u/Icy-Cress1068

I wanted to share my experience in this 2009 demanding title. It's a third person shooter, action adventure game set on an alien world, Pandora. I didn't have much expectations, because the RAM is in single channel.

But with game set to directX 9 from the game menu and vulkan (dxvk 1.10.1), at 720p with custom settings in game menu

Display settings: ultra textures, medium shadows, medium postfx, medium ambient, medium vegetation, medium shading, low terrain, low geometry quality, hdr on, bloom off,

General performance: high real tree, high physics, low fire

And

In config file (Documents\My Games\Avatar\GamerProfile.xml, open it in Notepad): high water quality, high depth pass quality, 0.6 gamma (and setting the config file to read only, and don't change any setting from game menu afterwards)

I get very stable 30 fps locked. Fps is 30 even in chaotic, dense jungle environments during viperwolves attack. Heavy fire explosions sometimes drops to 29 fps, but immediately becomes 30 after 1 second.

I was surprised to see such a good performance in dense jungles on single channel ram. I have played through the Blue Lagoon (the first major area), and I am 50% through Iknimaya.

I couldn't find graphical or fps difference between fire at low and ultra, I recommend low.

Medium shadows enable real time dynamic shadows with light and dark areas (although lower resolution shadows, but still looks great). When the Sun shifts position in the sky in Iknimaya after 1.5 hours of continuous gameplay, the shadows shift and elongate as well. After another 30 minutes, comes night. However, if you save and restart the game or travel from Iknimaya to Blue Lagoon and back, the sun resets it's position, so it's not full day and night cycle. And high water quality and high depth pass quality makes the riverwater transparent, renders real time water reflections of objects and NPCs.

Vulkan is necessary to stabilise fps. And directX 9 performs better than directX 10 in this game as directX 10 leaves the GPU underutilised and hence, gives lesser fps. Disabling bloom saves enough GPU power to set water quality and depth pass quality to high, and also fixes the excessively bright sun caused by vulkan. Adjusting gamma in config file, in my case, to 0.6, helps to make the game brighter, because disabling bloom makes it darker.

The game looks next gen on my laptop, truly amazing! Even with low terrain and low geometry quality, the game renders massive amounts of grass, trees and thick fire, smoke effects. You can see the sunlight passing through holes in trees, if you look up. High real tree makes the trees and plants swing along with the wind. Seeing shadows move along with the swinging trees is mind blowing. Truly worth playing, if you have similar low end hardware.

I have i3 1005g1, intel UHD G1, 8 gb single channel ddr4-2666 RAM, Nvme SSD laptop. The CPU is running at default 15 W TDP. And I always game, while laptop is plugged in.

Note: I used msi afterburner to get these CPU readings across all the four threads. And this CPU has a turbo boost of 3.4 GHz, but runs at atleast 2.9-3.1 GHz, even during extended gameplay sessions of 1-2 hours. So it's not severely thermal throttling. I have already got my thermal paste renewed recently, and also the laptop fan cleaned.

Even though google says my CPU (I am not talking about the iGPU) is significantly stronger than the high end dual core CPUs from 2008-2009, still in games from that era, I am observing:

1. Mirror's edge 2009: 60-70% CPU usage on all four threads at just 30 fps locked at 720p, even with physx off

2. Avatar 2009: Still, 55-65% CPU usage on all four threads at 30 fps

3. Assassin's creed 2: 70-80% CPU usage on all four threads at 30 fps (even after using vulkan).

4. In closed areas games like dead space 2008, CPU usage is lower (40-50%).

Can you explain this? At just 30 fps, it should be only 30-40% even in open areas games like mirror's edge because high end CPUs of that era pushed 60 fps without breaking a sweat. Even if the iGPU was stronger, I doubt the CPU can push 60 fps in mirror's edge, because it's already above 50% usage in this game.

I am so confused, that I think my CPU is defective, like Intel intentionally shipped a defective CPU.

I am already struggling with other tasks on this CPU, like running intelliJ idea, Pycharm for basic coding.

I have already tried various tweaks like disabling unnecessary startup apps and heavy windows services like windows search, telemetry, widgets etc. The background processes are minimal. And I free RAM by using wise memory optimiser. Still these results.

In my laptop, it's paired with single channel 8 gb ddr4-2666 RAM, intel UHD G1 and an Nvme SSD. It's running at default 15 W TDP. I have already got my thermal paste renewed recently, and also the laptop fan cleaned.

I read everywhere how this CPU was released as a dual core, when the tech world was shifting to quad core as a bare minimum for any usable work.

Is this true?

Was this laptop really a disappointment for the price it was released at?

Was AMD really offering better CPUs at the same price (I read about their quad core CPUs), also considering the iGPU for light gaming?

I bought this laptop from India, if it's relevant. Tbh, with 8 gb single channel ram, this laptop cannot even run 2008-2009 AAA games at 720p medium-high settings (medium shadows) without dropping below 30 fps, even after turning off MSAA and Physx. It's running at default 15 W TDP and is plugged in, but still these results.

Considering office work and light coding, CPU is also not that decent. It can run VS Code smoothly, but beyond 1-2 extensions, launch time of the app increases to 20 or more seconds. (CPU is maxed out in task manager, while launching VS Code). And full IDEs like IntelliJ Idea, Pycharm are not even in "good" territory, they lag very frequently, even after launching. If windows is running some processes in the background, it crushes the CPU, making the laptop unusable.

I have implemented a variety of tweaks, like disabling unnecessary startup apps, disabling windows services like sysmain, telemetry, windows search, windows widgets etc. I always release RAM by using Wise Memory Optimiser. Still these results.

Was this expected/known of intel at that time, advertising office work, when in reality, office work is also very limited? Is this laptop really only "excellent" for web browsing and YouTube, despite being advertised otherwise? I am experiencing live performance of this CPU.

I am NOT looking on help to optimise my laptop, just looking for a review on this CPU. Was it really a bad price to performance ratio in 2019-2021, especially considering AMD alternatives? Please tell me if I am imagining AMD better offerings at that time, or was AMD really offering them?

I am so frustrated with intel, that I am thinking never to buy intel products again, when I get the money.

I am playing chaos theory on this hardware with single channel ram.

At 720p, max settings (except medium shadow resolution), I am using shader model 3.0 with hdr enabled. I was getting 58 fps with soft shadows disabled.

But when I enabled soft shadows, the edges of shadows improved very much by softening of edges. But fps also increased to 65 (+7).

Can someone explain this weird behaviour on 10th gen intel CPU-iGPU? Just curious. CPU is not maxed out (40-50%). First core is also not maxed out (50-60%).