Severely Poor Performance on an i7-8550U and Intel HD 620 - Expected?

[Silver-Streak]

Hello,

I've been using Fantasy Grounds on PC for years now, and never really had any issues. I have also used it on an older Windows 8 tablet for a year or two, without much issue.

Looking to buy a new tablet, I instead ended up with a Lenovo Yoga 920 laptop.

For reference, here are the specs:

CPU: Intel i7-8550u
Ram: 8 Gb
GPU: Intel HD 620
Storage: 256gb SSD


I can run games like Bioshock Infinite on this laptop at 1080p 60fps with moderate settings. I can also run Neverwinter (MMO) at 1080p at around 30fps in the main city on medium settings. This laptop surprised me in terms of performance.

However, in Fantasy Grounds, not only do I have very low framerate on dice rolls, moving windows around, or zooming maps of any size.

Actions I've attempted:

1. Updated all GPU/CPU/ETC drivers
2. Ensured that cross-compatibility mode is disabled
3. Ensured Steam overlay is disabled
4. Went into the Intel GPU Settings and force-disabled all anti aliasing, AF, and enhancements.
5. Tried both the Steam and standalone clients.

Sadly, none of these have improved this.

Does Fantasy Grounds have an issue with Intel integrated GPUs? As mentioned above, it's very apparent the GPU on this device is no slouch.

What's weirder is that FG doesn't seem to be actually attempting to use it. CPU/GPU utilization never goes above 20% from FG.

I don't want to keep hacking away at something that is currently known to not work, so any and all information is greatly appreciated.

[Zacchaeus]

I'm not an expert on such things but FG should be using the graphics driver. Make sure that you set FG to use the driver in the Intel menu. In other words add FG to the list of games that the driver recognises.

[Silver-Streak]

Yep. You have to do that in the driver to be able to disable AA/AF (it's not a global setting, only per-application).

[Moon Wizard]

FG uses DirectX 9, and was implemented originally in 2004. It may be that the latest drivers for that GPU don't handle older applications or DX9 well. Every tablet, CPU and driver combination behaves differently.

Since I did graphics driver testing for Intel GPUs a long time ago, I'm not surprised. They prioritize testing and fixes for AAA titles released in the last year, and pretty much ignore older stuff.

You've hit on most of the major things I would check on a laptop. Usually in laptops, we have to remind people to make sure that FG is using the dedicated graphics vs. the integrated graphics. It sounds like you only have the integrated graphics though. It may be the best performance on that laptop using the current FG, GPU and drivers.

Regards,
JPG

[LordEntrails]

I've used FG on other Intel GPU's without an issue. But you are on the right track.

I would try installing DirectX 9 and see if that helps.

[Silver-Streak]

Thanks for the input, all. Even after installing 9.0C with the latest redistributable (June 2010), no change in performance.

I only got this the other day, so I'm going to do a few more checks, but if I can't get it running smoothly I suppose I'll return it. One of the main reasons I got a new device was for better FG play.

(Maybe FG Unity will solve this whenever it releases?)

[Trenloe]

I know this won't be what you want to hear, but usually this can be a case of trying lots of different graphics driver configurations. You may also need to close FG, make the graphics change, start FG and test, close FG, etc.. i.e. restart FG fully between each change.

[Silver-Streak]

No worries, I appreciate any input.

This was actually what I mentioned above I was wanting to test.

I've been going into Intel's GPU control panel, turning on/switching a setting, rebooting the computer, then trying FG again.

Unfortunately, no real changes other than visual differences. Performance was always the same.

Interestingly, it also doesn't seem to matter what module, ruleset, or extension is being used. All of them have the same performance issues.

I've now also tried rolling back to old drivers (even ones not officially supported for my laptop), running some unofficial software to set the CPU and GPU to maximum clock speeds, safe mode, etc.

No difference.

Sadly, had I searched more thoroughly earlier, it seems like pretty much everything with the 620 (or more recent chipsets) from Intel are having this issue: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...l=1#post337651

I'm betting Moon Wizard is right, and Intel's drivers do not have great support/optimization for DX9 specific calls. It's disappointing because the laptop performs so well everywhere else.

Edit: I should clarify that I bet this is a generational intel thing. I wouldn't be surprised if Intel 400 series performs way better, as they came out when DX9 was still part of the OS normally.

[celestian]

One thing to check if you run discord. Check that you have the overlay mode for discord disabled. In some cases that causes some serious slag issues.

[Silver-Streak]

One thing to check if you run discord. Check that you have the overlay mode for discord disabled. In some cases that causes some serious slag issues.

Thanks for the tip. In this case, there was literally nothing installed on the laptop other than FG, the other games I mentioned above, steam, and the System drivers.

Only got it a few days ago and FG and the others were the first things I wanted to check after immediately removing any bloatware.

The Lenovo was surprisingly goos about not having any bloatware other than a McAfee trial which I removed.