VERY low FPS with 4g Ram. Any hope?

[Naobikanobi]

Hello all! I know you have a support site, but I wanted to get multiple opinions on this so I decided to post a thread here. Hope it isn't too much of an inconvenience!

Basically my problem is this; I just downloaded FTB yesterday after watching some videos of it where it looked amazing. When I log in I have an FPS of about 30, which is way lower than the 85-ish FPS that I normally get with Minecraft (while using optifine) but not so low as to be unbearable, so I tried playing for a little. After 2 or 3 minutes, my FPS drops to a steady 7, making it almost impossible to enjoy the game.

I'm a student and I only recently got into gaming, so I have a pretty average laptop that was originally intended only for schoolwork - a Dell Latitude E6530 with 4g of ram and an intel i5 core. My main question is; is there anything I can do to improve my FPS, or will my computer pretty much be unable to support the game no matter what I do? Even when I close all other applications and all of the processes I can safely close from my task manager, I haven't seen any improvement in the FPS.

Thanks in advance for any help!

 

[TomboMills]

I'd suggest deleting all things you don't need on your laptop and not having anything else open when opening FTB

 

[Christes]

I can't speak for the initial lag, but I had a similar massive performance drop after five minutes (on a high-end PC, too). I solved it by adding the following line under "Advanced java parameters" in the launcher options:

-XX:MaxPermSize=128m

This may or may not help, but it's worth a shot.

 

[Naobikanobi]

Will give that a try Christes, thanks!

 

[Bigglesworth]

FTB isnt really intended to be played on Intel® HD Graphics 4000. Your framerate when you first start is going to be 3-4x what you will see when you start building more machines, as much of FTB has mods that arnt really optimized well. You should be getter better than 7, but try not to hope for much more than 20 generally.

Your system might be getting really hot and underclocking itself too.

 

[Vovegog]

Well hello there, prettyface!
First off, if you're using Windows 7, just the OS will be taking up 2 GB or so of RAM to keep your computer running, which means it will only have 1,5 - 2 GB of RAM for everything else you're doing on your laptop.
Secondly, using a schoolwork-laptop which has integrated Intel graphics (which sucks ass btw) is not something you'll get away with without any kind of problem.
The third generation of i5 which I suspect you have - is actually quite OK. It does the job and is not the worst thing you could have. However, the amount of RAM and the lack of a graphics card is going to hold you back. You'd actually be better off spending $~900-ish on a new laptop. Not only will you be able to play Minecraft with lots of mods, you could also get to enjoy other great games (see: Witcher 2, Skyrim, Deus Ex etc) and also get a very good PC for schoolwork that will be fast(er) and probably a lot more reliable.

However, if you don't want to spend the money, get Optifine, put everything on low and survive the tortures of sub-30FPS-gaming... Which is horrendous.

Cheers!

 

[Bigglesworth]

Windows 7 does not take up 2GB of RAM. What it does is keep in memory other things that might be accessed. It is a cache, but if your open another program that needs that cache Windows opens that RAM up for that application. In the old days windows would just unload eveything in RAM when you quit an application instead of unloading it when you needed to open something else. This helps keep applications you use more often ready in RAM more often.

4GB is more than enough to play FTB on Win7 without performance issues. What is holding it back is SOLELY the HD4000 intel crap.

 

[Vovegog]

I didn't say upgrading RAM was necessary, I only said it would help
Also, Windows 7 uses about 1.2 GB of RAM when _just_ turned on, without anything else started. So, it's not a far-off estimate.

 

[Booker The Geek]

Will give that a try Christes, thanks!

Did it work?