Low Quake3 scores with Geforce2 MX

[Evertec]

I have a Celeron @ 866 on an Abit BF6 motherboard, an Inno3d Geforce2 MX with the latest 6.34 drivers overclocked at 190/185. My problem is that on Quake 3, the low res scores are very low compared to what I've seen benchmarked. Here's what I get. (All are on High Quality setting.)
640x480- 66.8
800x600- 66.6
1024x768- 58.8
1600x1200- 24.6
From what I've seen from other people, I should be getting in the hundreds of frames per second in 640x480 and 800x600. Does anyone have any idea as to what could be slowing me down? Thanks.

 

[Dark4ng3l]

it's that celeron since there is no(or little) performance diference form 640x480 to 800x600

 

[MustangSVT]

what settings are u using? celeron 866 should be at least as fast as P3 650 and they get higher scores then that. However if the settings are all at max that sounds like correct results. set the color and texture depth to 16 bit. then try again. on my cel 450a and Radeon with highest quality i get 60+ on 1024x768 with highest setting but radeon is supposed to be fast on high quality. try 16 bit. hmm something is limiting that card, there is some bottleneck. check out this review, FiringSquad scores , they show that even at high Quality with cel 450a they have higher scores at lower res. since u have much faster cpu (at least 1.5times faster) it should be higher, but if look at higher res your score is higher, so somthing is stopping your MX from performing at top shape. check AGP 2x or 4x is on and memory is running at 100fsb. also check to make sure that Vsync is off.

 

[Evertec]

Thanks for your tips so far. I tried it again with normal settings (16 bit) and even fastest settings. It still topped off at around 66 fps. The fastest I could get was at 512x284 and it still only got 69 fps. I turned Vsync off in the Nvidia drivers, but is there any other place I need to turn it off? Thanks again.

 

[lsd]

some people just don`t know what their talking about...
anyway i too have an overclocked C2 with a GF2, I get over 100fps @ 1024 hq with 16 bit. 66 fps is waayyy to low for a MX.
I think you may have vsync enabled. Are you sure you disabled vsync for open GL?
Try uping your max fps by "/com_maxfps "XXX"

 

[Jonny]

Are you sure lsd?

I have a TB 1ghz with a Geforce DDR and I get at 90fps @ 1024X768X16.
My friend has a Pentium 3 933, Geforce2 MX and he is getting 105 fps @ 1024X768X16.

I don't think your results are all the strange.

 

[lsd]

sure about what?

 

[Evertec]

LSD,

I made sure I had vsync disabled in openGL; is there any other place I should check for vsync to be on? Also, it's not just Quake3 that goes slow in low res, MDK2, 3dmark 2000; everything is way to slow in low res. Jonny, I am sure that my results are not what a Celeron at 866 should be performing. The framerate is basically constant at about 66 fps until I get to 1280x1024, then it starts to drop lower. Even at the fastest settings for Quake3 at 512 it still only gets around 66 fps. Every Celeron I've seen benchmarked with an MX goes way over 100 fps at that resolution. Any more tips from anyone would be greatly appreciated. Oh, also I forgot to mention that I'm running Win ME. I don't know if that makes a difference, but just thought I'd let you know. And I have doing a fresh install in case anyone wondered, but it didn't do anything. Thanks again for any tips you might have.

 

[StickHead]

On the same video card(stock) on a Duron 950 I get 77.6fps.

 

[lsd]

have you ever done anything to your q3config? sometimes when the config is alterd the performance drops off dramatically.
Try deleting q3config.sys, then run the game. Q3 will automatically create a new q3config.
Do you have your agp appeture set @ 2x your ram?

thats all i can think off :\
Or somehow you got a defective board

 

[GL]

I'm having the same problems with an Abit Siluro GF2 MX. Low resolution scores suck. I'm using Win2K though. At 1024x768 (what I play at) I'm getting what I should...but it is still quite annoying.

-GL

 

[RedWolf]

I have the same problem. Framerate is about the same no matter the resolution. I benchmarked the same card when I first got it and now (running WinME) I'm getting much lower scores (except at high resolutions).

 

[tonster]

I know zilch about Win ME, but a guy on another section said he had probs with low fps in quack. He had 128 MB of ram and another guy told him 256 is minimum. He said he ran UT w/ 128 mb while he had his other 128 stick in another system and his fps dropped from 150 to 17. That seems a bit dramatic to me, but RAM can make the diff in these new memory hungry OS's. that's as far as I can say fer now. btw, i'm gunna stick with win 98 for awhile...til the bugs get worked out neway.

 

[lsd]

This doesn`t have anything to do with ram. I currently have 128 mb and i don`t have a FPS problem.

 

[randomlinh]

UT is a different engine anywho.. very memory hoggy (ala Deus Ex).

You sure all your programs are killed in the background?

 

[kmmatney]

I have a Celeron 850 and a 3dfx velocity 100 (this is an 8 MB Voodoo3 2000 card!) and I get about the same scores as your Geforce MX (in 16-bit). Have you tried the latest officially "released" drivers. It sounds like you are using a beta driver.

 

[Evertec]

I don't think the problem is from the video card. I've tried several different driver revisions, all final versions, with the same results. Nothing is running in the background. The reason I think it's not the video card is that it performs like it should at high resolutions because it's maxing out the video card. My theory is that at lower resolutions, something to do with the cpu or memory bus or something is limiting the performance, since at lower resolutions, the framerate is not limited by the video card. If anyone has any idea WHAT this elusive culprit could be, again, please post your ideas. Thanks everyone. If I can't figure it out, I'll try putting 98 SE back on and see if it's the OS.

 

[fodd3r]

what's your desktop colour depth?

 

[RedWolf]

I don't think it has anything to do with color depth, drivers, memory, or anything like that. The max framerate is being limited by something. Perhaps the OS is not responding to the disabling the max fps (regarding monitor refresh rate). My exact same system got about 100 fps at 640x480 in win98 and now it's getting about 60 in WinME. My friends P3 600 with a V3 in WinME gets higher than a GEForce MX until you get to higher (1280+) resolutions. Something's amiss here.

Oh, btw, I have 256 meg ram, my color depth is at 16 bit (changed it from 32), I have the latest reference drivers from Nvidia for my GeForce 2 GTS.

 

[RoboTECH]

1) What video card did you have in your system before this one?

2) It REALLY sounds like vsync is enabled. RU sure it isn't?

3) don't sweat the com_maxfps setting. It gets disabled by the /timedemo 1 command

4) What scores do you get @ default speeds?

5) Last and definitely least, you may want to try the venerable "format/ reinstall" (definitely last resort, but always an option)

 

[fodd3r]

perhaps you didn't uninstall your previous vid card drivers, which are sitting around forcing vsync. you could mess about in the registry, or reinstall you os. me i don't really care about reinstalling os's so it's not really a big deal and it's usually the fastest way of doing it.

 

[Dark4ng3l]

since those resolutions are cpu limited I am positive it's the cpu hence the very small difference between 640x480 and 800x600. Since the video card is geting normal scores at higher resolutions and you still get the same scores in 16 bit this proves that you are completely cpu limited.

 

[lsd]

um.... NO he's NOT cpu limited

 

[zakkenay0]

I am having the same problems with the Inno3d Card (Twinview) and the Abit SE6 Mobo....im running a Cel II 533@800 with 192 RAM and the best 3DMark2000 i can get in Win2K is around 2000 and change...i think the problem is with the Twinview drivers in Win2K for me though...And Im running it single monitor right now...

do you have the twinview model?

 

[Dark4ng3l]

he is cpu limited at lower resolutions try underclocking your cpu and you will see no diference at higher res but a big one at the lower resolutions.