How can I make my 3DMark 2001 score higher??

[bfletcher24]

I am only getting scores of 6300-6400. From what I have heard and read, my scores should be up in the low 7000's. I don't have my Ti500 or my CPU overclocked, I have the XP refresh rate fix, and I have all the XP updates from Windows Update.

What's kinda strange is that my scores in 3DMark 2001 are actually lower by about 100 points when I run games using the refresh rate fix (nvreffix). That doesn't sound right to me.

How can I get my 3DMark 2001 score higher? Does it have to do with XP tweaks, or just CPU and video card tweaks?

Oh yeah - and I always run 3DMark at 1024x768x32.

Here are my Specs -

Athlon T-Bird 1.4 ghz / 266fsb
512 MB PC2100 Mushkin DDR RAM
Leadtek Winfast Titanium Ti500
SB Live! MP3
Plextor 24/40/10 CD-RW
Pioneer 16x SL DVD-ROM
Maxtor 7200 RPM Diamondmax HD
Netgear FA311 NIC
Creative 56k modem (for when cable goes out ;-))

 

[bfletcher24]

One thing I forgot to mention - my friend has almost identical specs to mine, except he has 1024 mb of PC2100 Mushkin DDR, an Athlon XP 1.4, and a PNY Ti500, and he got 7396 on 3DMark 2001.

Judging by those scores, are my scores pretty much at what they should be? His CPU is a little faster, and he has twice the memory, but our Ti500's are virtually identical.

Anyone? This is killing me!

 

[ikar0s]

If all you want are bragging rights, you can use NVMax to tweak out some settings that will jack your score up.

Make sure Fast-Writes, Side Band Addressing, and AGP 4X are all enabled.

Disable Bilinear or Trinlinear Filtering.

Enable Fog Table Emulation

Enable User MipMaps, and set the Direct3D LOD Bias to its highest setting.

Make sure V-Sync is off.

If you want to try some very mild overclocking, unlock your T-Bird, drop the multiplier to 10, and increase the FSB to 140MHz. Make sure all your RAM timings are as fast as possible.

You can probably overclock the Ti500 too, but it's up to you.

 

[bfletcher24]

Thanks man! I will try those settings out when I get home from work

Oh wait - another thing - how much can I overclock the Ti500? I have the stock HSF on, so I can't go too crazy.

 

[ikar0s]

The stock heatsink on that card is beast-like, so a conservative 250 core/550 memory shouldn't be a problem (assuming you have a decent case with decent airflow).

BTW, those NVMax settings I mentioned above will make 3DMark2k1 look like utter crap, but hey, your score should be noticeably higher.

 

[erikiksaz]

just wondering though, why do you really care about the benchmark? as long as your games run fine, what matters?

 

[ikar0s]

<< just wondering though, why do you really care about the benchmark? as long as your games run fine, what matters? >>



You have stumbled into...the twilight zone...

A place where techies increase their FSBs and lower their RAM timings to juice every last ounce of memory bandwidth...
Where people upgrade from their 16x CD-RWs to newer 24x ones, so they can cut a minute off their burn times...
Where people buy an Athlon MP to run MS Word, and people overclock their GF3s so Q3A will break 230FPS at 640x480...

 

[erikiksaz]

I don't know, i think there's a big difference between tweaking your system for a game, or an app that you run, compared to tweaking it solely for a benchmark.