Question Drop in fps when laptop is connected to an external monitor

[thepenguin22]

I own a Lenovo Ideapad Gaming 3 15AHC6, AMD Ryzen 5 5600H/NVIDIA Geforce RTX 3050/24GB RAM DDR4 3200MHZ/512GB SSD and when I play I always have my laptop connected to a 27’ external monitor via HDMI - AOC 27G2U. I use this monitor as the primary screen so the laptop screen is always off and I have the refresh rate set at 144hz.

However I’ve noticed that when I’m playing using the AOC monitor I lose some fps (20-30 fps) so the game is averaging like 80/90 fps while if I’m using the laptop screen to play the fps I get are around 120-140. Any idea why this happens? Could it be because the external monitor is bigger (27’) and so it uses more GPU and I lose fps?

Also posted here: https://forums.tomsguide.com/thread...p-is-connected-to-an-external-monitor.507831/

 

[kerberos_20]

does both displays use same resolution?

 

[thepenguin22]

does both displays use same resolution?

the external monitor is at 144hz while the laptop is at 60hz

 

[COLGeek]

Size of the display has nothing to do with performance. Resolution does.

What resolution are both displays? The refresh rate also impacts performance as that requires more processing power from the GPU.

 

[thepenguin22]

Size of the display has nothing to do with performance. Resolution does.

What resolution are both displays? The refresh rate also impacts performance as that requires more processing power from the GPU.

Both displays are at 1920 x 1080. Yes but the game as a feature where you can unlock the fps (the game itself has a max of 50 fps - over 50 it only helps to smooth the camera movements) so you can get much more than that depending on the GPU. That's why I get 120-140 while using the laptop display but I get a bit less when I use the external monitor as the main display (like 20-30 fps less). Is there a way to increase the fps so it's almost identical to the laptop monitor?

 

[Nighthawk117]

I own a Lenovo Ideapad Gaming 3 15AHC6, AMD Ryzen 5 5600H/NVIDIA Geforce RTX 3050/24GB RAM DDR4 3200MHZ/512GB SSD and when I play I always have my laptop connected to a 27’ external monitor via HDMI - AOC 27G2U. I use this monitor as the primary screen so the laptop screen is always off and I have the refresh rate set at 144hz.

However I’ve noticed that when I’m playing using the AOC monitor I lose some fps (20-30 fps) so the game is averaging like 80/90 fps while if I’m using the laptop screen to play the fps I get are around 120-140. Any idea why this happens? Could it be because the external monitor is bigger (27’) and so it uses more GPU and I lose fps?

Also posted here: https://forums.tomsguide.com/thread...p-is-connected-to-an-external-monitor.507831/

I had this problem with my laptop where Halo would run at 60 FPS on the internal screen but I would get big FPS drops on the external screen. Are you sure the internal screen isn't doing anything, like it's not just displaying a black screen for example. Your display settings are set to 'Show only on 2' or whatever your external monitor is called.

The size of the screen makes no difference, only the resolution and the connection to the monitor will impact performance. If the game was run at the same resolution on the external monitor and the HDMI port was wired directly to the GPU then the performance between the internal and external screen should be identical.

 

[thepenguin22]

I had this problem with my laptop where Halo would run at 60 FPS on the internal screen but I would get big FPS drops on the external screen. Are you sure the internal screen isn't doing anything, like it's not just displaying a black screen for example. Your display settings are set to 'Show only on 2' or whatever your external monitor is called.

The size of the screen makes no difference, only the resolution and the connection to the monitor will impact performance. If the game was run at the same resolution on the external monitor and the HDMI port was wired directly to the GPU then the performance between the internal and external screen should be identical.

Yes, the image is only displaying on the 2nd monitor (external monitor). The laptop screen is off. Resolution is the same aswell (1980 x 1080). I don't know what else to do. What I found out is that if I reduce the size of the window of the game to watch a video while I'm playing (like the game occupies half of the screen and the other half is on youtube) the fps increase which makes me think that maybe it has something to do with the size of the image displayed...but i don't know.

 

[Nighthawk117]

Yes, the image is only displaying on the 2nd monitor (external monitor). The laptop screen is off. Resolution is the same aswell (1980 x 1080). I don't know what else to do. What I found out is that if I reduce the size of the window of the game to watch a video while I'm playing (like the game occupies half of the screen and the other half is on youtube) the fps increase which makes me think that maybe it has something to do with the size of the image displayed...but i don't know.

It sounds to me when your in windowed mode shrinking the window reduces the resolution which is why it performs better. When your running the game is the integrated GPU showing a lot of activity? If your laptop is using the Nvidia 3050 it may be that the output from the Nvidia GPU is still going through the integrated GPU before it gets to the HDMI port.

 

[thepenguin22]

It sounds to me when your in windowed mode shrinking the window reduces the resolution which is why it performs better. When your running the game is the integrated GPU showing a lot of activity? If your laptop is using the Nvidia 3050 it may be that the output from the Nvidia GPU is still going through the integrated GPU before it gets to the HDMI port.

I don't think so. How do I fix that?

 

[Nighthawk117]

I don't think so. How do I fix that?

If the HDMI port was wired to the iGPU then there is nothing you can do about that, but I would expect the internal display to be wired like that as well, so it's not necessarily the cause of your problem. You would however expect a performance difference if the two displays were wired differently.

 

[Karadjgne]

144Hz vs 60Hz. Laptops have 1 function that pc's do not and should not have, power saving features. That includes temp regulation. With a 60Hz monitor that's being powered by the laptop, you'll almost certainly see lower fps as you'll be reaching power and thermal limits, whether actual or imposed. You won't get that with an external monitor that's not being powered by the laptop, that power can be applied elsewhere or isn't a limiting factor.

 

[MissionTroll]

I have the same laptop and same problem. I get much lower performance in 3DMark when I connect a secondary display. Like 2-3K lower score. In games I get a huge performance hit and my RTX3060 performs worse than my GTX1060 in some games. It is very odd but I am sure it is an AMD driver moment.

 

[thepenguin22]

I have the same laptop and same problem. I get much lower performance in 3DMark when I connect a secondary display. Like 2-3K lower score. In games I get a huge performance hit and my RTX3060 performs worse than my GTX1060 in some games. It is very odd but I am sure it is an AMD driver moment.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact than i'm using a HDMI connection and not display port cause I don't have a display port input in my laptop

 

[MissionTroll]

Maybe it has something to do with the fact than i'm using a HDMI connection and not display port cause I don't have a display port input in my laptop

I doubt that is the reason. There is no other way to get display output on this device. The USB-C port on this is just USB3 and can not output video. I am having FPS drop just by having the secondary display connected even if I play on the laptops main display.

 

[thepenguin22]

I doubt that is the reason. There is no other way to get display output on this device. The USB-C port on this is just USB3 and can not output video. I am having FPS drop just by having the secondary display connected even if I play on the laptops main display.

I only use the external monitor to play. The laptop screen is always off. So what do you think is the main issue for this?

 

[MissionTroll]

I only use the external monitor to play. The laptop screen is always off. So what do you think is the main issue for this?

I am not sure. What I am sure is the fact that connecting anything over HDMI on this laptop somehow cripples it's performance no matter what you connect or do with the connected device.

 

[thepenguin22]

I am not sure. What I am sure is the fact that connecting anything over HDMI on this laptop somehow cripples it's performance no matter what you connect or do with the connected device.

So probably the only way to fix this would be a display port connection right?

 

[MissionTroll]

So probably the only way to fix this would be a display port connection right?

I don't know. If there is another way of getting display output on this laptop and it solved this issue let me know. Because mine has a 120Hz screen but I can't get over 120FPS in games, even the ones that are very old like LoL and Rocket League. But when I am using the laptop by itself without a secondary display it can get like 200FPS on those games with no issues. It is extremely frustrating to be honest and I will not be buying a laptop with AMD CPU from now on since the Driver issue meme is still real.

 

[thepenguin22]

I don't know. If there is another way of getting display output on this laptop and it solved this issue let me know. Because mine has a 120Hz screen but I can't get over 120FPS in games, even the ones that are very old like LoL and Rocket League. But when I am using the laptop by itself without a secondary display it can get like 200FPS on those games with no issues. It is extremely frustrating to be honest and I will not be buying a laptop with AMD CPU from now on since the Driver issue meme is still real.

Honestly I'm considering buying a laptop with a better GPU (RTX 3060) and with a display port connection because there's no other way to fix this

 

[MissionTroll]

Honestly I'm considering buying a laptop with a better GPU (RTX 3060) and with a display port connection because there's no other way to fix this

Good decision. The one I have has RTX3060 but as I said CPU bottleneck and this stupid secondary monitor issue makes it perform worse than my desktop GTX1060. Bechmark numbers show otherwise but in real life it performs really bad.

 

[thepenguin22]

Good decision. The one I have has RTX3060 but as I said CPU bottleneck and this stupid secondary monitor issue makes it perform worse than my desktop GTX1060.

Yea and also with a better CPU. The AMD ryzen 7 5800H probably should be more than enough for the game that i play

 

[MissionTroll]

Yea and also with a better CPU. The AMD ryzen 7 5800H probably should be more than enough for the game that i play

AMD also locked down all undervolting and CPU settings on 5XXXH generation except the 5900H or whatever it is. So my laptop runs at +98C on CPU and there is nothing I can do about it.

 

[MissionTroll]

Tried proving that having a secondary display drops performance and connected a 4K TV this time as secondary. To my surprise 3DMark score dropped from 8800 to 8700 which is almost negligible. Maybe it has something to do with the display itself since I am sure having my 1600x1200 CRT connected to this thing drops the 3DMark score at least 2000 points.

 

[Karadjgne]

Is 1600x1200 a supported resolution? Is the output of the gpu set for rendering in 1600x1200? If it's set to 1080p or whatever your laptop screen is, it'll first render in 1080p but will have to final render in 1600x1200, which can take a bit out of the gpu.

 

[MissionTroll]

Is 1600x1200 a supported resolution? Is the output of the gpu set for rendering in 1600x1200? If it's set to 1080p or whatever your laptop screen is, it'll first render in 1080p but will have to final render in 1600x1200, which can take a bit out of the gpu.

I conducted two benchmarks with 4K TV ovet HDMI as secondary like my CRT and without. only 100 score decreased. I can run the crt at whatever I want. Will compare but doubt 1600x1200 is a magical resolution that destroys performance.