DX9 and above is only available with the RTX GPU. DX8 and older will run with the AMD GPU nevertheless.

The DXPrimaryEmulation hack is what I only have in mind to be something handling the framerate.

DXPrimaryEmulation is for DirectDraw and Direct3D 7 and lower. For Direct3D 8, check this thread. The d3d8.dll from Win10 Build 17134 is still compatible with Win11 23H2 with the December 2023 cumulative update. Don't forget to check in Compatibility Administrator in system database if Windows is applying maximized windowed mode for your game.

This is obviously only helpful if the problem is this maximized windowed mode. Though from what I remember, disabling it could break something else, depending on the game, eg. cinematics. Alternatively, you may try dgVoodoo2 instead, since it wraps to D3D11 or D3D12, you can run your game on NVIDIA GPU.

I tried DXPrimaryEmulation and d3d8.dll file with Tomb Raider 4. It seems it doesn't help. Interestingly enough, I noticed that if I pin an overlay from Xbox Game Bar App, the game works much smoother... Weird.

EDIT: It seems the games run choppy even in windowed mode.

I only have older hardware so can only guess blindly, but, do you see anything interesting if you monitor CPU/GPU usage of the game with overlay on/off? Maybe check the GPU clocks as well with something like GPU-Z. There's also another program with an overlay; MSI Afterburner (depends on RivaTuner Statistics Server), I wonder if that would have similar effect like the one from Xbox Game Bar.

I have tried MSI Afterburner (I hate this app lmao) but it seems its on screen displays work only for DirectX 9 games. They don't show up in my older games. I checked CPU/memory/HDD usage through the good ol' task manager but it doesn't show anything suspicious. Tomb Raider IV uses about 15% of CPU and about 50MB RAM.

Also interesting, it seems when I start the game, at first it runs pretty smooth, but then after a few seconds it gets choppy. I didn;t notice any change in usage of resources when that happens.

Caesum wrote on 2024-01-04, 09:50:

I have tried MSI Afterburner (I hate this app lmao) but it seems its on screen displays work only for DirectX 9 games. They don't show up in my older games. I checked CPU/memory/HDD usage through the good ol' task manager but it doesn't show anything suspicious. Tomb Raider IV uses about 15% of CPU and about 50MB RAM.

Also interesting, it seems when I start the game, at first it runs pretty smooth, but then after a few seconds it gets choppy. I didn;t notice any change in usage of resources when that happens.

*DirectX 8+

Your condition explains some kind of memory leak. Does it keep getting slow? Or it goes slow to a point, and then remains constant

Use dgVoodoo 2.

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2024-01-04, 10:45:

Caesum wrote on 2024-01-04, 09:50:

I have tried MSI Afterburner (I hate this app lmao) but it seems its on screen displays work only for DirectX 9 games. They don't show up in my older games. I checked CPU/memory/HDD usage through the good ol' task manager but it doesn't show anything suspicious. Tomb Raider IV uses about 15% of CPU and about 50MB RAM.

Also interesting, it seems when I start the game, at first it runs pretty smooth, but then after a few seconds it gets choppy. I didn;t notice any change in usage of resources when that happens.

*DirectX 8+

Your condition explains some kind of memory leak. Does it keep getting slow? Or it goes slow to a point, and then remains constant

Depends. Sometimes it runs buttery smooth for a few seconds, then becomes choppy. Sometimes when I open the game, it is choppy already. And by choppy I mean it feels like there's a lot of frames, but the frametime is incorrect. Or like as if several frames were avoided or sth. It's like with background apps that become choppy. But this happens no matter if it's a fullscreen app or windowed. But overlay seems to make it smoother.

tgomola wrote on 2024-01-04, 12:35:

Use dgVoodoo 2.

Some games have worse performance with dgvoodoo or have graphical issues. Black Mirror 1 for example.

Caesum wrote on 2024-01-06, 20:39:

Depends. Sometimes it runs buttery smooth for a few seconds, then becomes choppy. Sometimes when I open the game, it is choppy a […]
Show full quote

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2024-01-04, 10:45:

Caesum wrote on 2024-01-04, 09:50:

I have tried MSI Afterburner (I hate this app lmao) but it seems its on screen displays work only for DirectX 9 games. They don't show up in my older games. I checked CPU/memory/HDD usage through the good ol' task manager but it doesn't show anything suspicious. Tomb Raider IV uses about 15% of CPU and about 50MB RAM.

Also interesting, it seems when I start the game, at first it runs pretty smooth, but then after a few seconds it gets choppy. I didn;t notice any change in usage of resources when that happens.

*DirectX 8+

Your condition explains some kind of memory leak. Does it keep getting slow? Or it goes slow to a point, and then remains constant

Depends. Sometimes it runs buttery smooth for a few seconds, then becomes choppy. Sometimes when I open the game, it is choppy already. And by choppy I mean it feels like there's a lot of frames, but the frametime is incorrect. Or like as if several frames were avoided or sth. It's like with background apps that become choppy. But this happens no matter if it's a fullscreen app or windowed. But overlay seems to make it smoother.

tgomola wrote on 2024-01-04, 12:35:

Use dgVoodoo 2.

Some games have worse performance with dgvoodoo or have graphical issues. Black Mirror 1 for example.

Idk how I missed this but I just figured it out.

Your first post says: AMD GPU IS OFF

This shouldn't be done. The actual reason is the RTX 3060 GPU will ONLY work for DX9 and up games. If you correctly disabled the AMD IGPU, you are running with Microsoft Basic Display Driver, something that will cause the lag issue like you explained.

Secondly even in DX9 games you may have lags if you have Nvidia Optimus set to use the "more efficient GPU" as it will likely use the IGPU (with Microsoft Basic driver), instead of the "performance mode". But this technology is only applicable for DX9, and nothing for DX8 and older as it always uses the IGPU.

Lenovo Legion 5 has a newer NVIDIA Optimus technology that introduces MUX switch. This means that when you turn MUX switch, it turns off the secondary GPU and runs strictly on NVIDIA RTX GPU. On some laptops MUX switch is called Hybrid Mode but it's the same thing.

What you are saying is correct, but only for older NVIDIA Optimus technology, where there was no MUX switch. On old NVIDIA Optimus turning off integrated GPU would cause both graphics cards to function incorrectly, basically forcing the entire OS to use Microsoft Basic Driver just like you mentioned. My old laptop had NVIDIA Optimus 2 technology and it did exactly that. But in that case everything would just work badly.

But with MUX switch all applications are forced to use NVIDIA RTX GPU just like as if it was a laptop with only one GPU. When MUX is on, applications can only see NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop GPU.

Tomb Raider III, IV and V have stable 30 FPS (TR is by design capped to 30fps) on 1920x1080. TR3 is buttery smooth, but TR4 and 5 feel choppy.
Black Mirror has 25FPS
Gothic 2 runs with 500FPS in Xardas Tower and 125FPS outside of the tower. Biggest hits are in the port town but still over 60 FPS in 1920x1080
Dracula 3 has weird tendency on working great at first then suddenly taking a real hit in performance eg. a week into gameplay, but I think this is caused by dgvoodoo 2 actually. The game doesn't work without it.
Harry Potter 1 has definitely bad performance, but from what I have noticed it depends on the OS. I tried on my laptop, my older W10 laptop and my mom's oldest Windows 8 laptop and they all have performance issue which is solved when you switch to DX9 renderer.

Honestly the more I play with the games the more I think this might be more game specific than I originally thought. Gothic 2 seems buttery smooth. Tomb Raider III is as smooth as a game can be with 30 FPS, but Tomb Raider IV and V is choppy even though framerate is consistent! Weird, considering TR 3, 4 and 5 run on similar engine that uses DX 6/6.1. Black Mirror is just sluggish but could be by design..?

Caesum wrote on 2024-01-07, 22:00:

Lenovo Legion 5 has a newer NVIDIA Optimus technology that introduces MUX switch. This means that when you turn MUX switch, it t […]
Show full quote

Lenovo Legion 5 has a newer NVIDIA Optimus technology that introduces MUX switch. This means that when you turn MUX switch, it turns off the secondary GPU and runs strictly on NVIDIA RTX GPU. On some laptops MUX switch is called Hybrid Mode but it's the same thing.

What you are saying is correct, but only for older NVIDIA Optimus technology, where there was no MUX switch. On old NVIDIA Optimus turning off integrated GPU would cause both graphics cards to function incorrectly, basically forcing the entire OS to use Microsoft Basic Driver just like you mentioned. My old laptop had NVIDIA Optimus 2 technology and it did exactly that. But in that case everything would just work badly.

But with MUX switch all applications are forced to use NVIDIA RTX GPU just like as if it was a laptop with only one GPU. When MUX is on, applications can only see NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop GPU.

Tomb Raider III, IV and V have stable 30 FPS (TR is by design capped to 30fps) on 1920x1080. TR3 is buttery smooth, but TR4 and 5 feel choppy.
Black Mirror has 25FPS
Gothic 2 runs with 500FPS in Xardas Tower and 125FPS outside of the tower. Biggest hits are in the port town but still over 60 FPS in 1920x1080
Dracula 3 has weird tendency on working great at first then suddenly taking a real hit in performance eg. a week into gameplay, but I think this is caused by dgvoodoo 2 actually. The game doesn't work without it.
Harry Potter 1 has definitely bad performance, but from what I have noticed it depends on the OS. I tried on my laptop, my older W10 laptop and my mom's oldest Windows 8 laptop and they all have performance issue which is solved when you switch to DX9 renderer.

Honestly the more I play with the games the more I think this might be more game specific than I originally thought. Gothic 2 seems buttery smooth. Tomb Raider III is as smooth as a game can be with 30 FPS, but Tomb Raider IV and V is choppy even though framerate is consistent! Weird, considering TR 3, 4 and 5 run on similar engine that uses DX 6/6.1. Black Mirror is just sluggish but could be by design..?

Okay I didn't know about MUX switch at all. Do you see a noticeable difference with/without MUX switch to make sure the laptop isn't switching back to iGPU in older games?

Another thing to not is games natively with new drivers have some sort of performance issue always. It could be that newer driver exaggerated the problems more? I used to see old games either running too slow or too fast, or laggy, but I would ignore it generally.

(Edit-1: Did you check if the laptop DOESN'T switch back to iGPU temporarily when a pre-d3d9 app is running? More like can it switch back automatically when required?
Edit-2: If I am not wrong, the Nvidia Optimus setting in driver works for D3D9+ apps but the Nvidia GPU only setting works for all apps since it disables the iGPU completely?)

MUX switch is a pretty recent addition as far as I know and it was mostly promoted as a way to have G-SYNC working on laptops so I'm not surprised you might have not heard of it. I only found out about it after I bought this laptop lmao.

As far as I know when MUX switch is off the OS treats the iGPU like as if it didn't exist. I have checked in a few games and they all can only see the NVIDIA RTX GPU. In some games I can even force some additional settings through NVIDIA Control Panel that way.

You are correct, when MUX switch is being used, all the apps use NVIDIA GPU exclusively. The AMD/INTEL cards are not even seen by the OS while the switch is on.

(personally I don't recommend laptops with NVIDIA Optimus technology though. It causes more issues than it's worth it. Older NVIDIA Optimus laptops force games to use integrated GPU. New laptops on the other hand can have severe stuttering issues when both GPUs are being used while unplugged from power. Worst thing is that it's not a hardware issue, but driver vs OS issue that Microsoft and AMD been ignoring for years now. Only Intel tried to fix that problem but even they couldn't fix everything. That's on a side note though)

I have tried Compatibility Administrator tool again on Tomb Raider IV and V. Removed all the prior patches made by GOG and applied the settings below:
DXPrimaryEmulation
ForceSimpleWindow
DisableDXMaximizedWindowedMode

And it seems the games run a bit smoother now. They still feel choppy, but it's way less severe than before. I only wonder what does DXPrimaryEmulation do? It sounds like it emulates DirectX rather than force hardware DX. But I might be reading it wrong.

Caesum wrote on 2024-01-09, 09:35:

I have tried Compatibility Administrator tool again on Tomb Raider IV and V. Removed all the prior patches made by GOG and appli […]
Show full quote

I have tried Compatibility Administrator tool again on Tomb Raider IV and V. Removed all the prior patches made by GOG and applied the settings below:
DXPrimaryEmulation
ForceSimpleWindow
DisableDXMaximizedWindowedMode

And it seems the games run a bit smoother now. They still feel choppy, but it's way less severe than before. I only wonder what does DXPrimaryEmulation do? It sounds like it emulates DirectX rather than force hardware DX. But I might be reading it wrong.

This is a known solution and the reason I didn't mention it because it majorly happened due to the fake-fullscreen transition setting in Win8 era. Over time MS improved and fixed the problem it brought. I am surprised to see this causing issues again.

ForceSimpleWindow removes the top window. (This isn't the official method to remove the window, the reason it is applied is because the fake fullscreen mode brings the window along with the game; it is a game bug that was overlooked because old OS never showed the errro)
DXPrimaryEmulation and DisableDXMaximizedWindowedMode run the game in real, exclusive fullscreen mode

Caesum wrote on 2024-01-09, 09:35:

As far as I know when MUX switch is off the OS treats the iGPU like as if it didn't exist. I have checked in a few games and they all can only see the NVIDIA RTX GPU. In some games I can even force some additional settings through NVIDIA Control Panel that way.

OFF or ON, as you later said

Caesum wrote on 2024-01-09, 09:35:

You are correct, when MUX switch is being used, all the apps use NVIDIA GPU exclusively. The AMD/INTEL cards are not even seen by the OS while the switch is on.

Oh I see. I learned about the DXPrimaryEmulation in this thread, but in my case I had to use it along with DisableDXMaximizedWindowedMode and ForceSimpleWindow together in order to make it work smoother.

Original GOG sdb patches only apply ForceSimpleWindow which was not enough for me. I had to use the entire trio in order to make the games work better.

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2024-01-09, 10:53:

This is a known solution and the reason I didn't mention it because it majorly happened due to the fake-fullscreen transition setting in Win8 era. Over time MS improved and fixed the problem it brought. I am surprised to see this causing issues again.

Sorry, it depends on the naming convention. Generally when MUX switch is ON it uses discrete GPU exclusively. On Lenovo laptops though this feature is called Hybrid Mode and in this case it must be OFF.

Caesum wrote on 2024-01-09, 09:35:

(personally I don't recommend laptops with NVIDIA Optimus technology though. It causes more issues than it's worth it. Older NVIDIA Optimus laptops force games to use integrated GPU. New laptops on the other hand can have severe stuttering issues when both GPUs are being used while unplugged from power. Worst thing is that it's not a hardware issue, but driver vs OS issue that Microsoft and AMD been ignoring for years now. Only Intel tried to fix that problem but even they couldn't fix everything. That's on a side note though)

Probably you need it more in Intel. Considering Intel iGPUs DON'T have a DirectDraw, pre D3D8 driver anymore.

Caesum wrote on 2024-01-09, 19:49:

Oh I see. I learned about the DXPrimaryEmulation in this thread, but in my case I had to use it along with DisableDXMaximizedWindowedMode and ForceSimpleWindow together in order to make it work smoother.

Original GOG sdb patches only apply ForceSimpleWindow which was not enough for me. I had to use the entire trio in order to make the games work better.

The DisableDXMaximizedWindowedMode did the real fake fullscreen -> exclusive fullscreen work. The DXPrimaryEmulation is needed as well but we don't know why. The ForceSimpleWindow mode need not be require once the former two settings are enabled: its documented work is to remove the border at all costs, which will automatically be removed in exclusive mode.

Actually, it seems the Compatibility Patches didn't help at all lmao. It seemed like they worked for a time but now Tomb Raider 4 and 5 are choppy again.

I guess this doesn't have anything to do with the games themselves then. I'm more thinking that this might be an issue with an outside application causing issues with Tomb Raider 4 and 5. I believe that because once in an every few times I open the game and it works smooth, making me think that I fixed the issue. Sometimes when I turn on the game, it works smooth for a while, but then suddenly becomes choppy. And yet from overlays it seems like both framerate and frametime are consistent, so it feels more like something is altering the way it is shown on screen.

My bet is on either NVIDIA drivers or XBOX Game Bar. Unfortunately, my laptop is using latest known stable driver that works okay with it while XBOX Game Bar is a part of Windows 11 and cannot be easily removed. I guess I have to live with it...

I wonder if there's a way to check how many overlays are running in the background though.

Caesum wrote on 2024-01-12, 10:13:

Actually, it seems the Compatibility Patches didn't help at all lmao. It seemed like they worked for a time but now Tomb Raider […]
Show full quote

Actually, it seems the Compatibility Patches didn't help at all lmao. It seemed like they worked for a time but now Tomb Raider 4 and 5 are choppy again.

I guess this doesn't have anything to do with the games themselves then. I'm more thinking that this might be an issue with an outside application causing issues with Tomb Raider 4 and 5. I believe that because once in an every few times I open the game and it works smooth, making me think that I fixed the issue. Sometimes when I turn on the game, it works smooth for a while, but then suddenly becomes choppy. And yet from overlays it seems like both framerate and frametime are consistent, so it feels more like something is altering the way it is shown on screen.

My bet is on either NVIDIA drivers or XBOX Game Bar. Unfortunately, my laptop is using latest known stable driver that works okay with it while XBOX Game Bar is a part of Windows 11 and cannot be easily removed. I guess I have to live with it...

I wonder if there's a way to check how many overlays are running in the background though.

You could try hooking DxWnd to the programs, since it runs game in fake fullscreen windowed. Who knows it may improve?