Terrible Performance on 650m and i7

[Gaveroid]

So, I have an Alienware M14xR2 gaming laptop. It's a few years old, but still a powerful 14'' laptop with an Nvidia GeForce 650m 2GB DDR5, 16GB of RAM, and an i7 3740QM quad core @ 2.7GHz. Far Cry 4 should run fine; I've got a better GPU than the minimum recommended as far as I know, yet GeForce Experience tells me it's not good enough - but, whatever. So, I load it up and I can't even play on my native resolution of my external monitor (1680x1050) at all lowest settings and keep 25FPS. If I bump it down to 1600x900, the res that this card was made to play at, it's still very low. I have to bump it down to around 1366x768 to get 27-35 (around there) FPS. I have to overclock the GPU a bit, and run the Windows Basic theme to even get that. I've ended up putting the settings up quite a bit (except for the most intensive ones - AA, AO, the bunch of on-off options under there) because there's very little difference in framerate between ultra and low on many of the settings and I'd rather take the 3 FPS hit and have the game look better.

My concern is, why aren't the lower settings giving me a much higher framerate? I can play many other games fine. Is it just a bad port?

Allow me to note I am very good with computers. I know what I'm doing, so just as a prerequisite warning, I'm not looking for "You shouldn't have gotten an Alienware!" or "Are you crazy for overclocking a laptop?" or "You have a problem with your computer." I wanted an Alienware, I know how to safely overclock this thing, and my computer is running fine on all other games but Watch Dogs and Far Cry 4, both crappy Ubisoft ports. I can run the Crysis series better than this. I also have made sure it was using the Nvidia GPU and not the iGPU with Optimus. I don't have the latest drivers (but the Battlefield Hardline Game-Readies, which are post-Far Cry 4 game ready) but being that the latest don't have any improvements listed for Far Cry 4 in the changelogs I know it's probably not going to help much, but I'll try it.

So, does anybody have any ideas on how to up my framerate?

P.S. I hate having to go on like I did in that second to last paragraph about how I don't want people giving nonsensical answers like the examples I listed but I feel that I must on an online forum, sadly.

EDIT: Here are my video settings. I'm running at 1366x768 fullscreen with no motion blur (cut off in the photo): http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=429799329

[-=SOF=-WID99]

not much you can do the 650 M is not that great of a GPU

most use DDR3 memory and even the ddr 5 ones have limits ..

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-650M.71887.0.html

The graphics card uses a 128-Bit wide memory interface

it also only has 384 shader cores

and the 650 M also only has a memory bandwidth of 80 gig

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/notebook-gpus/geforce-gt-650m/specifications

.. less then a GTX 460 which has up to 115 gig
http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-460/specifications

when useing DDR 5 ram

you could try the fixes noted here
http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php/954533-EASY-FIX-Stutter-Frame-Skipping-Far-Cry-4!-Forums


by editing your gameprofile .XML file but i doubt it will give you much more as far as FPS .. bout all ya can do is lower your video settings and try playing the game in 720 P (1280X720)

far cry 4 is pretty hard on a GPU as you can see here .. that even with an I 7 and a GTX 760 your kinda stuck at lower settings

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2015/01/07/far_cry_4_video_card_performance_review/8#.VTZrECFViko

[-=SOF=-WID99]

also since your useing a mobile chip make sure you go in your nvidia control panel and make sure you have your power options set to prefer maximum performance

[Gaveroid]

Diposting pertama kali oleh -=SOF=-WID99:

also since your useing a mobile chip make sure you go in your nvidia control panel and make sure you have your power options set to prefer maximum performance

Thanks for the suggestion, but I've already tried that and whitelisting the .EXE to only run on the Nvidia GPU. The "global" settings (auto-defined by the drivers) were already to those but I hard-set it just in case, no difference.

[Gaveroid]

Diposting pertama kali oleh -=SOF=-WID99:

not much you can do the 650 M is not that great of a GPU

most use DDR3 memory and even the ddr 5 ones have limits ..

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-650M.71887.0.html

The graphics card uses a 128-Bit wide memory interface

it also only has 384 shader cores

and the 650 M also only has a memory bandwidth of 80 gig

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/notebook-gpus/geforce-gt-650m/specifications

.. less then a GTX 460 which has up to 115 gig
http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-460/specifications

when useing DDR 5 ram

you could try the fixes noted here
http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php/954533-EASY-FIX-Stutter-Frame-Skipping-Far-Cry-4!-Forums


by editing your gameprofile .XML file but i doubt it will give you much more as far as FPS .. bout all ya can do is lower your video settings and try playing the game in 720 P (1280X720)

far cry 4 is pretty hard on a GPU as you can see here .. that even with an I 7 and a GTX 760 your kinda stuck at lower settings

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2015/01/07/far_cry_4_video_card_performance_review/8#.VTZrECFViko

Knowing what other titles I play with this setup, it should be plenty even if I have to run it at all low. The main issue is not stuttering (although I've tried those fixes) but just a low overall framerate no matter what settings I play on - with the exception of the special effects like fog, fur, trees relief, etc. - basically as far as all of the low-medium-high-ultra settings go (except for shadows), max or lowest aren't that big of a difference in framerates, maybe 1-5 FPS difference, so I keep them on a higher setting so I at least feel like I'm getting my frames' worth, haha.

Here's the video settings I run on, at 1366x768 fullscreen with no motion blur (cut off in the picture). http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=429799329

[-=SOF=-WID99]

dunno i gave you the links that PROVE your vid card = below the minimum system required Card with side by side links

gt 650 = /128 bit memory bus / 80 gig of bandwidth /384 pixel shaders

GTX 460 the minimum supported card = 192 or 256 bit memory bus + higher memory bandwidth @ 115 gig a second vs the 80 your card can do ... and only shy by a few less pixel and vertex shaders @ 336

its only higher in version number .. but not in features compared to a GTX 460

so no your not gonna get 60 FPS on that laptop GPU

[Gaveroid]

Diposting pertama kali oleh -=SOF=-WID99:

dunno i gave you the links that PROVE your vid card = below the minimum system required Card with side by side links

gt 650 = /128 bit memory bus / 80 gig of bandwidth /384 pixel shaders

GTX 460 the minimum supported card = 192 or 256 bit memory bus + higher memory bandwidth @ 115 gig a second vs the 80 your card can do ... and only shy by a few less pixel and vertex shaders @ 336

its only higher in version number .. but not in features compared to a GTX 460

so no your not gonna get 60 FPS on that laptop GPU

I'm not expecting to get 60FPS. I'm saying the game is crappily optimized and obviously a bad port because the bulk of ultra and low settings aren't different enough in quality and performance as they should be. I'm not expecting 60FPS on max, I'm expecting 45-55 FPS on lowest at least. All non-Ubisoft games I own run completely fine... the recent UPlay titles are the only ones that have ever given me the "Your GPU is too old!" message in GeForce Experience. New games run fine on this at lower settings, yet FC4 can't even do that. It's obviously a bad port for lower-end systems, there's barely any variety in the graphics levels, save for a few options. There's just too many graphical goodies that are intense on older machines that we can't turn off even in config files, and turning them off would make the game playable.

[-=SOF=-WID99]

your not gonna see that 45- 55 FPS in this game with your GT650m vid chip..i posted links that prove its acually less powerful then the mimium supported GPU a GTX 460 ..and thats even a crappy GPU

to get the FPS you wanna see..... your gonna need a better GPU .. period .
the engine in this title is not the same as your other games

call it a bad port ....whatever i dont care it runs great on my system and has since day 1

but your GT 650m is still a bad GPU as its less powerful then a GTX 460 which is the minimum supported Nvidia card

[Gaveroid]

Diposting pertama kali oleh -=SOF=-WID99:

your not gonna see that 45- 55 FPS in this game with your GT650m vid chip..i posted links that prove its acually less powerful then the mimium supported GPU a GTX 460 ..and thats even a crappy GPU

to get the FPS you wanna see..... your gonna need a better GPU .. period .
the engine in this title is not the same as your other games

call it a bad port ....whatever i dont care it runs great on my system and has since day 1

but your GT 650m is still a bad GPU as its less powerful then a GTX 460 which is the minimum supported Nvidia card

You're not listening to me. IT'S A BAD PORT. I can tell that when all-Ultra and all-Low give me a single-digit framerate difference, even with my card. If, say, I got 30FPS on all low at 1366x768 and 10FPS on all Ultra on 1366x768, I'd take your word, but I don't. If you want I can even record you a video (with a camera of course so no performance hit) to show you what I mean. No matter what settings I choose, I get relatively the same framerate, maybe 1-5FPS different across the board if I lower it all. That shouldn't be happening, even with my card under the minimum specs. With Watch Dogs, which I was under the minimum specs to play, there was still a noticeable difference between higher and lower settings in quality and FPS.

So, I totally agree with you; this card is a little weak for Far Cry 4. Except, I shouldn't be getting the same FPS (give or take a few) on Ultra and Low*.

Now, as expected, some of the higher features like Fog, Fur, Trees Relief, do have a bigger impact, and especially Anti-Aliasing and Ambient Occlusion, but the vast majority of settings make no noticeable impact. Even with my weak GPU it's more worth it to run on higher settings because it's barely different. The biggest framerate killer other than the ones I just mentioned seems to be Textures (but take that with a grain of salt as none other than the specifically mentioned do give a big hit), although I don't know why - in other games even with 2GB of VRAM, I can crank up the textures pretty high.

Now, 30FPS out of the box, 1366x768, isn't too bad for me... I can do some trickery - a slight overclock, Windows Basic. But, I have to do a +135 core and +250 memory overclock on the GPU, as well as run Windows Basic to even get the framerates I am now. This may be an old GPU, but it's not THIS bad... that's all I'm trying to tell you. You don't own one, do you? Right then. Using this configuration as your daily driver, you get to know the capabilities of a rig and feel for how it should be performing on a game of whatever graphical level. Crysis (apples and oranges but enh) performs better than this game. Name me any other game and I bet I can run it at least playably at decent settings.

You know what... tomorrow I'm gonna record a little demonstration. You'll see what I mean.

EDIT: I take it back... I dunno what I did, but now I'm getting a little more of variation in framerates across different settings. But, it's still pathetic. As another means of demonstration, let's do a comparison - look at my Steam account and name me any game you want me to play (try to keep it low on HDD space please, lol, as I believe I have a 300GB bandwith cap). I also have Crysis 1, 2, and 3 on Origin (out of the games I will install) but not installed (although I could quickly install them as they're not too large). BF4 runs okay at lower settings, at a decent framerate at least. BFH... ran crappy (but not FC4 crappy, although BFH ran good in the graphically-identical betas) and now BFH stopped working and won't load, so EA escalated my ticket to their "experts" team weeks ago with no reply.

[Terepin]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Gaveroid:

So, I have an Alienware M14xR2 a powerful 14'' gaming laptop with an Nvidia GeForce 650m 2GB DDR5

I didn't laugh this good for months! Thanks! :D

[Gaveroid]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Terepin:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Gaveroid:

So, I have an Alienware M14xR2 a powerful 14'' gaming laptop with an Nvidia GeForce 650m 2GB DDR5

I didn't laugh this good for months! Thanks! :D

I did not ask for dribble. When this machine came out, it was I believe the most powerful (or one of the most powerful) 14'' laptops of its' time. It's still a very powerful machine, with a quad-core processor that can go up to 3.7GHz. Now, if you're going to make stupid comments I specifically asked you not to make, you can please leave.

[Lobstersaurus]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Gaveroid:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Terepin:

I didn't laugh this good for months! Thanks! :D

I did not ask for dribble. When this machine came out, it was I believe the most powerful (or one of the most powerful) 14'' laptops of its' time. It's still a very powerful machine, with a quad-core processor that can go up to 3.7GHz. Now, if you're going to make stupid comments I specifically asked you not to make, you can please leave.

He's laughing at your video card, because it's a joke.

Laptop cards aren't as powerful as the desktop versions, so you'll usually have to round down a series.. For a rough estimate.

The WID99, wasn't estimating though.


That's the general problem with laptops, the rest of your computer may be up to par, and since it's not a desktop its not like you can just buy a new graphics card and replace it, you'll have to buy a whole new PC which sort of sucks....

[Terepin]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Gaveroid:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Terepin:

I didn't laugh this good for months! Thanks! :D

I did not ask for dribble. When this machine came out, it was I believe the most powerful (or one of the most powerful) 14'' laptops of its' time. It's still a very powerful machine, with a quad-core processor that can go up to 3.7GHz. Now, if you're going to make stupid comments I specifically asked you not to make, you can please leave.

650M was NEVER powerfull and never will be.

[Gaveroid]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Terepin:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Gaveroid:

I did not ask for dribble. When this machine came out, it was I believe the most powerful (or one of the most powerful) 14'' laptops of its' time. It's still a very powerful machine, with a quad-core processor that can go up to 3.7GHz. Now, if you're going to make stupid comments I specifically asked you not to make, you can please leave.

650M was NEVER powerfull and never will be.

It was a powerful laptop GPU for the time. I know it's aging, but you can't tell me it wasn't a good mobile GPU at some point; have you ever owned a device that uses one?

My point is that I feel Far Cry 4 doesn't run as well as it should compared to other, more visually appealing titles.

[Gaveroid]

Diposting pertama kali oleh ┼God┼ ♪Lobster♪:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Gaveroid:

I did not ask for dribble. When this machine came out, it was I believe the most powerful (or one of the most powerful) 14'' laptops of its' time. It's still a very powerful machine, with a quad-core processor that can go up to 3.7GHz. Now, if you're going to make stupid comments I specifically asked you not to make, you can please leave.

He's laughing at your video card, because it's a joke.

Laptop cards aren't as powerful as the desktop versions, so you'll usually have to round down a series.. For a rough estimate.

The WID99, wasn't estimating though.


That's the general problem with laptops, the rest of your computer may be up to par, and since it's not a desktop its not like you can just buy a new graphics card and replace it, you'll have to buy a whole new PC which sort of sucks....

The thing is it's not a joke. It's getting old, yeah, but it should still be capable of playing Far Cry 4 at all low settings at 720p with a minimum of 60FPS, anything less and the game's engine is a joke (which it is) as far as the performance-to-quality ratio goes.

[Terepin]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Gaveroid:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Terepin:

650M was NEVER powerfull and never will be.

It was a powerful laptop GPU for the time. I know it's aging, but you can't tell me it wasn't a good mobile GPU at some point; have you ever owned a device that uses one?

Oh, I can. Because there is ALWAYS a whole range of cards. 650M was a lower mainstream. Now, if'd have 680M, now that would be differerent stoy. But 650M was always weak card.