My Radeon LE sucks!

[kimcheeboy]

I just purchased a new Radeon LE 32Meg DDR card to replace my existing Geforce2 MX card. I'm mainly a Unreal Tournament Tactical Ops player so decent frame rates are important. I played at 1024x768 16bit on my Geforce2MX (200 core/180 mem) to achieve decent frame rates of around 50-60 fps. Now with the Radeon tweaked to make it essentially a normal DDR card running at 184MHz core and 368MHz RAM, I run at the same 1024x768 but with 32 bit color and get much worse results. I average around 30 fps and more often then not dip down to 15 fps. Btw, I'm running a Celeron II 952Mhz CPU and 320Meg RAM. This is quite disappointing. Anybody have suggestions? I was thinking about formatting the drive since it may still have Nvidia tweaks and optimizations.

 

[digim0rtal]

That would be a good idea, at least reinstall the OS. Also if you are running WIN98 or ME 320MB of ram is too much. The thing that will help you out most is to do the registry tweaks to enable the hyper-z buffer. Look aroung on the net I don't know that exact lines to enter, they have also been posted here.

 

[Taz4158]

<< ? I was thinking about formatting the drive since it may still have Nvidia tweaks and optimizations. >>


That's the best thing you can do as remnants of older drivers and tweaks can kill your FPS, which are much lower than you should be getting. You can TRY to delete all references to your old card in the registry and your system but a format is always going to be better. In case you weren't sure these are the keys to add to the reg:
&quot;DisableHierarchicalZ&quot;=&quot;0&quot;
&quot;DisableHyperZ&quot;=&quot;0&quot;
&quot;FastZClearEnabled&quot;=&quot;1&quot;
As for the gentlemen's assertion above that you have &quot;too much ram&quot; I assume you know that that is nonsense. PM if you need any help.

 

[RobsTV]

If anyone can help you Taz can. Follow his advise, and make sure you return here to post your results. We need more comparisons like this between the Radeon and the MX.

 

[tigger80]

remember to enable hyper Z, because Radeon's have them disabled. Hyper Z i believe is important for 32bit

 

[Taz4158]

<< If anyone can help you Taz can. Follow his advise, and make sure you return here to post your results. We need more comparisons like this between the Radeon and the MX. >>


Thanks for the kind words RobsTV and you're right we do need more info on how they compare.

 

[arod324]

It is especially important in UT because it is a Direct3d game, and Hyper-Z is disabled in Direct3d on the Radeon DDR LE. Do what Taz did, and you'll get an improvement.

 

[Clintonthefirst]

I used the registry hack thats floating around (although it installs it into the wrong area in the reg, i had to manually move it too 0000 instead of 0002). I increased my 3DMark score by over 400 on my Athlon 500. I get awesome framerates in UT. It kicked the pants off of my Geforce2 MX (anyone wanting to buy a hardly used MX). BTW the Radeon LE beat my MX by almost 1,000 points.

 

[loosbrew]

clintonthefirst, enable you PM! i wanna ask ya about your MX. which brand? how much etc..

loosbrew

 

[Taz4158]

<< although it installs it into the wrong area in the reg, i had to manually move it too 0000 instead of 0002 >>


Have to make sure the path matches your system. Glad you got a big increase.

 

[jtate82]

Taz4158:

I noticed that in the reg hack you posted you enabled hierarchial z. Whenever I enable it in conjunction with fast z clear, I get rendering artifacts, especially in games that have high detail (like dagoth moor). Do you have this problem? I've tried all the different drivers up to 7078, but it does the same thing. Thanks.

 

[Taz4158]

<< I noticed that in the reg hack you posted you enabled hierarchial z. Whenever I enable it in conjunction with fast z clear, I get rendering artifacts, especially in games that have high detail (like dagoth moor). Do you have this problem? I've tried all the different drivers up to 7078, but it does the same thing. Thanks. >>


I don't have that problem but it does exist on some rigs. You can disable it without much of a performance hit.

 

[jtate82]

Thanks for the reply. Is this problem with the Radeon LE or just with my particular system setup, or what? Thanks again.

 

[Taz4158]

<< Thanks for the reply. Is this problem with the Radeon LE or just with my particular system setup, or what? Thanks again. >>


No it's not just the LE. Seems to vary on how the card interacts on certain systems.

 

[oldfart]

Some people have had trouble getting the hack to enable HyperZ on the LE to work. It's usually the wrong key location or it's mistyped. You can use a tweak program to do it instead. This one has a field under the options tab to enable HyperZ on an LE card. Try it out.

This HierarchicalZ thing.. This is not enabled by default on any Radeon card. The reason it's not is it can cause artifacts in some games. It can also provide a speed increase in some games. It's your choice whether to use it or not.

 

[railer]

What about using powerstrip 3.0 to enable Hyper Z in open GL? There's a check box in one of the properties menus for that. Will this do the trick or do you need to perform the reg hack? Thanks...

 

[Yerdy]

Taz,

So the artifacts that I get in the Helicopter run of 3DMark2000 (in the hills) during low and medium detail while HyperZ is enabled may be due to my setup and not the LE itself? Has anybody figured out what part of a person's set up may be causing the problem? I have an Abit Ka7 (TY BIOS)with classic Athlon 850@941, Win98SE, Via4in1 (v. 4.25; 4.28 crashed everything), SB Live! Value. I cleaned up all the 3dFx stuff from my Voodoo3 2000 card except I can't get rid of the Voodoo Overclocker.

 

[Moz]

This was something Anand was referring to in one of his posts Re: The driver comparison article. The reason Hyper-Z is disabled on the LEs is that they were apparently the chips that did not quite make the grade as full 32MB DDRs. Hence, to avoid problems (and reduce the cost) Hyper-Z is disabled on these cards. I think most of the people here (including myself) with LEs have had no problems with enabling Hyper-Z on the boards, as well as clocking them to levels atainable by the 32MB DDR versions. You just maybe unlucky and it could be a problem with the card itself that is giving you artifacts with Hyper-Z enabled.

Just a thought.

 

[Taz4158]

<< So the artifacts that I get in the Helicopter run of 3DMark2000 (in the hills) during low and medium detail while HyperZ is enabled may be due to my setup and not the LE itself? Has anybody figured out what part of a person's set up may be causing the problem? I have an Abit Ka7 (TY BIOS)with classic Athlon 850@941, Win98SE, Via4in1 (v. 4.25; 4.28 crashed everything), SB Live! Value. I cleaned up all the 3dFx stuff from my Voodoo3 2000 card except I can't get rid of the Voodoo Overclocker. >>


No it's a known problem with SOME setups which is why ATI has it disabled. In my VERY unscientific but it appears to be more prevalent on AMD platforms. Do this: run it with HierarchicalZ disabled and FastZclearenabled, then run HierarchicalZ disabled and FastZclearenabled and let me know what happens.

 

[Taz4158]

<< The reason Hyper-Z is disabled on the LEs is that they were apparently the chips that did not quite make the grade as full 32MB DDRs. Hence, to avoid problems (and reduce the cost) >>


This is not a fact, HierarchicalZ is disabled by default on all breed and manner of Radeon.

 

[Moz]

Never said it was a fact Taz, I was simply conveying what Anand said in his response to a similar question .

In fact here is the quote:



<< I will caution you however, ATI's Radeon LE part is made from the regular Radeon parts that failed to work as fully functional Radeon chips. This is why HyperZ is disabled by default on the LE, it's not actually supposed to work on the LE which is why it was turned off. You may be able to get it to work and actually give you a performance boost but there's no guarantee that the card will be reliable with it turned on. >>

 

[Taz4158]

<< I will caution you however, ATI's Radeon LE part is made from the regular Radeon parts that failed to work as fully functional Radeon chips. This is why HyperZ is disabled by default on the LE, it's not actually supposed to work on the LE which is why it was turned off. You may be able to get it to work and actually give you a performance boost but there's no guarantee that the card will be reliable with it turned on. >> >>


Everyone is aware of the &quot;quote&quot;.

 

[oldfart]

If the chips are flawed, why would ATI disable HyperZ in D3D, but leave it enabled in OpenGL? The flaw in the chips are that specific? I think that is just the &quot;corporate line&quot;. These boards were meant for the Chinese market, and intentionally software crippled to compete with MX cards at a low price. They made it to the US via the OEM channels.

 

[Yerdy]

Taz,
I did as you suggested, trying HierarchicalZ enabled or disabled while FastZClear was enabled and still had artifacts. In fact, the only time I did not have artifacts was when all three (HyperZ included) were disabled. Thanks for your help, tho. I've been following your posts here and at rage3d. Somebody will come up with an answer soon, I'm sure.

On another note. During the adventure run of 3DMark2000, I see these gradient lines when the &quot;camera&quot; goes along the water just after turning and going past the ship. The lines are about one half inch thick and slowly fade into the picture. I didn't see these until I looked real close after several benchmarks. This seen to happen all the time, no matter what registry settings I have invoked.

 

[Moz]

Taz, I have been mainly supportive of your posts but this arrogant attitude you have been taking of late doesn't come off too well, which probably explains the heat you take in your posts. Remember providing sound advice and information is the primary goal here, however how you phrase it does make a difference as well.



<< Everyone is aware of the &quot;quote&quot;. >>



Why the hell would you re-copy the quote I already posted above and say that everyone was aware of it? Do you speak for everyone these days? Geez, ease up.