Nvidia Optimus: Crysis and GTA IV fix

Status
Not open for further replies.

hilarityensues

Honorable
May 2, 2012
12
0
10,570
Hey all.

I have a Lenovo y570 with a Nvidia Geforce GT555m. I just recently bought GTA IV on sale from Steam, and I'm having the same issues with it that I was having with Crysis. I originally thought my system wasn't beefy enough to run Crysis but after having the same issue with GTA IV, I've come to believe its caused by Optimus.

When I play either game, I have initially start out with high FPS but in Crysis, it drops after a few minutes to under 20. With GTA IV it happens instantaneous. When I selected Benchmark on the GTA IV graphics menu, I noticed after the benchmark that the game was only recognizing the Intel HD graphics. I assume this is the issue with Crysis as well. It seems to only happen with older games, HL2 included. Doom 3 runs off of the GT555m no issues.

I have tried updating to the newest available drivers and selecting the games individually from Nvidia control panel but neither helped.

Anyone have a fix for this?
 
Solution
Don't know what to tell ya. From what I understand GTA IV is a poorly optimized console port. It doesn't recogize the Nvidia card so it isn't compatible with optimus. I have an Intel HD 3000 on my laptop and I can get it run on med-high at 30fps with the tweaks I have told you about. I have gone as far as to try and disable the integrated graphics which crashed the screen to black until I rebooted. I guess that means nvidia optimus works by combining the Intel HD chip with the Nvidia chip. When graphic intensive programs are detected, Optimus switches to the dedicated chip and when you are browsing the web, etc the intel chip is active. Since GTA is a console port it probably doesn't even detect anything other than the Intel chip, and...

hilarityensues

Honorable
May 2, 2012
12
0
10,570
Yes, The laptop always stays plugged in.

I just went into nvidia control panel and for some reason on the screen where you select the gpu to be used, it won't let me select the high performance nvidia processor, it always stays on auto.
 

hilarityensues

Honorable
May 2, 2012
12
0
10,570
I found a fix! The CPU was throttling horribly so I downloaded a program called throttlestop and set it to the "game" preset. Now I'm playing GTA IV at 25-40fps and for the first time Crysis runs on my laptop without dropped below 20fps!!! So exicted, I've been trying to play Crysis for ages now.
 

doc808

Honorable
Nov 19, 2012
4
0
10,510
Did GTA IV work with your Nvidia video card or did you just overclock your CPU with the "throttlestop" the program?

I've been looking for a solution for WEEKS now. I have the lenovo y580 laptop and I want my GTA IV Episodes to work with my nvidia graphics card but it keeps reading my intel integrated graphics card.
 

hilarityensues

Honorable
May 2, 2012
12
0
10,570
It didn't overclock the CPU, I have the GPU overclocked with EVGA Precision but the Throttlestop program just gets the CPU to run at a solid pace. I went from 10-15fps to 30-40fps even though GTA IV still shows the reads the intel card during the benchmark.

Crysis is running much better aswell, went from 15-20fps and huge lag spikes to smooth running at 30-35 fps, Crysis Warhead runs at close to 50fps. Both games were unplayable before I downloaded throttlestop.
 

hilarityensues

Honorable
May 2, 2012
12
0
10,570
Try this. Go to your steam library, right click GTA IV and select properties. Select launch options. Enter the following.

-width xxxx -height xxxx -refreshrate 60 -availablevidmem 8000 -percentvidmem 100 -nomemrestrict -norestrictions


xxxx = Your laptops resolution, either 1366x768 or 1920x1080
 

hilarityensues

Honorable
May 2, 2012
12
0
10,570
Don't know what to tell ya. From what I understand GTA IV is a poorly optimized console port. It doesn't recogize the Nvidia card so it isn't compatible with optimus. I have an Intel HD 3000 on my laptop and I can get it run on med-high at 30fps with the tweaks I have told you about. I have gone as far as to try and disable the integrated graphics which crashed the screen to black until I rebooted. I guess that means nvidia optimus works by combining the Intel HD chip with the Nvidia chip. When graphic intensive programs are detected, Optimus switches to the dedicated chip and when you are browsing the web, etc the intel chip is active. Since GTA is a console port it probably doesn't even detect anything other than the Intel chip, and from other forums I've read Rockstar support isn't much help.
 
Solution

doc808

Honorable
Nov 19, 2012
4
0
10,510
Your probably right. I also crashed my system doing the same thing with disabling the intel graphics.

I'm just afraid to purchase a new game from Steam and the game not be compatible with Optimus... That would suck
 
Status
Not open for further replies.