Aging laptops and EL - *GUIDE*

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matchbox2022
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Aging laptops and EL - *GUIDE*

Post by matchbox2022 »

Holy it's been a ride with this laptop, I have figured out and made it do things it was never originally designed to do.


Now if you have a laptop this old (considering a desktop you would naturally upgrade), then it's time to buy a new one :P

This guide is about "maybe you don't have the funds yet, and want to have fun on an older computer, and cannot yet upgrade, but don't want Evochron running barely acceptably, and still pretty".
It can be applied to any computer really. But focuses on old models.

Why on earth would anyone care?

WELL. Alot happens in 10 years.

And using that knowledge, we can make Evochron run on older hardware that "can't be upgraded" too easily.

Big shout out to the developer Vice for this fabulous game, and all the hard work he's put in helping people on the forums as well as turning coffee into gaming for us.

He also helped contribute directly to commands and options for use via email, it is all here for you to read, specifically under "Trimming the Fat" in this guide.



Things that are current Gen I have seen some older tech outperform.
That is ENTIRELY due to knowledge, and optimizing what you have

This guide is BIG, if you are looking for a specific thing

Please use CTRL-F, and type your keyword.



SO to start.
This guide is for a laptop which is VERY old, 8-12 years typically.
Newer Hardware doesn't need the help for this game.

Got a problem?
Whenever you have any issue with a this game, always check for the general issues;



- Anti-Virus and firewalls off (temporarily to diagnose)

- I said ALL anti-virus, that includes anything running in memory on boot up.

- All Drivers MUST be up to date, sound, video, etc. I would not suggest updating your BIOS "usually".

- Latest OS updates undone, system restore points to fall back on used, graphic driver settings to default, Run the game at MAX and MIN settings.

- Attempt to run the program as administrator, disable security settings within the OS for said program (allowing full access), and un-set "Read only" mode for the entire game folder (often enabled)

- For many applications, Direct X and .Net frameworks if on Windows should be updated...ensured they exist.

- If your OS has any service packs or hotfixes (especially in regards to older multi core systems or for memory access) do install them. (NOTE Updates have been known to break game functionality as well!, Make a System Restore Point before using!)

- Ensure all other programs using the harddrive or memory are off, be sure your memory is error free and replace (cheap) if ANY errors found. Running out of memory is bad, but faulty memory is worse.






Difficulty Easy -



1) A newer OS
can generally increase the functionality of the laptop in ways that current laptops won't see as much improvement. One thing in general is WDDM support and virtual disks...which allow better RAM use by the video card storing some data on system ram instead of dumping it all together. It can show a LOT of improvement on older systems playing games. Also consider a 64 bit OS, as generally more memory is addressable, however take care not to do this if the only drivers you can find are 32 bit! (x86).

WDDM also allows if the game runs out of video RAM it NEEDS to render a current scene..... to not simply crash as Windows XP will.
However! There will be a MAJOR stuttering / slowdown in game if your system RAM is slow when this happens, even DDR3 would suffer.

WDDM 2.0 on Windows 10 is shown to have even better efficiency at helping organize what the video card should hold and what System RAM can in its place, and mitigating slowdowns.

2) More RAM
never hurt anyone. It is the simplest of all the internal upgrades for a laptop. Older 32 bit chipset laptops were generally limited to 4GB, with 3.25GB addressable (can actually be used). Some older laptops with 64 bit chipsets "can use more", however, it depends greatly on the BIOS. BIOS updates can generally allow for more RAM to be used, and if on a 32 bit system...will allow dual-channel mode.

Also of note, sometimes you may wish to clear your RAM in order to get every last byte available.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sys ... ammap.aspx

RAMMap is my personal favourite, its minimal, simple,
empty whatever you can select, then exit, presto, Ram never looked so clean.

You may wish to do this for the video card if you're on the brink of needing more video ram, the simple way of doing this is rebooting the computer...

The GPU "should" flush itself automatically, but with older cards some reminents seem to remain.

Another better way is to reboot "just" the video card.

http://www.guru3d.com/files-details/nvi ... nload.html

With updated drivers, this is your guy, as well as a TON of options driver side (and if you're lucky, an fps limiter / fxaa), you can manually reboot your video card using the switch via a shortcut of

"\\nvidiaInspector.exe -restartDisplayDriver"
This will flush your VRam.

This won't hurt your laptop, fixes many driver issues, and is a lot faster than rebooting the whole laptop.

Should be said, don't do this while in game.


**A SPECIAL NOTE / VERY COMMON ISSUE**


Some drivers and some games will be very sticky for video memory even when they don't need it. Your Video Card might not free up RAM that could be and should be.
This can often be an issue of running out of RAM, stuttering fps, even AFTER lowering settings, which should've fixed it.


The RAM is holding onto data it shouldn't be.

Best fix for this is to save the game, change your video settings,

COMPLETELY exist the game,
REBOOT the GPU,

and then reload. Your RAM and new settings should be clean.







3) What if I don't have that much Video Memory?

Well, again, a newer GPU would help..

In lieu of that, IF you run out of video memory, your game will either crash, or run VERY slowly, as your laptop uses SYSTEM RAM to make up the difference, which is MUCH MUCH slower.

Symptom

*CPU being at 25% or less use and game has slowed or is jittery*


An easy fix is to simply use only enough textures that it doesn''t completely fill your video memory.

A good program to use is gpu-z, with updated drivers & nvidia system tools, you can see how much video memory you are using currently.

Reducing video memory;

reducing texture quality,

shadows,

model quality
starfield backgrounds,

disabling Anti-Aliasing and triple buffering


all have a very large effect on GPU RAM.








4) Is Dual-Channel on?!?
What is Dual-Channel? It's simply put, where the D in DDR comes from when you hear those words in RAM thrown around. It can allow in theory for double the data throughput, resulting in a dramatic increase in performance. In "real world" conditions, it will amount to anything between a 5% to 30% increase in speed. Personally I have found myself on the 30% line, and will translate to VERY noticeable fps increases.

If your laptop has an updated BIOS from at least 2006, it "should" support Dual Channel.
The simplest way of achieving dual channel is to have matching sets of RAM, in speed (Mhz), timings, development series (DDR, DDR2, DDR3, DDR4, etc) and most importantly SIZE.

So, if you had 4 ram slots, and your laptop used DDR2 RAM, 4 x 1GB sticks, all running 800Mhz.
NOT 1x 1GB, 1x 2Gb, 1x 512MB, running at different speeds. In fact most ram if your laptop wasn't designed for it will simply not fit. aka. DDR3 ram in a DDR2 laptop. Laptops are quite forgiving for RAM but will default to low speeds if mismatches are detected in order to run correctly.
Most laptops will have 2 slots, just ensure you have 2 matching sets of ram to see the benefits.
If your laptop only has 1 slot, you can still benefit by upgrading to the largest value support.







5) Integrated (ie...lamesauce) video card?
Many laptops have intel integrated video cards....depending on the model these have the potential to be also have more ram "assigned to them".
A simple method is to go into your BIOS boot screen (typically on laptop startup, hitting F12, F2, F10, F1), and set the amount of system memory such video chip can use to its maximum. This helps if you have a lot of RAM to go around!

However, in games, the brunt of the issue will be your old GPU, or at times lack there of completely in the case of intel video accelerated graphics...it really isn't too accelerated.

All hope is not lost however. a FEW of these cards are, especially if older, able to be "accelerated". Overclocked is the term. This will be covered later in general. If you want to dive into the gritty details there's tons of googleable things.
The useful software for this will often be.

Intel
http://www.gmabooster.com/download.htm

Nvidia

- Rivatuner

ATI

- ATITool

Note that this is for OLDER hardware, between 8-12 years old.

Some drivers, especially for ati/nvidia that are newer, "can" allow overclocking without these tools. One example is "nvidia system tools" which allows some cards to overclock. More on this later.









6) CPU Throttling
From Pentium to about Core 2 Quad Eras, and equivalent AMD chips, this little program will serve you better than most.
http://cpu.rightmark.org/products/rmclock.shtml

http://1pcent.com/files/ThrottleStop/Th ... op_800.zip

So you run your little laptop, turn on EL, go down to a planet, where it was silky smooth in space...now it slows down..alot.
But it's managable, and then BOOM, suddenly you are watching powerpoint slides.
You may be experiencing CPU / GPU Throttling (or a lack of Video / System RAM). And it still exists today.
It is a defensive measure to keep your laptop from cooking, however.....it is often misused by manufacturers to ensure a margin of safety, and then that margin is chopped in half.
Depending on make of laptop, there are ways to avoid this issue.
RMClock has a LOT of built in features that put current CPU adjusters to shame. Regrettably it will never support anything beyond 2009 era CPUs.

This is as a diagnostic tool, to see if you actually are experiencing this terrible tragedy. Have the program running and launch your game in windowed mode. Switching from its graphs to your game have never been easier.
Hint, when you hit your slowdown in the game, use alt-tab, switch to this program, then in the monitoring tab, if you see the purple bar BELOW the red bar at all along it....guess what? You're a victim too.

More on "fixing" this later...long story short throttlestop can work. Sometimes it really is a magic fix! Forever! :D
But. You should really find out what's causing throttling and deal with it first, like cleaning your laptop before using this clever amazing tool made by "unclewebb"

Other times its telling you there's something else going on.








7) Dust bunnies breed like....bunnies.

This is the SIMPLEST fix for a laptop in general...it should be treated like oil changes for your car. Random shutdowns, CPU errors and throttling have happened to me all the time thinking...what was that, and all it took was a look at my temps to see why.

This point can't be understated, it seems obvious but its amazing how many people simply don't clean their heatsinks.

If opening up your laptop to clean it with sticky tape, q-tips and 99% alcohol isn't an option for you or is too complicated, then using a toothpick, hold your fan steady while the laptop is turned off, and blow some compressed air (cans of it can be found almost anywhere) through the grill in the sides, to backflow out any dust bunnies at the least, away from the airflow areas.

On some laptops this can even fix thermal throttling on its own.
Problem solved.






Difficulty Medium




1)...dedicated / Discrete (awesomesauce!) videocard?

Well. This is where life for your laptop gets a firm shot of espresso.
The biggest limiting factor in games will be your GPU, its efficiency, its speed, and its generation.
Generation
Short of upgrading your video card there isn't much you can do....oh wait, you have a "Discrete" video card.
This implies it can COME out of your laptop.
There is hope for you yet.

This does involve doing some research.
If your laptop is an acer, asus, hp, and various others...it is likely that your video card if "discrete" is of the format MXM.
That typically means that an ebay search, as well as the correct drivers may result in an upgraded video card which will be compatible with your laptop.
However MXM comes in various sizes, and you MUST get one that fits your laptop, for obvious reasons of size and others such as heat produced and power draw.

I know for a fact that DELL, does NOT use this format. If you have a discrete GPU, you will have to find another discrete GPU in dell's format. To make matter's worse, many BIOSes will only "whitelist" GPUs, such that only certain models will work. Others may indeed still work, if they fit but you will be sacrificing brightness control typically. However, with dell, many of their laptops are almost copies of each other in terms of layout and motherboards as you go through the eras. Lattitudes and Inspirons of the 06-08 era and indeed many Precisions are able to trade GPUs with each other, so long as the right heatsink and power supply is used to maintain them.

For example, the Precision m6400 can use a quadro fx 3700m, but also the 3800m from the Precision m6500. An E1705 can use a 3600m, which was the workhorse of the Precision m6300, but it barely fits and functionality is reduced.
However if the laptop series was "generally" speaking advertised with a range of GPUs available, and you have a discrete one (important due to soldering implications), then they will typically work, especially in the Dell models.

As I stated earlier, this needs some research done beforehand, but can be the singlemost largest performance increase you can give an aging laptop.









2) What about the CPU?

If you get this little nugget
http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html

You can look up your CPUs socket type, this generally allows you to browse ebay and find other CPUs that are better. Do some research first incase of BIOS whitelisting. Generally if you have a laptop that was advertised with a better CPU available and you opted for a cheaper version, this upgrade is entirely possible.

When on the hunt for parts, be sure to look out for any "extreme" versions, which typically will allow overclockability...however keep in mind you MAY need a larger power supply for your laptop, as well as a bigger heat pipe.







3) Thermal Throttling Cont'd

https://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/2 ... stop-6-00/

This guy continued where RMclock left off.
This program has full support of CPUs, but works MUCH better with current Gen CPUs.
It will work passably for our needs. Many laptops have thermal throttling which if engaged by the CPU, may simply be a design implication of the system.
But if it is from a preset BIOS limit as per an OEM manufacturer, then it may use something to communicate with it and the other sensors including the GPU called Bi-directional Protocol. This simply is a way of one component telling the CPU, HELP I'm too hot, you need to SLOW down.

Well, most manufacturers as early said are too eager with their limits...and safe limits are actually much higher.
This software allows you to disable (BiPro) these protocols and allows you to lock the CPU and Northbridge Chipset (also a major source of throttling) so they do not THROTTLE.
This works for many MANY people....so even newer CPUs benefit greatly.

However, if while using the program (I suggest once without it locking throttling out), I suggest you monitor where your game throttles, and look at the program to see if it is the CPU or the chipset throttling.
If Chipset, then this may not work, though if it does it's likely fairly safe to do.

IF IT IS the CPU, there is a completely different issue (such as a plugged exhaust vent, broken heatpipe, or air gap in CPU paste) and engaging this program isn't recommended, though most CPUs will reboot before any damage occurs regardless of this program.

The first thing to do with any throttling before attempting to disable it, is to try to keep the temperature under control first. This can be done by lowering ambient temperature, cleaning, ensuring good airflow, and even a simple laptop fan cooling pad can sometimes aid, especially if your laptop is a metal chassis.






4) Tighten those timings!

Granted, I haven't seen "incredible" results, but going off of your RAMs onboard timing set (a table which can be found in this program), which tells you the timings used for various memory speeds, this provides a roundabout way of increasing memory speed, however changing memory speed via the front side bus would be more effective. Using this, you can set lower timings meant for a slower speed to the speed you are currently using.

Req'd
http://www.tweakers.fr/memset.html

example
I am using DDR2 memory @ 666Mhz, the timings are 5-5-5-15
I can change that to 4-4-4-12, which is meant for 400Mhz, but my memory stays at 666Mhz. Very slow :P. I can get away with this since I bought 800Mhz memory, which being slowed down in my laptop, can likely have tighter timings without much consequence. Doing this with stock memory likely won't amount to much more than some blue screen errors and reboots...so it's only useful if you have already bought more RAM, and had the foresight to buy memory that works, is a tad faster and has matching sizes (to get the DUAL CHANNEL DAMNIT :P)








4) Overclocking & Heat

This is really the bread & butter really of all game performance.
TOOLS needed.

http://www.overclock.net/t/255892/setfsb-2-0
http://cpu.rightmark.org/products/rmclock.shtml
https://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/2 ... stop-6-00/
http://www.nvidia.com/object/nvidia-sys ... river.html
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/Vide ... uner.shtml
https://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/2 ... -z-v0-8-7/
https://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/2 ... r-windows/
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/Vide ... itor.shtml



In a nutshell, increasing frequencies will quite literally translate to better game frames per second.
CPUs, memory and GPUs all benefit, but this is really only worth your time for whichever one is weaker and holding back your laptops potential.

For a laptop, the most one can do for memory is attempt to overclock the front side bus.
This is hit and miss, and you will need to look up your specific device. Note, only older devices are likely to have any success with this method. Even if you do manage to look up and find your laptops Clock Generator model, many laptops now have a pin built into that generator which says "lock" this frequency. The only way to deal with it is to physically cut it.

Here's a nice article about overclocking netbooks using THIS method!! It is said to also work for Dells.

http://www.computerworld.com/article/25 ... tml?page=1

SetFSB is the more popular tool for this...when it works.

Most desktop users with any substancial motherboard can do this straight from their BIOS, us laptop owners are not as lucky.


CPU


The CPU can multiply this speed using....multipliers.
Otherwise we would all have computers running very slowly.

However, if you upgraded your cpu to an "extreme" or similar version CPU in a laptop, then it has its multipliers UNLOCKED.

This doesn't mean you can go into the BIOS and overclock like most people, but it does give hope....in fact its almost 100% certain then that you can make this thing faster by quite a bit.

Using throttlestop, you can unlock your cpu multipliers...and set them to...well...whatever you want! I've personally made a Core 2 Duo/Extreme run at 4Ghz. The sky is the limit!

The basics of all overclocking is

V=IR
P=VI
Power = Volts x Current
Voltage = Current x Resistance


You need voltage to be high enough to maintain whichever frequency you want.
Eg. 2Ghz = 0.975V
2.33 Ghz = 1.25V
but 4 Ghz = 1.7 V :O

The major issue is, when running a game, your CPU will be working at near 100% (we hope), so
Current = 100%

We only have a set voltage
aka 1.25Volt=1Amp x R

And Resistance increases as things heat up, so at perhaps 50 degrees
R= 1.1

Well now we have
1.25 = 1 x 1.1, which doesn't = 1.25

That is FINE! In fact we want the value on the left to always surpass that which is required to operate on the right.
IF current is 100% as well and can't be changed and here lies the problem.

Let's get things hotter. 80 degrees
r= 2
1.25= 1 x 2
Well, now the voltage is smaller than the number on the right side.....we need more voltage for this to maintain this speed.
In the real world, this would result in a 0x0000124 STOP Blue Screen Error...and the computer would reboot.

[size=5]The higher the frequency, the higher the voltage you need[/size].
But as that goes up
Power = Volts x Amps
at 100% CPU use, so does the power, which makes waste heat.
As heat goes up
Resistance goes up
And there you have the terrible situation we are in now. With nothing working.

So to get better performance at these new crazy fast speeds, something needs to give, we either need...

MORE voltage, so the numbers on both sides at least equal.
or...LESS heat, LESS Resistance, so the numbers on the right don't exceed the voltage.

It turns out the easiest thing to do is both.

When you are overclocking you need to adjust the voltage to where your laptop is no longer crashing with a reboot when being used in games.
Essentially hunting for numbers...the best case scenario is.




1-To get the temperature as low as possible

2-To get the voltage as low as needed....but not too low.

3-And to get the frequency as high as possible.





Getting the voltage lower WILL in turn make the temperatures lower. That alone helps alot.

A typical process is to go up by one multiplier, running a difficult program at near 100% cpu use, adjusting the voltage until the computer reboots, then using a number about 2 increments above that as your new voltage for that frequency.

Temperature is by far the enemy of laptops, The simple methods like a notebook pad and cleaning fans has already been discussed, there are more "extreme" solutions, like a watercooled notebook, but we won't dwell there.


There's a number of things one can do to help temperature.

- Having manual control of fans (typically via a fan program)
- Limiting Framerates
- Using larger Heatpipes and heatsinks designed for your laptop (though you may not have them)
- Using Arctic Silver 5 Paste for your GPU and CPU
- Using Copper Shims where any gaps exist between the heatsink and your GPU.
- Using directed pre-chilled air (using a peltier element, laptop cooler, or Air conditioner)
- Using a supplemental exhaust fan (designed to pull hot air OUT of your laptop...and hooks up to an exhaust port).



This applies to Video Cards, Memory and CPUs.



*Thankfully* laptop makers usually make a default voltage for whatever frequency....VERY high. So the number balance is leaning very much towards the left of the equation / high voltage.





This means right from the get go, you "should" be able to safely raise your multiplier by at least one, and everything should work fine! Just faster. :)
Eg. From 2.8Ghz -> 3.0 Ghz
Mult 15x - > 16x
Is probably easy to do and not a big deal at all.

This also applies to older xxxx nvidia series video cards, which often will only have 2 or 3 voltage selections only. Here, overclocking becomes much more a game of frequency and temperature, since voltage cannot be reduced or increased as easily.







5) My Laptops on FIRE!

Although it may actually be quite pleasant for typing with your hands on a warm keyboard, or blowing that exhaust in the right place ;)

Typically, overclocking or not, if you are gaming, temperatures at 80-90 C are not wanted and straight up dangerous to hardware (ESPECIALLY RAM, can become permanently damaged)

Proper cooling is important, but this can feel like you are cheated on a laptop.
You overclock, and then it decides to start throttling (regardless or what you previously did) because somethings hot, and you're playing a game....and you can hear the hum of an angel.

WHAT your fans sound like angels? Not turbojets?

This is the single largest reason things will throttle, not just dirty laptops, but badly made BIOSes which do not recognize the need to turn fans to FULL POWER.

Note, I've found, like ASUS, some laptops really aren't that bad when it comes to this, DELL on the other hand is notorious especially with the older laptops.
In this area, we have a few contender programs.

https://github.com/hirschmann/nbfc/rele ... .setup.exe

http://download.cnet.com/SpeedFan/3000- ... 67444.html

http://www.diefer.de/i8kfan/

Now I'm going to be blunt, out of all of them speedfan is my downright favourite. It is minimalistic in nature, lets you monitor a LOT of temperature sensors and works with DELL laptops.

However.....many of you with older laptops will find this lacking, a simple solution would be to

a) update your BIOS to one with better thermal tables

b) manually adjust your fans

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHNbadUuMeQ

That basically involves cutting off the Pulse Width Modulation signal, so the fan will run at 100% always. You "can" install a switch if need be too. If you do this method, do cut a place where it's easy to twist tie or solder the wires back together if you need to.

For my Dell laptop, the easiest solution by FAR, was to use an debug sensor mode the BIOS has to manually control the fans.
Laptops for Dell pre-2008 "should" work.
Hold Fn and while holding type
1 5 3 2 4

Then, Fn + R

Note the combination at the end may be different for your Dell make.
From here, it's pretty simple to adjust the fan speeds permanently and MSR auto throttling features. Best part is from here I can enable or disable BIOS control, and then speedfan has full control instead.

For more on updating BIOS go to the "hard" section.

As far as more cooling options go, the sky is the limit and can be as crazy as you want, but this is by far the most reasonable.

Full fans
Arctic silver 5
Copper shims for areas with gaps
And the LARGEST Heatpipes / Sinks Available that will fit your CPU / GPU

For example, I have a 7950 go GTX...but it is using a 8800M GTX cooler. It is providing almost 150Mhz more overclock than I was getting before.
Almost 15% for me. Dell makes things that fit others, what can I say...it's like taking a crown victoria transmission and putting it in an F-150 Truck. They're different / but they fit / and they work / ... so not really different.
I'm also in the market for a bigger CPU heatsink...but at this point its gonna be likely a m6500 Precision.



------>In order to upgrade these parts, cleaning of the old paste with 99% alcohol with q-tips are essential, as well as a full set of screw drivers (including TORX), lots of photographs for screws or an online take it apart guide. Then install your copper shims, put on your new paste, and you are away on the races.
Note this makes a difference even on your stock cooling, and is a great opportunity to clean your laptop :).<---------
There are lots of guides online in regards to thermal paste to look up.








6) Undervolting? and You!

Undervolting and Overclocking are terms thrown around alot by Liquid Nitrogen guys trying to impress the ladies with a 5 Ghz CPU that may or may not be sentient.

Undervolting implies attempting to find this balance in our equations, V = IR for any component we can.
This is important for not having excess heat to ruin our overclock, simply ramping up voltage to maintain high speeds isn't an option for a laptops frame. And voltage makes a LOT more heat.

, whether it be RAM, CPU or GPU. Desktop guys have it easy, a BIOS can typically give them a LOT of options to play with and tolerates more.

Lappy people do not have this luxury.

Requires;
Throttlestop or RMClock
Rivatuner / MSI Afterburner / Nvidia Control Panel
Benchmarking tools

http://en.freedownloadmanager.org/Windo ... -FREE.html
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/downlo ... Intel-XTU-
http://www.geeks3d.com/20150626/furmark ... benchmark/


These tools will allow you to benchmark while adjusting settings on the fly.

What we are looking for is mostly;
To find the optimal balances and maximum performance of each component.
In my example we will be discussing CPU, though it can similarly apply to GPU

We are watching for;


Frequency


Voltage


*****Temperature******


100% Utilization of Core Single Thread. CPU(MultiThreads, 50% per core) to draw as much power consistently as we can.
Trying any overclocking / undervolting without this is senseless.






First, we set up our system at best cooling (room tempertures and fans running full) if possible

Second, we begin running the test at default settings, waiting for fans to spool up if need be.

Third, for any given frequency we adjust in small increments up while watching temperatures.

Finally, we attempt to get our CPU at the best V = I R balance we can, we are trying to adjust voltage while the CPU is being used at 100% at a given frequency to see how low it can go.
Resistance will go up with temperature, so lowering this value is always on our minds. You should be adjusting your voltage down until there are system errors or a reboot



...then raising it by about .025 volts at LEAST.



Do this for every new increment in frequency until you have reached about 80 degrees Celsius, this is generally as hot as you want anything getting tops....and you start reaching the realm of limited returns for excess heat, damage, crashing, and resistance to voltage.

That's it, you have configured for the closest V = I R balance you can get.

Now go do that on your GPU if possible, it should be a lot faster...especially considering you will unlikely be able to adjust voltage.

We will be using this to optimize the frames our laptop can put out without throttling...and it makes a huge difference. :D





7) Overclocking the GPU, delicious.

This is again, the wine and chocolate fondue of the whole effort.
By overclocking this you can see gains of anywhere from very little to more than 40%!!

The overclocking method is very, very similar.
Except if you are using Windows 7, you no longer need to deal with Blue Screens to find where your overclock sweetspot is. The WDDM driver will reboot your video card for you :)

Its much less dramatic than it used to be.

In order to use this, you will need a couple things.

- A card "worthy of your time" of overclocking will have

Proper cooling (Arctic Silver 5 paste on the GPU, copper shims minimum)

A "large"r memory bus (anything above 64 bit) <---Can see on gpuz

Proper drivers which "allow" overclocking.

GPU Clock software

The most common "older" laptop overclocking software is Rivatuner....newer drivers can and must be using Nvidia System Tools or similar software instead...through the Nvidia control panel (for those with that card, Im unsure about ATI, catalyst likely has settings).

It does its job very well.

Overclocking the GPU is much the same as the CPU....minus that you will be "unlikely" to adjust the voltage.

And there are typically 3 fields which can be overclocked, and all should be in order to see improvements.

Core-> Base clock of GPU, much like the CPU, most important typically

Shader-> frequency of shaders portion only of GPU, found in 8xxx series and higher, can provide modest improvements in areas of special fx specifically in games.

Memory - > Base clock of memory, allows faster movement of data for processing by the GPU. Can show large boosts, but do not allow overheating!


All of these settings can be overclocked, but at full fans, good cooling setup and high temperatures, you will be pushing you overclock limit around 75 - 80 degrees Celsius.
At this point it becomes an area of limited returns,
Eg.
The card running at 850 Mhz, and 88 frames per second in game. <---- Crashes fairly frequently.

Vs.

The card running at 840Mhz, and 86 frames per second <---never crashes


The second option is quickly apparent as the right one, hence why all guides state to find your maximum overclock, and then always back it down by 10-30Mhz for all settings.
This can apply to CPU and RAM as well.


A typical range of improvement with little effort, especially on a GTX card (LARGE memory bus), can be around 15% higher than what it is at stock.

NOW if you try to set new clocks, and find they do not "stick" or return to where they were....your video bios or video drivers are LOCKED..being a laptop naturally. A locked video bios is nowadays not usually a problem.

Don't fret. We can fix this two ways.
The first is simple, lookup what drivers allowed overclocking, and download straight from ATI or Nvidia.
OEM drivers "may" work as well...but its largely dependent on version, things changed a lot between the 100.00->150->190 series of card drivers for nvidia especially. Some allow overclocking, some do not.

If you have tried EVERYTHING, all the drivers, and nothing works....well if you have an nvidia card, then its time to go to Bios flashing and you...also I can help you, so can a LOT of forums...it is a common practice.

Go onwards to BIOS flashing and you.







8) Finding the culprit


Well overclocking is fine, but do we need a CPU running like sonic the hedgehog whilst the GPU is dragging its heels?

No. :P

Here is the biggest issue with overclocking any laptop, the bottleneck is what needs to be dealt with. Overclocking other components only serves to heat EVERYTHING else and use more power than needed. This actually makes your bottleneck WORSE because it may attempt to force thermal throttling on TOP of being slow.

This is where you get to experiment alot.

You will need;

at least some PROPER Cooling

Room Temperature or less

Fan control, or wait until fans running at consistent speeds.

Latest Drivers

FPS Counter

Throttlestop or RMClock

Overclocking Software

Speedfan

GpuZ <---Doesn't update without being in focus, must select to see what's going on in realtime.

***SET them all up to be running graphs or monitoring.***


Have all programs above running, then run Evochron or any game you wish to optimize for in windowed mode. The point is you need to SEE what is going on in the monitors easily by alt-tabbing at any moment you wish.

By watching the graphs closely while playing, go to a demanding scene, preferably something static that doesn't involve much player interaction, eg. a planet with all kinds of neat effects going on...or a similar game with shadows, etc.

A) Watch the FPS to see when a general slowdown is occuring.
NOTE
If a SEVERE slowdown occurs at any point, this is likely due to throttling of the CPU. Throttlestop may be able to circumvent this, otherwise keep CPU frequencies stock or lower for testing.

B) Alt-Tab to Gpu-z, and looking at all monitors, observe which is being utilized close to if not 100%.
NOTE
Some older multicore systems will show CPU apx. 50% useage when that should be TREATED as 100% useage.

C) Take note of which setting is getting used the most, and adjust your overclock accordingly to help that component.
NOTE
GPUs will have multiple areas of adjustment, typically adjusting all "can" work, but you should focus on having a LOW memory controller load and a high but not quite 100% GPU load..this goes for adjusting the shader clocks as well in areas of high special effects / shadows...*This usually won't be completely possible, its a goldilocks conundrum*

D) Take note of TEMPERATURES, are they increasing? Are they steady? Are ANY close to the 85C danger zone? *Cue awesome kenny loggins cutscene*

E) If any temperatures are not staying steady or are too high, DECREASE those clock speeds, THEN decrease voltage if applicable slightly (this is to bleed exceed heat and resistance before lowering voltage to avoid a reboot).

F) Continue adjusting clock speeds to aid the component requiring the most useage, 20% above stock frequencies is sensible....don't go too high, or the temperatures may make the voltage drop and your system crash.

G) If the component is a CPU, be sure to add some voltage BEFORE increasing the frequency, realistically this is FROM (as your new baseline) what you already found in **SEE undervolting and you***

H) When you have achieved the highest temperature you are comfortable with and it is "consistent" than....for the cooling you currently have, this will be your highest overclock and optimized for whatever component.

I) It is not CRAZY to see either your CPU or GPU clocks actually be LOWER than it was before you started, yet getting better frames per second, with the other component getting a healthy speed boost...this method ensures that you're squeezing all efficiency you can out of components and is optimized for the game you are playing, helping out the weakest guy. I literally have made 3 profiles, one for GPU heavy games, one for CPU heavy ones, and my idle use one. Evochron turns out to be CPU heavy, therefore I run my laptop close to 2.83Ghz but the GPU gets a break.








9) Trimming the fat
Now this is a topic that a lot of new GFX owners won't need to worry about. I love those special FX, but my game is SO slow.

Hate to say it, but even overclocking a game that you're getting 10fps, even if you gain 50%, is only 15fps.

We can start disabling EVERYTHING in the game, but then we are left with a potatoe of a game, running at 60fps....but still...potatoes aren't fun.

So the idea is to strike a balance of trying to get what YOU want to run fluidly, while making it look okay AND being able to play the damn thing.

Rule of thumb is, anything below about 20fps is too slow and the human eye will notice, even at 24fps, the difference is substancial.

Trimming the fat can come in two flavours, through the drivers or through the game engines configuration.

For older gen hardware, think of it like being on a diet.
You can't have a lot of things, but you can have "cheat days"
where you can get your special fx for a while as long as nothing else is bothering your hardware.

Generally running out of GPU processing or Video Ram will be two huge slowdown culprits, and helping reduce their use can involve;





-->>configuring for the amount of particles to be half of what it is on medium settings

-->>configuring shadows to be minimal or off completely.

using "fake" AA, screen stretch mixed with edge anti-aliasing.

using FXAA can sometimes benefit an image, on older hardware it may cause slowdowns instead.

setting any physics settings to medium

setting any models to use medium textures or even low, this will benefit video ram, and performance increases can be dramatic if that was the slow down cause.


disabling triple buffering AND Anti-Aliasing, can offer significant boosts to RAM if it is on and slowdowns avoided in high texture memory environments (planets!)

using custom colour display profiles to make "fake shadows" and pop-out colours, with high hues, low gamma and high contrast, it can often given a much better appearance to a game with no effect on hardware resources.

Limiting draw distances and view distances for Levels of detail

Decreasing the levels of smoke to medium,

using what you have, limited on gpu time but lots of VRAM? Use massive detailed textures.
Other way around? Use AA Filtering to enhance your limited textures greatly.

Custom .ini or configuration files can be found and created for various game engines with minimal effort

*Motion Blur "CAN" help alleviate the slowdown effects, but only if it doesn't tax your GPU too much further, if it does you are better off with it off and using an FPS limiter instead*




FOR Evochron specifically



You can see your framerate while in game, at any time, by pressing the "~" key.




Higher resolutions
tend to be left at highest available for crisp images, but a slightly lower resolution can provide some stretching / poor man's anti-aliasing for better performance.

Anti-aliasing
is very intensive on the system.....AND can use upwards of 150MB of Video RAM or MORE!

**If running on native resolutions, AA CAN PROVIDE some very nice blurred edges, see "Driver Tweaks"**

Shadows!!!!!!!!
are the most highly GPU taxing effect and should remain off or on low to achieve much higher frame rates. If your free video RAM is low, but your GPU is powerful this can likely be left on at least medium since it doesn't use "very much" Video RAM, especially compared to other options.

Water cube mapping
and particle effects follow closely behind in order of CPU intensive tasks generally.

Using a text file named " DynamicCM " with enable written inside (although any writing should work)
will disable cube mapping, and water will no longer have a complicated process of being rendered but will look worse.


3D Cockpit
will take some framerate with it, but much much less than shadows, especially higher resolution ones...so for immersion it's likely worth having on.


High textures
will generally not tax the GPU or CPU too severely, unless of course you are running out of video RAM...which results in very large slowdowns.
(see "using gpu-z" to determine limiting factors in section "finding the culprit")
Changing this can change detail dramatically if set to low, but even medium still is acceptable and a good compromise if slowdowns occur due to lack of video RAM.


Planet Detail
is the signal most intensive setting for the CPU due to sheer amounts of rendering and RAM used, changing this to even medium or low if needed can save significant performance slowdowns or throttling. Medium does not look much different.


Game effects
these are the particle effects, and generally do not tax GPUs or CPUs in space very severely since there's very little to render really...... unless many explosions are occurring or a battle is occurring on a planet.

However in severely limited systems, GPUs will try to render smoke and fire, "particle effects", which are very intensive. In general if slowdowns occur during battle, setting this to low will grant a huge performance increase due to smoke and fire trails not being rendered.

The starfield
set to high, when being used may at high resolutions, contribute to running out of texture memory.
If you run a low resolution screen, considering lowering this value since the level of detail lost won't be as considerable...which has the added benefit of reducing "shimmer and sparkling" of stars.

High detail starfields also look best with anti-aliasing applied, which in general will slow down the system further. So consider running them on medium settings for a video RAM boost in need be.






Driver Specific Settings

Changes made in your driver control panel if applicable, can help modestly in game performance, "generally" not as much as in game settings, but there are exceptions.

Newer cards have many options available, but even older gen cards boast some behaviours. These notes will apply to nvidia but hold true for ATI and intel cards if settings allow.

Again...and again and again. UPDATE YOUR DRIVERS

Because if you don't see an option, you may be surprised that in 10 years or so, it should be supported by present day and the drivers YOU have simply do not have that programming. Most old laptop users may get stuck in this area, if so, please skip to "HARD - Drivers", because it is possible for old GPUs to make use of new programming. Believe it or not. (to an extent)

In your control panels, you will typically find a Manage 3D settings or similar tab / folder.

Inside, if you have the option to "view" advanced settings, select that.

Trilinear / Bilinear filtering.
Trilinear filtering is superior for textures and most laptops, even old ones this setting can be left on. However, changing to bilinear can be a good test to see if you notice a difference. If you don't, then it will provide more performance, but only marginally.

Anisotropic Filtering
- Enhances texture quality GREATLY with HIGH quality textures at a DISTANCE especially, but won't be very well noticed in space. Leave off or if you use it, no more than 4x. Especially if your textures are of low quality anyways. It is lightly GPU taxing on its use and memory, and generally can be left on given how well it works.

AntiAliasing -
when using NATIVE RESOLUTIONS (the most your display can do) can indeed make an image, especially a planet, look much better by blurring edges.
However it is a significant GPU use AND Video RAM Hog.
Generally this should be turned OFF if things are slow. Completely.

If you truly want some nicer images and run native resolutions, choose 2x if you wish to use it. Your monitor will typically support only up to 4x, so if selecting anything more (can be 16x or more!) it is a massive waste of GPU use and VRAM.

It can make images look nicer and smoother, but only at native resolutions is it truly useful. Either use "fake AA" screen stretching, or leave it off when running lower resolutions.

Dynamic Super Resolution

Some Nvidia cards may support DSR, which by using a higher resolution image, instead of holding and processing multiple frames, is much better than AA on video RAM and still gives smoother images.

There are even some .dll injectors which can Allow DSR as well, google for more info. The cost will be high to the GPU / VRAM, but not as high as Anti-Aliasing.


Furthermore Multisampling Vs. Supersampling, if the choice exists, choose Multisampling. It has a lower performance hit, and visuals differences are hard to distinguish in space.

IF BY CHANCE you can engage FXAA and it is SUPPORTED (aka not a greyed out option and is present in your display control panel), use this method instead. It is a post-processing (after GPU) method and will generally blur the entire screen, but is very efficient and may only drop the fps by 3-5 fps.
DO NOT FORCE this method if not supported, the resulting frame drop will instantly tell you why.

Pre-Rendered Frames
is a mixed kettle of fish. If the CPU isn't busy, it can get things ready for the GPU in case the CPU is needed.

It can provide a performance BOOST, however, this is at the cost of CPU power and some system RAM. If you have some to spare, allow 4 or even 5 frames..can help slowdown events.....if your CPU is weaker, select only 1 or 2.

Texture Filtering
Anisotropic filter optimization - This should ALWAYS be on if you are budgeting, the improvement in textures is well worth it, and the GPU impact is much lower than AA.

Mipmap details - > this will directly effect image quality
Highest will allow for high resolution textures to be used.
Lowest will provide a video ram boost if needbe.
**NOTE** Changing these settings to low will not allow Evochron to use its high quality texture modes.

Negative LOD bias
This is generally used to keep levels of detail high when looking at an image up close. Use this to save on GPU power for a sharp image..
Anisotropic filtering tends to work "against this".

If you have Ansiotropic filtering (AF) on, leave this set to "clamp" or off.

Leaving this to "allow" or on, can provide a crisper image at a distance, at almost no performance cost at all...but it won't be nearly as nice as AF, which also has only slight GPU cost.

Threaded Optimization
Basically, this allows the game to run on two or more CPU cores if applicable...and can give you almost 20% more performance. This should be set to on for Evochron Legacy or auto.

NOTE, not ALL older games will work with this setting on, some require and won't start unless single CPU use only is selected (games pre-2006), leaving to auto is generally best unless you believe only one CPU core is being used for Evochron or any other game capable of doing so.
If you are using a Pentium with Hyper-Threading, any settings to enable that would provide a "marginal" boost in performance.

Triple Buffering and VSync.
VSync should generally be left OFF.
If on, your frames will lock to a maximum or 60 or 30 fps.

However, VSync causes a reduction in frames overall, even below these limits, while tasking the GPU, and should be left off

Limiting frames to 30fps can be very useful, however, VSync is a poor implementation of this and can cause MASSIVE slowdowns in some games when you are low on VRAM, if you run out.... (especially using the source engine)....you WILL NOTICE.
Stick with an FPS limiter instead. See "Saving for a Rainy Day"

Triple Buffering should always be used in VSync is on.
However, it is generally using more memory and memory controller time on the GPU, and so if VSync is off, this should be off as well.



The general RULE of thumbs.

We are not trying to mash our game to look like crap...but run at a million light years a second.

We are giving ourselves a processing "budget"

What we take away we can make up for in other areas.

Try experimenting, you may find disabling some things you never notice anyways could give you the ability to enable things you couldn't before!

Example
Take disabling shadows...and instead use a high contrast colour profile.

If you find you after that routinely getting 60 fps without them on....
Then you can afford to set explosion effects, cube mapping effects, and even anti-aliasing!!
And you would STILL get more frames per second in general then having the shadows on.
Processing what light "will do" takes a lot of power eh? ;)



This is largely how an older laptop (2008) can still have a game look just as good as on a newer one (2012, and some low budget 2016 ones), and no one would be the wiser.








10) Saving for a Rainy Day.

Overclocking will help to a degree but may not be able to keep up with the game when a very intense moment happens.

So what do you do if you have a good overclock, but it is on the "verge" of crashing...it'd be nice to not have to use it all the time, to save it when needed so your laptop won't overheat.

Giving your laptop a chance to cooloff in game is a great way to get the most out of that overclock when you REALLY need it.

An Fps Limiter

Newer cards support nvidia's fps limiter, which you can set as you desire. No, it won't give you magical frame increases, but it will allow for a much smoother experience, constant fps, and almost no slowdowns when things get intense.

Now you can use your overclock much like an afterburner, not intended to be used at all times...by setting your fps to something lower than is typical when the game is "easy" on your hardware.

http://exkode.com/dxtory-downloads-en.html
http://www.guru3d.com/files-details/nvi ... nload.html

Current Gen control panels will have those options, but older laptops will not, enter the world of two new softwares for you.

With the latest drivers and .Net Framework 4.0 or above..either of.these "should" work for you.

I have tested Dxtory on mine, and although it is video capture software, it controls my framerate precisely.
Nvidia inspector does have the option in the drivers, however it does not work sadly.
If you do not wish to use this method of GPU frame limiting, MANY games INCLUDING Evochron are capable of doing this on their own via console commands or config files. (typically along the lines of fps_max = ??)

In Evochron to quote Vice"The FPS can be capped, although it’s a little trickier to apply since it’s part of the sw.cfg file. The 9th line from the bottom in that file can be used to specify a locked maximum framerate, if desired. Setting it to 0 will not apply a limit. Any value from 30 and above will apply a limit."

This way, my intense overclock to 90 degrees Celsius, is saved, until required by a large scale fight or a planet...and runs very consistently. I have the limiter set to 35fps, in space I get 35fps and I get 35-24 fps on planets. This is with graphics mostly at maximum. (minimum shadows, 2x AA)

Before this I would routinely hit 85 fps in open space, and 8 fps on planets due to temperatures causing intense throttling.

That way, my overclocked CPU / GPU get a huge break throughout the game, and never need to deal with intense areas often, resulting in no crashing, and much smoother graphics.

So....why not just use VSync? That limits to 60 or 30 fps right? Isn't that better?

No.

VSync on at least the old machines at its best will cause hiccups in your GPU performance and at its worst intense slowdowns...likely due to Video Ram getting filled and flushed with triple buffering on.






Difficulty - HARD





1) External GPUs

What?! Well. They are becoming normal for low powered laptops. Unfortunately, it is difficult for older laptops to fully take advantage of the technology, which will usually need to use a lane of data to send graphics to your laptop screen, slowing it down by 50%, or an external screen must be used.
Still, even with these cons, a modern video card hooked up in this fashion will STILL beat anything inside your little box by at least double....and.....would draw less power.

Laptops with Optimus technology (2009), CAN use this, and have the image on their own screen with minimal loss in performance.
It allows for laptops to have the power to use desktop video cards, and laptop companies try to keep quiet about it.

If you have PCI-Express 2.0, or 3.0, this is indeed a potential option...even with 1 lane/slot, there's a huge GPU boost.

With only PCI-Express 1.0, it can be done, but the results are a marginal improvement, especially if only 1 lane/slot is used.


By using extra PCI-Express ports on your laptop (the fastest ones for moving data), namely the expresscard, thunderbolt, or the Wifi Card Slot, one can get anywhere from 1x, 2x, or 4x PCI-Express Desktop Video Card Performance.
That is anywhere between 25% and 50% of what that card can do in a desktop.
Even a 2012 Video Card GTX won't run a lot of $$, and even 25% of its abilities can VERY much do a lot more than an integrated laptop video card.

Thats right, depending on your laptop, you can have a crappy intel accelerated graphics machine, and be able to plug in at home to a gaming GPU.

It's a hefty, ingenious, but modestly difficult setup, but MUCH cheaper than a gaming laptop by far.
There's a lot to do, most of which involves re-configuring memory address space on your laptop so that the desktop card can indeed function.

If interested you can look more up here, I sure am.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads ... es.418851/






2) BIOS FLASHING and you
I'm gonna go right out there and say it, this is dangerous.

If a power spike or what not happens, it is an extremely hard thing to recover from, I'd much rather be cutting wires or wrecking a master boot record. If going this method I strongly recommend going to notebookforums and searching posts from "zzpulp" one of the godfathers of this method of overclocking.

***NOTE*** This can't be used for intel GPUs. Newer intel CPUs can have their onboard graphics overclocked via some software limitedly however. Older ones are limited to software overclocking which has a 50/50 shot working at best.*****

Req'd
https://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/2 ... r-windows/
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/Vide ... itor.shtml
https://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/2 ... 17/mirrors
https://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/1 ... tor-v1-28/

Whatever is listed as latest BIOS on your OEM's website for your laptop make/model...exactly.



Now, there are obviously some advantages here, it isn't all doom and gloom.

If you have a locked video card, you can "unlock" it via hex editting, or use the EXACT SAME MODEL & REVISION AS YOURS...custom made .rom file as a VBIOS which already is unlocked and can be flashed to your GPU, so long as it really is the same make and revision.

By far the easiest (and frankly safest) way however is to simply overclock your card based on your OWN VBIOS to whatever 3D clocks you want as the "new normal", you can save it and edit it easily with the GUIs above, or via hexadecimal if you are hardcore.


You can also change the 2D clocks, for use in general web surfing or videos too. Changing these can allow GPU accelerated video to be better, allows for 1080p video fluidly, stop screen tearing issues in Windows Vista and Up with older GPUs.....(typically setting to things to above 125Mhz)

As well, I was able to unlock some professional features by flashing a quadro bios onto my card, which was exactly the same specifications. Though I strongly suggest you stick to your own model.

Most of all, you can change the "locked" clocks...to be whatever you want!! If overclocking this way, some research should be done as to what other people got. If you can't boot up at around a 10% overclock....go back, and re-flash to lower settings.

Rarely, more voltages may be locked that can also be unlocked, allowing for even greater overclocks then even the "common folk" could ever get via software alone.


Also, if you're upgrading your MOTHERBOARD BIOS, it can sometimes do wonders.
From upgrading your thermal tables so fans turn on far more often as per customer requests, especially if your laptop has a history of being too hot,
to giving you increased functions,
even allowing more GPUs / CPUs to be "whitelisted" and deemed ok to install, and if your laptop is REALLLLLLLY old :P,

can give you the ability to install 4 GB of RAM...if you hadn't before had it.

So it can actually be quite worth the risks.



Flashing if you are going to do it, should NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER be in an OS environment.

There is more luck of the planets aligning and unicorns decide to poop skittles on Leonardo Decaprio to finally allow him to win an oscar, than there is in clicking the little .exe, going past its warning (if it has one) pressing OK to flash the system, while in windows...of it actually not turning your laptop into a potato.
So, when flashing a BIOS or any ROM based firmware, do it from something you boot from EXTERNALLY, such as a floppy disk (gasp!) or a CD Rom, though bootable USB has gotten a lot better at it and can be used too.


I can supply some software and bootable isos I know that work and can be adapted for your needs...that can be tricky to find.


No matter what you do, if flashing, ALWAYS MAKE A BACKUP OF YOUR current "WORKING" VBIOS, ALWAYS.
Gpuz has that function built right into it! So there's no excuse!


http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threa ... pu.119955/







Guide Continues on Next Post


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[Edited on 3-9-2016 by matchbox2022]

[Edited on 5-8-2016 by matchbox2022]
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Do, or do not, there is no try.
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Bodega
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Aging laptops and EL - *GUIDE*

Post by Bodega »

Something I used to do on my older PC to get every last bit out of it was to bring up taskmanager (CTRL-SHIFT-ESC) and kill Explorer.exe.

That will remove your taskbar and icons. But don't worry! In task manager you can click on FILE, Run Task and run your game from there...and when your're done, go to File, Run Task and type explorer.exe and it'll give you your desktop back.

I used to use a program called Alacrity, which was made by some guy on a flightsim forum that managed all this for you. You could set up different profiles and run them and they would shut down all the programs like explorer.exe, AV, tons of background stuff.

Looks like it's still around but I'd beware downloading from sourceforge (https://sourceforge.net/projects/alacri ... =directory)

I'm sure there's other programs that will do the same thing, but manually killing explorer.exe can get you some more performance. Also turn off all the windows AERO and other effects, from your start menu properties.

There are some guides, I unfortunately (well fortunately for me) didn't keep up to date with them, these tricks all worked on XP. I'd turn off those rounded edges, invisible boxes, everyhthing that made it pretty, kill anything that didn't say system in the taskman, then kill explorer and browser to Flaming Cliffs 2 or whatever other game I was running at the time.
matchbox2022
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Aging laptops and EL - *GUIDE*

Post by matchbox2022 »

3) Desktop Drivers & Future Support

If you have any video card, especially from the 2005 era, you already know you need a new laptop.

But beyond that, I'm sure you might be wishing it had some extra functions in it still.

Generally speaking, ATI and Nvidia stopped supporting these products for mobile devices LONG before they stopped supporting them for the desktop versions.

Generally though, the architecture of these cards are identical to their desktop cousins, which means they can use the same drivers. This gives you more features than ever before, allows games to work that never did before and allows even Windows 10 functionalities.
But trying to install them won't work....at least not directly, it can be done. I'm currently using 309.08 meant for the desktop model of my video card, and its never been faster or operated at higher temperatures, its dare I say fantastic and a current gen driver.
It involves changing the nvdisp.ini, or whatever the *.ini config file is for your make of video card, in notepad to read instead what the notebook model of your video card is as opposed to the desktop one via it's hardware id, which can be found in device manager for windows under your display adapters "properties".
It is very important to "copy" the device id so the driver thinks your card is the desktop one carefully, the right one requires digging and a tiny bit of research, generally they need to have the same "kind of core" like G92, or G71, and the same revision, eg. A2.
If that, and all their specs match (same shaders, same direct x and SM, same bus width, same VRAM size), then it is VERY VERY likely that you can make it work.

Then you use the "have disk" method, or simply run the installer again, and it will see that you indeed have a card the driver supports (or so it THINKS)

There are tutorials elsewhere on the internet or I can help on here if need be.






Difficulty >>Modding God



1) The FSB and Pinmodding a CPU.

Most CPUs for laptops are locked. Meaning the only way to overclock them is if you adjust the FSB. This is again, only for laptops about 10 years ago.
SOME CPUs can be, "pin-modded", which essentially means to short or insulate a CPU pin, tricking it, into running at a higher FSB Speed. The differences are dramatic, and the most success due to a much higher knowledge base is on older hardware such as the Pentium, Celeron, Core / Core 2 Duo and some Core Quads.
iCores I am unsure about, as I think the FSB is done away with.

http://download.intel.com/design/mobile ... 674505.pdf
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads ... st-5740581

2) Overclocking the Motherboard

Your entire motherboard and all its components base frequencies on a Bus Frequency too, it basically takes a signal from the "clock generator", a crystal, amplified, and uses that as a "clock" as to how fast things should go.

So you first need to either look up your motherboard schematics (I have the E1705/M1710), which for older laptops are actually around in the wild readily in pdf form, I was even surprised.

http://www.overclock.net/t/255892/setfsb-2-0

From there, it should be "easy" if its supported by the software, unfortunately most frequences are locked via a pin soldered on the crystal generator to the motherboard, where you may physically have to research which pin is the lock one on the PLL clock generator, and cut it.

Then IF supported by SetFSB, you'd suddenly have things work, and you could overclock your CPU, memory, PCI-E bus, everything...just like a desktop...and get quite large gains.

The article with the netbook overclocked I posted used these methods.














I hope you enjoyed this tutorial, please comment.







[Edited on 3-9-2016 by matchbox2022]
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Post by Bodega »

Matchbox, nope you've name it correctly, it was a tweakguide by some OC group. Similar to this, but I had it in PDF format and it was updated often: https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showt ... t=17180569
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Post by matchbox2022 »

There are some updates needed for this, but I fixed a few things in regards to drivers, and Video RAM flushes and texture persistence.
Pre-Rendered frames will have no effect on GPU VRAM, anti-aliasing however, will greatly impact it.

[Edited on 3-9-2016 by matchbox2022]
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Post by PaulB »

Regarding Single channel vs Dual channel DRAM.
Except for certain extensive scientifc applications it doesn't matter (according to Gamers Nexus and MSI) - not to most people - including gamers.

Read this article where Gamers Nexux did extensive testing of single vs dual channel memory.

Their leadin paragraph states:
When we visited MSI in California during our 2013 visit (when we also showed how RAM is made), they showed us several high-end laptops that all featured a single stick of memory. I questioned this choice since, surely, it made more sense to use 2x4GB rather than 1x8GB from a performance standpoint. The MSI reps noted that "in [their] testing, there was almost no difference between dual-channel performance and normal performance."

Single vs Dual channel Memory

I was concerned because I had hopes of getting a new laptop and some now come (and I'm talking the Gaming laptops like Asus, MSI, etc) with configs like 12GB where there is (1) 8GB and (1) 4GB ram modules.

What is more important is if you can afford the extra money is getting CAS 9 or lower memory rather than CAS 11 or higher.


[Edited on 3-18-2016 by PaulB]
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Post by PaulB »

For anyone using a laptop and want to keep it cooler and safer then if this will work with your particular laptop it does make a difference - especially isf you use a 6 - 9vdc adaptor to power it. I have a selectable voltage adapter and have it set to 7Vdc.
The cooler has a speed adjust knob on the top of it.

Laptop fan Exhaust port Cooler

Note: the laptop coolers that your laptop stis on that have a fan or fans underneath will not help much at all.

Thre reason I know how effective (or ineffective) these are is because I have hwinfo32 installed and it shows the CPU & GPU temps in my systray.
The above cooler (link), along with hwinfo32 controlling my internal laptop fan, keeps my GPU temp between 56 and 59c in a room whre the ambient temp is 70 to 72F in EM - where before using this cooler the temp had been up in the 60s C at least - I don't know how high it actually got when my original motherboard GPU blew because I didin't have hwinfo32 at that time and I didn't know there was a heating problem and also that there was no BIOS settings for the internal cooling fan in DELL's bios or what set points Dell even uses for the internal fan. I just assumed it was cooling adequately.

Without the above cooler and just normal laptop usage and web browsing my GPU runs at about 45 - 47C.
With the above cooler turing on the temp is 35C - so that's at least a 10 degree improvment.
Under heavy 3D use there's obviously some point where it will have less effect but even if it's a 3 - 5 degree improvment that could maybe prevent damage due to over heating.

Hwinfo32 (there is a hwinfo64 also) had been good for my Dell because you can set it to take control of the internal fan and set up your only table of temperature setpoints for the fan to run off and on (slow or fast - about 1250 rpm & 2500rpm) - and have it show the fan speed in the systray also.
So you know if it's working or not.

[Edited on 3-18-2016 by PaulB]
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Post by matchbox2022 »

Those are nifty fans. I found another that acts like a case fan meant for the DVD slot too. Can't see it helping as much as a 12 volt exhaust tho.


About your ram channel comment. TThat's true based on benchmarks. However in real world gaming....especially if any video info is paged out to ram...I've found dual channel or tri is SIGNIFICANTLY better. So benchmarks be damned lol.
I was testing with source and the difference was at least 50%. No joke.

It is likely that if the RAM is already fast, like DDR3/4 and running at over 1333Mhz, then no, it is likely only slightly noticeable especially in daily use.

With an older laptop, like what this guide is for, they are typically DDR, DDR2 or even simple SDRAM!

Which suddenly at only 200, 333mhz, 400mhz or so, dependent on front side bus makes having dual channel on MUCH more important. To enable the Dual rate in RAM, one needs Dual Channel on, or triple channel with newer pcs.

[Edited on 3-19-2016 by matchbox2022]
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Post by Misunderstood Wookie »

There are a number of BBcode related errors in your typography there match :P, It is a rather big post so to be expected just pointing it out incase you have not noticed.

Guide seems decent, however as the title says its for decades old gear most (all the OC section) does not apply for me specifically due to the nature of my system its no longer a BIOS although most old skool like me still refer to the BIOS it's actually UEFI.

(UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) is a standard firmware interface for PCs, designed to replace BIOS (basic input/output system). This standard was created by over 140 technology companies as part of the UEFI consortium, including Microsoft.)


The only real thing which implicates my FPS on any game is super sampling or down sampling resolution and more advanced forms of SSAO.
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Post by matchbox2022 »

Ah, I forgot about that, yeah that is the "new bios".and to finish the DSR section.

Also, can't remember what replaced he FSB, Quick interlink? something like that.

Yeah this is for older stuff that still use a BIOS :P

Oh well, school has 100% taken over.

I'll have fixes and new sounds and gaming time around mid april :P until then I am in lockdown more or less.

[Edited on 3-23-2016 by matchbox2022]
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Post by Marvin »

That new acronym is just a way to confuse us old guys. You can't even pronounce it.
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Post by matchbox2022 »

you fee? :P
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Post by Misunderstood Wookie »

Try saying it as U EE FI. Or youifi.

As for the FSB replacement. The front side bus (FSB) has been completely replaced by what Intel is calling QuickPath Interconnect (QPI). QPI can outhustle FSB handily and facilitates direct communication between the CPU and RAM


For you old folks this information might seem new :(

:P but more on the change here http://apcmag.com/first_look_intel_core ... set.htm/3/

It specifically referenced Bloomfield but even that technology is now old generation those were I believe first generation core i7 we are now way past that, the current generation is six. The current enthusiasts socket is LGA 2011-3 essentially this a step or two up from my current system running socket LGA 2011. Improvements are mostly DDR 4 however I read the socket mounting holes are the same so my current Corsair H100-i liquid cooler should bolt straight on.

The 2011-v3 is the top end of Intel, it's where the 8 core chips are at and the newer 6 cores.

So my 2011 socket released in 2011 third generation is holding up pretty well but is dated. I'm running an i7 3820 four logical cores, eight virtual cores currently overclocked @ 4.25GHz with 16GB DDR 3 gskill 2400mhz slightly oc and a slightly underclocked AMD Radeon R9 290. (i7s have hyperthreading you can do your own research on that haha)

If you are wondering here is some info on 2011-v3 vs 2011 some chips are backward and forward compatible http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ ... 05592.html

The big question is should I upgrade to a six generation skylake i7 or wait this year out for the coming seventh i7 http://wccftech.com/intel-kaby-lake-200 ... -platform/ i think I'll wait since I need DDR 4 anyway and if I'm going to replace this rig I might aswell do it right with the latest generation and swap the primary SSD for a nice M2 SSD or PCI-E SSD which are surprisingly common today and fast.

What's really going to blow your mind and sorry old folks is Intels new memory/storage solution 3D X-POINT (OPTANE) http://wccftech.com/intels-3d-xpoint-me ... ional-ssds

Bye bye NAND optimisation for life span and what really blows my mind here is those extra DIMM slots on newer gear right now we have eight DIMM slots for quad channel 64gb RAM I only use two atm but I'll be using four for 32GB quad channel anyway what excites me about this new storage technology is you can run this storage in your DIMM slots so bye bye the need for sata cables and drives completely we can already use PCI-E slots at a consumer price point and this year we can even run storage in DIMM slots and it's latency is just 9ms from 72ms based on intels beat SSD solution. It's IOPS are roughly 7.6x faster than current SSDs too making them absolutely devour any current storage solution so yea I'll be ditching my ramdisks for this. The real treat here is Intel says the price will be similar to current SSDs as they want to have high consumer base so they will be affordable. The catch though... You will need intels 7the gen 200 chipset motherboards.



[Edited on 3/25/2016 by Misunderstood Wookie]
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Post by matchbox2022 »

So....what the new DIMMs somehow can hold data when powered off? That'd basically be an SSD. Or are you using the RAM as a virtual drive.....that's been around for ages. But makes it worth it, albeit kinda sounds like superfetch.

It is pretty cool, the guide is really for older computers though.
Newer computers....this game would be a joke. Even an nvidia 820M would likely play it very well, and that'd be a very cheap laptop.

Personally never found hyper threading to be much of a selling point, 4 to 6 logical cores is about perfect...especially when it can overclock natively in single/dual threaded mode

Quad channel memory. Lol, damn, I need to upgrade.

[Edited on 3-26-2016 by matchbox2022]
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Post by Misunderstood Wookie »

I'll be brief, the OPTANE solution are coming as both sata SSDs and DIMM sticks, so yes your DDR 4 DIMM slots can be used for reliable permanent storage the DIMM version of this leap also has duel modes it can act as RAM or Storage from what I read the duel.use won't come for a.bit after the release of the 200 chipsets. The actual dimms however are said to hold as much as 6Tb of storage. Personally it isn going to make higher capacity SSDs on this technology cheaper than 512gb SSDs today so roughly 235 bux give or take will he your average 1Tb optane SSD. I'm expecting the dimms to be over 400 dollars per 256gb but who knows those are slated for early 2017 while the SSDs come Q4 2016 shortly after the 200 series chipset launch.

I use a ramdisks atm because I kept a hdd for games which I use primochache for differed reads and writes to the hdd.

Though if you follow the last url when you get time it explains this x 3d point storage. Personally I'm not as excited for the sata version because really that one is just a SSD with higher capacity per dollar and near non existent wear. The DIMM version slated for 2017 is what is exciting. I'm very interested in following the progress of this technology which would be the biggest improvements to storage latency since the sata bus.

Too be fair, a 256gb Samsung Evo SSD is only about 200 bux. But yea I'll he using the new DIMM versions for the OS and one of the sata based models for a game drive I'll probably do away with all my hdds tbh it's cheaper for SSDs than hdds now especially if this technology reduces cost per gb than we will see 2Tb SSDs at the sub 200 dollars range. I'll probably get quad channel 32gb ram as well and depending on gpu progress I'll either get a second 290 or one of the newer cards I'm really not sure bit AMD have stayed that the Hawaii chip in the r9 2xx and 3xx range are VR ready and usable in Amds coming VR driver set coming later this year.

[Edited on 3/26/2016 by Misunderstood Wookie]

[Edited on 3/26/2016 by Misunderstood Wookie]
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Post by XenonSurf »

These are very good advices you share, thanks a lot to put in this big work :cool:

IMO, any problems with laptops are very simple - and deceiving: although the manufacturers make big advertisements for laptops, they are all NOT suited for gaming that needs high performance. And the reason is very simple: their ventilation design is just crap and will soon lead to consume all the CPU's thermal paste, and then: game over, hello Overheating - and automatic shutdown.

On my 6 year old HP pavilion (i5 pentium 2.5Ghz, 4-core, 8GB RAM, dedicated 1MB grafics), these symptoms have shown up a year ago and had a very unpleasant consequence: My left LCD support anchor (for pivoting and closing the LCD display) got broken because of overheating with mechanical damage to inside components. Yet my laptop is still usable.
I have taken 2 pieces of wood and put my laptop on it, in such a manner not to cover any vents and get the important GPU vent to be 10 cm above the surface. This will lead to a reduction of about 30%-50% in GPU temperature. MSI-Afterburner is a good monitoring tool.

But my lesson is: any decent desktop computer is way better for gaming than any laptop, much easier and less expensive to upgrade.

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Post by Marvin »

:o A laptop with the vents at the bottom sounds like a poor design to me. My vents are in the back.
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Post by matchbox2022 »

Honestly it's a mixed kettle of fish these days.

GPUs have gotten so much more efficient that the heat they are generating isn't the same....especially when they limit the memory bus to 256 maximum.

The heat design isn't the best, and honestly an integrated design using the metal chasis (lid mostly) with a mineral oil pump with heat pipes would likely be an amazing solution if manufacturers started doing that for "gaming laptops".

To avoid those issues when a laptop gets older........be sure to ironically leave it powered on, and to "try" to maintain a steady temperature.
Don't move it while it's on, and only move it when turned off and cooled down after an hour or so.

Think of the thermal shock over time, they're really just like old cars, just a hell of a lot less redundant if something fails mechanically. (the solder GPU class action lawsuit of 2008-2010 anyone?)

I'm seeing an end to the GPUs in laptops to external ones, and even desktop computers may be replaced by a sort of cloud environment you rent from.

It's only a matter of time, wish I had the capital to get there first :P.
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Post by matchbox2022 »

From post: 187362, Topic: tid=12502, author=Marvin wrote::o A laptop with the vents at the bottom sounds like a poor design to me. My vents are in the back.
It's a way centrifugal fans work, intake on bottom, output through the sides. Hot air is not blasted down in any computer design (by a reputable company)

could intake from the top too, but then what if you're eating cookies...all those crumbs....

Plus, the air gets pre-chilled (a bit) as it skims the bottom due to low pressure.....which is give and take due to impeding the air flow (think carburetor) you won't get that effect with a side input

If they had hot air blasted downwards it would increase back flow pressure, and slow the air down, and slow air is a big no no when you are trying to cool something "adiabatically" using air its velocity.

[Edited on 4-7-2016 by matchbox2022]
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Post by Marvin »

:o Intake. I'll need to check that. Never thought about it. And I suppose I should be more conscientious about shutting down programs but leaving the computer running until the fans dissipate any built-up heat.
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Post by Misunderstood Wookie »

You guys could attempt external GPU I hear it's affordable these day using the thunderbolt connection on newer hardware and external power to run modern GPU's outside of a case or for laptop gpu workloads. For some time it was only production rigs with access to such a thing but now days it is possible to buy fairly cheap a setup which will work for external GPU.

If you are interested this might be of interest to you http://www.pcworld.com/article/2984716/ ... -card.html

Seems its not quite perfect yet and still requires a PSU and thunderbolt connection for non DIY routes but if you are interested in something like this which from my reading seems quite straight-fwd there are HDMI methods.

[Edited on 4/14/2016 by Misunderstood Wookie]
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Post by matchbox2022 »

From post: 187408, Topic: tid=12502, author=Marvin wrote::o Intake. I'll need to check that. Never thought about it. And I suppose I should be more conscientious about shutting down programs but leaving the computer running until the fans dissipate any built-up heat.
Well. in my experience, laptops that are older tend to die the most if they are moved before cooling down "fairly slowly", or dropped at any point onto tables, chairs, etc.
That's just cause of thermal stress on tiny solder joints, which likely have developed cracks over the years. There's plenty of videos on youtube where people "fix these" but that ends up causing more damage later the way they do it (ovens, remelt the crack solder)
So having the fans run or not matters less than moving it immediately while warm or dropping it onto surfaces when cold would.
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Post by matchbox2022 »

From post: 187619, Topic: tid=12502, author=Misunderstood Wookie wrote:You guys could attempt external GPU I hear it's affordable these day using the thunderbolt connection on newer hardware and external power to run modern GPU's outside of a case or for laptop gpu workloads. For some time it was only production rigs with access to such a thing but now days it is possible to buy fairly cheap a setup which will work for external GPU.

If you are interested this might be of interest to you http://www.pcworld.com/article/2984716/ ... -card.html

Seems its not quite perfect yet and still requires a PSU and thunderbolt connection for non DIY routes but if you are interested in something like this which from my reading seems quite straight-fwd there are HDMI methods.

[Edited on 4/14/2016 by Misunderstood Wookie]
I would love to, if my laptop was worth the trouble.
I haven't tried yet, but everything I read points to it being very complicated with older hardware.
The biggest issues being available bandwidth, lack of optimus (re-routing image to laptop display) and top of low usable dynamic ram issues when dealing with 32 bit setups like mine.

However, newer laptops, even netbooks that are newer, show some crazy improvements with this, which blows my mind as to why people still buy gaming laptops.

[Edited on 4-17-2016 by matchbox2022]
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