They are unable to catch up with Intel anymore. One of those i7 Intel CPUs with quadcore (4 cores) turned the AMD hexacore (6 cores) as well as octacore (8 cores) to dust. Eating up a lot of power, slow as snail but having big numbers like a muscle car with horse power. It's really sad to say this but that stuff was literally a bulldozer lol.
AMD released a new series with the codename "bulldozer". I still remember my own benchmark tests with AMD and Intel CPUs. First of all, don't sell your opinions like that, it's both wrong and no fact. Intel and Nvidia are still too expensive for many people worldwide. That's the only argument why you should consider them. However AMD is not "bad" but simply cheap. And yes, Apple has been accused for doing this many times and it has been confirmed many times too.
Its a question of what exactly they do with their drivers alias software. Not useful though if you NEED good battery useage at other times.You cannot downgrade hardware lol. You might need to check whether a newer BIOS could help if that would help you. I am still googling whether Inspiron 5545 even has this bios toggle. This however would reduce battery time significantly. There are probably also some Wurm settings you can also reduce to help, but first goal is to force it to use the R7 M265, which is sounds like it is not doing. On some laptops, there is a BIOS setting you can toggle to force it to use only the dedicated card and never the integrated graphics. But Java tends to give issues as it is not recognized as being a game or needing dedicated graphics. The other 3D games (older) you play are probably DirectX based games and usually the graphics drivers are good at switching those over to dedicated graphics.
So it has both integrated (built into CPU) and descrete, both by AMD, but it sounds like it is not switching over to the R7 M265. Usually (on windows based computers) this is resolved through Catalyst Control Center but I frankly don't know whether Debian (or any Linux) even use a control panel type setup for graphics, or if it is all command-line type stuff.
I am not sure why the original poster had an issue with AMD's HD7770 and HD 6770 as those are older but still quite powerful cards, however less likely I think to be found in a laptop so your issue may be different. I am not the best person to ask on that, maybe Samool will spot this post as he is the dev in charge of clients and knows much more about that issue. Also you might need to adjust some of the settings in the game for AMD especially if older.
However, usually it is not quite as bad as dropping to 4 FPS. Can you tell us the model of the laptop and which specific AMD card it has, maybe also the driver dates (older drivers are going to struggle more especially if this is an AMD graphics integrated into the cpu) - it might be I can look up other solutions to running Java/OpenGL games with that hrgraphics adapter. I do believe GForce cards run Wurm a little better, partly because I think NVidia dedicates more attention to driver performance even if the hardware is identical to an AMD version.
Or, you can set the AMD control panel to "Always use the dedicated card," which will use up battery power much faster but also will prevent it from "powering down" to the intel card anytime you want to run Wurm.
If there is no such option, you may need to open the AMD graphics control panel and look under 3D settings for a way to toggle to the AMD card anytime you launch javaws.exe (path file is under the Java install path) because otherwise it won't recognize Wurm as a "game". If you have switchable graphics, see whether you can right-click the Wurm shortcut and tell it to "Run with the AMD gaming card". This would be why such a laptop might run DirectX games just fine, but turn around and struggle with openGL games such as Wurm. In this case the users have told Windows to automatcally install the drivers, and windows used Microsoft made drivers that support DirectX but poorly support OpenGL.
The problem is, some of the drivers won't recognize Wurm as a "game', it thinks it is a normal Java "home/office" app and so switches to low powered intel graphics.Ģ) Another issue is usually with windows laptops and I am not sure this would cause an issue with Debian OS. Most of these problems are fixable.ġ) A very common cause is with people who have laptops with "switchable graphics" - the computer uses intel for generic home/office apps to save battery power, and switches to the dedicated gaming card only when running games. There are a couple reasons why the laptop may run other games just fine, but have issues with Wurm. I just tried Wurm on my laptop that has AMD/ATI and I also only get about 4 FPS.