4 Posts
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8188
Alienware graphics amplifier
I seriously need help. I’ve been trouble shooting for over 20 hours over a couple of weeks. My AGA and computer will not run games at a high frame rate. For example Doom is almost unplayable with frame rate drops that bounce from 130-50 non stop. Bf1 will not run above ninety and will not stabilize and is constantly fluctuatiing between 90-70. Dell support has not helped me at all. They just assume I’m and **bleep** and can’t troubleshoit myself so they just tell me to reinstall graphics drivers. I don’t have time to sit around and wait all day to watch them go through the same procedures I have done ( multiple times)
Specs:
Alienware 17r4 1050ti (internal)
16 gb ram
i7 7700hq 2.8 ghz
nvidia gtx 1080 founders edition(external)
upgraded to Samsung 500 gb ssd
i know from my reasearch I can run intensive games at very high frame rates. My frame rate increase for Fortnite between the 1050 ti and 1080 was bout 20, unacceptable for how much I spent. My cpu is also working very hard and my gpu is not m.
troubleshooting steps I’ve taken-
-uninstall and reinstall all graphics drivers including intel
-updated bios
- benchamarked ( I get decent numbers on heaven extreme setting with an average 106 cpu and gpu temps are good)
- examined multiple different NVIDIA control panel settings
...... and more
someone please help me I’ve spent over $2000 on this computer and it’s my first, and dell supports only answer is someone I can barely understand and there response is to lower my graphics settings. I was so excited to get AGA and 1080 and now it makes me sick to look at me pc because I dumped so much money into something that doesn’t function well.
Definitely not purchasing anything dell again.
jphughan
4 Operator
4 Operator
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14K Posts
1
July 16th, 2018 11:00
You take a performance hit when you use a graphics card installed inside the AGA to accelerate content on the built-in panel, because after sending the raw data from the system to the AGA for rendering, the rendered video frames have to come back from the AGA into the system. The suggestion to attach a display directly to the AGA and play games on that was meant to at least test the effect of eliminating that bottleneck, because in that case, rendered video frames go straight from the AGA out to the display without having to come back across the PCIe bus into the system.
Not pleased
4 Posts
0
July 16th, 2018 10:00
I don't understand can you clarify. My CPU usage is high in some games what would connecting a monitor do ?
Alienware-Eimy
3 Apprentice
3 Apprentice
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4.4K Posts
0
July 16th, 2018 10:00
Hi @Not pleased,
Connect a monitor to the amplifier.
Not pleased
4 Posts
1
July 16th, 2018 11:00
Started doing some research into this subject and thank you both so much, finally an answer:BigSmile:. I'm a little upset I have to purchase an external monitor but I was going to eventually. Anyone reading this thread should post questions on here. Dell support would have had me return my graphics card (which I didn't want to do because I really like Best Buy Haha), and when that would not have worked I would have had to send my AGA back, with no fix. So glad this is resolved, I really appreciate this but sadly I will probably not purchase Dell in the future because there customer support is hot garbage.
jphughan
4 Operator
4 Operator
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14K Posts
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July 16th, 2018 11:00
Sorry you didn't get good answers from support, but in fairness you don't "have to" purchase an external display. Doing so will increase your performance, but that doesn't mean it's required. The performance hit you're incurring is inherent to any external GPU setup. And not directly related, but I'm surprised you consider a drop from 130 to 50 fps to be unplayable, since 50 fps should still be plenty smooth and definitely not unplayable. Some consoles play certain games at a constant 30 fps, and even console/game combinations designed to run at 60 fps will occasionally drop to or even below 50. But then again I'm a casual gamer at best. In any case, good luck with whatever setup you end up with.
DavidPG
20 Posts
0
July 20th, 2018 23:00
This is more of an academic interest question, but it's still worth asking, in my humble opinion.
My understanding is that the link from the Laptop to the A.G.A. is 4 PCIe lanes. Am I correct in thinking that in a situation such as this, they're effectively a half duplex link? And if so, does that also represent a performance hit when using the A.G.A. to accelerate the built in panel?
TomC69
33 Posts
0
August 1st, 2018 21:00
I found you really need an external monitor with an AGA and AW laptop in order to get any significant performance improvements. Simply feeding things back to your laptop's monitor is not going to work nearly as well.
Earlier this year (Feb/2018) I bought an AGA and a Zotac gtx1080ti blower (basically FE) to improve the VR performance of my 17r4's internal gtx1060 (which was already pretty good btw). I did not get any significant performance improvements until I used an external monitor, plugged into the gtx1080ti DisplayPort.
With an external monitor (I am using an Asus VG248QE 144Hz monitor, very nice imho) you need to go to the windows display settings and set the option to only display the external monitor (#2 for me). If you try projecting to both monitors your performance will drop to ~the same as it was without the external monitor. Probably pretty obvious but I thought I would mention this anyway.
My main complaint is that while the AGA w/1080ti does significantly improve the non-VR performance of my internal gtx1060, it does not significantly improve VR performance (maybe ~10-15% improvement in my case).
I have an Oculus Rift with its headset's hdmi connected to the 1080ti and usb's (headset and 2x sensors) connected to the AGA 3.0 usb ports. I does not make much difference if I connect usb's to the laptop usb ports. Maybe a little better with the Rift's headset's usb connected to my 17r4's rear usb-c tb3 port (with usb-1 to usb-c adapter).
I'm not sure why my VR performance has not significantly improved since I would have thought that the VR headset connected to the 1080ti would act as an external monitor anyway. I don't really know for sure but I think it may be due to the VR processing needing to be sent back and forth via the AGA cable.
If I disconnect the AGA and then connect my external monitor to my 17r4 DisplayPort and disable the laptop monitor (like I did with the AGA) I get ~5% VR performance improvement compared to without an external monitor. I think that this is because via the DP the external monitor is driven by the internal gtx1060 instead of through the integrated intel graphic adapter.
So, for me the AGA w/1080ti has been a bit of waste of time and money (but fun to try, lol!). Esp. since I mainly bought it to improve my VR performance. I may end up either selling my gtx1080ti or use it (and my external monitor) in a future VR desktop build.
However, until I do something else with my gtx1080ti I intend to continue to use my AGA because it still does give me a little improvement in VR and certainly a bit improvement in non-VR. So, for now, it at least adds value to my expensive gtx1080ti. Also, it continues to work very well with my Oculus Rift (esp. with the Rift usb connected directly to my laptop's usb-c/tb3 port, w/adapter.
Sorry for the longish post but I thought that it is important for guys looking for VR performance improvements that in most cases, esp. if you already have VR-ready internal graphics (1060 or better) the AGA is not the way to go. If I had to do it all over again I think I would have been far better off paying extra initially and buying my 17r4 with an internal gtx1080.