Poor gaming performance with GF2 MX and Win2K

[GL]

I don't understand what's going. I just bought an Abit Siluro GF2 MX and reinstalled Win2k on my box. At 1024x768, Q3 plays as it should in terms of framerate. But, lower the resolution and the framerate stays the same as it does at 1024x768!

Not to mention, D3D games play like mollases on the machine. NHL 2001 can't play smoothly at ANY resolution

Someone please help...I'd like to stick with Win2k if possible. Are there any configs or tweaks that I should do (I currently have AGP aperture all the way up, o/c the MX to 210mem/205 core).

-GL

 

[formulav8]

What CPU do you have? That could be the bottleneck

 

[odog]

got a via board? maybe throw that AGP driver in there?(if you haven't done so. ignore this if you have an intel board)

 

[Doggiedog]

The problem is you are using less than 256MB of memory.

I have a system with 256MB and took out 128 to test in my other PC and my UT performance went from 150FPS to 17FPS.

That's the only solution when it comes to Win2K believe it or not.

 

[tonster]

Geez, doggie. WOW! At least ram prices are going down. Hehe. BTW, do u like Millenium? I think I'll wait awhile, personally.

 

[CalebTG]

It is a win2k issue, although I don't know if it is related to ram, as opposed to an actual agp driver.

I have the same card running at 200/200 for now (havent even tried tweaking it yet) and in win2k, framerates are pretty constant 6x4 - 10x7, while in winme, there's a 40 fps difference.


powerstrip shows that win2k has no AGP driver, while winME does.

 

[GL]

Doggiedog

Wow! I was honestly skeptical of your advice, but I decided to take a 64MB stick out of my Linux rig and put it into my Win2k box so I'd have 192MB of RAM. I honestly noticed better D3D performance (I didn't benchmark anything but 1024x768 in Q3 but it remained the same...it's really D3D that bugs me). Now...in NHL 2001 much of the animation was smoother and the gameplay was much more noticeably smoother with the extra 64MB RAM but there were still areas where the framerate became choppy. Will this totally go away if I add another 128MB or will I get the same benefit with just adding another 64MB (I'm on a budget here!). Can somebody with 256MB of RAM (say a 128MB stick and two 64MB sticks) try running with 192MB and tell me if there is a difference in gameplay performance? Thanks.

One other question...I never noticed hard disk thrashing with 128MB, so why does adding RAM make a difference?

-GL

 

[LocutusX]

Not sure if this will help you much but...

I just benched Q3A demo001 on my system, comparing "Normal" display preset to "High Quality" display preset. Normal gave me 104.3fps and HQ gave me 94.4. Changing the rez of HQ from 8x6 to 10x7, I get 66.6fps. So it would appear I don't have the same problem as you. This is with a Win2K SP1 system, running Det 6.31 (official), 128MB CAS3 PC133 Ram, Geforce DDR @ default speed, P3-800EB. I was also running quite a few other apps in the background during the benchmark; 2 CuteFTP instances downloading at a total bandwidth of about 100kb/sec and 2 IE windows, both anandtech, MotherBoardMon, taskmgr, and as well, mIRC was running with quite a few chat channels open. So I had memory usage of about 100000k when I fired up q3a, according to taskmgr.

Maybe you want to try updating drivers? Also I hear DirectX 8 is coming out in a few days, maybe that will help you (as far as D3D is concerned at least, in my opinion OGL is just great in Win2K).

 

[Nemi]

Actually, I think I just read that this is a via problem. Do you have a via chipset? The via agp driver in Win2k is F'd. Unfortunately, I dont remember who has the fix. Try Nvidia and Via and see if you can find something. Sorry for only a half answer.


UPDATE:
I found this. Dunno if it will help your problem or not though. Supposed to be a fix from M$ for something AGP related and VIA.

 

[LocutusX]

I don't think GL has a VIA-based mobo which is why I didn't suggest that. However, if he does, someone posted a link to the Microsoft TechNet page which has a fix, a few days ago.

 

[mosdef]

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q261/6/06.asp

-mosdef

 

[GL]

Thanks for all your help. I don't actually have a via mobo...I'm using a really old P2L97 (that's a modded LX board that can handle proper AGP voltages).

I actually thought that the main memory bandwidth might be the limiting factor in my framerates...but a quick check across the web showed that other Celerons at similar speeds to mine were getting higher framerates especially in low res. So I'm pretty sure this is either a memory issue, a Win2k issue or a combination of both.

The performance enhancement from going to 192MB really wouldn't be worth the money. Now that I compare it to 128MB, the difference was only a few fps in Q3, and NHL2001 was still choppy. I'll try and get a hold of a 128MB stick from a computer at my sister's work and see if it improves matters...maybe I'll upgrade if it solves all the problems.

Anyway, check out this thread. This guy has the same problem...and I've heard quite a few problems with "constant" framerates at varying resolutions with Geforce2 MXs. Now this guy has a BX board, so memory bandwidth shouldn't be a problem.

-GL