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

[Silver-Streak]

Just for an update, I went ahead and returned the laptop since Fantasy Grounds was tied for my #1 reason of getting a new one.

You hear that, Smiteworks? I love Fantasy Grounds so much I returned a $1k+ laptop because it didn't work well with DX9.

(Please hurry with FGU)

[damned]

In a recent Live Stream Doug mentioned that they had invested close to 10,000 hours in FGU development already.
...and that it still needed a lot more.

[celestian]

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.

I like my Lenovo as well. I don't use it for gaming (I like my desktop!) but I'll throw FG on it sometime over the weekend and see if it has issues.

[Silver-Streak]

In a recent Live Stream Doug mentioned that they had invested close to 10,000 hours in FGU development already.
...and that it still needed a lot more.

I have no doubt. Building what is basically an entirely new engine, and wanting to keep compatibility with your old one, is no easy task.

I like my Lenovo as well. I don't use it for gaming (I like my desktop!) but I'll throw FG on it sometime over the weekend and see if it has issues.

Sure thing, if there is a solution to be found, I'd even rebuy the Yoga 920.

For reference, the 920 is running an Intel HD 620. I tried with the previous 2 releases of Drivers, as well as the newest one from Intel's site. (Lenovo has a different version than all 3 of those, and I tried that too).

I tested with the Battle Maps open from the demo 5e campaign, as well as the 3.5 and 4e demos, as well as maps from Horde of the Dragoon Queen.

My test methodology:
Roll a d20 with 2 character sheets open. (noticibly choppy)
Roll 20d20 with 2 character sheets open. (noticibly choppy)
Roll a d20 with 2 character sheets and a map open. (Extremely choppy)
Roll 20d20 with 2 character sheets and a map open. (single digit frames)

Watching GPU/CPU utilization, I never break 20% (in fact, I don't think I ever broke 10% on either)

[lostsanityreturned]

I have no doubt. Building what is basically an entirely new engine, and wanting to keep compatibility with your old one, is no easy task.



Sure thing, if there is a solution to be found, I'd even rebuy the Yoga 920.

For reference, the 920 is running an Intel HD 620. I tried with the previous 2 releases of Drivers, as well as the newest one from Intel's site. (Lenovo has a different version than all 3 of those, and I tried that too).

I tested with the Battle Maps open from the demo 5e campaign, as well as the 3.5 and 4e demos, as well as maps from Horde of the Dragoon Queen.

My test methodology:
Roll a d20 with 2 character sheets open. (noticibly choppy)
Roll 20d20 with 2 character sheets open. (noticibly choppy)
Roll a d20 with 2 character sheets and a map open. (Extremely choppy)
Roll 20d20 with 2 character sheets and a map open. (single digit frames)

Watching GPU/CPU utilization, I never break 20% (in fact, I don't think I ever broke 10% on either)

Amusingly I will occasionally get similar issues on my desktop with its i7, SSD, 64gb of ram and TitanX.

But yeah I learnt ages ago that FG hates certain intel integrated chipsets after I tried to run it on my windows tablet. And when I run it on my wife's dell alienware it has similar issues if I don't force it to use the discrete graphics over the built in graphics.

I would highly recommend getting a Dell XPS 15 for a light and small laptop with a border to border screen and decent hardware. They are frequently on sale for 30%-40% off. It comes with a discrete graphics card and is well worth it.

[Silver-Streak]

Amusingly I will occasionally get similar issues on my desktop with its i7, SSD, 64gb of ram and TitanX.

But yeah I learnt ages ago that FG hates certain intel integrated chipsets after I tried to run it on my windows tablet. And when I run it on my wife's dell alienware it has similar issues if I don't force it to use the discrete graphics over the built in graphics.

I would highly recommend getting a Dell XPS 15 for a light and small laptop with a border to border screen and decent hardware. They are frequently on sale for 30%-40% off. It comes with a discrete graphics card and is well worth it.

Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of the Dell devices, but they just announced they're going to be first to market with Intel's new frankenstein processor. (Intel CPU with onboard AMD Vega RX GPU).

I'm betting that'd solve the issue. I might wait a while, however, as I'm really looking for something more in the 13 inch size.

[lostsanityreturned]

Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of the Dell devices, but they just announced they're going to be first to market with Intel's new frankenstein processor. (Intel CPU with onboard AMD Vega RX GPU).

I'm betting that'd solve the issue. I might wait a while, however, as I'm really looking for something more in the 13 inch size.

Their 15" xps is roughly the size of most 13"-14" computers. Because of the 4mm bezzel.
It is also well constructed and easy to repair (I have taken a few apart for a technical school I admin for).

That said, they do have a 13" model. I would avoid anything of theirs in the insperon range though.

And yeah I am quite interested to see how the intel / amd deal will progress going forward.

[Silver-Streak]

Their 15" xps is roughly the size of most 13"-14" computers. Because of the 4mm bezzel.
It is also well constructed and easy to repair (I have taken a few apart for a technical school I admin for).

That said, they do have a 13" model. I would avoid anything of theirs in the insperon range though.

And yeah I am quite interested to see how the intel / amd deal will progress going forward.

Yes, but the XPS 15 is huge compared to the Yoga 920 or the HP Spectre x360 13. Again, we'll see. It also depends on how readily available they are, how they perform in real world benchmarks, and what the actual battery life is like.

[Silver-Streak]

Does anyone know/have any experience with the Geforce MX150 and Fantasy Grounds?

Asus has a real nice 2-in-1 (Zenbook Flip 14) with the MX150 available for it, which is supposed to be 4x performance of the Intel UHD 620.

While the 620 technically had the performance that should have covered what is needed, I'm wondering the MX150 could brute force it to the point that it performs well even if it doesn't have legacy/DX9 support?

I'm also still waiting to see what happens with the new Intel/AMD frankenstein CPUs (i5-8305g and i7-8705g, Intel CPU with an integrated AMD Vega GPU), but they're only available in giant units from HP/Dell.