applications. This should be selected to Prefer Maximum Performance.

Preferred Refresh Rate

This setting allows you to override the refresh rate in full-screen applications. This option should be selected to Highest Available for the best image quality.

Shader Cache

This setting reduces the CPU usage by reducing completed shaders to a disk cache. Turn this option ON for best performance.

Texture Filtering – Anisotropic Sample Optimization

This setting limits the number of anisotropic samples used based on texture pixel size. This setting should be turned ON.

Texture Filtering – Negative LOD Bias

This setting is used to sharpen stationary images and enable texture filtering. This should be set to Allow.

Texture Filtering – Quality

This feature allows you to set the texture filtering to Quality, Performance, or Balanced. You should switch this setting to High Performance.

Texture Filtering – Trilinear Optimization

This setting allows Texture filtering performance by allowing bilinear filtering on textures. Turn this option ON for better performance.

Threaded Optimization

This setting allows you to use multiple CPU cores. You should turn this setting to Auto.

Triple Buffering

This setting allows triple buffering for games and other OpenGL applications. Turn this setting OFF.

Vertical Sync

This setting controls how the GPU render rate interfaces to the refresh rate of a monitor. You should turn this setting OFF.

Virtual Reality Pre – Rendered Frames

This setting limits the number of frames the CPU can prepare before the frames are processed by the GPU. This setting should be selected to 1. After applying all of the settings click on the Apply Button.

Configure Surround, PhysX Settings

Leave the Surround Configuration as it is. No need to mess with that. Inside PhysX Settings, click on the drop-down menu and select your NVIDIA Graphics Card. Once done, simply click on the Apply button.

Display Settings

Here we will adjust various options that affect the display of your laptop or desktop monitor.

Change Resolution

Select the highest possible Screen Resolution under Resolution section. Similarly, select the highest possible Refresh Rate under the Refresh Rate section.

Scroll down below and select Use NVIDIA Color Settings. For the different sub-settings, select Desktop Color Depth to Highest(32-bit), Output color format as RGB, and Output dynamic range as Full. Click on Apply to save the settings.

Adjust Desktop Color Settings

Scroll down below to Apply the Following enhancements section. Under this section, increase the Digital Vibrance to 80%. This makes the colors appear more saturated and vibrant. Keep the rest of the settings as it is and click on the Apply button.

Rotate Display

Choose the Orientation to Landscape and click on the Apply button.

View HDCP Status

Nothing to change here. Use the default settings.

Set Up Digital Audio

Again, keep all the settings as default and don’t change anything.

Adjust Desktop Size And Position

Select Scaling Mode to No Scaling and adjust the Screen Resolution and Refresh Rate to the highest possible settings. Once you’re done with that click on the Apply button.

Video Settings

Here we will adjust the Video Color settings that allow us to enhance the color settings for the video content of the display.

Adjust Video Color Settings

Under How do you make color adjustments section, select the second option With the NVIDIA settings. After that, click on the Advanced tab and increase the Dynamic Range to Full (0-255).

Adjust Video Image Settings

Keep all the settings to Default and don’t change anything. Click on the Apply button to save all the changes. After you have applied each and every setting, restart your computer to apply all the changes.

These settings are set back to default once you update your driver again. You have to change the settings after every new driver update.

JemjemzzZ · Answer

Hi @Alienware Area-51 ALX 2006 . Thanks for your advice. However, the above operations still cannot solve the problem of fps dropping after playing for a while.

crimsom · Answer