disgusting 3dmark score

[henmaster]

Here's my system:

Abit BF6
Celeron 500@550
192MB RAM
IBM 75GXP 45GB HDD (DMA enabled)
Jaton GF2MX
Diamond Monster Sound MX300
Sohoware NIC
Cable modem

I ran 3dmark 2001 under windows 98 first edition, with direct X 8.0a installed. I ended up with a measley 848 3dmarks! This is 640x480x32 with no antialiasing (disabled in the video drivers). I get the same score at 1024x768x32. Something is very wrong here. The first time I ran it I was using default windows 98 drivers for the motherboard components, but after receiving such a bad score I figured I would install the drivers from the BF6 CD but that didn't help at all. In fact I think it may even have degraded my sound quality. Come to think of it, Madden NFL 2001 and Project IGI, which both use D3D, are also very choppy. In Q3A I get 50 fps in 1024x768x32, with lighmap and all visuals all the way up, which also seems a bit low, but not as abomonable as the D3D performance.

In scouring newsgroups I came accross a bunch of people with low 3dmark scores and VIA boards, and it turned out they didn't install the VIA AGP drivers. Is there such a driver for the 440 BX, and if so, how can I tell if it has been installed correctly? I tried both the drivers that came with my vid card and the latest detonators... no luck. Oh yeah one more thing, my GF2 MX is running stock right now, but the RAM absolutely refuses to overclock past 175 mhz. This seems VERY unusual for a GF2 MX, everybody seems to be able to get at least 200mhz. My screen gets all fuzzy if I push the ram to 175mhz or above, using powerstrip or the coolbits slider. I dont know if this is related or not, but it cant hurt to give all the info. please someone help, Im outta ideas here...

 

[Adul]

it would be helpful to be able to compare your system to one likes yours to get an idea of where you should be at. the 3dmark2001 scores are a lot lower then the 2000 version. It is a much more intensive program. Being you are running a celeron with a relatively low bus speed, and memory speed, I would say that your cpu and memory is the bottle neck. What is your 3dmark200 scores like?

 

[henmaster]

I haven't run 3dmark 2000, but I checked out the online database for 2001 and there are a bunch of people with celerons 500-550 and GF2MX cards getting double what I'm getting. Puzzling... I might just reformat and see where that takes me.

 

[henmaster]

Interestingly, i just ran 3dmark 2001 under win 2k and got 1020. I dont get it, win98 is supposed to be superior for gaming. Odd, very odd, but Im happy Im getting a better score now.

 

[skace]

"win98 is supposed to be superior for gaming."

Thats what many believe, but it isn't completely true. It has been known for quite some time that nVidia's drivers are geared towards Win2K and work better in that OS.

 

[anime]

is your mobo using any via chipsets? if it does-well you can search the forum about this problems--it's been discussed zillions of times. you will need 4 in 1 driver installed.
If it's an intel chipset--there should be no probs whatsoever.

 

[DukeForever]

Look in the 3DMark2001 system info and make sure it recognizes your system correctly. It only saw 32k of my L1 cache, not 128k. I couldn't change this and it gave me terrible 3DMarks.

 

[henmaster]

Thanks for the replies, my motherboard uses the 440BX chipset so drivers shouldn't be a problem. And from what I can see 3dmark sees all my hardware correctly. Is 3dmark 2001 known to be memory intensive? Im going to try to get access to another 128MB RAM to see if that helps.

 

[Doctorweir]

3DM2K1 is hell of a benchmark for old systems...my BF6-Rig (Celly2@850 and Voodoo3) gets only a mere 1300 or so...
Just wondering, 'cos the MX must be far better...perhaps your processor-clock is too low to satisfy it...