Very Poor Graphics Performance in Games (Windows 7)

[nrnelson]

First, I wasn't sure if this should go in Windows on the Mac, the Games forum or maybe the MacBook Pro section. If it's in the wrong place, please feel free to move it. I've searched around but most people's problems nowhere as near as extreme as my low FPS and probably just truly a hardware limitation.

Anyway, I have a late 2011 17" MacBook Pro with the 6770M GPU and 2.4GHz Core i7 CPU. I have (for now) only the stock 4GB RAM that came with the system, too. My problem is my FPS in Battlefield 3 is unplayable and my 3DMark11 scores are around 270 points. I didn't buy my Mac to be a powerhouse gaming machine and I understand it's not but I believe my performance is exceptionally poor.

I removed the drivers that came with the Boot Camp installer and ran Driver Sweeper to ensure that all the old ATI/AMD drivers were completely gone. I rebooted and grabbed the latest AMD Catalyst 11.12 Mobility drivers from a link listed within these forums (and a few others) and loaded them. I verified that the installer log for the drivers did in fact install the display drivers (registers as an AMD Radeon HD 6700M Series in Device Manager) and 8.920.0.0 from 11/9/2011 are loaded.

I'm getting around 5 FPS at just about any resolution I try, on low settings with everything turned down, even at 800x600 (windowed or fullscreen, vertical sync or not doesn't matter). I am plugged into the wall so I don't know of anything that could slow things down on the account of the battery if that even happens.

I thought perhaps that it was trying to use the integrated Intel GPU seeing how my FPS would be what I would expect from that but it seems as if that's impossible since the Mac apparently hides that GPU from Windows.

I'm at a loss for what to do. I have even tried the 12.1 preview drivers that are supposed to be coming out officially very soon. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

 

[rollercoaster]

Have you tried disabling any software or services running in the background and using lower quality settings within the games? Probably Yes (if no then use Task Manager and track the CPU/RAM usage).

Have you checked that the CPU or the GPU are not overheating? Use ATi Tray Tools, GPU-Z etc

It could simply be a problem with windows. Boot into OSX, use gfxCardStatus to force the right graphic card and playing some relatively heavy 3D games, if no FPS issues then try Reinstalling windows.

Else It could be a manufacturing defect, bad thermal paste etc. Go the Apple Support.

 

[SkippyScud]

I had this issue too. I had updated to the new AMD drivers due to a prompt in BF3. I didn't play right away. A few days later I went to play (forgetting I updated the drivers) and it ran like mud. Sludgy and slow.

I ended up redoing my Windows partition anyway. But the drivers off the bootcamp disk were what I think fixed it. I would go back into your Bootcamp assistant and create a new bootcamp disk to see if there were any new drivers for your system before doing anything else.

 

[pandamonia]

Dont be supprised when your MBP fails to run games in windows.

The quality of GPU in a apple notebook is always rubbish, especially for the kind of money paid.

its the number one reason why i will probably never bother with a Pro again, ill get an Air and use my desktop from now on