My New 1.333 GHz AMD System Is A Bit Slow.

[BFG10K]

OK, I've finally upgraded my system to a new TBird. Everything is working fine (stable with no crashes) except 3D gaming is a bit slow and not as fast as I expected. Before I go any further, here are the specs:

1.333 GHz TBird.
Soltek SL-75KAV motherboard (VIA KT133a chipset).

Latest mobo BIOS.
Latest VIA 4.32 drivers, installed in Turbo mode.
AGP aperture size 32 MB.
AGP x4 enabled.
AGP fast writes disabled.

Detonator 797 drivers.
DirectX 8a.
Windows 98SE clean install.
No overclocks.

Everything else is the same as in signature. The AGP settings I'm using now seem to work the fastest.

===============================================

My problem is basically that my 3D framerates are too low for my system. For example:

P3 728 MHz (old system)
UT cityintro: 76 FPS.
Quake 3 1.29f demo four: 105 FPS.

Now with my 1.333 GHz TBird with exactly the same settings and drivers:
UT Cityintro: 94 FPS.
Quake 3 1.29f demo four: 145 FPS.

My processor is clocked at almost twice the speed of my old P3 yet I'm only seeing a 20% - 30% improvement in framerates (640 x 480 x 32). For comparison Anand's slower 1.2 GHz processor is scoring 179 FPS in Quake 3's demo four.

I've tried different versions of the 4-in-1 drivers but they essentially all perform the same. Does anyone have any suggestions to fix this problem?

 

[MasterHoss]

I'd say turn on your AGP fast writes and mess with different Detonator drivers.

 

[BFG10K]

I've experimented with all of the AGP settings. The settings I'm using now are the fastest.

I might try some different drivers though. Maybe the 1290s.

 

[GreenLantern]

Still using your GeForce2 GTS?
You can't expect frame rates to double with the frequency of your CPU.

 

[BFG10K]

Trust me, I'm not a newbie; I know what I'm doing.

The games were tested at 640 x 480 x 32 (and 320 x 240 x 16). There was no difference in the scores. Also UT is almost entirely processor dependent.

 

[Vrangel]

I am not familiar with this mobo but I'd be looking in BIOS.

Sometimes obscure BIOS setting affects performance a lot.

I assume you did reformat HD after upgrading mobo, did you?

 

[gnoymyguy]

Points out the obvious-The anti-aliasing is turned off

just making sure

 

[BFG10K]

Sometimes obscure BIOS setting affects performance a lot.

Yeah that's what I'm thinking too. There are few options in there which I don't know what they do. I figured some AMD power-user who knows the in-outs of tweaking such systems could help me out.

I assume you did reformat HD after upgrading mobo, did you?

Yes - I formatted and clean installed Windows 98SE.

Points out the obvious-The anti-aliasing is turned off

Yes FSAA is off.

 

[Trevelyan]

"Also UT is almost entirely processor dependent."

Not entirely true. I agree with the others, a cpu boost is nice, but don't expect phenominal jumps with a video card like that... it's already very fast.

Try overclocking your GTS, and I agree you should 1) enable fastwrites and 2) try other detonators.

6.50 are nice.

 

[gnoymyguy]

<< I agree with the others, a cpu boost is nice, but don't expect phenominal jumps with a video card like that... it's already very fast. >>



But he should expect a much more reasonable jump, the gts is not the bottleneck at the low res that he's running, it should be a good bench for cpu speed

still thinking..hope you figure it out soon

BTW isn't fast-writes useless?

 

[bonkers325]

have u used the 12.90 yet

 

[fakey]

did you get the latest agp miniport drivers?

i was having the same problems.. even worse fps actually.

installed these and instantly was better

 

[BFG10K]

did you get the latest agp miniport drivers

You mean the AGP GART drivers? The 4.32 4-in-1 drivers already include the latest version.

Or do you mean something else? If you do, where can I get it?

have u used the 12.90 yet

Yeah - they're a bit slower than the 797s so I got rid of them.

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

If your motherboard uses the AMD northbridge chipset or whatever like the epox 8k7a does then you have to install the agp miniport driver from amds website in order to get good performance. I think your board is a via, so the 4in1's should be fine.

 

[Rectalfier]

Quake3 is very hungry for memory bandwidth. You are running at the same memory speed.

Also, Anandtech tests with sound disabled.

Try benchmarking 3dmark2001

 

[EMAN]

Did you overclock your p3? 728mhz seems like a weird speed. Obviously you had already overclocked your processor to higher FSB. Unreal likes fast processors but they like higher FSB a lot more than just higher clock rate. Try upping the FSB and I am sure you will get another 10fps. Also it seems like Nvidia does better with Intel Processors, clock for clock.

There are other variables to consider. Don't expect to double the speed in games just because you have double the clock rate.

It's your graphics card! It's still limited no matter how much you lower the resolution.

Anandtech's benchmark might have been different.

 

[BFG10K]

The P3 was running at 6.5 x 112 MHz FSB.
My TBird is running at 10 x 133 MHz FSB.

I shouldn't need to overclock anything to beat a much slower CPU by a significant margin.

It's your graphics card! It's still limited no matter how much you lower the resolution.

No, that's not true at all. At 640 x 480 x 32 no CPU will saturate a GTS.

 

[GT1999]

<< Also, Anandtech tests with sound disabled. >>



Ding ding ding! I think we found the problem..



To answer your tweaking questions, for KT133(A) motherboards just make sure you have the 4-Way Memory Interleave on, PC133, Turbo Mode enabled all for memory. For AGP it's basically AGP 4x, fast write disabled, just like you mentioned in your first post. While it does seem a bit slow, seeing how it was pointed out Anandtech tests with sound off show show why your scores are lower than Anand's.

 

[jeffrey]

A 38% increase in Quake III is pretty large.
A 24% increase in UT isn't bad either.


Pardon me if I'm wrong, but I also believe that you are comparing your scores to a Geforce 3 64mb instead of a Geforce 2 32mb. The Geforce 3 is the card that Anand used to get 179 fps in Quake III.

 

[Sniper82]

I have a Duron@950 and upgraded my Geforce 32mb DDR to a Geforce 2 GTS 64mb DDR and thought I would break 3000(I got 2732) with np's in 3Dmark2001 and I was wrong I only got a couple hundred points increase which disapointed me.

Does that sound right? Is it my Duron or my 128mb PC100@CAS2 holding me back?

Heck it might be my video card but I hope not.

BTW these are default 3Dmark2001 settings

 

[BFG10K]

OK, I tried 4 way interleaving and my FPS went to 95 FPS in UT and 149 FPS in Quake3. A small improvement. Thanks for the tip.

A 38% increase in Quake III is pretty large.
A 24% increase in UT isn't bad either.

But when you consider I've increased my FSB by 19% and my processor speed by 83%, you realise I should be getting much higher scores, especially when you consider how much more powerful on a clock-for-clock level the TBird is to a P3. Also, consider that most DDR RAM scores are barely faster than SDR RAM scores.

And I'll mention this again: the video card does NOT make a difference with the settings I'm using.

 

[novalogic88]

yes it does

 

[Sniper82]

I get 91 FPS in both 640x480 and 1024x768? Whats up with that? Same settings just different resolutions. Is that normal?

BTW this is running Demo 2

 

[Sniper82]

AGP aperture size 32 MB

I think this should be set to at lease 128mb.

 

[BFG10K]

yes it does

Look, I didn't start this thread to argue. If you think a GTS is saturated at 640 x 480 x 32 by any CPU, I suggest you go and look at some benchmarks on the web and brush up on basic benchmarking concepts.