FPS issues AMD vs NVIDIA

[Jim_Brass]

Hi all

Sorry if this has been posted somewhere I did try searching but found no results for my particular scenario. My desktop PC seems to struggle handling emergency vehicle lights whereas my laptop does not. I would say the only major hardware between the two that could cause this would be the graphics card (Desktop uses AMD and Laptop has a Nvidia). I will also post a dxdiag for both systems. Just wondering if anyone else has noticed this or if there are any suggestions people could offer please.

Thanks

 

 

PC-DXDIAG-CONDENSED.txt

LAPTOP-DXDIAG-CONDENSED.txt

[MikeyPI]

I have an amd card which runs em4 just fine... really the differences between ANY card set usually comes into play with the driver configurations.  For a generalized example here em4 is really old unfort, so alotta new features/functions found in cards and drivers mean exactly nothing to it. Given that everyone has different system configs it's not at all uncommon to see varying performance between various systems, one for ex will have no problems running win7 (or 8), decided to "upgrade" to win 10 and all the sudden they have gaming issues.  Why? the drivers change between versions of OS' so that kind of sucks. With 10 in particular (which both your machines run (albeit the laptop is a different build of 10 which very well may be in play here) has the added issue of the fact that not all manuf's have released "solid" drivers for it yet, particularly in the case of "customized" drivers from companies like HP, DELL, etc. 

That being said to the DX files:

Laptop page file: Page File: 3121MB used, 6271MB available

PC Page file: Page File: 6273MB used, 3194MB available (PC has far more page file available in spite of the fact that it has way more memory available, perhaps upping this will help but I'd guess the PC has far more "clutter" running in the background than the laptop does).  If that is the case, disabling or "suspending" some of that while playing might help free up the power of the machine to better focus on the game, remember em4 is a 32-bit game if I recall right.

With this game the GPU and ram really comes into the mix more than the processor it's self.  I read the driver for your card and you can try getting the AMD direct driver and see what happens, they might've improved it, the problem is If I recall a complaint (not sure 100% about it) that windows 10 would often try to "update" drivers on it's own without asking.  This is a really stupid behavior particularly for games:  On an old machine I had a Nvidia card in the thing, updated the drivers to play a newer game (the old ones were not cutting it) and the new game worked.. The catch-22? EM4 didnt:  I had to revert back the drivers in order to play em4 trying to tinker about and find a "middle" ground driver set which worked for both games, this issue still often comes up particularly in balancing new software with old software, sometimes the newest and latest drivers help, sometimes they don't.  It's alotta search and playing about to find the driver which works best for what you're trying to do.

Either way though according to the dx diag, the drivers on the PC arent up to date so it's worth a shot:

http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/apu?os=Windows+10+-+64

the problem is most likely due to a setting and/or driver related, unfort all you can do is try different drivers to find the one which works best (sadly it's actually better when they flat out cause a crash since it's far easier to "know" for sure it's not good than trying to find the one which gives the best performance for your use).  I don't use 10 so I'm not sure if it's possible to turn off the auto-update driver function or not, if so I'd strongly urge you to do so and manually update them when you wish to deal with the conflicts that often result.  Using machines for gaming you don't really want to update the graphics drivers just to do it, if everything is working right often updates will make it not work so great esp. with old games. 

Try updating the driver and then look in the AMD catalyst CP and see if you can't custom-config em4, doing so try to "override the game's default settings" so that hopefully it'll take advantage of the card more since most old games lack support for the latest versions of hardware (unless the OEM made em backwards compatible which only tends to run a few years).  Both cards support DX9.1 in their current driver sets so that def isnt the problem, best guess the amd card uses a structure em4 doesnt know how to handle while the nvidia card uses something more traditional it knows how to work with better.  Overriding the game's settings might resolve some of that.

[Jim_Brass]

Thanks for the reply.

I had the issue even with Windows 7 but still between AMD and NVIDIA though. I will try a driver update first as that will be the easiest thing to do, then will mess with the settings on that version. If that doesn't work will try an older driver and keep the both drivers available to swap between if needed.

35 minutes ago, MikeyPI said:

I recall a complaint (not sure 100% about it) that windows 10 would often try to "update" drivers on it's own without asking

I don't use 10 so I'm not sure if it's possible to turn off the auto-update driver function or not, if so I'd strongly urge you to do so and manually update them when you wish to deal with the conflicts that often result.

General point for anyone who sees this using Windows 10 and didn't know themselves. I haven't found a way to outright disable Windows 10 updates on Windows 10 home edition (Other version do have a setting to disable them). The only way I have found is to set my internet connection as metered. Windows 10 will not download updates as it will think you have a data cap. Wifi connections can be set to metered from the WiFi settings you have access to. Ethernet connections have to have a registry edit to toggle them between metered and not metered. 

[MikeyPI]

Sorry I can't be too helpful with it, but it comes down to the fact that computers come in varying configs so it's hard to "pin down" what exactly is the culprit.  In some instances it's the modification that has too many of a feature the particular card doesnt do well in "backwards" compatibility.  I run the R9 without lag complaints, but on an older Nvidia I had problems with performance related to a driver "update" that for my uses was far from an update.  Sucks, but it's a reality with old games that over time support for them kinda dwindles, so sometimes having the newest version helps, most the time on older software/apps it hurts. 

Metering works well, but if I recall that also means it doesnt do system updates either (which that part you want it to do).  I have mine set to manual but that is a nice perk of the older windows versions so I am made aware of them but left to pick and choose myself.

Best of luck trying to find a good backwards compatible driver for the system, the system should be able to run em4 but like I said the AMD chipset might be using tech which em4 simply doesnt understand how to use, so going into the catalyst CP and setting up "custom" params for the game forcing it to override the game might help some with that.  My guess though is a different driver should help to ease the issue, if not outright eliminate it.  10 is still very new so the drivers have not really been optimized for it yet (most of the OEM's are focusing on new stuff first and working backwards as time wears on).

[woody_BLAH]

I was having exactly the same issue with my R9 290. Found that despite being an overwhelmingly powerful card as soon as a few vehicles with some decent lighting appeared, the FPS would start to drop below 20.

The last driver update I did gave me the Radeon Version 16.6, and this seemed to solve my problem. Or at least, the worst of it. I'd recommend starting with that and see how that goes. I've got Win 10 64 Bit, so it sounds like we've got somewhat similar systems. See the images for a reference of my EM4 profile, might be something in there that changed it. Just as a reference I also attached a shot of my system info, since I stopped having the lag, I've pretty much adopted the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" and not updated any drivers.

What you're saying about the automatic update is pretty much spot on. There's literally nothing that can be done other then that metered setting from what I've seen/done.

[MikeyPI]

Thank you for providing more information for him, I unfortunately run the R9 Mobile So it's not quite the same for me as you guys.  Hopefully it'll help him sort it out; it's kind of one of those things when you got new tech and old games they rarely mix.  But you've done the right thing in "blocking" updates to the drivers because even on older systems "if it aint broke don't fix it" is the motto for gaming with these things.

[woody_BLAH]

Jim (and anyone else having the same issue),

I've just updated my bios as I was having some other issues with another game, and found that EM4 is now running as smooth as ever. I've got an ASRock Z87 OC Formula motherboard, now running BIOS version P2.20 dated 04/28/2015. I was previously using the one that was on it when it got shipped, so probably not that recent. No idea how this managed to fix it, but I'm happy it did.

Be aware, updating your bios can be a very risky thing to do and if you stuff it up, it can be really bad. Just be careful and make sure you know what the go is before you jump into the deep end.