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Is this my graphic card issue?
squirtlejiggly
Member Posts: 68
Hi, i've been having this problem for some time.
Basically, I can set the graphic settings of Neverwinter really high...
The problem only comes where I'm in a dungeon or somewhere with a huge bunch of mobs.
My screen will start to stutter. I can tell that it's not lag but I'm guessing it's something to do with my disc write speed or something like that.
It's like everything is in slow motion and it only goes back to normal after all the mobs are cleared.
This only happens when there's a big bunch of mobs to clear. It makes it really hard for me to clear dungeons.
I know this is not my internet issue.
Can anyone tell me how do i solve it?
My comp specs are as below
8GB RAM
GT 750 M
Windows 8
Dirext X 11
My question are as below.
1. Is there something that needs upgrading/updating?
2. Is this a hardware issue or a software issue?
3. How do I solve this?
Basically, I can set the graphic settings of Neverwinter really high...
The problem only comes where I'm in a dungeon or somewhere with a huge bunch of mobs.
My screen will start to stutter. I can tell that it's not lag but I'm guessing it's something to do with my disc write speed or something like that.
It's like everything is in slow motion and it only goes back to normal after all the mobs are cleared.
This only happens when there's a big bunch of mobs to clear. It makes it really hard for me to clear dungeons.
I know this is not my internet issue.
Can anyone tell me how do i solve it?
My comp specs are as below
8GB RAM
GT 750 M
Windows 8
Dirext X 11
My question are as below.
1. Is there something that needs upgrading/updating?
2. Is this a hardware issue or a software issue?
3. How do I solve this?
Post edited by squirtlejiggly on
0
Comments
1) The problem might be that your graphics drivers are outdated, in that case upgrading them might fix the problem. I believe this is the most recent driver for your video card: http://www.geforce.com/drivers/results/73784
2) Unless you're having the same problems on another game, then I'm almost certain that is a software issue.
3) If the thing above didn't fix it try to change your Video Card settings in game to DirectX 9. It is under Esc>Options>Display the first thing in the list
Thank you for your instant reply!
The thing is, I don't play any other game on my computer besides Neverwinter and Fifa. I don't have any problems at all on Fifa though.
I'll try changing it to DirextX 9 and see how it goes. What's the problem with Nvidia and DirextX11 on neverwinter anyway
Is there any other viable options available?
This fixed all dungeon issues for me short of Malabog's, which used to be fine but was broken in some patch.
thank you and i will try that out soon. Btw, do you know any way to increase my frame rates without changing my graphical settings? I figure it's an issue with the frame rates
Thus, it is notebook specific 'Low Power' hardware with low power consumption, with reduced functionality and processing power.
Dropping your graphical details to medium (Hint: Use Geforce Experience for that, it affects the actual resource hogs), retry, if that doesn't help, drop to low.
No Software side (or Setting side) fixes will help if the hardware itself is straining to keep up. If you want to try individual settings, start with physics, particle effects and drawing distance. Fog effects also draw significant resources.
Edit: Also, there is a little 'Trap' built into the designation pattern used by Nvidia (not sure about ATI/AMD there, but they probably do the same)
In general, the x50 GPUs are feature deactivated (physically, these days, not just firmware!) 'high grade' chips of the previous chip generation that had failed the QA for the 'High Grade' bracket, but which retain enough functionality to work as a lower level chip.
An extreme example is, for example, the 600 Series from Nvidia. Up to the GTX650 Ti (and all its other variants), the GPU was a feature deactivated, lower clocked 500 Series chip, using the 'old', powerhungrier architecture, only the GTX660 (even without extra designations) had the newer, less power hungry architecture used. Also, even the 500 Series based GTX650 checks out with marginally better benchmark performance than the GT750M.
Thank you for the detailed reply. I'll try lowering my graphics settings. However, i connect my laptop to a 19'' monitor through a VGA cable. Do you think that will be affecting my gameplay?
I will try reducing the shadow settings as nallif recommended and also i reduced the max debris setting to '0'. Hopefully it will improve the situation
More things on the screen means more things for your GPU to process. Look at it this way, does it take longer to organise 5 objects or 50? Computers do that faster than humans but they still suffer from the same natural laws.
The idea is to find a happy medium between performance and visuals. Setting max physical debris to zero is...unacceptable to me. I would rather have a decent looking game than sit at max FPS all the time. However what your computer can handle is very much dependent on your computer hardware.
If you supply some specs I am sure people can give you some more realistic advise.
For starters here are the GPU intensive settings:
Shadows, Bloom, Reflections, Max Physical Objects, Max Draw Distance, Detail
The solution is almost never to turn those settings to minimum/off, unless you simply don't like those settings, but to play with them until you find the happy medium between performance and visuals.
This is correct up to a certain point, but to be clearer, it is not so much a problem of how many objects you have, but rather how complex the current to-be-on-screen graphics is to render. Usually one would measure this in terms of how many polygons (usually triangles) need to be rendered, the shape of each part of the hierarchical model, the skin, the texturing, then also the graphics engine's handling of movement (x-axis, y-axis, z-axis, camera rotation on x-axis, camera rotation on y-axis,camera rotation on z-axis, coordinates of the camera, lighting, colour, surface, material behaviour and properties such as reflection, refraction, etc.) among many other things, and that would be only for just one object.
When you consider how all that is done for multiple objects, not to mention background, special effects, etc. it becomes a matter of overall complexity rather than the number of to-be-on-screen objects there are that need to be rendered. This then goes through double or even triple buffering, so you might need a card with more memory as well, not just speed. Clockspeed has already been proven to be only one out of many important factors, and it is not even the most important. Usually, if you really want such great graphical rendering capacity, you would assemble a high calibre number-crunching, machine with a multiple GPU SLI setting of the highest quality you can afford while also taking care to loosen up all the various bottlenecks in your computer's build. There would be no point having the best GPUs set up if you had bottlenecks in other parts of your computer. A computer is always only as fast as its slowest bottleneck. This includes taking main memory (main RAM), L2 cache, L3 cache, clockspeed, processor model and type, settings for the processor, clockspeed and timings for the RAM, etc. I would suggest not overclocking if you want your processor to have a higher chance at a longer life, but that is up to you. Also, there is the secondary memory (Hard Disk Drive or Solid State Drive) bottleneck. If you want capacity, the magnetic Hard Disk Drive (HDD) is best, but if you want speed, the Solid State Drive (SSD) would be better.
This is because of the way memory is managed, so whenever you run a huge amount of stuff, anything that isn't in RAM has to be transferred to RAM before it can be used and if the RAM is full, and what you need isn't in the RAM, it is a page fault, and thus the page (segment of memory) will have to be transferred off the RAM and into the secondary memory and the necessary data transferred into the RAM to be usable.
So when running a 3D game with full-blown 3D graphics, you would have to have all these things considered. Thus it is actually not as simple as just the number of objects. It could be so many things that are actually causing the problem, or just one of them. Even 1 bottleneck would ruin the performance in your game.
Of course, I cannot say that there are no software problems with Neverwinter's graphics engine either, since no graphics engine can be entirely perfect. Therefore it could also be something to do with the drivers, etc. Or it could be that Intel made some mistake, or perhaps NVidia did. Also, there is the issue of whether you are using an original NVidia, or an OEM NVidia GPU. Each one has its own issues. It could also be that your GPU isn't running at full due to a power supply issue, among other things.
All in all, there needs to be a more detailed description of the situation you are having, as even on-site troubleshooting is hard enough as it is.
Hi thank you for your reply. I'm trying my best to find the optimal settings for myself. But maybe some of you can supply more advice based on the specs below:
Processor
Intel® Core™ i7-3630QM (2.4GHz up to 3.4GHz, 6MB L3 Cache)
Windows 8
14" HD WLED
Nvidia GT750M 2GB DDR5
8GB RAM
500G HDD
6 Cells Battery
and for additional information:
I connect my laptop to a 19'' monitor via a VGA cable. Will the performance be affected due to the fact that it's connected to a monitor?
This works on 'proper' desktop type cards, but not so much on limited graphics hardware like the GT750M. Memory wise, you are 'fine', its the actual graphics chip that is bottlenecking you hard.
Your monitor shouldn't affect the performance at all since it is plugged into your power socket. The power supply would come from there. The only thing that would affect it is what kind of cable you use to connect the laptop to the monitor, since some cables are faster than others, and their quality is also better.
Your battery should be okay as long as it is performing the way it should and isn't having problems such as reduced power supply due to age, etc. If there is such a problem, you could plug your notebook directly via the notebook's appropriate adapter to a direct power source, which would then be fine unless your adapter or your power supply itself is problematic. Signs of such power supply problems are for example, USB trouble, or any external device problems where the external device, plugs and ports themselves are fine, any flickering that shouldn't be there, sudden rebooting of the computer, etc.
Since it is a HDD (unlimited writes, slower) and not an SSD (price depends on availability, limited writes, faster), you would have to put up with a somewhat slower data transfer rate between the main memory and secondary memory whenever there is a page fault (i.e. needed data not in main memory), etc.
RAM would be best as the 1600 instead if I remember the evaluations right, but only under certain conditions. Also, your RAM's transfer rate is another point to consider, but I wouldn't know what yours is. You probably need to check it yourself, since you can access the info directly. Also, RAM are best off with the same timings and clock speeds, etc.
Windows 8 is a good OS in terms of being light on the load, and fast to boot, but it still has some lackings in support, being a newer OS than Win7, so it all depends on whether the software and hardware support it well.
I'm no expert but I have heard and witnessed certain Intel processors having a reboot all of a sudden due to their built-in automatic control of the processor's heat ventilation. I have only seen it on one of their latest desktop processors though. Just thought it would be good to know when checking for power supply issues.
Your processor should be fine with multithreading, but then, your GPU is at half the maximum capacity, so that's another thing to consider, since more memory means more space to store all the data in instead of losing it and having to encroach on your main processor's capacity instead. Losing data from the RAM also means your GPU has to reprocess things it has already processed before, which is a waste of time and thus causes ineffiency. Also, this GPU is recommended to be best for 15" or greater notebooks. That's only a rough measure though. If you have enough power, it shouldn't be a problem. Heat ventilation is another thing to take into account, as overheating usually leads to lower performance and lifespan.
That's all important stuff that I can tell from the info given above (unless I overlooked something seeing that I'm in a bit of a rush), but that should be it, and it's probably both partially software (inefficient programming, insufficient support, etc.) as well as hardware, seeing that it's a HDD if what you're saying is true. The rest is difficult to tell, since the details aren't stated, so the best way is to get someone who's good with hardware and get them to take a look at all the specifications in the manuals and all and see if they are they best setup of components for this grade of processor, etc. Always remember to look for the slowest bottleneck (weakest link).
This is however why I dislike notebooks, since they have so many limitations on how you can setup the components, since all notebooks and smaller are factory made (you can't make your own since the materials are so fine even the slightest mistake would spoil it, not to mention you need a machine to make some of those things like the monitor.
Ya, true, your settings on how the display, etc. is handled will also affect it, but that should be rather minor, since theoretically you shouldn't need to display the other stuff unless it is to-be-on-screen. Anything different would mean the programmer either made a mistake, overlooked it, or he couldn't get around the issue. Either that, or your GPU is overloaded.
As for the optimal specs, before we go any further it is important to understand that laptop components are inferior to desktop components. As rough guide it is fairly accurate to say that laptop components are a full generation behind their desktop "equivalents."
Still, the components you have are more than capable of running the game on mid-high settings without any issue. That is exactly why I hate when people say to do something as severe as removing physical debris without knowing anything about the computer they are giving advice for.
Try resetting all graphical settings to default and then taking everything I listed down by one setting. In the case of sliders or numbers put 75% of the recommended value. If that doesn't work lower them further.
However there are certain situations that will bog down any computer. One situation is any time there are a lot of lights, shadows and objects in a small location. For instance being in a cave and casting arcane singularity in a small doorway such as you find in Spellplague Caverns. It doesn't matter how good your computer is it will be locked up momentarily.
It is easier to avoid those situations and more pleasing, IMO, to deal with it when they arrive than to play the game on perpetually low settings. So when you lower your settings also try to notice when the issue occurs and consider if it can be avoided by adjusting your tactics a bit.
I have always run this game with everything maxed on my system. After yesterdays patch I was running around Icewind without issue, joining in heroic events (tons of mobs, tons of people) without issue, etc. I jumped into a FH group and the game became a slideshow once there were a few npcs on screen. It would clear up and then get worse again when we'd attack a new pack. I logged, restarted computer, came back in to everything working great, was in a middle of a boss fight when it went back to being a slideshow.
So something changed, just not sure what.
I agree here. The best tactic is to try to maximize your performance while maintaining decent graphics. However, the special effects that will always cause problems are all those multiple object stuff, such as snow, rain, excessive sparkles, etc.
Hmm, I don't know since I didn't see it first hand nor am I the programmer, but it could be a memory leak, among other things, which is common when you make a major change, since you can't always be sure you did everything right, seeing that even the tiniest mistake could even send you into a major problem like an infinite loop or some other issue. After all, garbage collection, though convenient, is not a crutch you can rely on 100%. Many things still need to be handled specifically. This would be better off reported as well to the dev team so they know. Which is why I suggest the ability for players to capture the situation and its necessary data on the spot and then send it to the dev team wityh a description of the problem. This way, players can report in detail whenever they encounter some problem
This bit is completely incorrect.
The computer does not supply power to a monitor but it does supply data. There would be little to no issue in plugging in an external monitor but the exact monitor will play a role in the performance. If the monitor is a higher resolution than the laptop (many laptops are actually not truly 1080p) then it will definitely increase the performance demands. To a lesser extent the size of the screen will also create a strain as well but this is something that is really only noticed when comparing a 50 inch TV to a 24 inch monitor. And yes those are the two screens I play on.
What will NOT make any difference is the cable.
If you use a VGA the signal will be worse but it won't negatively effect the performance. Same goes for DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort.
The different cables have difference bandwidths so they can transfer more data than each other but there is no difference in speed. To top that off there is also next to no difference between a 5 dollar cable and a 100 dollar cable especially over shorter distances. The whole cable quality is a marketing farce to exploit the average consumer. This video does a much better job than I can of explaining what is and is not important in regards to cables.
EDIT - To better understand the difference between bandwidth and speed imagine cables are a roadway. All cables have a speed limit of 55 MPH (just for the sake of numbers). This means data is not transformed any faster by any cable as the data can only be transferred at the set speed limit. However a VGA cable only has one lane, a DVI has 2, HDMI has 2.5 and a DisplayPort has 3 lanes. This means more data can be transferred on the cables at one time but it is not any faster.
This actually effects quality, not performance. A VGA cable can not fully support the amount of data needed for 1080p. Likewise a single HDMI can not support the data needed to run a 4K monitor.
If you want a quick example of this in practice plug a coaxle cable into an HD TV. That is exactly what computer cables do on a lesser scale.
I believe I mentioned the cable being an issue, but I guess I forgot to state that it only affect the display in a minor way. As for the monitor having to convert, I guess I overlooked the fact that I was thinking that the GPU's handling of the graphics would be considered under my explanation of the GPU and how graphics engines work, so I'm sorry for any misunderstanding due to my taking for granted that greater resolutions will obviously affect the GPU's load. Sorry about that.
The other thing to remember is that you should set your graphics resolution to your monitor's native resolution. Conversion is inefficient, not to mention possibly ugly.