3DMark03 score off?

[blacktankofhopelessness]

Hi,

Just got my 9800 Pro card in the mail and immediately started running benches and doing mild OC's. I carefully uninstalled my old Ti4200 drivers and then switched cards. Then I installed the Catalyst 4.9 driver and the new Control center.
With this setup I scored a modest 2725 in 3DMark03 with core and mem at stock (380/680). I OC'd to 405/720 and scored 2882. I haven't checked whether I have the 350 or 360 core so I'm being careful with the OC bit for now. I am aware that my CPU is limiting my scores quite a bit, but shouldn't I get higher scores still? With my old Ti4200 I scored 1504 running the same bench.

Setup:
ASUS A7V8X
AMD Athlon XP "Palomino" 2000+ (at stock)
512MB RAM PC2700 Samsung
Windows XP Pro
Sapphire "Atlantis" Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB RAM
(Old card: GeForce 4 Ti4200 128MB RAM)

Btw, how conservative do I need to be OC with AtiTool 0.0.22? Is it safe to do the max core/mem test with the original hsf and passive mem-cooling?

 

[Algere]

Install motherboard drivers?

 

[blacktankofhopelessness]

Sorry? I'm not quite following you there... Do you mean I should reinstall my mobo-drivers altogether?

 

[PrayForDeath]

Check your AA/AF settings in the Control Center and set them to "Application Prefrence".
Did you use Driver Cleaner in safe mode when uninstalling/installing the drivers?
3DMark 2k3 is more a GPU than CPU dependant, I scored 4800 on my old crappy 2Ghz Celeron with my current card, and now I score 5500 with my 2800+ Barton, so you should get atleast 4500 with your setup.
And yes, Algere meant you should reinstall your mobo drivers again.

edit: OMG, I just noticed you got the Atlantis 128bit Pro, I don't know about this card's 3DMark score, you could check the futuremark website to see other people's scores on this card.

 

[Gurck]

The 128bit pro is a lot slower than the real pro, but still should give far better scores than the ~2800 you're seeing. I'm guessing 4500-5k stock...?

 

[cubanx]

Originally posted by: blacktankofhopelessness
Sorry? I'm not quite following you there... Do you mean I should reinstall my mobo-drivers altogether?

Your motherboard is most likely using a VIA chipset with the wrong drivers loaded which explains your low score.

Download and install the lastest Via 4in 1 Hyperion drivers.
http://www.viaarena.com/Default.aspx?PageID=2

 

[iversonyin]

Originally posted by: PrayForDeath


edit: OMG, I just noticed you got the Atlantis 128bit Pro, I don't know about this card's 3DMark score, you could check the futuremark website to see other people's scores on this card.

how u know he got the crippple 128-bit?

 

[oldman420]

that card is 256 bit and yes those scores are low.
If you run mbm 5 or fraps these will kill video bandwidth.
Is the video smooth and not choppy and did you correctly set the agp aperture in bios?

 

[gururu]

yea, way off. the control center by default I believe adds AA. just unclick the box and shut off AF as well.

 

[Nikamichi]

Somewhat related - does anyone know if upgrading the motherboard's bios would make a difference in 3DMark/or have an overall impact in gaming performance?

 

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: Nikamichi
Somewhat related - does anyone know if upgrading the motherboard's bios would make a difference in 3DMark/or have an overall impact in gaming performance?

Doubtful, and flashing the bios should generally be reserved for problems for which it's known that flashing it will fix.

 

[Nikamichi]

Originally posted by: Gurck

Originally posted by: Nikamichi
Somewhat related - does anyone know if upgrading the motherboard's bios would make a difference in 3DMark/or have an overall impact in gaming performance?

Doubtful, and flashing the bios should generally be reserved for problems for which it's known that flashing it will fix.

Ah, that's what I figured. Just trying to find every possible tweak as I'm a bit disappointed w/my 3DMark score.

 

[blacktankofhopelessness]

Thanks everyone for your valuable pointers!

Just for the record, the Atlantis is a 256bit card...

I'm installing the Via Hyperion drivers right after this post and then reinstalling the Catalyst 4.9 drivers. Will get back to you on my scores.

 

[blacktankofhopelessness]

Ok, here's what I got:

1. I set the graphics aperture to 128MB in BIOS.
2. I set AGP to 8x instead of "auto".
3. Installed VIA Hyperion 4 in 1 driver.
4. Installed Catalyst 4.9.
5. OC my 9800 Pro to a moderate 405/360 in Ati Tool.

Ran 3DMark03, GPU tests only.

Scored: 5610

Thanks! And a special kudos to cubanx who recommended the VIA Hyperion driver! Oh, and thanks to everyone telling me about setting AA/AF to auto.

 

[blacktankofhopelessness]

Whohoo! OC'ed my card to 425 core and 750 (375*2) memory.

Score: 5833

 

[caz67]

Thats a better score, around 6K is a good score for a 128M card.

 

[Delorian]

That sounds just right, bet it was the MB driver reinstall that did it.