Is vram holding back my fps? (Not a 3080 in sight...)

[Brazo]

Laptop Ryzen 4800HS and 1660ti 16gb ram.

Ive set it up so the Radeon gpu works on battery power and the Nvidia gpu when plugged in.

I’ve been getting around 30fps in the game ‘They are Billions’ on the integrated Radeon graphics but msi afterburner tells me the gpu is at 50%. Nvidia gpu showing 0%.

I know I’m not cpu limited as when I switch to the 1660ti I get around 90fps at which point I suspect I am cpu limited as this title hammers a single core.

It’s probably something to do with power settings but I noted the Radeon only has 512mb of vram so could this be the issue?

 

[HangTime]

Definitely explore the power settings first, laptops in particular can have suboptimal default settings for performance.

 

[Brazo]

Definitely explore the power settings first, laptops in particular can have suboptimal default settings for performance.

Thankyou yes I switched to a more aggressive battery profile and I’ve gone up to about 55fps on the Radeon but it’s far from maxed out, perhaps it’s a good compromise though vs battery life. Good to know the igpu is more than capable of running this game as my last one (i5 6200u could only manage about 20fps.

 

[HangTime]

Also have a look in radeon settings, there are some power saving features in there like "Chill" etc.

Personally I would set it to run with the Radeon graphics off the mains for testing purposes, see if you get better gpu utilisation when plugged in. If you do, then it suggests the culprit is likely be another power setting somewhere.

Finally as you suggest VRAM is a likely culprit, the min spec for They Are Billions is 1GB VRAM.

 

[Tetras]

If I remember right, AMD IGP VRAM settings are only for the amount of memory that's permanently reserved, it will use more if it needs it. It might be throttling because it's hitting the power limit? That happened with AMD APUs in the past, but, I don't know if it's a thing for the newer ones.

 

[Brazo]

Thankyou.

I plugged it in and fps increased to between 60-90 when zoomed in but around 30 when fully zoomed out. Gpu usage still showing under 60!

Im guessing it’s a power issue somewhere. I have delved deeply into the power management settings and ‘fiddled’ so maybe it’s my fault. Laptops have so many different power management settings it’s like having a whole new type of pc (compared to a desktop!).