6 replies to this topic

[masdero]

I have an old DELL XPS 17 L702X, bought in 2012 (or 2011 - I don't remember).

I play MWO using medium settings @1280x720, with FXAA turned off.

I wonder if there are .cfg files to tweak to get more FPS and where I can find documentation or hints.

The notebook is equipped with:

• 8x i7-2860QM 2.5GHz cores, boosted at 3.2GHz
  
• 16GB RAM
  
• PCI-E NVidia GeForce 116M [Geforce GT555M] with official NVidia drivers.
  
• Monitor is 1920x1080 with NVidia 3D Glasses support.
  
• OS: Steam on Windows 10 with all the last updates/patches installed until I manage to run it in Linux

I know it's pretty outdated hardware, but it's that or nothing and maybe someone can help me

Edited by masdero, 22 March 2021 - 06:03 AM.

[MrVaad]

You can follow the guide in my signature. But It will require some tweaking for your system.
Feel free to ask questions

Edited by MrVaad, 22 March 2021 - 07:17 AM.

[masdero]

MrVaad, on 22 March 2021 - 07:15 AM, said:

You can follow the guide in my signature. But It will require some tweaking for your system.
Feel free to ask questions

Affermative! Thanks!

[Tarl Cabot]

What FPS are you getting now?

Since it is a laptop, the following..

1. Clear out the heatsinks/ducts. When using compressed air, have a slender not breakable item to hold the fans from spinning

2. If you are able to dissemble the laptop, even better, then also reapply thermal paste but do some research. Instead of thermal paste it may be thermal pad. Okay, looks like Thermal paste and not thermal pad. There are several youtube videos, view several then use the one that made the most sense. Below is link to one of those videos and it was pretty straight forward, but with no verbal directions.



3. Consider disabling Turboboost. The gist of this is not getting the top speed but to have a consistent speeds without it underclocking itself.

TB is meant as a layman's cheap but temporary overclock. With MWO you would likely see lots of instantly low FPS due to at least one of the cores exceeding thermal threshold, which then the system drops the CPU speed to baseline, usually around 800mhz or there abouts before ramping back up. Below is directions for disabling Turboboost, if 99% does not help, drop it to 98% then 97%. But this will not matter if there is severe dust buildup on the heatsinks/vents.

https://www.tautvida...el-turbo-boost/

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 22 March 2021 - 05:29 PM.

[masdero]

Tarl Cabot, on 22 March 2021 - 05:28 PM, said:

What FPS are you getting now?

Since it is a laptop, the following..

1. Clear out the heatsinks/ducts. When using compressed air, have a slender not breakable item to hold the fans from spinning

2. If you are able to dissemble the laptop, even better, then also reapply thermal paste but do some research. Instead of thermal paste it may be thermal pad. Okay, looks like Thermal paste and not thermal pad. There are several youtube videos, view several then use the one that made the most sense. Below is link to one of those videos and it was pretty straight forward, but with no verbal directions.



3. Consider disabling Turboboost. The gist of this is not getting the top speed but to have a consistent speeds without it underclocking itself.

TB is meant as a layman's cheap but temporary overclock. With MWO you would likely see lots of instantly low FPS due to at least one of the cores exceeding thermal threshold, which then the system drops the CPU speed to baseline, usually around 800mhz or there abouts before ramping back up. Below is directions for disabling Turboboost, if 99% does not help, drop it to 98% then 97%. But this will not matter if there is severe dust buildup on the heatsinks/vents.

https://www.tautvida...el-turbo-boost/

I clean my dell every 6 months with compressed air and change the thermal paste. Dell provides full assemble and unassemble options in their website for their products!

As soon as I can, I will test how the system performs with the new configurations!

Edited by masdero, 23 March 2021 - 12:25 AM.

[masdero]

MrVaad, on 22 March 2021 - 07:15 AM, said:

You can follow the guide in my signature. But It will require some tweaking for your system.
Feel free to ask questions

should I set r_GeomInstancingThreshold to 8 having an NVidia card?
should I set the r_TexMinAnisotropy and r_TexMaxAnisotropy to a low value (e.g. 1) having an old card?
please, can you explain the pthread section in detail?

with the .cfg files the fog in caustic valley is like a semi-transparent layer with clear borders instead of being blurred. how can I revert it to the old settings?

Edited by masdero, 23 March 2021 - 01:35 AM.

[MrVaad]

masdero, on 23 March 2021 - 01:20 AM, said:

should I set r_GeomInstancingThreshold to 8 having an NVidia card?
should I set the r_TexMinAnisotropy and r_TexMaxAnisotropy to a low value (e.g. 1) having an old card?
please, can you explain the pthread section in detail?

with the .cfg files the fog in caustic valley is like a semi-transparent layer with clear borders instead of being blurred. how can I revert it to the old settings?

Geometry Instancing (needs r_BatchType=0)

r_GeomInstancingThreshold = X
This is for geometry instancing. The engine will detect identical objects above X and save the geometry, so that it's cheaper to draw.

-> I found that the number of drawcalls (graphic card "calls" from the cpu) are better with 1 or 2.
But you can experiment with it.
->This won't be very visible in gpu or cpu usage but will give you more headroom when there's a lot of objects to draw.

Anisotropic filtering

Anisotropic filtering prevent textures from getting blurry when at high angles (almost horizontal for example). The higher the setting, the farther textures will get blurry.

I added the anisotropy settings mainly to up the values.
- Default for r_Texture_Anisotropic_Level = 1.
- Default for r_TexMinAnisotropy = 8
- Default for r_TexMaxAnisotropy = 8
-> If you set r_TexMinAnisotropy=0, engine will use the setting defined in each material (texture). Does not seem to work well.
-> You can try setting everything to 1 or 2 but I'm not sure you'll see a performance difference.

Physical Threads

pThread section is to limit or add more threads to the physics engine. Sadly, it causes display bugs when boating many ballistics weapons (bullets explode too soon).

I kept the descriptions but p_num_threads should not be used.
sys_limit_phys_thread_count is useless as p_num_threads default value is 1.
When sys_limit_phys_thread_count is set to 0, p_num_threads allows you to have 4 physical threads.

Fog
This is probably r_UseSoftParticles=0.

It makes the particles (fog, smoke, etc) intersections soft but it has a cost.
See this example http://cdn.wolfire.c...iclecompare.jpg
-> You can set r_UseSoftParticles=1.
-> Also set e_ParticlesSoftIntersect=1 or remove the line (don't know why i kept 2, it forces the settings on all particles).

Edited by MrVaad, 23 March 2021 - 12:52 PM.