Graphics Settings Rec?

Hello, @fillykat

I think marketing glamour might have tricked you in the same way it did me back when I procured one of the A6 APUs a couple of years ago.

Gaming was not on my mind as I was building a supposedly performance-oriented workstation for a friend of mine, but still, I learned a lesson:

   AMD APU integrated graphics chips are not equal counterparts to discrete Radeon GPUs despite the similarity in names!

Even today, looking at specification sheets on the official AMD site, one would say that the integrated R5 chip must be better than the discrete one (847MHz and DX12 support vs 625MHz and DX11 support respectively).

The secret is in the memory lanes. On the APU, both CPU and GPU are sharing communication bandwidth with the RAM and that causes a lot of problems when playing games.

Back in the day, AMD engineers claimed they had taken that potential issue into account and added special instructions to counteract it.

Well that does not seem to be true in practice because my friend recently told me that he feels a substantial drop in productivity from the APU not more than three years down the road.

Apparently, sometimes even basic office applications start to stutter when he's been working for a couple of hours and opened a lot of windows.

Now, I built that fella' a desktop configuration so I can't really speak for a notebook 'cause I don't have the necessary experience.

But if I am to guess based on things I've read and heard, I'd say yours might also be affected by thermal throttling considering the system is a lot more compact (think packed hardware, smaller fans and exhausts etc.) and those APUs tend to get VERY hot.

I am afraid I can't give a desirable answer to your question. I don't think there are any graphics settings that will solve your problem.

Even with unobtrusive anti-aliasing, shader and texture settings combined with performance-oriented profiles for power and application execution, that chip simply can't push/receive data to/from the RAM as fast as needed for you to get those sweet pretty lifelike faces you want.

Stopping absolutely all non-essential applications and processes running in the background and leaving only MEA might help a bit, but don't hold your breath.

P.S.: I am NOT a die-hard intel fan. On the contrary - been building AMD rigs since 2003 for me and all my friends and relatives.

Only recently, did I put together my first intel configuration in 13 years and I did it out of desperation.

I got an ASUS Radeon HD7970 GHz die on me and I simply couldn't find a replacement. Also, at that moment AMD was at its worst for the last couple of years, so I really didn't see any point in scrounging for spare parts just to build a sub-par PC only to support them.

Seeing recent developments though, I think they're back in the game and stronger than ever. I'll wait for them to polish those new CPUs, APUs and Radeon GPUs, then I'll make up to my friend. A couple of years down the line, if I have the money, I may even build a new AMD rig for myself to see what those guys have accomplished.

My sincere advise - if you can endure playing MEA at low settings, then do it. It's a great game no matter what many say and it can only get better from here on.

If not, then switch to a game that will make you happy with the hardware you have.

Either way, you can wait several months and, assuming you will be able to save up some cash during that time, get yourself a new machine with the new AMD APUs for Christmas.

I am willing to bet a hefty sum that the new line-up from AMD will be a pleasant surprise for all of us.