Low FPS on an AMD 1.4......

[chronic1972]

I have an AMD Thunderbird 1.4 chip w/512 MB of DDR RAM. I also have a Hercules GeForce 3 card. My problem is, when I play games, the FPS seem to be very low compared to others with the same setups. I only get 30FPS in NASCAR 4 at 1600x1200, I haven't tried any Quake or Unreal games yet, but plenty of people are getting over 100FPS in NASCAR 4. I've also played Madden 2002 and it seems to chug a bit. Are there some sort of BIOS tweaks or OS tweaks I can use? I have the 12.41 Detonator Drivers installed and I am not using AA. If someone could help me out here, it would be GREATLY appreciated.

 

[Adul]

Due you have the proper chipset drivers installed? What other hardware is in your system? Leave us a few more details please..

 

[chronic1972]

Yes, I have the proper chipset drivers(4in1's minus the AGP, which I d'loaded from AMD on a tip from another thread) I have the Abit GX7 mobo, SB Live, 2-512MB DDR 2100 RAM Sticks, Intel NIC, AMD 1.4. Thats all I have hardware wise, as for the OS, I'm using Windows 98SE. Thanks for your help.

 

[Adul]

Now I am stumped. You might want poke around bios and see if fast writes is enabled, agp 4x, etc.. Has for memory, see if there is any option for memory interleaving and turn it on. ( I am not familiar with DDR MB yet)

 

[m2super]

Filename: KG74J.EXE
Date: 08/10/2001
ID: 4J NOTE:
Improve the compatibility of the DDR SDRAM.
HPT 370 RAID BIOS version 1.11.0402.

On abits website there is a new bios, well recent anyway dload that and try the new bios!
Madden 2002 is smooth on my machine at 1600x1200! So there is definately an issue with your machine!
Just curious have you tried it with just 256 megs of ram?
version of dx?

 

[chronic1972]

Yup I tried all that Adul....it's really stumpin' me as well. I'll try that BIOS update, but I'm thinking I have the latest. I'm at work, so I can't check it right now .....Thanks guys, if you think of anything else..PLEASE let me know.

 

[chronic1972]

BTW Adul....What other BIOS tweaks do you recommend? Anything in the OS I might need to check?

 

[chronic1972]

M2Super, nope I haven't tried it with just one stick....I'll try it, is that a known issue or something?

 

[visceral]

Have you done a fresh install of the OS? installing lots of new hardware without reinstalling the OS can cause alsorts of problems..

 

[Transistor]

It might be your DirectX or OpenGL settings.

 

[chronic1972]

visceral, Yes I have a fresh install of the OS....

Transistor, what should I change the settings to?

 

[LanEvoVI]

This solved my problem for low fps in Counterstrike. Right click the desktop and go to Properties-->Settings and then look for a tab that shows your Driver information for the video card. There should be a buttone for Advanced Properties or Additional Properties. Then go to the Open GL tab and turn off or disable the Vertical Sync. Got my fps from 60 to 100 on my geforce2 pro. Hope this works for you.

 

[MCS]

Perhaps FSAA is Enabled for D3D? Shouldn't slow it down much on a GF3 though, but worth a try.

 

[usual_suspect]

chronic1972, are you using 16 bit or 32 bit? That's about the only idea I have, but a bump for you because I want to build a system like yours soon and am curious as to the cause of this problem.

 

[thephew]

Run 3DMark 2001, and see what you get. If its under 5400, then you know you have a problem.

 

[chronic1972]

Thanks for all the great ideas fellas, keep em' coming, I'm going to try them all when I get home and let everyone know how I did. BTW, I am in 16 bit, usual suspect......I'll try 3dMark2001 and I have FSAA disabled ...

 

[chronic1972]

Ok....my friend just told me to disable vsync....this was a big booboo on my part..I had no idea I was supposed to disable vsync...supposedly my FPS will jump way up after disabling this...I'll let you guys know, does everyone agree disabling vsync will help out a lot? TIA

 

[dawber]

Chronic......did you notice a difference with the AMD agp drivers ???

 

[chronic1972]

nope, I didn't see a difference.

 

[LanEvoVI]

Like i said in my last post, i definately think it's the vsync. It's what was holding back my card b/c i knew i should be getting better fps. This should show some immediate results.

 

[chronic1972]

Excellent..I can't wait to try it out! I'll let you guys know! Thanks again!