Geforce 3 Ti200 killed my framerate!!!!

[Mick]

Major disappointment!!

I've got a Visiontek 6564 which is proving to be a considerable D3D disappointment. Here's the situation: I uninstalled my Voodoo3 3000, deleted all Voodoo references in registry, and installed the Ti200; my proc is a Celeron 667 @ 900mhz. My fps in Sports Car GT fell by 25%, from 41 to 31 fps. Other D3D games show a similar decline. I'm using the 21.83 WHQL drivers and DX 8.1. I switched to the latest drivers and there was no change.

(NOTE: my son's box with an i810 chipset, 400 mhz Celeron, 128 mb, and onboard graphics gets 32 fps in SCGT!)

I put the card in my 2nd box with a different mobo, Celeron 500, 256 mb, DX 8.0 and I still get 31 fps.

Next I reformated box #1, installed Win ME, nothing else but the game and I get 31 fps. Only when I reduce all the game settings down to close to wireframe do the fps rise modestly.

Since I have put this card into two entirely different boxes and finally reformated one of the two and get the exact same 31 fps, I don't see how the problem can be my computers. All card settings are on default; I changes a few, but there was no performance change at all. Both boxes are totally up to date, i.e., bios & all drivers.

Surely this thing can hold up against a V3 3000. What gives? Does anyone know anything concrete about the card's performance with different processors?

Thanks,

 

[warriorfan23]

maybe try disabling vsync

 

[Mick]

Hi, thanks. Unfortunately, been there, done that... Messed around with all the settings, installed the GTU (geforce tweaking utility) and tweaked the beegeebers out of it - no change. Not even any change between overclocking the Celeron from 667 to 900.

 

[Actaeon]

I doubt its V-Sync at 31hz. You Could have gotten a bad Card. Thats the only thing I could think of.

 

[BD231]

Dosent the V3 only run 320X320 textures?, that celeron is a horrible proc for gaming and I've found that VooDoo's and Celerons mix really well. I've used a GF2 Ultra with a Celeron and honestly the V3 performd better.

 

[bpt8056]

I would recommend formatting your hard drive. Even though you think you deleted all the Voodoo files in the registry, there's probably a few more laying around. I always do a format on my 1st partition (for Windows and all that registry junk) every time I install a new device.

 

[Rooski]

Check to make sure antialiasing is disabled, as well as anisotropic filtering. I think these may be enabled by default, depending on driver versions.

 

[Tates]

You might Nnvreffix from Speedy3D.com

It fixes the refresh rate bug with the Detonator 4 drivers...

 

[Poke888]

My guess would be that your motherboard is not agp 2.0 compliant(2x-4x) even though the card seems to work agp 1.0(1x-2x) motherboards do not provide enough power to the agp slot to make the gf3 cards work properly... I had a similar problem and I ended up having to upgrade my motherboard.

 

[Strawberrymom]

dont use ME

 

[InterWebGuy]

Same problem with my machine, though CS runs ~20FPS faster in Open GL, It's unplayable in D3D (and I used to be able to get the same FPS in either with my voodoo 3 3k- around 30 FPS).
Could this be IRQ related at all?
Specs:
amd athlon 700mhz socket a
asus a7v
384mb crucial and mushkin ram
SB live value
PNY GF3 ti 200 64MB ddr


Any Ideas?

 

[Dark4ng3l]

Half life was never meant for d3d and Ive always found it verry slow even when i had my voodoo3.....

 

[merlocka]

Have you run any other benchmarks to determine if it's an application specific or API specific problem? If not, run some 1024x768 benchmarks in Quake3 and 3dmark2k1.

Those are both widely used and will allow comparison to many different platforms. This might give some insight to where the problem lies.

Also, perhaps try underclocking the card to determine if the GPU is bad.

 

[BFG10K]

Your card is probably running in PCI mode - make sure your AGP aperture size is at least 128 MB. Also make sure you've completely disabled any onboard video controller you may have.

 

[InterWebGuy]

<< Your card is probably running in PCI mode - make sure your AGP aperture size is at least 128 MB. Also make sure you've completely disabled any onboard video controller you may have. >>



I checked my vid settings and my card does seem to be usng PCI somehow.... at least it seems to be allocating system memory to do so... could you go into a little more detail on this please?

 

[Mick]

Lots of good ideas, unfortunately I've done them all, e.g., reformat, running in agp 4, antialiasing off, etc., etc. There might be something in an article I found at Tom's Hardware; on the one hand he says the card is more important than the cpu, but on the other he says the cpu can be a bottleneck. Hey, you can't have it both ways, can you? Take a look and post your impressions if it makes sense.

It's called 3D Benchmarking - Understanding Frame Rate Scores

http://www4.tomshardware.com/graphic/00q3/000704/index.html

 

[BFG10K]

I checked my vid settings and my card does seem to be usng PCI somehow.... at least it seems to be allocating system memory to do so... could you go into a little more detail on this please?

PCI mode is when the video card stops using the AGP features natively and as you can imagine this causes a severe performance drop, most notably in Direct3D applications.

The first thing to check is dxdiag. Under the video tab there are sections for AGP texturing and AGP acceleration and make sure they're both enabled. If you can't enable them, go into the BIOS and make sure your AGP aperture size is at least 128 MB, that you're booting from AGP and assigning an IRQ to it, and that your onboard video controller is disabled if you have one. Also check your device manager and make sure that your other devices aren't sharing your video card's IRQ.

 

[optimistic]

You've tried different drivers?

 

[NEWKILLA]

i think your cpu deficiency might be rearing its ugly head,

i went from a celly-voodoo combo--to a p3 16 meg--up went the fps

then to a 1.4 tbird running @1.6 with gf2-gts and im getting almost 100fps across the boards

did you try putting the v-3 back in to see what happens???

jus my 2 cents
KILLLLLLAAAAAA

 

[JServ]

Yeah, definately change drivers. I just installed Unreal Tournament. At first I was only getting 15 fps, but they i installed a 12.xx version of the gefore drivers, and now i get 70+ fps. I'm not sure what the difference is between the two is though.

 

[InterWebGuy]

Futz.
Checked dxdiag, bios, et. al.- all according to spec.... Is it possible my CPU is just to *whispers* girly to handle any more?
It really seems as though I should be maxing out any Q2 engine game with my specs, but what other explaination is there? Drivers? Tried the latest one I could find... I'll look agian, but is it possible that the card works better with PNY drivers instead?

 

[Poke888]

What kind of Motherboard are you using??? is it newer than mid 2000????

 

[Stevem627]

You might have a bad install of the drivers. Make sure you remove everything. Check all registry and all files for removal. Do a clean boot and make sure you only have 1 card showing. Old drivers casue the issues you are having.

Also, if you motherboard is too old you might have issues with the new AGP 2.0 standard since it requires more voltage. Not sure about that but it is a possible problem.

 

[InterWebGuy]

Fixed it (more or less)- It suddenly dawned on me that I should use the newest 4 in 1 drivers... FPS is substantially better; not perfect, but much better. Of course, the 4 in 1 package went ahead and installed the routing drivers and such, and I had a brief flirtation with frequent instabillity
After all was said and done, my system runs reasonably fast (I sometimes get momentary 'pauses' in UT based games for no reason), and is quite stable *crosses fingers*
Thanks for all your suggestions guys!
...and if anyone has any thought about that unreal tourney thing..... Heh