Slow Games, but they recommend high settings..?

[Sciku]

So, I got a Samsung Laptop, every game I play, I click recommended settings, however, when I do so, they run slowly. For example Crysis : The graphics were automatically set to Extreme, but it ran VERY slowly then. I have an Quad-Core Intel Core i7-2675QM CPU 2.20 GHz, 8 GB of RAM, AMD Radeon 6490M Graphics card. Am I doing something wrong?

[ZeekAncient]

FIrst, your GPU is junk. That GPU will not be able to play Crysis maxed very well at any resolution. Also, while your CPU is good, it is not very fast, that is, it is not at least 3.0 ghz. But ultimately your laptop is NOT a gaming laptop, and that is determined by GPU, which yours is low end. So there is your culprit, your GPU sucks. Sorry.

[gggg336]

It is better if you set the graphics settings yourself than to rely on recommended settings. Most of the times, the games puts your settings to high even though your computer specs are sh*t. Also, zeekancient, he is asking why games set everything to high, not why it lags, he knew his components are crap.

[ZeekAncient]

Ok yea your right sorry, my bad. Yeah I see where you are coming from, but games rarely get the optimal settings right for your system. The settings they put for your PC are either way too low or way too high. For example, I have a decent PC with a GTX 570 which is capable of maxing Call of Duty games and maintaining at least 60 fps, but if I go with the recommended settings that the game recommends, then I have to lower a lot of settings. Another example is Far Cry 3, If I put the settings on the Optimal settings that the game recommends then they are too high and I cannot maintain at least 60 fps, 30 fps yes but 60 fps no, so I have to tweak myself to get something I like. Ofcourse, most game developers are basing their settings and requirements around the fact that 30 fps is good enough and playable, but some gamers prefer at least 60, which I think a lot of game developers are not taking that into account when stating game requirements. Remember that most console games nowadays are capped at 30 fps, so game developers make their games according to this. Of course 30 fps is not that bad in a lot of games. Crysis and Crysis 2 have great motion blur tech and playing those games at 30 fps seems smooth, but games like Battlefield 3 seem very choppy unde 45 or 50 fps. I find that even Far Cry 3 feels really smooth anything over 30 fps. I just bought Assassin's Creed 3 and there are parts, like in Boston where it will dip into the 30s. Now this is a console port and not well coded and hardly makes use of your GPU, but since it is a console port, if you cap the FPS at like 30 and play with a controller it feels really smooth. Anyways Im done, with my rant, but sorry for my first post, it was ignorant on my part.

[[☥] - CJ -]

Depending on the game those settings are to high for that GPU.

So just lower them some..? just cuz clicking on recommended sets everything to max doesnt mean ur system can handle it.

[Mivo]

Yeah, the problem is the video card. It's mostly suitable for office and multimedia stuff, and not meant for gaming. To get an idea how it performs in relation to other video cards, see here:

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/video_lookup.php?gpu=Radeon+HD+6490M

It's not terrible in the sense that you can't play with it at all, but forget about graphically intense games like Crysis. 2D games will work nicely, though.

[Bloody Mizzlepix]

Just some general tips to try to make that laptop work for you:

in your start menu, type "ccc" and hit enter. It will open the settings for your graphics card. What you want to do there is go to "gaming", and depending on what options are available, you most likely want to set everything to "use application settings". Then when you play your games, you want to navigate to the in-game options menu and adjust the settings to the lowest possible for everything (except resolution, which you probably want to keep at the same resolution your laptop screen is).

If the game still runs poorly, then you will have to lower the resolution.

Alternatively, if it runs very smoothly, go back to the in-game options menu and start raising the settings for better quality. After you play with it and test out different settings for a bit, you will find what you like best for what your machine can handle, and those settings will be saved for that game.

Unfortunately your specs are poor. Laptops aren't good for gaming.

The auto-detect feature usually isn't very accurate, so don't rely on it.

You will probably get better performance if you game with your laptop plugged in because you will have a better power supply with that rather than the battery alone.

Also, go to your task manager and end the processes that you don't need. You may need to do a bit of googling here to find out if you can safely end certain tasks and still run windows(e.g. you don't want to end the windows explorer process). This will free up some resources to give you maybe a few extra fps.

Another thing you could do to help fps is get a laptop cooling stand. Laptops are so compact that they get super hot since the GPU is so crammed in there and doesn't have room for a sufficient fan or adequate space for heat dissipation. When the GPU gets hot its performance degrades, so anything you can do to keep it cool might help a little bit as well.

You're crazy to try to run Crysis on extreme on that machine :P Crysis is crazy to try to run Crysis on extreme on that machine!

[Joebass06]

Understand that the difference in desktop hardware and laptop hardware is marginal. ie: take a gtx 680 desktop gpu vs. a gtx 680 mobility gpu in actuality the desktop card is at least 50% stronger with higher clock speeds, in some cases more memory, and has room to be overclocked due to more efficient means of cooling. So what Crysis is doing is reading your hardware as high end but can differentiate between a laptop and desktop. Oh almost forgot the same goes for any high end cpu just like your i7.

[awesomepossum]

just see if you laptop can handle a external gpu.

http://www.villageinstruments.com/tiki-index.php?page=ViDock

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=5846&review=how+to+upgrade+laptop+graphics+notebook

http://www.techradar.com/us/news/computing-components/graphics-cards/how-to-make-an-external-laptop-graphics-adaptor-915616

[Sciku]

Opprinnelig skrevet av wallabi:

just see if you laptop can handle a external gpu.

http://www.villageinstruments.com/tiki-index.php?page=ViDock

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=5846&review=how+to+upgrade+laptop+graphics+notebook

http://www.techradar.com/us/news/computing-components/graphics-cards/how-to-make-an-external-laptop-graphics-adaptor-915616

Thank you for this and everyone else explaining this to me. Now for a quick question, I should probably prepare for Crysis 3 when I get my new card. Which one would be recommended? Also, AMD or Nvidia?

[awesomepossum]

well most ppl do like a 560ti for there laptop i got a lot of freinds that have 560ti' on there laptop external, its low priced and gives a decent bang... there is a slight bottleneck from using a card in 1x pci mode, so getting to high end of a card is kind of pointless.. whatever you do just makesure u dont get a ultra high end card that demands a 4x or 8x pcix lane, i belive some 680's and most dual gpu cards require this..

[Kuehnau]

Laptops tend to be a tricky subject when it comes to hardware detection. See, a lot of laptops use intergrated video cards, as a direct result, most of them also heavily rely on avaible ram to actually process graphics instead of having their own.

The problem happens when the game detects your hardware and it thinks you have a 4GB video card, it assumes your hardware will run it just fine.

In most of these cases it's better off to know what you are running yourself and tweek the settings yourself. I have games that detect my hardware and default to Ultra, but play much better on High.

[banzaigtv]

The higher recommended settings seem to be a problem with most games. On my PC, Skyrim defaults to ultra high settings, but there is stuttering and lags, so I turned down the settings to high and it runs better. Batman Arkham City turns on DX 11 settings to normal, but as most of us know, that game runs like crap on DX 11, and I had to turn off DX 11 to make the game run smooth. But Crysis 2 is not so much of a problem as I can run the game on its defaults fairly well. So the rule of thumb is to adjust the video settings one level lower than the recommended settings or turn off certain settings, such as MSAA, to make the games run smooth.