MikjoA

Hey guys, I was wondering something about nVidia GPU + opt & internal LCD performance.

I'm not much interested in your GPU this time, except that it has to be an nvidia. But rather about the FPS cap I believe we all encounter when playing on internal LCD. I believe a better CPU could potentially gives slightly better performance, as it seems a better CPU in general seemed to compress the bandwidth, done by optimus, more efficiently.

So what is your maximum FPS cap on the internal monitor depending on the resolution you set ?



I cannot do further testing at the moment because I do not have any PE4L anymore but I'll get a new one soon.

How to measure your fps CAP ?

How to measure your bandwidth ?

The only thing I can conclude so far, is that the length of the PE4L doesn't seem to affect the performance at all.

Nope, doing so would also scare me ^^

I have repaired my PE4L several times, I had re soldered like 10 different wires (it really was a pain lol) and while it kept working properly, but it became even more fragile.

So I put it in a seperate small bag that I forgot x_____________x (there were also food in it lol, I guess someone found it but didn't bring it back to the station.)

I'm guessing I'll probably go for an other PM060A then, because that's true I make do very well with the 60cm, while the 100cm could be easier sometimes it could also be more complicated when I'm travelling.

Thanks

I'm such a moron, I lost my PE4L-PM060A 2.1b in the train, it hasn't been found...

So I need to buy a new one.

And now I don't know what to choose : PE4L-PM100A or sticking with the PE4L-PM060A... 100cm seems to be a bit more convenient but I'm afraid about performance loss, especially since 60cm would still be fine.

Do you think the PM100A would affect the performances ? because I remenber with the PE4H 2.4a I had like 2-3% more performances with the 30cm mini HDMI from hwtools than with a 1.5m mini hdmi.

I've played with the new bios and it went very well ! Awesome !

Thanks a lot svl7 !

Also, I prefer setting the power limit to 85%, I have a friend who fried his 780 with a custom bios at 114%.

I wonder how safe it is at 100% ? I did et it for firestrike @ 1228 and the power went up to 95%.

Because from what I understand 100% with svl7 bios should correspond to 140% with stock bios, (100%=350W while before it was 250 right ?)

Hi,

I've just download the v03 bios for my titan, but I'm afraid of a possible corrupted download.

Could you share some hashes ? like SHA-1, CRC32, md5 or whatever so I can checksum the bios before the flashing process ?

Also I'd like to thanks svl7 and all other for sharing these great bios mods.

Thanks.

edit : My hashes

md5 : da6e63c651c5812ba9c374fa89a31685

SHA1 : f7e140fc114be2f9d66c48e88bfe9c78c41b7819

SHA512 : 0507c3aa67c25a80ffe47b6d92bae9bfd963e504eae907ecba5c06c920bfca0eb1b65cfd1dba75c55ec7b487e9c03501aed638b9cff0d83b3baaa5675d8c5729

CRC32 : 59d1eb1c

Well, I've redownloaded the file and the hashes are the same, so it should be safe.

re edit : Oops I've just notice the md5 checksum on the first post!

anyway I've just flashed my card and it went well, but after a reboot I think the GPU weren't good, idling at 40°C while before I used to idle at 22-23°C with my fan curve. Pushing the fan to 100% didn't even help... well an other reboot and all were fine, 28°C with standard fan curve.

Yeah that would be great, but the performance boost will surely be not as good as in 16bit but I hope it's like 50% more FPS at best I've myself notice arround 100% more FPS in 16bit with msi kombustor benchmark (KMark).

Btw Thanks for posting on ENBdev forum

Thanks for sharing Grichka, I've added you to the table

I'm going to improve/update this thread... but since I'm an html noob I always feel lost when I edit the 1st post it took an hour to add u x_____x

Hi guys!

I might have something of interest for many of you ! :)

Do you remenber the colour depth analisys made by Khenglish ?

He discovered that playing with a reduced colour depth would grant you a great performance boost ! This mostly works for the internal monitor rendering and it is not very revelant on the external monitor.

Quote

So I did some testing with internal LCD mode. The results? If you want higher FPS, run 16bit color!. This cuts the frame buffer in half resulting in a huge performance increase in most cases.

Colour depth RES5 DX9 DMC4 S4 DX10 Heaven

32bit	89.0 FPS	77.5 FPS	1263 points
16bit	153.2 FPS	97.1 FPS	1753 points
Improvement	72.1%	25.3%	38.8%

I also ran FF14. It did not benefit from going to 16 bit for some reason.

Since pretty much every game supports windowed mode, you can run 16 bit color by setting 16 bit in the monitor options in windows. The downside is the obvious color quality loss, which varies in how noticeable it is from game to game. In some games you'll barely notice, in others it stands out.

I think that 24 bit color would be ideal. This would have the same color spectrum of 32bit, but knock off the rarely used transparency bits that 32bit has, which really just waste bandwidth.

Does anyone have any ideas on forcing 24bit color, or running 16bit in fullscreen mode?

I know he has been looking for a way to force recent games to render in fullscreen 16bit, but actually for most recent games 16bit is not supported. So, you can't play 16bit in full screen and for most games, windowed with 16bit resolutions oesn't help.. (I don't know why though)

But I know a genius guys, who could probably force most games to render in 16bit fullscreen thanks to his fantastic tool he called ENB.

What is ENB ?

Just go read this description (click) really it's not long so please read it for your better understanding.

Forcing a game to render in 16bit is not yet implemented in ENB, but I asked Boris if he could do it, and he said that it is possible and that he could do it. So this will depends on Boris work, he uses to listen to people and improve his ENB according to what users want and what he thinks is good. But on his forum, I'm the only one to request such a weird thing that is "Can ENB forces game to 16bit fullscreen ?"

So what I'm asking those who want better performance for their laptop LCD ?

Go to his forum, and register here, then go to my thread "Can ENB forces game to 16bit fullscreen ?" and show your interest in forcing game to 16 (even 24bit) rendering.

But please !

- Introduce yourself in one line with your post, say you are a eGPU user from our techinferno thread. (No need to explain what is eGPU, I've already told him.) - Show your interest in this particular feature/request (or even 24bit for no visual degradation), be polite and patient ! - Make it short.

ENB is free and it's a fantastic tools, that allows A LOT of possibilities for any games. It's just incredible what you can do with it. It can increase performances, add amazing effects to the game, for which you can litterally customize the look and make it unique, or even solve issues !

I use it myself for Skyrim, for enhancing the look of it.

Just look at one of my in-game screenshot : (ENB ON / ENB OFF)

PS : yes, Manany is my nickname there.

Well for me it is much more than 5%, especially on internal LCD.

Hi MikjoA, welcome back!

I just recently started to think of that when I ran borderlands 2 for the first time on eGPU (It ran like crap if physx were higher than low). How do I check whether physx is handled by CPU or GPU? (except for the obvious: 'set GPU/CPU in Nvidia Control Panel').

Thanks, I have no accurate manner to know if the CPU handles physX instead of the GPU in a game, but the first hint was the bad performance with physX, I'm sure borderlands 2 would run fine with physX high and a GTX 670. I had only 8 fps in some area with Mirror's Edge weither I set physX to CPU or GPU.

I've decided to run FluidMark 1.52, a PhysX benchmark, and to compare my result with others, there it's very clear, others get 10 times more performances. And I had exactly the same performances without my eGPU.

Also I had a question, do you guys have ever managed to get PhysX working ?

I haven't have been able to, it is always handled by the CPU whatever I do. I had one of the latest driver (314.22 + the physx one in the driver package) installed and PhysX set to my GTX 670.

But every games or benchmarks with PhysX were handled by the CPU. I wanted to play again Mirror's Edge, the FPS is very good easily 100+ maxed out, but whenever it involves too much of physX --> 8 FPS

I have made clean uninstall with driver sweeper, then reinstalled without success, I also tried older physX driver but it is the same every time...

Well I have no idea why is that, and I don't remenber if PhysX was active on my previous laptop...

May be it has something to do with how I set up, DiY eGPU Setup 1.X ? lol that is a bit random... but I do a PCI compaction, 32/64 bit method, but I only do compaction on eGPU. I prefer mention it eventhough it probably have nothing to do with it lol

@grichka59, would you mind doing full benchmarking to be included on the first post? That would be 3dmk6/vantage/11, RE5, dmcv4, heaven all of which are detailed in the implementations section. I'd like to include it fully.

You have an ultrabook (or Macbook Air) thin system with a quad-core CPU and almost a Titan attached as an eGPU. It's pound-for-pound the most powerful implementation we've seen so far. A good one for potential Macbook Air/Retina fans who might want a TB enclosure to consider too.

@bjorm and @MikjoA - you guys have done great writeups for the SVZ, HP 2570P/8460P and Lenovo X220. Would you mind splitting the posts off from the DIY eGPU experiences thread into their own standalone threads to gain some more visibility?

Hi Nando,

I'm sorry, I wasn't very active, but I will be less busy this summer now that I can enjoy my holidays which started today. So I will update my SVZ / Z2 thread, there are many new things to add. I will also add grichka59's scores and implementation eventhough it very very similar to mine since I've guided him. By the way, I'm sure he will do the full benchmarking soon, he already showed us enthousiastic scores which are already much better than the titan's score from nbr (I guess there was an issue anyway in that setup, which looked like to be gen1 limited).

Also, grichka59 had a fantastic idea, and we may have now a mcuh better implementation for internal wifi, because the only one WLAN card known to be able to connect on WWAN port isn't that good... And a big problem was the loss of bluetooth feature, and the wifi signal reception isn't very good.

But Grichka suggested to use the PM3U from hwtools and with this tiny USB WiFi (N! no more G only) and bluetooth combo ! Lindy USB Bluetooth & HS WLAN 11n Combo Adapter: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

We are going to try that really soon, we may have to dissassemble these parts and do some soldering if a USB is too thick for the Z, but I'm sure it can works and maybe we could even plugg antenna on the card directly.

I can't wait to test it and to get back my bluetooth mouse

Awesome results, thanks for sharing.

But what about real gaming performance ?

Unigine heaven benchmark are more interesting because they are affected by the lower bandwidth similarly than common games.

Because 3DMarks, especially Vantage & 11 are barely affected of eGPU low bandwidth...

^

It will be compatible, it's only you use a previous version of PE4L or PE4H on Sandy/Ivy Bridge laptop that you got some problems until you set the mPCI-e speed to 1.0.

13-4-2013: calling on notebook systemboard manufacturers (Foxconn, Inventec, etc) to attach their expresscards slot in the upcoming Intel Haswell platform using the pci-e 3.0 Northbridge rather than the pci-e 2.0 Southbridge. That will give eGPU users x1 3.0 link speed, equivalent to 2011-2013 Thunderbolt but better it as a x1 link allows NVidia Fermi/Keplar eGPU pci-e compression to engage as well. Use of the Expresscard slot means no annoying Intel Thunderbolt certification/licensing issues to deal with either.

Nando4 what are the chances that on haswell laptop mPCI-e/expresscard to be attached to the Northbridge, are we likely going to see laptop capable of 1.3Opt this summer ? That would be awesome.

You need to disable the dGPU, if you can't do it then you'll probably need setup 1.x

^

X2 speed means nothing as long as you do not tell which PCI-e generation you are talking about.

However, you can achieve approximately X2 2.0 speed with a Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge laptop and with a PE4L 2.1b which will be connected to your expresscard or on an accessible mPCI-e.

These port are like PCI-E 2.0 X1 (instead of X16). but optimus will compress bandwidth and increase performance which will approximately be like X2 2.0.

You can also achieve X2 2.0 with thunderbolt and TH05 but TH05 is discontinued because of Intel.

<center>Hi eGPU folks !

It's been a long time I didn't post anything but I've always kept an eye on the official eGPU thread.

And today I though it could be nice to share about my eGPU stuffs.

With eGPU at first I wanted maximum performance and I didn't care about cumbersomeness but now I do, I really do. Otherwise isn't it better to buy a big tower which will easily outperform the eGPU setup.

My eGPU setup :

The Laptop : Sony VAIO SVZ1311 it's a very tiny but quite powerful laptop, but have to be modded : See my thread about it

The GPU : Then I've picked up a GTX 660 Ti from zotac because its cooler wasn't longer than GTX 660 Ti / GTX 670 reference PCB, but I wanter more power so then I've bought an eVGA GTX 670 SC 4Gb and I've switched their cooler

The PSU : At first I've used an XBOX 360 psu that I've modded according to thendless work, but then I wanted to try something else to see if it is a viable solution. So I've bought a cheap and slim 22$ server PSU Dimensions (WxLxH): 76.0 x 280.0 x 40.0 mm.

My desk

<img src="http://nsm08.casimages.com/img/2013/04/15/13041507123015755611089446.jpg" width="1000">

The GPU

I've removed the plate, it shortens the card a bit

<img src="http://nsm08.casimages.com/img/2013/04/15/13041507123015755611089442.jpg" width="1000">

and also enables it to stand up.

<img src="http://nsm08.casimages.com/img/2013/04/15/13041507123115755611089447.jpg" width="1000">

Size comparison :

<img src="http://nsm08.casimages.com/img/2013/04/15/13041507123015755611089443.jpg" width="1000">

The PSU

This PSU can provide up to 400W and 32.5 A on the 12V (220V, if 100:110 -> 360W) and has the 80 PLUS silver certification.

Server PSU can be noisy and so does this one, when you power it on, it's 80 DbA (measured myself 20cm away, the fan's speed is insane : 13000 RPM).

But it is noisy for only 5-6 sec then it become much more quieter (45 dba).

My GTX 670 4Gb can theoretically draws a maximum of 255W (power limit +150%) but the PSU has never get hot so far.

Since internal temperature was very good, I wanted to make it quieter, so I've added a resistor on the red wire of the fan, now it's no more noisy.

<img src="http://nsm08.casimages.com/img/2013/04/15/13041507123015755611089444.jpg" width="1000">

Here I've added a switch to power it on without SWEX. And removed every unused wires.

<img src="http://nsm08.casimages.com/img/2013/04/15/13041507122915755611089441.jpg" width="1000">

It's longer than the XBOX 360 PSU but slimer

<img src="http://nsm08.casimages.com/img/2013/04/15/13041507123015755611089445.jpg" width="1000">

And now the benchmarks !

3DMark 2013

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3612QM Processor,Sony Corporation VAIO

Fire Strike Graphic score : 6584

3DMark 11

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3612QM Processor,Sony Corporation VAIO score: P8256 3DMarks

Graphic Score : 8827

3DMark Vantage

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3612QM Processor,Sony Corporation VAIO score: P25839 3DMarks

Graphic Score : 28598

Unigine Valley eXtreme HD

<img src="http://nsm08.casimages.com/img/2013/04/15/13041508252515755611089808.png">

Unigine Heaven 3.0

<img src="http://nsm08.casimages.com/img/2013/04/15/13041508274515755611089817.png">

</center>

Thanks, well I've cleaned it up for posting picture ^^ it was much more messier before ! ^^

Yeah the eVGA is something like 25cm ? While the ZOTAC is more like 19cm.

But I may buy the eVGA GTX 670 SuperClocked 4gb and swap the cooler with my ZOTAC.

This eVGA has a reference PCB, which is 17cm and almost identical to the GTX 660 Ti (and my ZOTAC has the reference PCB).

So I will have the smallest GTX 670, since ZOTAC GTX 670 is 25cm long too.

But the GTX 660 Ti may be enough for me, and the GTX 670 SC 4gb is not that cheap..

We should definitely play together

Lol you're right for the speakers, and my bike is a LAPIERRE technic FSX.

Pictures of my eGPU setup (SVZ 13.1" quad core, GTX 660 Ti, XBOX PSU mod)

This ZOTAC is wonderful, it's not longer than a PS VITA.

^Thank you

I'm trying the Windows 8 enterprise 90-day evaluation I think it's the final version.

The eGPU runs well so far but the DIY eGPU setup didn't work properly not sure why... But my setup works well without it.

<sub>

I'm using a X220 and having a spare ATI 6770 + PSU 350W. So which version should I buy ? PE4L or PE4H?

If your X220 is a Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge version, which means it support PCI 2.0, go for the PE4L version !

With the PE4L a X1.2 opt setup is just as powerful as the PE4H X4 setup.</sub>

Hi guys !

I'm so excited my new eGPU setup is now finally working !

You may have read my message before and I was wrong none of my GPU was dead, but the PE4L was no longer working. I still don't know why it didn't work, I notice a wire, on the PE4L had been torn out but I've re soldered it and it didn't make any change. I've investigated the PM3N of the PE4L and when I've removed the sleeve it torn at least 3 wires and I could resolder one of them. So I've order a new PE4L which was a bit reworked compared to my first PE4L 2.1b. There is a new jump somewhere on the PM3N and it is no longer necessary to make the jump ourself.

So here is my setup

- Sony SV-Z1311C5E 8Gb i7 3612QM @ always running at 2.8 Ghz.

- PE4L-PM060A 2.1b

- XBOX 360 PSU mod

- ZOTAC GTX 660 Ti AMP! 2Gb

And Windows 8 64 bit !

I'd be glad to do some benchmarks but 3DMark 06 keep make the computer freezing.... I've googled it and it seems to be related to futuremark system analyser... So other 3DMark might be affected too.

I couldn't try it much, I've made it working few minutes ago and could just try borderlands 2 on internal LCD. Which work just as expected .

I'll keep you updated with pictures and benchmarks !

^

This means you've succeeded in obtaining 1.2 (for 1.2opt, if you can run the eGPU on the internal monitor then it works).

1.2 means PCI-E 2.0 X1.

Have you tried just using a normal PSU to see if the card work/act normally? If you 360 PSU is being difficult you might try a PSU from a MicroITX computer. They are roughly the same size.

I am actually using a MicroITX case (but a normal power supply). I dunno, just a thought, the MicroITX computer/case I am using is small enough for me. I'll get pics if you want to see. (Still have to finish up on it though, making it look pretty.)

Yeah I forgot to mention that, I've tried back both card with my desktop PSU.

Now I could test my GTX 660 Ti in my dad's computer and it's is working very well

So I guess the problem does come from the PE4L, which I either fired with my first XBOX 360 wiring which was wrong (and it was wrong for the PE4L only.) or like Nando4 suggested, which may have suffered from bending to fit in my laptop.

you are using a PE4L-PM3N 2.1b so may have endured more bending to fit it into the mPCIe slot. Worth investigating, especially if the XBOX360 PSU voltages all check out above.

Thank you both of you !

I will try it again on my PE4H, that's a bit sad to go back to X1.1Opt ^^

Got some worse news...

After my GTX 660 Ti it's not my GTX 480 which has just passed away and it's a murder.

The killer is my XBOX 360 psu mod.

I decided to recheck my XBOX 360 psu mod on my GTX 480 which I had undervolting and underclock for not killing the xbox psu. (the GPU was working well before I try and was quite stable.)

But it killed my GTX 480, which now acts exactly in the same way the GTX 660 ti does. It's recognized but won't work and will randomly switch on/off. Setup 1.X will at first recognize it and then it will disappear and the same thing can appear in now in device manager.

I don't understand, I'm pretty sure I've wire the xbox psu correctly, 12V with 12V and GND with GND etc...

What a great week... I want to take a hammer and knock that xbox 360 psu and knock it really hard (but my girlfriend said no...)

- - - Updated - - -

But my graphic cards aren't totally dead, since I could even driver for few second the external disply on the GTX 660 Ti before it crashes, and both card name are still recognized...

(except last time, windows mistaked the GTX 660 Ti for the GTX 680 O__o ?)

May be there's a way to repair them ? Or at least my GTX 480 which isn't anymore covered. Any idea ? May be it's just a fuse ?

And I also feel angry to send back my GTX 660 Ti... Because it was probably not DOA and I likely killed it myself... and I hate lying... but I hope I can have a replacement...

Your problem n°1, it's probably not a problem, because the eGPU is operating at 1.2 speed just when it needs it, like in a game. It goes automatically back to 1.1 when not used.

You can check that with GPU-Z and launch a game or something and you will see that it switches to 1.2 link.

As for your other problems, I don't know enough about it to answer you.