New laptop and 1 FPS

[Ground Fault]

Hello! I have a new HP Pavilion - 15t-cs300 CTO, it has an Intel Core i7 1065G7 CPU, it has an integrated Intel Iris Plus GPU, and 8 gigs of ram running Windows 10 Home edition. I posted my stats from CPUID HWMonitor below. 

 

Now I know that this thing is by no means a gaming laptop but I figure I should be getting more than 1 FPS out of it. My 12 year old potato PC runs the game just fine. I want to be able to play on this new laptop when I am away from home. I read on Reddit that for some reason COH may be making the GPU warm up and the laptop is being over protective and throttling everything down. If I am solo I this game is playable but on full teams I go down to 1 FPS even with graphics turned all of the way down. Someone recommended setting the laptop on an ice pack and it has helped some but not enough to run full teams.

 

Is there any way to get this laptop to run the game properly? (i'm fine with running with graphics turned down as long as I have decent FPS) or am I just screwed?

 

Thank you for any feedback!

 

-Ground Fault

 

 

 

[GM Tock]

Check the power mode.  You can do this in Control Panel > Power > Create a Power Plan, then select "High Performance" and give it a name, like "Gaming".  Once made, click "Change Plan Settings" and never let it sleep or turn the display off.  You can close the Control Panels after this point.

 

Make sure the laptop is ALWAYS plugged in when you do this, and then try running City of Heroes, see if that improves things.  To change Power Mode quickly, click on the Battery Icon and switch it back to "Balanced" when you're through with your gaming session.

 

Let me know if that makes a difference.

 

[Ground Fault]

I made that change early on and didn't notice any improvement. I think its bizarre that a new laptop can't run a 15 year old game, specs are much better than my old potato that runs COH fine with graphics turned all of the way up.

[GM Tock]

Before I write too much, you installed Intel's drivers and not Windows 10's default ones?

[Ground Fault]

Yes, drivers are all up to date

[WanderingAries]

https://support.hp.com/us-en/product/hp-pavilion-15-cs3000-laptop-pc-series/29133460/model/29133461

 

Are you sure this is the model with just the APU (Intel GFX) and not one with a dedicated GPU as well? The CTO is a general term for a LARGE range of devices, so I can't get the specific model (it's likely a customized build). If you got a bill of sale, then it should have the device's specific configuration. While a brand new device Shouldn't have any issues with This game and an APU, there's likely some Intel Graphics settings to look at (again, assuming APU) for optimizing gameplay. Also, make sure you've already done the basics like white listing the game in your AV software (the whole game folder). Make sure you don't have stuff downloading in the background like OneDrive at the time (you can't tell if the OS is updating without looking either).

 

Beyond that, we'd want to look at your local network bandwidth usage. How many devices are sharing how much, etc. Run a speedtest.net and see what the results are for that just to make sure you're getting what you pay for. Knowing where you are in relation to the router (number/kind of walls, etc between) is helpful.

 

About the APU design:

If it is, then you're sharing the system RAM with the GFX chip and even that is likely only getting say upto 1.5Gb on its own (I'd know more with better spec breakdown). You have to figure that Win10 runs decent on most machines with 4Gb RAM (50-75% used by the system) , that leaves ~4Gb for apps and the APU. The game likely wants 1.5-2Gb of RAM itself, so the numbers are pretty tight, but feasible/playable and while having a reasonable margin.

[Ground Fault]

Thanks Aries, you are right this one has a GeForce MX250 (2 GB) I was going off of the info I saw in the device manager. I grabbed a pic of the specs from an old email.

laptop specs.htm

[Ground Fault]

Oh and network is good, blazing fast and I already repasted the CPU, thought that may be the issue at first (it didn't help)

[WanderingAries]

19 minutes ago, Ground Fault said:

Thanks Aries, you are right this one has a GeForce MX250 (2 GB) I was going off of the info I saw in the device manager. I grabbed a pic of the specs from an old email.

laptop specs.htm 1.91 MB · 1 download

Ok, so this is where we get important information. Because it has both Discrete and Integrated GPUs, then you need to make SURE that it's using the MX250 when gaming. These things will auto-switch on their own and some models are known to guess wrong (and end up using the APU). So we need to make sure to have the settings related to this concept identified and configured (may need to disable the APU's GFU component.

Edited April 22, 2020 by WanderingAries

[Ground Fault]

I can't even find the GeForce GPU in my device manager

[WanderingAries]

13 minutes ago, Ground Fault said:

I can't even find the GeForce GPU in my device manager

That "should" be under Display Adaptor

 

I found these for reference. The short of it, need to smack HP for paring this up with the Iris.

 

https://laptopmedia.com/comparisons/nvidia-geforce-mx250-vs-intel-iris-plus-g7-the-nvidia-gpu-offers-better-performance-at-lower-cost/

 

https://technical.city/en/video/GeForce-MX250

 

https://benchmarks.ul.com/hardware/gpu/NVIDIA+GeForce+MX250+(25W)+review

[Ground Fault]

I downloaded the driver for the NVIDIA card and got "nvidia installer cannot continue. This graphics driver could not find compatible grapics hardware.

 

Sounds like my computer isn't even using the GPU

[Ground Fault]

device manager only shows the iris gpu

[WanderingAries]

You should be seeing software for the NVidia and Intel chips in Control Panels and in the Windows alphabetical software list (start menu). You may have a GeForce Experience software installed as well.

[WanderingAries]

40 minutes ago, Ground Fault said:

Thanks Aries, you are right this one has a GeForce MX250 (2 GB) I was going off of the info I saw in the device manager. I grabbed a pic of the specs from an old email.

laptop specs.htm 1.91 MB · 1 download

If you have the actual pic, then it should help as this has data, but I can't read/see it.

[WanderingAries]

This is what to expect if you only have the Iris:

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Iris-Plus-Graphics-G7-Ice-Lake-64-EU-Laptop-GPU.422866.0.html

[Ground Fault]

Here it is. I am wondering if the NVIDIA GPU is even in this machine. There is no NVIDIA or GeForce results in any searches of my files and I cant see it in the display adapters on the device manager.

 

 

[WanderingAries]

Yeah, I'm wondering if you have a driver issue then, but Just in case, flip it over and look at the sticker. You should see the model number it mentioned. May be on your box too. If it doesn't match, then get with the place you purchased it!

[WanderingAries]

Follow this and let me know what you see (if anything):

 

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c02731962

[Ground Fault]

It doesn't match! I think the GPU that it is supposed to have isn't even in the machine. A friend of mine bought it from HP in November and then found a different one he liked and sent this to me. I will have him call HP.

[WanderingAries]

Yeah, that'll sure put a damper on expectations. :/

[GM Tock]

Hmm.  If you have no NVidia on the motherboard that result would make sense. 

 

Does Device Manager have two display adapters in it?  Or any ? or ! entries in "Other"?  If there's no NVidia card, the Device Manager would only report the Iris Pro graphics.  I'd take it up with HP Support if that's the computer you were paying for.

 

(I think NVidia stopped making separate driver packages between Desktops and Laptops awhile ago, it shouldn't matter for a driver install anymore.)  If everything's reporting no missing drivers to Windows 10, that's probably what happened.

 

If there's Unknown Devices, then it's able to be troubleshot.  Maybe one of those is the Video Card in question.

Edited April 22, 2020 by GM Tahquitz

[Ground Fault]

display adapter just has one choice, the iris, no GeForce, other or unknown etc. im calling HP now, didn't want to try after hours last night

[Greycat]

Hmm. yeah, I've got a similar laptop (as in "has APU and nVidia GPU," not an HP, though) and you can definitely use nVidia's drivers on it.

 

(It also loves ignoring the GPU if I try to use the video out to play on a monitor or the TV, which is annoying. And looks awful.)

[Ground Fault]

I do use video out to play on a TV, hope that's not the issue.

 

After 2.5 hours on the phone with HP they are sending me a shipping box to look at it. Sales swears that the card is in there but tech support couldn't see it either. Will report back when the laptop makes it back home, hoping it runs COH well then.

 

This may be my last HP purchase (this is my 4th HP laptop), it shouldn't take 2.5 hours to get help, ended up missing on a whole morning of work.