Cruddy Performance in Q3 with my GEforce 3 and 1gig T-bird, helllp

[erikiksaz]

well, i thought it might be an irq problem, since the video and sound were stuck on irq 11. i've resolved that, my my fps are still suck.

 

[VBboy]

You rich boys deserve to have computer problems GeForce3, look at him!

just kidding, sorry

 

[Wingznut]

What's the result of 3dmark2001, with the default benchmark?

 

[erikiksaz]

hah, well... umm, ok, i have no comeback for that one. well anyways, this is majorly sucking. i've tried everything under the bloody sun. the only thing left to do now is to format c:

 

[soulm4tter]

Try increasing your FSB to say 110x9=990 and tweaking the memory settings as much as possible. Can you run the memory at 145mhz CAS2?

Win2k isn't any slower than Win98 with the GeForce3 is it?

I don't think you should be capped at 80 with that setup. Try running a timedemo at the lowest possible settings and see if it gets much higher. I don't think its a video card/driver problem, but i'm still using 6.31 drivers.

 

[Wingznut]

I know you think it's sucking. But it may not be. This is one of the problems with benchmarks.

You can be perfectly happy with your system, and then run a benchmark and all of a sudden the same system is a POS.

 

[erikiksaz]

i've tried running at the lowest setting. all combinations with and without 4xFSAA give me the same results.

 

[erikiksaz]

hah wingz, that's not the case here. i used to play ra3 with my geforce 2 gts. i would get about 125fps stable. that's not the case with my geforce 3. i get dips below 70, and my fps run at around 100 now. so something is definately wrong. i don't care about losing a few fps here and there. BUT when i shell out this much cash for a video card, i better darn well see a BIG improvement.

 

[erikiksaz]

could it be that i have a fubared geforce 3? one strange thing i noticed is that when you first hit the power button on your comp, it usually says "Geforce X has XX amount of ram." with the geforce 3, i don't get any of that. i've basically had that screen ever since the riva128 days.

 

[Sleater]

Since no one has asked, and you haven't mentioned, are you running DirectX 8a?

I understand the gforce3 is optimized for DirectX8.

If so, re-install it. There may be something glitchy there

 

[Remnant2]

Install SiSoft sandra, and check to see if your other performance meters (CPU,memory bandwidth, etc) are where they should be. This can help make sure that the problem is in the vid card or the drivers.

If all else fails and you still can't get it working right, a clean install of windows followed by the VIA 4-in-1, and then your vid card drivers, might do the trick, but windows re-installs are such a pain in the ass that I hesitate to recommend doing so.



edit: One last thing. I've heard (although I haven't used one myself) that the Aureal cards (MX300) take quite a bit of CPU time. You could try pulling your soundcard temporarily and seeing if that brings your numbers up to where Anand's are.

 

[erikiksaz]

thanks for that suggestion remnant2, i'll try it out. wohoo, i believe i'm a golden member now. pity that i'm becoming a diamond member while speaking about my geforce 3 problems.

 

[Wingznut]

I don't think it's a GF3 problem. Because at the low resolutions, the video card is not the bottleneck. In that AnandTech review that you referenced, notice how the video cards are all very close at 640x480? And then they start to spread out as the resolution gets higher.

 

[erikiksaz]

WAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTT, i might have figured out my problem. i did not know that there were different Direct x 8 versions for win98 and win2k. i had the ones for 98 installed on my 2k rig. so i downloaded the 2k version, and behold, my fps went up. still, they dont really match the ones with anandtech, but they're within 10-20 fps at least. so thank you EVERYONE for all your help. any other tips would still be welcome. hmm, i'm starting to *really* like win2k now...

 

[erikiksaz]

does anyone know if anandtech benches with sound off AND all the game options set to no in q3?

 

[Raincity]

This what the Anand posted last summer when this question was adressed here. Forum link

Rain