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-Shutterbug-

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-Shutterbug-

-Shutterbug-

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Hi all,

Laptop-wise, I'm sort of feeling discriminated against in the 7.3c update I believe (?).  I used to be able to render the game like this, but now I'm locked into the lower settings, which looks..decent I suppose. 

I have an 11th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-1165G7 @ 2.80GHz, I don't have an actual video card but have something called Intel® Iris® Xe Graphics, & 32 Gigs of RAM, all on windows 11. 

Now I realize I have to get a new laptop to hopefully run the game at it's full potential, or close to it. I want something with an nVidia card in it. What I'd like to know is what nVidia setup can I run the game at max or near max, with a solid smooth (and hopefully fast) experience?

 

I'd appreciate the help!

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Char_Ell

Char_Ell

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Try reviewing and following the instructions in this post on answers.ea.com.  SWTOR devs updated minimum system requirements for SWTOR as of 7.2.1.  Your laptop needs to dedicate at least 1 GB of its 32 GB RAM for graphics.

https://answers.ea.com/t5/General-Discussion-Technical/Really-low-quality-of-graphics-on-win-11/td-p/12711069

Edited by Char_Ell
corrected SWTOR version from 7.3.1 to 7.2.1
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Balameb

Balameb

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15 minutes ago, Char_Ell said:

Try reviewing and following the instructions in this post on answers.ea.com.  SWTOR devs updated minimum system requirements for SWTOR as of 7.2.1.  Your laptop needs to dedicate at least 1 GB of its 32 GB RAM for graphics.

https://answers.ea.com/t5/General-Discussion-Technical/Really-low-quality-of-graphics-on-win-11/td-p/12711069

Good info. Never got the issue because i have dedicate graphics for now in my laptop, but good to know in case i change.

31 minutes ago, -Shutterbug- said:

I have an 11th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-1165G7 @ 2.80GHz, I don't have an actual video card but have something called Intel® Iris® Xe Graphics, & 32 Gigs of RAM, all on windows 11. 

I have a dedicated video, but a lot less in the processor (core i5 9th gen 2.4GHz) and ram (only 16 GB). Processor is the key, we on laptops usually have slower clocks, but 2.8 should still be good. I even play on 1440p and relatively high settings.

I hope the info in previous post solves your issue. You laptop should be able to play swtor with more than decent quality.

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Char_Ell

Char_Ell

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First and best option is to access your laptop's BIOS and increase the RAM allocated/dedicated to graphics to at least 1 GB.  If it will let you allocate more RAM than 1 GB then that would be even better in terms of the level of graphics detail that SWTOR could use on your laptop.

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-Shutterbug-

-Shutterbug-

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think I ran into a wall... I just found this

"In your case, the GPU you are using, Intel Iris Xe Graphics, has a fixed amount of 128MB of dedicated VRAM. This is the maximum amount of VRAM that the GPU can access, and it cannot be changed. How much dedicated memory does Intel 4400 HD and 5500 HD have? By Default Intel 4400 Graphics will have 128MB at 8GB RAM."

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Char_Ell

Char_Ell

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If your SWTOR is working fine after you made the change then that is really what matters. 

I was going to ask if you ran the dxdiag command and what it said your laptop's dedicated memory was in the Display Devices section of the DxDiag.txt file.

Edited by Char_Ell
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Char_Ell

Char_Ell

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If your DxDiag.txt files shows this then that is not enough RAM dedicated to graphics to play SWTOR.

Quote

Dedicated Memory: 128 MB

If you know how to access your laptop's BIOS then you should do that to see if your BIOS has a setting that will allow you to increase the amount of RAM dedicated to graphics to 1 GB.   If you don't know how to access your laptop's BIOS then you'll need to seek out a technically savvy friend to help with that.

 

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SteveTheCynic

SteveTheCynic

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8 hours ago, Char_Ell said:

If you know how to access your laptop's BIOS then you should do that to see if your BIOS has a setting that will allow you to increase the amount of RAM dedicated to graphics to 1 GB.

Normally, that's not possible, at least in the context that we're discussing here, where "dedicated" means literally that, accessible only by the GPU and not part of system memory.  So in @-Shutterbug-'s laptop, there's 32GB of system memory and 128MB more memory attached to the other side of the GPU.  My own laptop, an Asus ROG, has 16GB of system memory and a separate 6GB on the GPU.

The stuff you can configure in the BIOS is for "shared" memory, a chunk of system memory that you can reserve for the GPU to use.  That won't normally be possible on a machine with any dedicated graphics memory.

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Balameb

Balameb

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From what i read about those Iris chips, they can use shared memory from the system ram (on top of the 128mb). It can use a lot if system has it (windows limits to 1/2 of total ram).

The problem seems to be that the shared value is not fixed, so the reported available one (128mb) is too low gets filtered. Since the value from swtor settings is just a number to make a filter and not a cap on the amount of memory to use, lowering allows the game to work.

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SteveTheCynic

SteveTheCynic

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1 hour ago, Balameb said:

From what i read about those Iris chips, they can use shared memory from the system ram (on top of the 128mb). It can use a lot if system has it (windows limits to 1/2 of total ram).

I think that's common, even for "proper" GPUs with more realistic amounts of dedicated memory.  In the absence of DirectStorage, the game loads textures and meshes and so on into main memory somewhere, and the ("proper") GPU will bus-master transfer it at need into dedicated memory.  (DirectStorage allows the right kind of SSD to be involved in a disk-to-GPU-dedicated-memory transfer, which reduces latency.)

The problem with the Irises is that they have a (relatively-speaking) tiny amount of dedicated memory, so they spend (relatively speaking) a lot of time competing with the CPU for access to the stuff in system memory.  Once my 2080Ti has all the interesting data in its dedicated memory (it has a total of 11GB!), it can avoid that particular bottleneck.

1 hour ago, Balameb said:

The problem seems to be that the shared value is not fixed, so the reported available one (128mb) is too low gets filtered. Since the value from swtor settings is just a number to make a filter and not a cap on the amount of memory to use, lowering allows the game to work.

Indeed, and this point ^^^^ is important in the context of the point below vvvv:

15 hours ago, -Shutterbug- said:

I think for whatever reason the "64" value worked for me. interesting hacking! Good link there, @Char_Ell

Because 64 (MB) is less than the 128 (MB) that the Iris has, SWTOR considers it to be capable of non-low graphics.

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Char_Ell

Char_Ell

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2 hours ago, Balameb said:

From what i read about those Iris chips, they can use shared memory from the system ram (on top of the 128mb). It can use a lot if system has it (windows limits to 1/2 of total ram).

The problem seems to be that the shared value is not fixed, so the reported available one (128mb) is too low gets filtered. Since the value from swtor settings is just a number to make a filter and not a cap on the amount of memory to use, lowering allows the game to work.

I think you've got it figured out.  It doesn't seem like Intel CPU's with Iris® Xe Graphics have a way to adjust the amount of system RAM dedicated to it.  However Iris only reports 128 MB of dedicated memory in DxDiag and that is what SWTOR uses.  So by lowering the value for MinspecVramCutoffMB = 64 it prevents SWTOR from forcing the low res textures and Iris uses its Intel® Deep Learning Boost-powered AI engine to allocate system memory to Iris as needed by SWTOR when the game is running.  I wonder if @OwenBrooks concurs with this.

EDIT: @-Shutterbug- if you would be so kind as to look at the GPU tab on your Windows Task Manager when you are logged into one of your character's in SWTOR and report what your Dedicated GPU memory and Shared GPU memory is I would appreciate it.  This will help validate Balameb's theory and I would like to know for future reference.

Edited by Char_Ell
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Char_Ell

Char_Ell

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https://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/img_5aea3954af09f.png?trim=1,1&bg-color=000&pad=1,1 - screenshot showing Dedicated and Shared GPU memory data in Task Manager

https://www.howtogeek.com/351073/how-to-monitor-gpu-usage-in-the-windows-task-manager/ - article on how to use Task Manager

While utilization is interesting I wanted to know how much dedicated and how much shared memory your laptop uses when logged into a character in SWTOR.

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Char_Ell

Char_Ell

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.8 - .9 Dedicated or Shared?  I'm guessing Shared.

No need to increase because you have plenty of memory.  You said your system has a total of 32 GB RAM.  It looks like Windows 11 allocates almost 16 GB of that 32 GB to be available for use by your laptop's Iris Xe integrated graphics subsystem.

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OwenBrooks

OwenBrooks

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Set MinspecVramCutoffMB = 64  that should allow you to use higher textures

if intel iris vram cant be increased in the bios , Everything else is not worth looking at , if you get flickering gfx due to insufficient dedicated vram (not shared vram) nothing else will change that apart from buying a dedicated videocard with more vram onboard.

example of bios setting for video memory seen at https://imgur.com/a/OPRDP1I

Edited by OwenBrooks
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-Shutterbug-

-Shutterbug-

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2 hours ago, OwenBrooks said:

Set MinspecVramCutoffMB = 64  that should allow you to use higher textures

if intel iris vram cant be increased in the bios , Everything else is not worth looking at , if you get flickering gfx due to insufficient dedicated vram (not shared vram) nothing else will change that apart from buying a dedicated videocard with more vram onboard.

example of bios setting for video memory seen at https://imgur.com/a/OPRDP1I

can you tell me what operating system that is? I've never seen that application before either. can you tell me more about it? my BIOS doesn't look like that...

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SteveTheCynic

SteveTheCynic

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6 hours ago, -Shutterbug- said:

can you tell me what operating system that is? I've never seen that application before either. can you tell me more about it? my BIOS doesn't look like that...

It's someone else's BIOS (note the title: "Gigabyte UEFI BIOS").  Each motherboard manufacturer's BIOS looks different.

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