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CC3 on New nVidia 780m Laptop

TheHucksTheHucks
in Mapping with ProFantasy's Software
Hey there, this is more of a technical question. I recently purchased a laptop with the 780m nvidia GPU, but I find performance of CC3 is far slower than my year old desktop. Is this a result of the mobile Optimus technology or am I barking up the wrong tree?

Basically the rendering when I turn on effects plummets, even more so than my desktop using a 550 Ti.

I'm happy to provide more information if it helps solve a larger problem, though I'm not exactly super computer literate.

Thanks!
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Comments

  • jslaytonjslayton Moderator, ProFantasy Mapmaker
    CC3 doesn't use the graphics card for rendering, so a faster graphics won't make much of a difference. The CPU speed and cache amount are the biggest determiners of performance for CC3. It's likely that your CPU is a lot slower on the laptop than on your desktop, especially if it's one of those fancy AMD APUs.
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  • TheHucksTheHucks
    Heh it's one of the new 4th Gen i7-4700MQ quad cores.

    Would it matter at all if I installed it on a solid state drive or a standard platter, too?

    Thanks for the input nonetheless!
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  • jslaytonjslayton Moderator, ProFantasy Mapmaker
    CC3 is single-threaded for the most part and so clock speed would be more important than architecture, to a large extent. An i7-4700MQ can turbo up to 3.4 GHz, so it should have the raw performance to go pretty quickly. Disk speed shouldn't have an impact unless you're severely memory constrained (less than 2GB of total RAM so that the system has to swap).

    CC3's effects cause a bit of a performance hit, causing the display to slow down by up to a factor of hundreds, depending on your screen resolution. Doubling your screen resolution, for example, will usually cause performance to drop by a relative factor of four. I have found that it's a good idea to turn effects off for working on the map and only turn them on to see the final result. That's especially true for the performance hogs like the lighting filters.
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  • MonsenMonsen Administrator 🖼️ 81 images Cartographer
    Do also note that the mobile versions of the processors are actually a fair bit slower than their desktop counterparts in the same series. So a brand new mobile CPU may very well be outperformed by a 1-year old desktop processor, especially if said desktop processor was also reasonably high spec when it was new.
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  • pool7pool7 Traveler
    Although it may or may not be the situation of the OP:
    On Monsen's note, I recently bought a new laptop for my gf based on the fact it was a Core i7... turned out to be a very mobile version (2 cores, 4 threads, 1.9 GHz). Lesson learnt; next time I'll double-check the processor specs.
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  • TheHucksTheHucks
    I definitely turn off effects when I'm working; the maps render infinitely faster when they're off. I wasn't aware of the performance difference in CPUs, though, so that's good to know.

    I'm thinking there's really not much that can be done but keep effects off and say nice complimentary things to my laptop to keep up its spirits.
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  • KenGKenG Traveler
    Are there any issues regarding windows 8?
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  • TheHucksTheHucks
    This new laptop is windows 8, yes. I don't know if that plays a role, though?
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  • MonsenMonsen Administrator 🖼️ 81 images Cartographer
    As far as I know, there are no windows 8 issues. I am running CC3 just fine on two Win 8 devices myself.
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  • KenGKenG Traveler
    Thanks Monsen, I have been nervous about Win 8.
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