Bad 3dmark2001 Score

[hermpete]

Yesterday I built a computer (my first from scratch), and everything seemed to be going just peachy, until today. To test out the computer, I used 3dmark2001, but was very disappointed. Here are the specs of my computer:

Windows 2000 professional NTFS filesystem
Western Digital 30gig 7200rpm HD
MSI Starforce 831 Geforce 2 Pro
3com 10/100 Mbps Nic
Philips 8x4x32x burner
Generic 24x CDROM
Generic Floppy Drive
Epox 8k7a mainboard
Crucial 256mb pc2100 ddr memory
Amd Thunderbird 1.2 ghz processor (with the hs/fan that came with retail processor)
Enlight 7237 Case w/ one fan in front

My score on 3dmark2001 was 1828. Shouldn't I be expecting a higher score with this computer? Could the problem be with the filesystem that I chose (NTFS instead of FAT)?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Abel007]

Try using Win98 or WinME if you want to do benchmarking. Your score will greatly improve.

 

[Barrak]

Do you have the newest VIA and AMD Drivers for your motherboard? Do you run the 12.9 drivers for your vid card? Do you have SP2 for Win2k (not sure if this one matters).

I have almost the exact setup you have and I score 3600.

 

[hermpete]

Thanks for your help, it worked!
I installed the amd minport drivers from the epox cd, and my score improved to 3312!
And yes, I do have sp2.

Now, do you think that if I update my video card drivers to the Nvidia Detonator 3 Drivers, I will get any improvement in speed, or should I just stick with what I have now (the drivers on the msi cd)?

 

[Barrak]

I think the 12.9 detonators are better, give them a try, you can always revert back to the old ones.

 

[pac1085]

Get the 12.90 BETA drivers from www.3dchipset.com, lots of people have been running them and they are rock solid and improve your 3dmark scores by alot. The drivers on your MSI CD are probobly the 6.xx series which are really old.

 

[johneetrash]

via 4in1s... ?

 

[hermpete]

Ay caramba! After updating to 12.90, I have a 3dmark score of 3734!

Now, the only problem that I have is that some tests didn't work quite right.
"Game 4 - Nature", "Environment Bump Mapping", and "Pixel Shader Speed" did not work because of my hardware. Are they supposed to work? Are my other drivers not up-to-date enough to have these work?

 

[dowxp]

those are GF3 thingies i think.

 

[pac1085]

I know for a fact that environmental bumpmapping isnt on the GF2, it was origionally on G400 cards and ATI put it on their Radeon but its not on the GF2. Pixel shader is for the GF3 I think...thats a nice score for your setup btw.

 

[hermpete]

And, in case anyone wanted to know, I updated the miniport driver to the one on amd website, and my score showed a slight increase to 3752. I had originally been using the driver from the epox cd.