GPU clock stuck at 800 MHz when below 15W TDP (Legion Go)
As the title. I was wondering if anyone else has been encountering this issue and if yes, has anyone found a way to remove that limit?
When I do use HHD to manually set up a GPU Clock limit to a minimum of anything above 800, mangohud will reflect the minimum limit I had set but performance would remain the same, so I'm sure the custom limits are being ignored to keep it at 800MHz
When the GPU locks to 800MHz, games that aren't lightweight will begin to stutter and there are audio cracks, although it's infrequent. FPS limits also don't fix the stuttering as FPS will wildly spike up and down.
At 15 TDP or above, the GPU unlocks. Unfortunately, this means that the battery will be eaten depending on the game. Desktop mode works fine at 8 watts.
My concern is how TDPs lower than 15 will cripple performance, making it so attempts to save battery life will come at the great cost of stability instead of some performance loss.
14 Replies
i have a break at work now so i am about to test this
youre limiting the hardware to 8w, and trying to set a higher minimum gpu clock, it will prioritize power to my knowledge because its a handheld.
cant replicate the audio crackling
but all the games i managed to test at break was antonblast (lightweigth) and poe2
Hey, sorry I didn't see this till now.
Actually, at 13 watts or lower, the clock will be locked to 800 MHz. I realize that my wording wasn't super clear I'm sorry. At 14 watts, the clock will fluctuate between 800 and above. It wasn't stable or consistent in how much the value will increase; it would jump to 890 or similar, or jump to ~1200, then drop to 800 to a while before jumping again.
I expect for the clock to lock up at whatever value if the TDP is set to 8W. Im not sure if it's normal for the clock to lock at 800MHz if the TDP is between 8 and 15, however.
The audio crackling, I also couldn't replicate another time. Admittedly it happened once and it didn't appear again. I probably shouldn't have mentioned it lol, mb
800 is the minimum
So it will lock to 800
I understand. So it's normal for the GPU clock to lock up at 800 MHz whenever the TDP is below 15W?
Yes
Got it, I just wanted full clarification. i assume this behavior can't be removed/changed, then?
It is what it is
Why do you find it problematic
No it won't go below 800mhx
Otherwise it crashes
I find it problematic because if I want to play a game like Lies of P at a lower TDP to save on battery life, it would cause instability. I would expect and accept lower performance and just lock the FPS at 60 or lower, but because the GPU automatically locks at 800 MHz when the TDP limit is set to anything below 15, performance is lowered dramatically where it runs at 30 FPS or lower and with some frame drops.
Like how with the Steam Deck you could lower TDP for lower performance but still play a game at like 45 FPS if you get it to the right TDP. I know the Z1E does perform worse than the steam deck's APU at lower wattages, I just didn't expect for the GPU clock to lock at 800Mhz even at 13W and not move up at all
Well z1e is not the SD apu
You can't go very low
I think that's where there's a misunderstanding, I don't want it to go below 800MHz at all. I wanted to know if there's a way to stop it from locking at 800MHz and instead increase
Increase with what power
That I do get, that's why I wanted to know if this behavior was expected or a bug
What I meant was if I set the TDP to a value like 12W, I would expect the GPU clock to lower itself to maybe 900-1000 MHz, whatever value where it would allow me to lock the FPS to 45, 50, or 60
Just because the clock is 800mhz
It does not mean the performance is the same
But it's also quite the drop when you go lower
Actually, this is really silly. I didn't think of it until now but I went online to see what other people's performances are when the TDP is lowered and the GPU clock for them is also locked at 800MHz. You were right, this is behavior dictated by the APU, not bazzite, and it can't be changed
Sorry for the trouble! I didn't think to check on my issue this way