What's new

Ways to Improve Gaming Performance?

Siorus

New Member
So I've been using my Pro 2 for emulators (dolphin, ppsspp) and I tried Skyrim (got 25 fps at most on medium settings) and was wondering if there was any way to increase the gaming performance on the Surface Pro 2. I've seen threads on here with people running games flawlessly (on low to medium settings of course) on this forum and I cant seem to get the same results.

I've installed the latest intel drivers, set my battery to Maximum Performance, and used Throttlestop, though I don't know if that last one worked.

Is there anything I'm missing or any tips I could get to improve my performance for gaming?
 

Philtastic

Active Member
The biggest way to improve your gaming performance is set the resolution for most 3D games to 1280x720 (aka 720p). The Intel HD 4400 just doesn't have the processing power to pump out double the pixels at 1080p for graphically demanding 3D games. For example, on my SP2, Skyrim doesn't often stay over 25 fps on lowest settings (although with many high res texture and model mods) at 1080p but runs pretty much constantly over 30 fps on the same settings at 720p for a decently smooth experience. Even Diablo 3, a game that isn't terribly demanding, dips below 30 fps fairly often even on lowest settings at 1080p but is mostly over 40 fps at 720p.

Other than that, you could cool your SP2 with ice packs to prevent it from throttling when it reaches 80 degrees Celcius.
 
Hi Siorus,it is also advisable not to install Windows 8.1 update 1,reason is not because this update makes sttutering constant and important fps drop.

Greetings.
 

GoodBytes

Well-Known Member
The Surface Pro 2 is NOT a gaming system. Intel integrated graphics is good for OFFICE work, and video playback.
It does not fully support DirectX and OpenGL despite Intel claims, as you can see with numerous games crashing at some point with a rendering error. (this is nothing new for Intel integrated graphics. Despite the company size, and money, they can only make CPU's and chipsets. They don't have the expertise for making a GPU and GPU drivers despite the numerous years at it).

For smooth gaming experience, you can play many indie games, as they are not graphically intense, and usually designed to run on the lowest common denominator computers... so Intel integrated graphics.

In addition, Throttlestop is highly not recommended. The idea of Throttlestop, was to fix issues with buggy system firmwares which throttled systems continuously, despite being fine temperatures wise.
The Surface Pro 2 does not face such problem. It uses a high end heatsink (dual heatsink design, heat pipes with gas inside to transfer heat significantly better away from the CPU, dual quiet high static pressure fans).
It throttles to protect the battery. Heat degrades lithium-ion batteries. Disabling throttling, will result in the system accelerated degradation of the battery. Meaning you'll complain rather soon, on how it can't hold a charge anymore.



Hi Siorus,it is also advisable not to install Windows 8.1 update 1,reason is not because this update makes sttutering constant and important fps drop.

huh? I have no issues on my side with the games I play on it.
Also, Microsoft said that if you don't install Update 1, Windows 8.1 will no longer be supported. Meaning no security update and no bug fixes updates.
 
Last edited:

Philtastic

Active Member
Yeah, I haven't experienced any problems with Update 1 either, game or otherwise. I highly recommend installing it.
 

Malakai

New Member
Highly recommend Razors Gamebooster. Used it for years, basically, when you install it it looks at whats running on your system. When you start a game it turns off anything that doesnt need to be running. When you exit your game it restores everything. It even creates a new power plan designed for gaming.

Check it out here.
 
huh? I have no issues on my side with the games I play on it.
Also, Microsoft said that if you don't install Update 1, Windows 8.1 will no longer be supported. Meaning no security update and no bug fixes updates.

As I said before the update 1 generates sttutering, there are even games that were no longer playable.
I checked with 2 Surface Pro 2 and there are forums that have the same problem with the update 1 with desktop computers.

Windows 8.1 Update 1 = Shank 2,Shank 1,Fifa 14,Lego The Hobbyt,etc = Sttutering
Windows 8.1 Update 1 = Warframe,Sleeping Dogs,etc = unplayable

Windows 8.1 = Shank 2,Shank 1,Fifa 14,Lego The Hobbyt,etc = smooth and excellent
Windows 8.1 = Warframe,Sleeping Dogs,etc = very playable

I would like to ask you a few comparisons recordings or screenshots,but I'm not going to reinstall it again.

However there are forums with the same problem even dedicated GPU because of update 1.

Sorry for my english Goobytes.

Greetings.
 

GoodBytes

Well-Known Member
Highly recommend Razors Gamebooster. Used it for years, basically, when you install it it looks at whats running on your system. When you start a game it turns off anything that doesnt need to be running. When you exit your game it restores everything. It even creates a new power plan designed for gaming.

Check it out here.

Nha. This utility is not good.

This is nothing new actually. People did utilities like that back in XP days, and some people where manually doing it back even before. The idea is too disable about every Windows features to get any little bit of CPU and memory you could get to play the games at maximum performance. It won't take a game going at 15fps and run it at 30fps. It's more like 15fps to , PERHAPS, MAYBE, 17fps. And that was back in the days where people had very low amount of RAM, like 512MB, and single core CPU's. And Windows XP very poor (in today standard) memory management system, and Windows XP and before process schedulers was not as well designed as it is now.

PLUS, the software wants to defrag your games.... on an SSD.. defrag on and SSD.
Not only that is not great thing to do for an SSD, but data on the SSD is PURPOSELY fragmented to evenly use the chips for lasting a lot longer. SSD's can afford this, because when you access data, it will get all the blocks simultaneously. On an HDD, you have 1 head, had to start collecting every single peace of data one after another. That took time as its all mechanical, and start reassembling it and give it to the system. SSD it will act like the data was not.

So no, I don't agree with this software. If you were running on XP, sure... but on a modern system, let alone powerful like the Surface Pro 2, I doubt it makes any difference. On my desktop, using Fraps to measure the fps, I am not seeing a single fps increase. Just heavy disk usage when I close my game as it starts everything back, making me wait (despite on an SSD) before the system returns to be super responsive as it was, and having Windows pop-up alerts that Windows Update was disabled.

My desktop is a Core i7 930 2.8GHz, 6GB of RAM (triple channel), Windows 8.1 Update 1 (and I recall testing this program in another forum, back in Windows 7 days... same results), GeForce GTX 260, 256GB SSD (Windows, programs and games on it), and 1TB HDD (data).

In Razor defense, the software does do other things which might be interesting, depending on you, but the whole "Game Boost" on a modern computer using an SSD, makes no sense.
 
Last edited:

GoodBytes

Well-Known Member
As I said before the update 1 generates sttutering, there are even games that were no longer playable.
I checked with 2 Surface Pro 2 and there are forums that have the same problem with the update 1 with desktop computers.

Windows 8.1 Update 1 = Shank 2,Shank 1,Fifa 14,Lego The Hobbyt,etc = Sttutering
Windows 8.1 Update 1 = Warframe,Sleeping Dogs,etc = unplayable

Windows 8.1 = Shank 2,Shank 1,Fifa 14,Lego The Hobbyt,etc = smooth and excellent
Windows 8.1 = Warframe,Sleeping Dogs,etc = very playable

I would like to ask you a few comparisons recordings or screenshots,but I'm not going to reinstall it again.

However there are forums with the same problem even dedicated GPU because of update 1.

Sorry for my english Goobytes.

Greetings.

Well I don't have these games, but on what is installed, I see no issue:
StarCraft 2, Civilization 5, Broken Age, Hitman: Absolution, Psychonauts, The Cave, Trine 1 and 2, Portal 2, TF2, Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I have other games but I need to install them.

The above is on my desktop

On the Surface Pro 2, I have Broken Age and Civ 5, as it's only games I encountered that has touch support.
 
Top