You could start by lifting the back part of your notebook a bit from the desk with a book or something. If your air intake is on the bottom, that might already help increase air flow.
I just leave the power setting open. Switching between modes on Windows 10 is just a radio button toggle, works instantaneous.
That actually is a really good idea! Why do I always forget about this one.
I seem to remember Gamers Nexus having a recent testing video on exactly this.
This can be a little tricky due to knowledge about service names and what they are doing. I suggest consulting the Task Manager frequently to get an idea what services actually eat up CPU.
Good idea. Windows search sucks anyways. If you need a quick file search, use Ultrasearch. This one searches the Master File Table instead of the files themselves. The MFT already acts as an index, so this method is super fast.
Not sure about this one, I don’t remember it being recently mentioned anywhere else in the same context.
What kind of fps do you get, @Bootie? You can check on that with MSI Afterburner as well. Or use the indicator that Steam provides.
Well I might be a bit further forward - I hunted down unneeded services and then looked at graphics, and found that the machine was trying to use default graphics (i.e. on-board graphics as opposed to Game Card) in all circumstances, So i made GZ a specific exception (to force it to use the graphics card) and tried again - milions of enemies and it only got slightly warm, not hot like normal. the on-board graphics is two megs, the Card 4megs.
The case is aluminium, not plastic and the whole right hand side of the comuter was getting hot as it spread the heat! I’ll try again, but i think that’s helped. I always do a clean boot before I play (it only take 20 seconds!). I’ll go through @Voodoo’s post again in detail (and Peggy’s) and see if i can’t get it even happier!
So to sum it up (did I understand it correctly?) you switched from integrated graphics to the dedicated one (makes perfect sense, we did not think about the possibility you are using the IGP) and that solved a major part or the heat issue.
That sounds like your laptop has at least a half decent cooling solution for the nvidia card, while the one for the CPU is at its limit during gaming sessions. Distributing the heat further is really good, particularly with a metal case. Then an active cooling might even help further, but if that won’t increase your performance, it might just be too much.
I would be interested in your frame rate (fps). Do you gain fps with the dedicated GPU? This is not necessarily the case, but I really hope so. Due to the nvidia card being slightly more powerful and the CPU’s lesser throttling due to heat.
And if your fps still DE-crease over time with heat, you might benefit from more aggressive cooling.
I usually just use the Steam overlay for fps monitoring. You find it in the Steam settings under “In-Game”. There you need to activate “Enable thee Steam Overlay while in-game” and then further down set the “In-game FPS counter” to “Top-right”, e.g.
All right - I’ll have another go tonight and let you all know (a whole thread all to myself, what joy!) Srtill orther people might find the advice useful, who knows?
Although, when comes to pure length then I’ve already been “beaten” a little while ago.
Good point.
That uses RAM and also a bit of CPU. Which is not something you want if you are low on resources to begin with. Besides, double clicking a (persistent) shortcut is a lot more convenient, imho.
Correct. That’s not where I got the info from btw. I’ve been disabling this stuff for a lot longer than I care to remember
Agreed. That’s why I explicitly assumed common sense and hinted at familiar names (that you thought to have disabled in the start up.
This is not the standard search application. You can still search like you are used to (only slower). It merely disables content indexing. Content indexing basically creates a “library with key words” for the actual contents of each file along with the file properties. Even the contents of e-mails are indexed.
I just search myself, usually. It helps if you keep your stuff (or at least the more important stuff) somewhat organised. Searching an entire disk sucks but searching in a specific folder isn’t so bad.
Nothing gets mentioned before it gets “discovered”
What impact is has most likely depends on your configuration (amount of ram, programs you use, etc) and probably mainly on Microsoft’s “mood”. Of course, you won’t suddenly double your frame rate or something but you may be surprised what effects it can have.
Like @pegnose said: that’s, obviously, not something we thought about. That’s, also obviously, something that should not happen. But good stuff finding that out!
I found a little video comparing the two in a couple of games:
The methodology of that guy completely sucks, obviously, so that says a lot about the reliability. But it may give you an idea. It’s not really a lot faster in a lot of games but in some others it is.
Nevertheless, Using the dedicated card shall also mean that there is more RAM available for the game itself (because that one has didicated graphics memory and the IGP uses system memory).
That video is interesting because it was a controversy among people and only certain 3rd party tools and combos were actually harmful. So for some it’s worth a watch.
True, but if Windows search with indexing is already slow…
Agreed, I usually know where my own stuff is (imagine people who don’t). Ultrasearch is great for when something tells you that you have a certain file somewhere on your disk. Plus the format of the Windows search output is so horrible.
Huh, I’ll give it a shot!
Very good point!
Ceterum censeo… tell us your fps, Bootie! We wants to know!
(without v-sync, of course - uncapped that is to get an idea of what your system can do, on, let’s say, the Medium preset)
EDIT: @Voodoo It turns out that Windows 8+ dynamically ignores SSD drives for Superfetch (which now is called “Sysmain”).
Fuuunnnyyyy! Yes, but mine is flat, with just grass, and little tiny stumps at each end in the middle. It took the insects a while to get the hang of it, but it’s rivetting now. I had to ban the wasps, 'cos they kept killing the other players, and the ants try to get five million fielders onto the pitch, which rather alters the balance of the game…
Dynamically as in “randomly” or “when it feels like it”? I don’t know what the deal exactly is with that but it still manages to have an effect on my machine. Maybe because I also have a mechanical hdd as data disk?
Anyways … it sucks.
Dynamical as in it does not fetch anything from SSDs. “Selective” would maybe more fitting. Of course, when you also have an HDD, superfetch will fetch. Apparently the most noticeable effect is on concurrent reads/write to the same medium, although it also costs a fraction of the CPU. RAM impact should be negligible as superfetch data will be freed/overwritten as soon as the space is needed. AFAIK.
EDIT: The idea is not bad though (for non high-demand machines). It has been replicated in many facets such as SSHD drives, dedicated SSD cache devices, and even RAM disks (either persistent or not).
Freeing memory (and the administration that comes along with it; on multiple levels) takes time. Memory management is not “for free”.
That can be especially problematic if your program (in this case Generation Zero) dynamically allocates (and/or de-allocates) a little bit of (extra) memory regularly during the execution of the program. If Windows stuffed that memory with other crap it has to do -something- every single time that that happens.
Of course it all depends on the exact implementation of memory management in the OS (and they are probably smart about it) but it shall have some impact.
All right guys, here is the result! it turns out that I move between 35 FPS and 21! At 21 it gets a bit slooow - a good two seconds in the air for a running jump, but if I pop into the menu and come back out, then it’s back up to 34-35. Doesn’t go higher!
But then I’ve played through the whole game like that.
As for cooling, I went to dinner with my brother last night, and my nephew (who lives in their basement (I know - failure to launch) ferreted about behind his multitudinous computers and came up with a USB-powered cooling pad, covered in dust. But it works still, so I shall try that to keep things cool. It did seem to make a difference when i tried it last night…
At one point I did go up to some 45 FPS and the game just sang! Oh, I thought, that’s quick and purposeful…
Now please don’t attach it to a USB connector on your laptop. Use a power adaptor in a power outlet.
Good to know! So what should we talk about now? Your french car? I can change the topic name of this thread you know. I’ve got a pencil and I’m here to help
You can bugger off. Do you know, I can’t even edit the Headline on my own post-thread! And I was a “Regular” from August! I ought to report it as a bug…
Don’t get me started on my car! Axa want to charge me €500 for “Not insuring an English car”…
Thank you for letting us know, Bootie! It does seem there is room for improvement there. I have strong hopes for you being able to play above 30 fps most of the time. The coming back from the menu thing points to thermal throttling, and with your metal case there can be some more fps to be had.
Also consider the fact that different graphics options have a differently strong impact on performance. And there are not so many in this game. If you are interested, consider playing around with individual settings in order to get a good compromise between graphics and performance.
Besides, double clicking a (persistent) shortcut is a lot more convenient, imho.
