Hi, I just wondered if someone could give me some information about why my FSX would run better on an HD 4000 than a GT 635M when the GF is supposed to be stronger

 

This my rig:

Laptop ASUS N46VJ

Core i7 3630qm

8GB RAM 1600mhz

HDD 1TB

Nvidia GeForce GT 635M 2GB (96 shaders edition, 128 bit) driver 347.52

Windows 8.1 up to date

FSX with SP2, ORXB global and vector latest, REX Essential+, DX10 and Steve Parson's fix, sweetFX, fsx.cfg by Bojote's

 

I load a specific save game with Nvidia then switching to integrated intel HD (with the exact same graphic settings, traffic, weather, time, plane, etc) and I get 27 FPS with GeForce, 37 with Intel 4000.

 

I know there are multiple versions of my GT 635M, most models have 144 shaders while I unfortunately got the one with the fewest, anyway dont know if this has any relation at all. (How many shaders in intel 4000? I though it mayve have something to do since i heard ATI cards have 300+ shaders with low freq clocks which is ideal for FSX instead of few cores @ high speed, like nvidia)

 

I gotta mention my 635M does perform better than the 4000 in other games, some are

 

Game                                 Intel HD 4000                               GT 635M

 

Assassin's Creed 4          11                                                   22

Dying Light                        12                                                   22

Blur                                     33                                                   56

 

Notorious advantage for the 635M but then......

 

MS FSX                              36                                                  27

 

I just wonder what's going on? Anybody experiencing anything similar?

Update, I though I had screwed up because I didnt remember I had enabled FXAA through NVIDIA Inspector through video driver, and maybe that was the reason i was getting less on the GT 635M but I did another test disabling FXAA from Inspector, now I have no antialiasing at all, looking bad, but FPS didnt increase for GeForce, I guess FXAA doesnt quite impact performance (but gives really nice AA, recommender for visuals matter). Since my Intel HD doesnt let me inject FXAA through driver I went for AA from sweetFX MSAA option, smooth, but not as nice as NVIDIA FXAA was, but this method applies for both render ways, GF or Intel, AND the best thing, I dont see any FPS loss at all.

 

Results are still the same, after disabling FXAA from nvidia driver

 

                                FPS

GT 635M                 32                     (with or without SMAA from sweetFX, like

Intel 4000                40                      I said, it doesnt change FPS at all).                                     

Now I will go see if I can inject FXAA through sweetFX, it says I need some DLLs...

 

Intel still winning the match

 

PD: I want to add, I actually bought this pc specifically for FSX cuz I had lenovo x230 with core i5 3320m, Intel HD4000, no GPU. And was getting quite low FPS, about 11-25 with all the addons like REX and ORBX, not quite playable. But now I'm kinda disappointed this pc would be as good for FSX even if it didnt have GPU cuz the Intel 4000 in this one seems like 2-3x more powerful than the intel 4000 in my old lenovo. (Yes, x230 is a corporate model, I guess they might have screwed it up on purpose to make it last forever following the "corporate reliability" code. Screw that, I want as much power as this thing is capable to deliver).

I am guessing here but maybe the GPU to CPU via the PCI bus is not as quick as the GPU to CPU via the CPU itself?

 

Im sure someone out there is much smarter than me and can explain it all