3DMark2000 and my T-Bird 800; which benchmark do you prefer???

blurredvisionx

Senior member
Oct 5, 2000
312
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0
I've downloaded and ran the 3DMark2000 program, and got what I thought to be good results, an 1877. I ran the default benchmark, with hardware accelerated T&L with my 32MB GeForceMX. I then compared this to other ppl's average results, only to find that I my system was 3 to 4 times slower than others with the same setup. I only have 96MB of RAM, WinME, and a T-Bird 800 with KT7-RAID. Not a shabby setup. I tried everything to get this thing to run. As I went through the stats comparisons, I noticed that it was my CPU scores that were so low, and everything dealing with the GeForce were fine. It listed my T-Bird800 as in the same class with a K6-2 400!!! This is obviously not right, especially with WCPUID saying it was running fine, as well as my BIOS was set up correctly. I ran this benchmark on my brother's computer, an Athlon "classic" 850, 128MBRAM, and a TNT Vanta. He scored a 1782, right below me. I compared the CPU Test scores, and his 850 classic outscored mine by over double!!! This cannot be right. I changed the test to utilize just the Athlon, and not the hardware T&L. This alone brought my 3DMark scores from 1877 to 3060. Strange, huh? But the weird thing is, is that my CPU scores still are still around the same mark. My computer runs fine throughout, and nothing is wrong. The fill rates and everything are excellent. Could this be a problem with drivers??? Or the operating system??? Would a clean format and reinstall fix this problem???
 

BlvdKing

Golden Member
Jun 7, 2000
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Go to 'Display and CPU settings' and under 'CPU optimization' change from D3D hardware T&L to AMD Athlon. This should give you a few hundred extra points. Have you loaded the new 6.31 drivers? They gave me an extra 200 points. I have the same setup: TBird 800 (114*7) with a Hercules Prophet 2 MX 210m/200c. I have 192mb of RAM though. I got 4110 points.
EDIT: I didn't read far enough. I use Win2K - you would get a better score with the newest DET 3's.
 

blurredvisionx

Senior member
Oct 5, 2000
312
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0
I actually downloaded the newest 631 drivers this morning. Of course, this gave me some better scores, but not anything drastic. I've tried the orginal manufacturer drivers, the 618 drivers, and 631 drivers, tried turning AGP4x on and off, even tried toggling fast writes on and off. Nothing seems to work.
 

Adul

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
32,999
44
91
danny.tangtam.com
#D mark is a buggy ass program. Don't worry about it to much.

BTW at home
celeron533@800 tnt2u 3200 Marks under win2k and winme
duron650@850 v3 3000 3102 3dmarks. under win me

 

formulav8

Diamond Member
Sep 18, 2000
7,004
522
126
Yeah i don't store well with them either for some reason. I don't go by that benchmark.
 

blurredvisionx

Senior member
Oct 5, 2000
312
0
0
Which benchmarks do you guys suggest I do to get some real world results??? I'm in the process of downloading WinBench2000 and will probaly get FinalReality.
 

RayEarth

Senior member
Apr 15, 2000
862
0
0
that sure is a low score, the highest score I ever got on my tnt2 ultra was 3595, the adverage is 3543, but i have 256mb pc133, win98se & PIII 933, the amount of ram, the drivers, your os & cpu speed affect your score, I remember getting a score of 3474, which was my lowest score when I tried the 6.31 D3, going back to the 3.79 raised my score back, & running winme lowered my score as well, so i went back to win98 since there's no real benefit for me using winme yet.
 

billyjak

Platinum Member
Oct 9, 1999
2,869
1
81
I just downloaded the 631 drivers and got 7157 3 D Marks, broke the 7000 mark with the new drivers
Athlon 1 Gig
Hercules 32meg GF2
196 pc 150 ram
Abit KT7 Raid
Soundblaster Live X-Gamer
56x CDRom
Supermicro 750a Tower w/Antec power supply, had problemms with the sparckle
 

Deeko

Lifer
Jun 16, 2000
30,213
11
81
What do you get in games? That's what matters. 3DMark is just the worst.
 

AMB

Platinum Member
Feb 4, 2000
2,587
0
0
I get around 5000 3D marks, I do not think that 3d mark is good for benchmarking, it is good in the terms for testing stability, but that is all.

I do think that Performance Test 3 is a good programs, althought unknown to many people, also, Prime 95 for stability.

Something like Quake III running Quaver is good for testing Open Gl, do not know about Direct 3d though
 

Davros

Member
Dec 6, 1999
55
0
0
It sounds like you don't have the VIA AGP driver installed on your system. Other people with KT133 based boards have recieved scores like that on 3DMark without that driver. Check out VIA's website and look for the most recent file (it should be part of the 4-in-1 package).
 

X14

Senior member
Aug 17, 2000
360
0
0
Nothing is wrong w/ your computer. One more time, Nothing is wrong with your computer. There is a compatibility issue with 3DMark and WinME.

If sure you don't notice any significant difference in frame rates between WinME and Win98, only when you run 3DMark.

I guaranty you that if you re-load Win98, you 3DMarks will soar again.
 

Heretik

Senior member
Jan 12, 2000
931
0
0
I get 4711 with mine running ME. I don't use 3DMark so much as to measure the performance as I do to test the stability when tweaking my system out....

Athlon 750 "classic"
Asus K7V w/BIOS rev 1.07
Crucial 256MB PC133 RAM
Asus v6800 Pure (GeForce DDR)
WindowsME

 

jpprod

Platinum Member
Nov 18, 1999
2,373
0
0
3Dmark2000 is rather picky, but it's no reason to disregard it as a benchmark. Bottom line is that if you score that low, there's something wrong in your system, and D3D performance in T&L-utilizing games won't be as good as it should be. Here's a checklist for you to go trough:

1. Check that you have VIA 4-in-1 drivers installed. Latest AGP miniport drivers are essential to good AGP troughput performamnce.
2. Install latest DirectX7 (version is 7.1a or something?), if you haven't already. Other incompatible DirectX components could be the source of the sluggishness, if you're using DX8 betas for example.
3. Go to BIOS and see that your L2 cache is enabled, and that your memory is set to run at PC133 speed.

3Dmark2000's CPUmark tests system's geometry and world simulation troughput performance - thus it depends not only from your CPU, but also greatly from the video card.