Low FPS and Lag Running Ungine Valley on a Monitor Using any USB Type-C Adapter Dongle

Summary: This article provides information about a low Frames Per Second (FPS) and lag issue seen when running the Benchmark tool Ungine. This is reported after running Valley on an external monitor. ...

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Symptoms

Alienware alienhead icon Description  

The following article deals with an issue with low FPS and lag seen when running the Benchmark tool Ungine. This was seen when running Valley on an external monitor.
   

Affected Products:

 
  Alienware Area-51m R2
 

 

Benchmark Ungine valley reporting low FPS and lag on an external monitor

 

Owners of an Alienware Area-51m R2 gaming laptop may report low Frames Per Second (FPS), and system lag running the benchmark tool Ungine 'Valley'. This is only seen under the following conditions:

  • You are running the benchmark tool on an external monitor.
  • The external monitor is connected to the laptop using any Dell or third-party USB Type-C to High-Definition MultiMedia Interface (HDMI) or DisplayPort (DP) adapter dongle.
  • The display mode is set to Second Screen Only.
Note: This issue has only been reported with the benchmark tool Ungine and running Valley. We cannot rule out other similar online tools showing the same issue under the same circumstances. However, the same resolution is recommended.
 


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Cause

This is a hardware limitation of Thunderbolt. It only occurs when using the intel Graphical Processor Unit (GPU) in external only mode.

Resolution

We recommend removing the dongle and following these instructions:

  1. Connect your external monitor directly to either the HDMI or DP port on the laptop. (Do Not use a dongle.)

  2. Change the display mode to either Clone Mode or Extended Mode. (Do Not use Second Screen Only.)


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Affected Products

Alienware Area-51m R2
Article Properties
Article Number: 000123561
Article Type: Solution
Last Modified: 14 Nov 2025
Version:  5
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