Bizarre Computer Behavior

[RatB0Y68]

I have just noticed something interesting.

 

I usually run Oblivion at 800x600 resolution with medium sized textures (with moderate penalty to my framerate). I decided to lower the resolution and texture sizes and got a small increase in performance.

 

The issue is this, I decided a half an hour ago to see if my computer could run Oblivion on maximum settings, purely out of curiosity. I set texture size to large and resolution to 1024x768, then launched the game.

 

Not only does Oblivion look better as expected, but my fps problems are gone! At higher graphical settings my pitiful laptop actually works better for some reason.

 

I'm not complaining, I am just curious as to why my mediocre laptop handles Oblivion better with higher settings. Maybe I am missing something but it seems rather counterintuitive to me. I would be grateful for any enlightenment on the subject.

[samadchaz]

your optimal screen resolution is 1024*768 if you choose 640 or 800 it compress the textures thats why it takes more time and drop in fps

[RatB0Y68]

Ah, now I understand. I always thought higher resolution and texture size was more taxing on the computer.

 

Thanks for the information and the quick response.

[dazzerfong]

Wrong: if that's the case, samadchaz, then most games would run BETTER on 1080p than 480p.

[RitualBlack]

It may be that your laptop has a lower end cpu and a nice gpu. By upping the resolution you put a bit more strain on your graphics card and less on the processor. That or there is some weird unexplainable problem your laptop has with the game on low settings. Poor driver support for a card can do silly things. When I was trying the BF3 beta my laptop got around 25ish fps on low, medium, high, and ultra, the fps didn't change on any setting :tongue: . I should have been able to get a lot more on ultra with crossfire 6970m's. Also with Skyrim the crossfire support was horrible so my fps went up after turning off a card. It was almost unplayable with both cards on. Now that I got a fix my fps is perfect in Skyrim now :happy: .

[RatB0Y68]

That makes sense. My processor is an Intel i3 Quad core at 2.1 ghz for each processor, but Oblivion only uses one core, which means that for all intents and purposes my processor is only just above minimum spec. If only there was a way to run Oblivion on multiple cores...

 

The irony is that if anything my GPU should be the weak link. It is only an integrated chip, that said, I have DirectX 11 and the chip registers as having over 1GB memory.

[gekkoukage]

That makes sense. My processor is an Intel i3 Quad core at 2.1 ghz for each processor, but Oblivion only uses one core, which means that for all intents and purposes my processor is only just above minimum spec. If only there was a way to run Oblivion on multiple cores...

 

The irony is that if anything my GPU should be the weak link. It is only an integrated chip, that said, I have DirectX 11 and the chip registers as having over 1GB memory.

 

Core i3 CPUs are not quad core. They have 2 physical cores, each with hyper-threading so you have 4 threads in total. Your GPU is detecting over 1 GB of memory because it is most likely taking it from your RAM. Most laptop GPUs do not have 1GB of dedicated memory. Having a GPU that uses shared memory is slower than one that uses dedicated memory but that is the tradeoff in a lot of laptops.

[hoofhearted4]

That makes sense. My processor is an Intel i3 Quad core at 2.1 ghz for each processor, but Oblivion only uses one core, which means that for all intents and purposes my processor is only just above minimum spec. If only there was a way to run Oblivion on multiple cores...

 

The irony is that if anything my GPU should be the weak link. It is only an integrated chip, that said, I have DirectX 11 and the chip registers as having over 1GB memory.

 

Core i3 CPUs are not quad core. They have 2 physical cores, each with hyper-threading so you have 4 threads in total. Your GPU is detecting over 1 GB of memory because it is most likely taking it from your RAM. Most laptop GPUs do not have 1GB of dedicated memory. Having a GPU that uses shared memory is slower than one that uses dedicated memory but that is the tradeoff in a lot of laptops.

 

my laptop has 1gb dedicated memory! :biggrin: