I bought the Minisforum MS-01, 12600H for a number of reasons.
For sake of times past, I installed Skyrim (both original and SA)
I knew the iGPU would not be a good experience but GOD DAMN. 14FPS @ 4k in the opening sequence at the lowest setting? 25 at 1080? I have an old sh!tty laptop with a AMD Ryzen 5 Pro 3500U with Radeon Vega Mobile that does as well or fairer.
Something feels off here to a meaningful degree.
Ubuntu 24.04 - fresh install
Proton Experimental
No mods
Bios:
DVMT: 60M (Max)
Aperture Size 1G Ram allocation (Max) - (says I can do 2G with disabling CSM, I however could not find the option to disable CSM in the BIOS)
Is it me? Or is this meeting expectations or can I do something to improve this.
It does seem like you’re missing a bit of performance, but it’s probably not massively slower than expected. The 80 EU Xe iGPU should be a bit more powerful than your Vega 8, but not massively so.
You can use a tool like nvtop to check what your GPU utilization is like, and if it’s hitting expected clocks, or has some weird behaviour.
I’m assuming you’re running in dual channel memory config with a decent kit, as memory bandwidth impacts iGPU performance.
I’m also assuming you’ve updated the BIOS to ensure you don’t have some strange power management or other bug that could affect performance.
Upgraded the bios to the most recent - it was a beta. 1080 jumped to 44fps. 4K still at 14fps; each at lowest setting.
I probably f’ed up in buying a single 48Gb 5600 RAM. I cant get it to clock to 5200 or 5600. It falls back to 4800 everytime. kinda pissing me off. But I dont think that will make a material difference.
Would be very happy if someone had advice on the memory speed.
Can confirm that the GPU is utilized 100% at 1400Mhz
Hope to find a solution or alternative. This is a family room TV and flipping resolutions all the time will suck ass.
It’s great to hear that updating the BIOS fixed part of the issue. But it sounds like you’re running single channel memory - that leaves some performance on the table, with how dependent GPUs are on memory bandwidth.
My guess is that since the platform supports a max of 64 GB, they probably didn’t test or fine tune the compatibility with 48 GB sticks to make overclocking work well on them. Most people probably have 2x32 GB kits or smaller and so these are likely better supported.
But if your goal is to have this thing run games at 4K, I don’t think fixing the memory issue is going to help nearly enough for that.
From what I’ve read is the platform supports up to 96. I didnt want to front that capital upfront since I wanted to tinker with the system first as it is a barebone kit.
Yea, I was hoping for 30fps ISH at 4k low but seems not so much.
Have you tried to assign let’s say 8 GB RAM to the iGPU? I have a NUC setup with a 12700H, and by default, it’s very stingy with assigning memory to the Xe iGPU.
While the memory allocation is supposed to be dynamic, it might be something else to try (can’t really hurt).
Also, any chance you can get (borrow) 2 matching DDR5 SO-DIMMs that are rated for 4800 MHz or faster? Even 2x16 GB Sticks should be enough to find out if having both Slots occupied will make a sizable difference. I wouldn’t be surprised if it does. While DDR5 SODIMMs are a lot better at running “solo” than for example DDR4 SODIMMs, you are leaving bandwidth on the table with only one slot occupied. The iGPU has to compete with the CPU cores for bandwidth, and unless the firmware and BIOS carve a significant amount out for the iGPU, it’s usually the one getting starved.
[OT: big exception to that is the Steam Deck and how it is set up. The iGPU in that custom APU gets first pick, and the CPU is sometimes starved for memory]
No luck I plan on using this to serve up AV media and picture/documents backup. I don’t really need to max out the igpu. If time ever permits I will be running some *sense in a VM to move away from an old USG.
My testing was more of a bonus and it really pissed me off but in the grand scheme of things but I really dont need it. Eventually I’ll have my upstairs wired so steam streaming will be a nicer touch. RN I have some older 4-port 1Gb network card in, but there are low profile 3050 (TI?) cards on the market so if I ever find a good tiny 10Gb switch that is the answer for gaming.
Unfortunately this is literally the only card I could find that fits this spec without modification.
Chat, let us know if you are aware of another single slot low profile no external power card