Is this what's KILLING my video performance? (AGP Bus)

[LS20]

well, i get really disappointing scores in 3dmark2001SE with two different video cards--MX200 and GF2 GTS-V DDR.

my latest setup is with the GTS-V and the scores fall 800 points of where they should be. (3400 vs. average of 4200)


k7s5a - xp1700 - 256ddr cas2 - 20gb 7200rpm uata100 - 32mb gts-v ddr


Well, I tried Sandra benchmark to see if the rest of my system was running slow also and I discovered something about the AGP Bus:
-Side Band is supported but DISABLED
-Fast-Writes is DISABLED


is this supposed to be enabled by default? is it the norm? this option doesn't seem to be in the BIOS... and I just flashes it to a brand new BIOS right now and that option still doesn't show up.

Besides the new BIOS, i'm running Detonator 27.50, and the most updated drivers for the rest of the components. I had just defragmented the harddrive and stuff; I'm not completely computer illiterate. 3dbenmark2001 was run under pretty much optimal conditions.


Screencap of AGP BUS in Sandra
Rest of Sandra results (for reference)


EDIT: fixed the link

 

[altonb1]

Try a program called PowerStrip. Available here! I believe it is shareware, but I'm not certain. In any case, it is fully functional without registering. I'm using it to set my 4x AGP port to 2x, because my ATI Radeon VE isn't really supported by my PcChips motherboard. I still have occasional problems, but it is running better than it wass before I lowered the port speed. I know the program allows you to adjust side-banding and other complex options, too.

 

[WarCon]

Have you tried earlier drivers? I am most satisfied with the 23.11's and I have a Geforce 3.

Also when you change drivers, do you switch to "Standard PCI graphics adapter" first? I find this helps sometimes when it just feels like I have a bad install (when I just would switch using their install programs while I was still using a prior version) and it always use to be in the readme files as one of the installation steps. I usually reinstall DirectX again right after (probably just being superstitious since it never asks to be restarted) I change drivers.

You might want to refresh your motherboard drivers with the latest (I know you probably already have several times if your like me when I am hunting down the source of issue in my system), but your shot showed it to be in "4x" mode so there is an AGP driver in place.

What motherboard do you have?

 

[LS20]

okay guys, the Board is an ECS K7S5A. I had just flashed the BIOS (dated 2/28/02 !) in hopes of seeing those options would show up.

The AGP Driver is the latest 1.09 from SiS' website. The video drivers that I have tried is the 23.11 that came on the CD, and the 27.50 that was just released TODAY on Visiontek's website.




With 23.11, no tweaking, I got ~2800
With 27.50, increased winsize, Powerstripped to 200/330 (from 175/286mhz), I got ~3400

so my tweaked scored doesn't even touch the base score for most other people. does anybody else's sandra show that those options are disabled?

 

[HardwareFreek]

Use this app to completly remove the Nvidia drivers & re-install them after reboot, also go into the Bios & check that the first video device is AGP, (this doesn't actually improve benchmarks but speeds up the boot & that the AGP mode is at 4x): http://guru3d.com/detonator-destroyer/

Download y this app called nvtweak, that will let you turn on the sideband etc: http://www.geforcefaq.com/files/coolbits.reg

 

[FPSguy]

The utilities to which others have referred you will allow you to set side banding and fast writes. Also, do you have v-sync off and sound off?

You should also remember that some of the people that are getting better scores than you could be overclocking their video cards higher than you. Also, as best I can tell the MadOnion charts don't include a category for the GTS-V alone -- it is lumped in with regular GTSes, Pros, and Tis. You should expect to score lower than people using those cards.

I am not saying there are no problems. The score does seem a tad low. But I am not sure you should expect to get it to 4200 given that your card is lumped in with some faster cards.

 

[Stiler]

If you are using 2001SE then your scores will be a little lower than what they would be on 2001.

 

[LS20]

great! nvtweak allowed me to enable side-band addressing and fast-writes!
however, only sideband went into effect after reboot... fast-writes is still disabled.

stock speed = 2880
200/330mhz = 3280

vertical sync always off. aa always off.
i give up. atleast i know that i've done all i can.