Gaming Discussions

[Posoroko]

Hello all !

I have a lenovo laptop that I use for work when I'm on the go.

It has a ryzen 7 5700U with AMD Radeon graphics and 16gb of ram.

I've played a few games that ran pretty well. Even if I don't get crazy results, it's still enjoyable gaming. I've replayed L.A. Noire and it ran pretty smoothly.

I'm now trying to play Valheim and the results are quite bad.  In the AMD Radeon app, I can see that both CPU and GPU are only running at 75%, even though the frame rate stays under 20.

What can I do to get better FPS  ?  Could there be something limitng the performances of the CPU and GPU ?

I've tried lowering the graphics settings, but I only get a few frames more. And whatever I do, the hardware performances are never at maxed.

Any tips ?

Thanks in advance !

[BigAl01]

I would first visit the Lenovo website and look for any driver updates recommended for your laptop.  Then I would also check the Windows Update to see if anything else comes up.  Following that, perhaps your vents are partially blocked by dust?  Maybe use a can of compressed air to blow any dust out of the vents.  

While gaming on the laptop, what are the temperatures of the CPU and GPU?

[Posoroko]

Hi!

Thanks for taking the time to help!

I've made all the updates possible already.  I made a bunch of scans to look for malware and found one that was using a bit od cpu, now things look clean.

When gaming, the cpu temperature is between 60°C and  65°C

 AMD doesn't show the FPS, but we can see that Steam says 19 fps.

I feel like there could be room for more fps ! 🙂

thanks again for you help !

[BigAl01]

According to the AMD website, your Ryzen 7 5700U should be running the latest Adrenalin graphics driver update (24.9.1).  Have you installed that update?  It appears that your CPU temperature is reasonable, so it shouldn't be throttling back on the performance of the internal graphics.

[FunkZ]

If you're referring to the Valheim game on Steam, it is in Early Access, meaning it is still being developed and effectively "beta". There may be further optimizations the developers make as the game progresses so that it runs more efficiently. Sometimes the system requirements change once the final game version is released. They invite customer feedback via their Discord channel.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/892970/Valheim/

Also note that your 5700U Radeon 512SP IGP is the equivalent of Vega 8 graphics. The minimum GPU requirement for Valheim is listed as HD 7970 and the recommended is RX 580. If you search on performance comparison of those two cards vs. Vega 8 you'll find those discrete cards offer from 200%-400% more performance than your integrated graphics. Unless the graphics requirements are adjusted lower with the final version or further optimizations are made the game will likely not run smoothly on your laptop.

[Posoroko]

Thanks for you response !

My question is about the gpu and cpu usage.  Why are they not running higher than 65% ? 

I get 20 to 30 fps and 15 when located in a intensely built area. Not great at all, but playable for a bit of fun with my friends. 
Why aren't the gpu and cpu trying harder to push more fps if they still have 35% left of capacity ?

[FunkZ]

Perhaps you didn't read through my detailed response. I'll summarize.

1. The game is in Early Access and is likely not fully optimized to run 100%.
2. Your graphics does not meet the minimum performance requirement. 

[Posoroko]

Maybe you've never tried running a game on a pc that doesn't meat the required specs so let me explain what we usually see. 

Usually, the gpu and/or cpu would run at 100% and still generate low fps.  The temperature might go up, sometimes too hot and the game crashes.

You are quite accurate when you say that my pc doesn't meat the minimum specs for this game. But still, that is not my question.

My question is NOT : Why do I have low fps ?

If that was my question, your answer would be spot on.

My question IS:  Why is my gpu and cpu not going full throttle ?

To that question, your answer is irrelevant. Or do you have more details about the game's way to handle pc's that don't meat the specs ?  Does it actually have intentional limitations ?  Have we ever seen games apply these kind of limits ?

So, to make this helpful, let's try answering these questions:

Could the amd software limit the gpu and cpu ? If yes, is there a way to modify those limitations?

Could there be a frame limitation in the amd software? A temperature limitation ?

It makes me wonder if my pc might ALWAYS be limited. When I do intensive tasks in photoshop, how can I make sure that it's running to the max of it's capacities ?

My desktop pc has a core i5 and an rtx2070. It doesn't meat the specs for some games, but still, when I play big games at 4k, the gpu goes full throttle to 100%. It doesn't push much fps, but it gives all it's got.

So once again, why isn't my laptop trying harder ?