Graphics Really slow on new 2011 15" MacBook Pro AMD 6750M on Windows 7 64

If you used bootcamp you should be able to use the bootcamp utilities that it told you to install onto windows

Yes I agree but I am not a big gamer I just like to play every few days for a little while. That is why I bought the 6750 instead of the other graphics card so I can get some decent settings when I do play. I can't afford to get a gaming rig and it would be silly considering I don't play very much. I just want to know why this laptop with the better video card is getting settings that it should on the lower end one.

For those who are having problems, make sure that once you use bootcamp in OS X to create the partition and install windows, that you also download the bootcamp utilities windows installer. This gets installed onto windows and paths the way for the specific Mac hardware and its drivers.

bumping this thread

Same problem here.

MacBook Pro i7 2,2 Ghz, 4 Go RAM, Radeon 6750 with 1Go DDR5. OSX Lion 10.7.2, latest updates (Nov 24).

I am playing in OSX, running a game that was natively developped for OSX : Starcraft 2.

It is ridiculously slow, image per seconds randomly drop to 2-3 during intensive gameplay.

Even load times are slower than my previous 2 year old computer.

Fresh install, no background programs running.

Please help, I am starting to regret my switch.

I second all this. I have a brand new 2011 mbp 15" 8 gb ram AMD 6750m graphics card 512mB vram with Windows 7 64 bit and it is significantly slower on the Windows side than my 2006 first generation Intel mbp. My main requirement for using Windows is CAD (AutoCad and Revit) and this new mbp is simply lame for these applications.

Some very good advice and attempted fixes has been posted on this thread and others and I have tried most of it. I have stripped the graphics drivers out down to the VGA driver and installed the latest 11.11 version of ATI Catalyst Control Center + installed microsoft activeX and .NET framework, latest versions. Graphics card performance in CAD is still pathetic. I have been unable to get the ATI powerplay to work, which many posters believe is the fix.

This is first time I have purchased an Apple product (after 2 macbook pros, a powerbook, 2 iphones, 1 ipod) which simply doesn't cut the mustard, and all it needs is a firmware/software fix from Apple to allow Windows 7 64 proper access to the onboard resources. I believe I am going to have to get a PC.

Sincerely, Deeply Frustrated Apple Customer.

Using bootcamp with Windows 7 x64 using the latest 12 beta drivers from AMD on a Macbook Pro early-2011 (with Apple 128GB SSD Toshiba) and gaming performance (fps) drops by half and stutters are added every 3 to 4 seconds when the LID IS CLOSED.

I have disabled the power management by setting the High Performance options in Windows 7 so that closing the lid does nothing. I can only assume the airflow is restricted so there is throttling in some way. I monitored the CPU and GPU speeds using Core Temp as well as ATI Tools and saw no change, so the throttling must be happening somewhere else (or the tools are not working properly).

I've googled my brains out and can't find anybody else with this issue, so I thought I would post it here. Hopefully somebody else has a similiar issue.

So, in my experience, if you have an external monitor, make sure the lid stays open.

What are you noticing stutters in, I am playing Battlefield 3 and I used to get massive lag spikes, I upgraded to the 12.1a preview drivers and 90% of the stutter went away (hitches every now and again but I believe thats the game) however I still have problems. I have tried all drivers, 11.1 is the most stable but is really old. 11.9 is the second best becuase its moderatly stable and does support dx11 but 12.1 gives the best framrates. I got rid of most of the stutter by doing a clean install of the 12.1a preview driver. I completely uninstalled all video drivers by going under uninstall progam and ran the CCC uninstaller. After it deleted all the content it asked me to restart, before I did that I went to device manager and unistalled the graphics card and checked the box to delete the drivers, this brought my mac back to the default VGA drivers. I restarted to let CCC finish the uninstall then made sure when I booted up that my video drivers were the default VGA drivers ( you know when you have the VGA drivers, the screen resolution is horrible). This ensured that I would have a clean install and I loaded up the 12.1a preview drivers, much more stable and reduced or supressed many of my issues. Hope this helped and yea this may not be the perfect solution but give it a shot. whole process should take about 15min to half hour.

Jeverian hit the nail on the head

Everyone here seems to be experiancing thorttling.

I've just dont months of data collection and i've verifed my 15" mbp throttles down into the 0.8ghz range.OSX

Everyone try this,

On OSX

http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/19368/ministat2

Download this Widget.
-This will let me prove to anyone who thinks its a software based issue what the real problem is.
This is going to let us view the REALTIME cpu clockrates on mac

When you have the widget, set up.
Read this link
http://www.simplehelp.net/2008/06/26/how-to-run-dashboard-widgets-on-your-os-x-d esktop/

This will let you move the widget to the MAIN desktop, so we can view it under load.

When you have this done and see the widget beside your dock, do the following...
Click on the 0.0% value that is given beside the CPU usage montior. Click it, this
will let you cycle different values; one labled CPU Frequency is the one we want.
Leave it on CPU Frequency, then restart your Mac.

Hold 3+2 when restarding intill you're at the password window, or logged on.
32 bit mode is needed for the CPU frequency to be reported.

Run your favoutre mac game, (WOW, SC2, Red Crucible 2). Watch your cpu speeds get cut down into the low end (SC2/D3 shows this the best on OSX.

Make sure its ran in window mode, then click the green + button to make it as big as possible for a window.

Watch the data as you play...

ON WINDOWS

download cpu-z, and throttle stop, were using this for the CPU frequency reporting data and temps.

Run your game, I've done this on BF3, and the system will go into the 1.0 ghz range, and run VERY poorly.

I ran dual screens for this test, to allow for better stressing of the system (more realistic then windowed mode where resolution may be gimmped).

Let me know what you are all seeing on your CPU speeds when playing the game.
I believe, sorry.. i know that these 2011 laptops are being throttled because of the built in intel saftey features.
When our temps spike to 90+c, the chip starts to begin throttling (@95c). When this happens temps drop accordingly so you need temp monitoring data with a graph to be able to see when it spiked.

If i know what i'm talking about (which i'm pretty sure I do) most, if not all of you will see this throttling data before your eyes. The more intensive the game, the better.

This is for the 15" unit, possibly the 13 and 17 inch units aswell.

I hate to break it to you, but this is a feature of the CPU - if throttling did not occur, battery usage would skyrocket with only an hour or two max.

If you install openhardwaremonitor from http://openhardwaremonitor.org/ and use the gadget to display core clock speeds, you will see the i5/i7 sit on 800MHz until incresed load, when it will go up to the 'turbo' speed until either TDP is reached, or CPU load decreases.

Yes, I think the real problem is the airflow through the keyboard. With the lid closed, it's restricted, so throttling to protect the CPU happens quicker, especially with the added GPU heat while gaming. I can't see any resolution to the issue, unless you can suck the heat out of the body with a big heatsink somehow. It's just easier to leave the lid open.

I encountered the same issue after installing Catalyst Control Center to adjust for underscan on my external monitor. This is not a driver issue, this is a Catalyst Control Center issue, or at least one of the settings incorporated with it.

Here's the solution I found:

Remove any and all versions of the video driver/Catalyst Control Center that are currently installed with the CCC uninstaller, as well as Driver Sweeper to get rid of any leftovers. This probably isn't completely necessary, but better to be safe than sorry and get rid of everything that may cause an issue.

After removing all previous drivers, reinstall the driver that came with BootCamp, either by re-installing Boot Camp, or browsing through the Boot Camp folders to locate the single driver. I used the one that came with the drivers downloaded from Boot Camp Assistant.

***NOTE*** This driver should NOT include Catalyst Control Center. This is the driver you want. You can also try downloading the latest driver and NOT installing Catalyst Control Center, if it's an option. If you can install the latest driver without CCC, try it. Like I said, I believe the problem lies within CCC or one of its options.

Once that driver is installed, you should be seeing a nice high framerate (again).

Skyrim went from great on high settings, to unbearable after installing CCC, back to great on high settings again.

Give it a shot.

THIS IS NOT RAN IN CLAMSHELL MODE,
This is open screen mode to allow for proper airflow.

This is ran on a cooling pad.

The throttling is under LOAD, obviously 'throttling' when idleing is normal this is called a C-state and Speedstep feature.

This isnt kids science its pretty complex and you need to run the tests to see it otherwise you'll assume everything else.
Fact is you can try to bandage the issue and work around it, but your still being throttled and dealing with FAR reduced preformance.

I'd take a 2.4ghz chip with the oldest possible drivers for the gpu over a unit running 0.8ghz and the latest drivers.

These 2011 15" macs are CPU bound when under load (gpu/cpu co-load).

Because some people are having trouble understanding the concept i'm going to upload some screenshots.

System exceeds Intel thermal protection spec at 95'c, throttling begins.
System slows processor, temps drop acordingly (dispite fans being forced at max the fans cannot keep the temps down on high load).
Processor becomes so thermall throttled, that while PLAYING a game BF3, with the latest drivers (which do very little btw, the main problem is the sytems are CPU BOUND, dispite a driver helping things a little, your still dealing with your 2.4ghz MBP running at 0.8ghz on load.

BF3 ran, temps spike and though the fans are maxed 6200rpm from the moment i'm logged on the temps still spike to 100c. When this happens EXTREME throttling begins to lower the temps drastically (throttling started to begin).

Again, 100c temps are broken on another machine (running SSD on thunderbolt for easy swamp testing)
But what happens when we add GPU load into the mix and view the data while under load? Realtime.

BF3 ran on dual screens to make sure data can be viewed DURING gameplay (an alt tab will NOT let you view any data remotely accurate). 0.900 GHZ is what the system bogs down into under HEAVY load. Please dont tell me or anyone else otherwise unless you got the data to backup your claim, oppinions do very little and keep us going in circles, the data is what will prove this problem in the end.

What im talking about is THERMAL THROTTLING, that the intel cpu has built inside to keep tempatures down, trust me run the benchmarks take a screenshot you'll see exacly what i'm talking about... there is CPU-C states/speedstep (that slow your cpu when idle) and thermal throttle protection, which keeps your laptop from burning out.

This is a saftey feature that Intel has stated should NOT be relied on for a cooling method, when i spoke to an intel engineer for the processor development team q&a. This is what apple is doing, 100% on many different 15" models this same problem is occuring. I'm yet to be disproven, the data stands for itself.

WHY?

Poor thermal design, quad core oversaturing the lack of heatsink materal (even with the fan locked at 6200rpms. What is occuring is likely because of the poor implimentation of hardware (Quad inside MBP 15") without forseeing this MASSIVE problem. This makes our macs run extremely slow, making the quad core next to useless for multitasking when running at these speeds (0.8ghz). Its impossible to run a game, and run a netflix video (cpu based) on a second screen shutter and studder (unwatchable); these systems are gimmped simple as that.

This is for not just cpu-load, i'm talking about a CPU/GPU co-load problem.

Dont just run Prime 95 and be like (its all ok), because it isnt, the cpu/gpu are on a shared heatsink, thus why we must load both with a game (IE BF3).

I'm not asking you to believe me, run the tests yourself to verify my credability and help you get Apple to deal with the problem.

Uninstall Catalyst Control Center and report back.

I'm not denying that throttling is going to happen when you're trying to stream a Netflix movie AND play BF3 at the same time (how can one physically do this anyways?), but for it to instantly throttle you as soon as the game is launched seems highly suspicious.

I encountered the same issue when playing Skyrim on high settings my 2011 2.3GHz, 8GB RAM with 750GB HDD. I installed Catalyst Control Center to adjust for underscan on my external monitor. Immediately after installing CCC, Skyrim, was completely unplayable at the same settings level.

After removing CCC, I was back to playing on high settings again. And I can continue to play for hours, without any notice of throttling.

Maybe this isn't the same issue as you're talking about, but it sure seems like the one the OP was talking about to me. Instant poor performance, not degrading performance.

Like I said, I completely agree that if I tried to stream a movie at the same time, on a secondary monitor, I would probably see massive throttling. But that's kind of to be expected. It's a laptop, not a gaming PC.

Rated CPU speed is what the CPU can do at 100% load - ie 2820qm can do 2.3GHz when under full load. Mine runs at normally 2.7GHz when rendering movies (renders take 30+ minutes with all 8 threads at 100%, CPU speed at start of render at 3.4).

If your CPU can't maintain its rated maximum there is a problem with your system - software the most likely culprit. About the only hardware isues would be lack of heat transfer compound, or running with the lid shut - open it, the MBP is not designed to run with it shut.

I use the latest 'hacked' CCC & AMD driver for the 6750, and have used aTI tray tools to overclock the GPU 20% with no CPU slowdown past 2.3GHz when playing Cliffs of Dover, Driver 3, Skyrim etc.

I'm doing some renders on the weekend - I'll get some screenshots then, these were for some other thread somewhere about stock GPU speeds:

I don't post opinion, thanks. Good luck with fixing your problem.