Issue with New System.

[maelduin]

Hi there, I'm new to these forums and I've been having an issue recently with a system I built, well not really an issue I'm just not happy and I dont know what I'm supposed to get for system results of half this stuff.

So My first system:

AMD Athlon X2 4200+
Audigy 2 ZS Platinum
WD Caviar SATA II 250GB
Sapphire X1900XTX 512MB
2 GBS Corsair CL2 RAM

That's the jist of it. Now heres the thing. I installed everything correctly, card is in, runs fine, never too hot and ATI Overdrive gets it up to 690/1600 just fine. But it seems as though somethings wrong. Should my system really be scoring just about 6000 in 3DMark05 (free version)? Also it seems like I'm not getting the frames I should in older games, CS:Source for instance gives me around max, 85? I've heard of people with less beefy cards getting better scores than that.

And for clarification, I have the most current drivers/bios version/overclocked CPU and everything is up to date, I just can't seem to figure out if these results are normal or not, or what I should do.

In fear, Max settings I get average 55 FPS Max 133. I dont know how to get frames from OBlivion, but in games like fear, that video stress test sometimes just jumps, or stutters and there seems to be no reason for that.

Also I have Battle for Middle Earth 2, and on full settings in 1360X768 it can handle a full screen army, but slows down immensly.

I've also noticed some games, turning the settings down on, doesn't even increase performance, many times it actually decreases. So... what do you think? Help me out please

Am I just too much of a powerhungry guy that likes high settings, or am I right when I think this card should be performing better? That and my system.

Thanks in advance.

 

[tuteja1986]

amm your system should score 11200 3D 2005 Marks and 1200 if oced : )

tell us the res you benchmarked at :!

like you should get in fear 50 frame rate at these setting
1600x1200@32bit 4x AA 16x AF

 

[maelduin]

I Benchmarked at 1024X768 with no AA or AF on. And many of the settings that would slow the card down turned off inthe Catalyst Control Panel.

Speaking of which, it has AI Overdrive, and the Memory Overdrive only goes to 800? Is that right, 800MHz? I think that it must double it or something, I just don't get it. Let me know if you have any more idea's thanks.

My coworker thinks it's because the LCD monitor I'm using is slowing it down from mapping? Could that be the case? I doubt it but you never know.

I dont care about Refresh Rates or ghosting, I care about the appearance, and core FPS. This isn't what should be happening.

Thanks again,
Fred.

 

[AzNPinkTuv]

psu?

 

[maelduin]

My PSU is a 600 Watt Seasonic running 11.77 on a 12v Rail.

 

[JBT]

Missing chipset drivers??? You should be running much faster than that. Try taking the Audigy ZS out and see if that helps too.

 

[russki]

yes, what is your motherboard??? what chipset does it use?

 

[buzzsaw13]

Originally posted by: maelduin
I Benchmarked at 1024X768 with no AA or AF on. And many of the settings that would slow the card down turned off inthe Catalyst Control Panel.

Speaking of which, it has AI Overdrive, and the Memory Overdrive only goes to 800? Is that right, 800MHz? I think that it must double it or something, I just don't get it. Let me know if you have any more idea's thanks.

My coworker thinks it's because the LCD monitor I'm using is slowing it down from mapping? Could that be the case? I doubt it but you never know.

I dont care about Refresh Rates or ghosting, I care about the appearance, and core FPS. This isn't what should be happening.

Thanks again,
Fred.

Turn overdrive off, I found it to be extremely annoying and also lowered my 3dmark scores when I had an X1800XT.

I currently have an Opteron 146, X1900XT flashed to XTX, and 2gbs of ram and my rig scores 12000+ on 3dmark05. Turn off overdrive and see how you do on it.

 

[maelduin]

my performance went up significantly with the AI on. I have not yet tried to uninstall the Audigy ZS, it may be the issue, I'll try that. But why would the audio be the problem?

And my chipset drivers, I believe, are the most current. I went to ASUS and downloaded them.

I'm using an A8N-SLI Premium Asus Mobo for the person who asked above. I'm currently at work right now and I dont have a lot of time to read through the rest of the forums, but I believe others have had similiar problems and I need to do more research.

Thanks again, for continuing to help me out.

 

[maelduin]

So for an Update. I managed to OC my 4200+ to 2.6ghz and that helped some things it seemed. However, I still can't get ****** for marks in any game outside of farcry. CS:Source gets 92 FPS solid now on a stress test. F.E.A.R. went down in average FPS.

THe system itself got a few more marks in 05' but nothing to cheer about.

So I'm wondering, could this be an issue with my Mobo? My x1900XTX? the Audigy 2 unistall did nothing, and it seems to me like something has to be wrong with hardware now, as I just don't think software is the problem.

I've even got my RAM set at the correct timings now (voltage was off) and nothing much has changed.

What's your advice?

 

[maelduin]

seems, Asus's website is out of date and new NForce4 drivers are up for download at Nvidia's website. I'm downloading them as we speak. I hope this fixes it, god I hope so.

 

[maelduin]

So I talked to a friend today, he says look into the HT timings. Mine was at 3x last time I checked and my FSB was under 1000mhz with NVTune. Could this be the only problem with slow marks? if I increase this to 5x my FSB will be running at the appropriate speeds, and twice as fast on the FSB which might explain why my X1900XTX setup is going Half as fast as it should?

Let me know what you think.

I'll be changing some more settings tonight, when and if I do get home from school.

 

[giantpinkbunnyhead]

Originally posted by: maelduin
So I talked to a friend today, he says look into the HT timings. Mine was at 3x last time I checked and my FSB was under 1000mhz with NVTune. Could this be the only problem with slow marks? if I increase this to 5x my FSB will be running at the appropriate speeds, and twice as fast on the FSB which might explain why my X1900XTX setup is going Half as fast as it should?

Let me know what you think.

I'll be changing some more settings tonight, when and if I do get home from school.

I think if your CPU's BIOS settings are out of whack, the effect on 3dMark would be minimal at best. I know that when I took my Opty 165 from 1.8 to 2.5, my score didn't change much.

When you mentioned your PSU had 11.77 on the 12 rail... I hope you didn't mean only 11 amps??? Your card requires (or recommends, rather) 30 amps on the 12 rail. I am assuming you mean the 12 rail had 11.77 volts but just wanted clarification. What amperage is your 12 rail rated at? If you have two 12V rails, what are they both rated at?

A score of 5*** with that card is BAD... you are right. I can get a 11680 without an overclock. It could very well be a bad card, but keep in mind even a lowly 7800GT will outgun that in 3dMark05. It will get 7000 or so. Is your card performing great and just benching like crap? Or does it perform poorly too?

 

[maelduin]

Well, here's the gist of it. I agree with you, I dont think it's the CPU. But I dont think it's the Video Card either. I just dont know, maybe it is. I have enough money to buy another and see if that's the case.

And for clarification YES it is 11.77 Volts. I dont know how to tell the amperage but I think it was 36A total in the specs.

How do I know if the card is bad though?
What else do I need to do to test this?

I'll look at the Mobo one more time when I go back home tonight, and then I dont know, maybe I'll order a new card in anticipation of RMAing this one back to newegg.

The Card itself, in CS:S does 90FPS. It runs BFME 2 with all the armies on the screen, but slowly. Fear in 1360X768 Full settings at a maximum of 70FPS.

I dont know what the F is going on. But it should be MUCH faster than this. Farcry runs great but I care mroe about the recent games, which I bought this for.

 

[giantpinkbunnyhead]

Did you buy it online? You could RMA it just for kicks and see if the replacement card works better.

FWIW I played Far Cry last night with this card, and started a new game. That whole intro-scene when you're crawling out of the underground? I was averaging 140 FPS at 1280x1024 with all settings on maximum possible. If you can mimic those settings and get the same framerates, then I might be inclined to think your card works fine, at least with this game, but for some reason benches terrible. I did have an issue with FC though... it almost seemed that my card was running the game so fast that the character dialog was played on "fast forward" almost. I quit playing after 20 minutes. Fast as hell though.

But yeah... if you have 36A on the specs for that PSU than that shouldn't be a problem. Does that PSU have a dedicated 6-pin connector, or did you have to use the pigtail? Did you physically check the wire connections? Maybe something is loose?

 

[maelduin]

OK, so I found the route of the problem.

SIlicon Raid was on. I turned it off. 3dMark05' to nearly 11000 now, I could tweak it higher I'm sure.

Other than that, it seems that since having done that, downclocking everything back to normal and what not, my games keep crashing now. Should I reinstall OS?

Or is there some driver that likely needs to be reloaded?

 

[giantpinkbunnyhead]

Before reloading the OS, try removing all the current display drivers, like with Driver Cleaner Pro or something, and do a fresh install. That's what I'd do.

 

[maelduin]

I'll try that. Thanks again for being so prompt everyone and helping me out. Though the problem was something I figured out on my own, you at least gave me some incentive not to RMA that minute. In any case, I'll try that cleaner and give it a good remix of the drivers.

Anyway, I might just try and reinstall XP just because, I dont wanna deal with installing new drivers, and I feel like a need a "fresh" start after all that hassle .

In any case, thanks again, you've all been very helpful.