7500 at the most on 3dmark 2001se?

[rossco]

I know this is another one of those boring complaints posts. But this is soooo low. Does it sound right to people. I am not on the pc right now and my home pc is not online so i cant check on the 3dmark website.

I have an athlon 1Ghz Athlon, with 512 meg ram running win 98, a gainward gs 4400.

Using 3dmark 2001se i only get around 7500. I get a bit more if i overclock the card. I was worried it was a bit low but after checking on some other forums i was told my cpu was holding the card back. I dont know if this is true of not. I have read about cpu scaling and such like. Does it sound low to you guys.
I cant o/c my cpu as it would mean manually (with a stanley knife or a drimmel) breaking the multiplier as it seems the only way to do. L1 trick doesnt seem to work.

 

[AnAndAustin]

Well a 1ghz Athlon is getting a bit long in the tooth and you won't get much at all out of any GF4TI that you can't get out of a GF3 or Rad8500/9000. Your gaming perf will soar with an AthlonXP1800+ or higher which now cost very little. It is most likely the mobo which can't offer multiplier adjustment that's preventing the L1 trick, you should still get some luck out of o/c'ing the FSB although you'll need to check a few BIOS settings and your RAM to ensure they are not the limiting factors. Even so 1.2ghz will surely be about as good as you'll get, and would still significantly limit any GF4TI.

Here's some CPU scaling articles:

AnAndTech many gfx cards, many CPU speeds & many games
AnAndTech many gfx cards, many CPU speeds UT2003

 

[rossco]

Thanks for getting back. I will peruse those articles. I think i might have read one before.

Maybe i will upgrade. I think you are right my multiplier is looked on the cpu and i have no option to change the fsb.

Its just i am off travelling next year for six months and any upgrade would almost be obselete by the time i get back. So do i get a cheaper xp like the 1800 you suggested or struggle through until i can get a spangly p4 3gig or a nice amd hammer processor.

hmm decisions. So you think the cpu is limiting the gpu.

Hve you any ideas of a list of bios commands just to make sure i have them set correctly. i am on 4x agp and 128 meg apeture size. Its the rest i am not sure off.

 

[Deeko]

So tell my slugger, whats your UT2K3 frame rate? How about Q3? Have you tried any games yet? If they aren't low, it ain't a problem.

btw your cpu sucks. get a faster one.

 

[AnAndAustin]

Your CPU is killing your gfx card, you'd get almost identical perf running a GF3, Rad8500 or Rad9000PRO. Your BIOS settings seem fine, it would only be worth going through them if your mobo allowed FSB or multiplier adjustment, since it doesn't it doesn't really matter.

As you rightly say anything you get now will be largely pointless by the time you get back to your PC, so you might as well just enable 2xAA, lots of Aniso and up the res in order to soak up the untapped gfx card power. It's still a nice config and capable of very nice perf in many games, just a bit wasteful for a GF4TI4400.

 

[rossco]

Thanks again for the replies.

Looks like i will have to wait until next year and get an uber rig when doom 3 comes out.

"whats your UT2K3 frame rate? "

Havent played it yet and due to living abroad (in gibraltar) i have no internet access so i am not likely to soon. They have just got broadband here but want £59.99 a month. ouch!

"How about Q3? " see above. Not touched it due to no online access. But i think Jedi knight 2 used the engine. With all full settings i think between 40-50, which aint to bad admintedly.

I think the best thing to do is as suggested. Grin and bear it and "soak" up the extra power with aa and af.