How can I increase my 3dMark score?

[jakobkraft]

I have a Sony VAIO P4, 768MB SDRAM, 60Gig Maxtor HD, ASUS PB-4LX mobo, Fortissimmo II sound card, Pioneer DVD, GeForce 3 Ti 500. Although my game performance is very good, I can't help wondering why my 3d Mark scores are so much lower than everyone else's? I get a max of 6600 in 3d Mark 2000 and 6450 in 3d Mark 2001. I know overclocking is supposed to make a difference but I really don't like compromising the stability of my system - is that the reason why people with similar system specs are scoring around 8000 or 9000? I don't mind having lower scores due to not overclocking, but I wanted to see if maybe it was something else? Any suggestions?
Thanks.

 

[kadajawi]

You forgot mentioning the CPU speed. Anyway, well, 3DMark scores aren't that important, are they? But I'm wondering why your 3DMark2001 score is close to your 3DMark2000 score... for my system the 2000er score is 5-6 times higher than the 2001 score. Your 3DMark2000 score is definately a bit low... have seen faster Athlon systems AFAIK... before 2001 was released. And I have doubts if 1 gig AMDs together with an GF2 is so much faster than a 1.? gig P4 with a GF3... Do you have any programs running in the background? Which operating system?

 

[jakobkraft]

My OS is XP. Sorry I forgot mentioning my CPU speed - 1.5. Oh and you're right about 3dMark 2001 being a lot lower than 2000 normally. The actual test score with defaulted settings in 2001 is 6000. I forgot I had a custom one set at 640 x 480 that I kept running, whereas the 3D Mark 2000 score is with the default 1024x768 resolution. I know the test scores aren't that important; I was only curious as to why so many others have scored so much higher...

 

[tornadobox]

unfortunately CPU speed plays a BIG role in the 3Dmark scores...also, your P4 coupled with SDRAM is really killing your bandwidth, so that might be one of your major problems right there.

 

[gdawson6]

Ya I would say it has to be you sdram. Rambus probably would make a considerable difference...

 

[tornadobox]

<< Ya I would say it has to be you sdram. Rambus probably would make a considerable difference... >>


Even DDR would make a big difference.

 

[jakobkraft]

IS IT HARD TO SWITCH OVER TO rAMBUS? DO I NEED A NEW MOTHERBOARD?

 

[tornadobox]

yes you'd need a new motherboard (and RDRAM of course)

 

[FluxCapacitor]

Make sure you don't have antialiasing turned on.

Try using the newest drivers from nvidia's website.

Try overclocking your video card a little bit using NVMax or Coolbits.

Increase your motherboards FSB (Front Side Bus) a bit.

Disable all programs running in the background, like anti-virus, instant messenger, etc, that you can.

 

[RSMemphis]

He already has a Ti-500, so the videocard is not the bottleneck. The CPU is.
Unfortunately, I have to say, an RD-RAM Pentium IV system and a Ti-200 would have been the better choice than the other way around.

 

[CdnMade]

Well I have to agree that driver updates would help alot also do all the M$ updates also they do help i get scores of 7258 or hightr with my system and you should get around 7000 atleast. try updates and see. Post the results after updating

 

[FluxCapacitor]

<< He already has a Ti-500, so the videocard is not the bottleneck. The CPU is. >>



I agree that a faster CPU and RAM will increase his speed, but I'm just trying to give him options that don't involve buying any new parts. Even though his CPU/RAM are the bottleneck, overclocking them slightly will still improve his score.

SDRAM and a P4 aren't going to give you top of the line performance jakobkraft, no matter how much RAM you have. A P4 1.5GHz system with RDRAM is going to easily outscore you on 3d Mark, which is probably where the scores you're comparing your system to came from. It's like comparing a sports car to an economy car.

You still should try the suggestions I gave you if you want to increase your score some... or at least experiment.

 

[Amused]

<< Make sure you don't have antialiasing turned on.

Try using the newest drivers from nvidia's website.

Try overclocking your video card a little bit using NVMax or Coolbits.

Increase your motherboards FSB (Front Side Bus) a bit.

Disable all programs running in the background, like anti-virus, instant messenger, etc, that you can. >>



All good suggestions. Let me add a few more:

Even though 3DMark says Anti-aliasing is turned off in the default test, if you have it on in video properties, it HURTS your score. So make sure it's "off."

In D3D properties, set the Mipmapping level to "Best Performance." This gains me 100+ points on my score.

Do NOT have 3DMark2001 skip the title screens between tests. Doing so costs me about 800 points. I know, you'd think it wouldn't have an effect, but it does.

DO look up on the net on how to do the "Coolbits" registry tweak. This allows you to use nVidias drivers to over clock your card, instead of a third party utility.

And everyone here is right. Your score is being held back by your lack of memory bandwidth. Using SDRAM with a P4 is like buying a race horse and cutting off it's legs at the knees. However, changing to RDRAM will more than likely require a new case, because you'll need a new motherboard and Sony uses proprietary parts.

If this is a new computer, don't bother. Enjoy it for now and worry about it when it starts lagging on games you want to play. There's no reason to throw this computer away.

BUT, if you're going to upgrade to RDRAM, I suggest building a new computer, and leaving the Sony alone, or parting it out to fill your new computer, i.e., use the video, sound card, drives, etc...

 

[Texmaster]

<<

<< Make sure you don't have antialiasing turned on.

Try using the newest drivers from nvidia's website.

Try overclocking your video card a little bit using NVMax or Coolbits.

Increase your motherboards FSB (Front Side Bus) a bit.

Disable all programs running in the background, like anti-virus, instant messenger, etc, that you can. >>



All good suggestions. Let me add a few more:

Even though 3DMark says Anti-aliasing is turned off in the default test, if you have it on in video properties, it HURTS your score. So make sure it's "off."

In D3D properties, set the Mipmapping level to "Best Performance." This gains me 100+ points on my score.

Do NOT have 3DMark2001 skip the title screens between tests. Doing so costs me about 800 points. I know, you'd think it wouldn't have an effect, but it does.

DO look up on the net on how to do the "Coolbits" registry tweak. This allows you to use nVidias drivers to over clock your card, instead of a third party utility.

And everyone here is right. Your score is being held back by your lack of memory bandwidth. Using SDRAM with a P4 is like buying a race horse and cutting off it's legs at the knees. However, changing to RDRAM will more than likely require a new case, because you'll need a new motherboard and Sony uses proprietary parts.

If this is a new computer, don't bother. Enjoy it for now and worry about it when it starts lagging on games you want to play. There's no reason to throw this computer away.

So, if you're going to upgrade to RDRAM, I suggest building a new computer, and leaving the Sony alone, or parting it out to fill your new computer, i.e., use the video, sound card, drives, etc... >>




Amused is the MAN at 3dmark Listen to him

 

[jakobkraft]

D3D settings were not at best performance and I did have the switching screens in 3dMark 2001 disabled, in fact. I now score roughly 7150 and I must say I'm totally happy with that. Maybe SDRAM is an outmoded choice, but since I have no other complaints whatsoever, I'll stick with it. Thanks to all for your suggestions and to Amused One, for hitting it on the nose.

And I'm thrilled to have made the man at 3dMark laugh.

 

[Maggotry]

I went from a SDRAM mobo to a DDR mobo a few months ago on Grendel (see sig). All other hardware stayed the same. My 2001 score went up over 400 points.

 

[Mavrick007]

You might want to look at trying different drivers for your video card as well since different ones have different effects for other people.
IE. some make some people's 3dMark scores higher, some are unstable, etc.

 

[Jen]

also consider looking for powerstrip for overclocking your geforce card.........as others stated before me consider a new board and memory

 

[jonmcc33]

I know overclocking is supposed to make a difference but I really don't like compromising the stability of my system - is that the reason why people with similar system specs are scoring around 8000 or 9000?

You need a real high end CPU (AMD Athlon XP) and a Radeon 8500 to get 8000-9000. You didn't list your CPU.

To give you an idea, my 1GHz AMD Thunderbird AXIA is overclocked to 1.4GHz, and I have a GeForce3 Ti 200 overclocked to 225MHz core and 535MHz memory and top score is 6871. That's a real damn good score because at default clock speeds I was getting around 5500.

Sorry I forgot mentioning my CPU speed - 1.5.

1.5 P4? Then your score is about average for your system.

 

[Rob9874]

<< He already has a Ti-500, so the videocard is not the bottleneck. The CPU is.
Unfortunately, I have to say, an RD-RAM Pentium IV system and a Ti-200 would have been the better choice than the other way around. >>



I'm not so sure. I have a Dell P4 2.0 GHz with a GF3 Ti200 and 384 MB RDRAM, and I'm getting similar scores to him.