Problems with New ATI Radeon 9800 128 (non-pro)

compnut5x

Junior Member
Oct 7, 2003
7
0
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Greetings all. I have a problem that is bugging me. I recently upgraded some parts of my pc to have speedier gameplay, but I am not getting that. Specifically, its my FPS in games that a problem. Here are my specs:

Athlon T-bird 1.2 266mhz
GA-7N400 Pro Nforce2 mobo
Generic DDR333 1GB ram (2x512 running in DDR mode)
Sapphire OEM Radeon 9800 128 non-pro
Maxtor 40 GB 2mb 7200rmp HD
Gigabit ethernet card (intel 1000/Pro)
300watt Generic Power Supply.

I have WinXP SP 1 installd
DX 9.0b
Catalyst 3.7 installed - All grapics card settings for ATI are at default
1024x768 32bit 85Htz
Latest Nforce drivers

Bios Settings are set for AGP 8x
Fast Writes enabled

Now. With a configuration like that, I dont expect to get extreme frame rates (as my cpu is the main limiting factor). But, here are some of the numbers that I am pulling in Games. I used FRAPS 99 in most games to get fps.

No One Live Forever 2 - approx 24-30 fps
Wolfenstein Enemy Territory - approx 30fps indoors, 24 outdoors
Quake2 OpenGL - 100fps
Warcraft3 Frozen Throne - 15-27 fps in movies, 35 ingame.
Unreal2 (lowest detail possible) - 20 indoor, 15 outdoor.

Aquamark3 - 15.85 fps - GPU score of 2448, CPU score of 2248

Does anyone have ANY idea why I am getting such low scores? I checked comparable scores in Aquamark3's database, and my score is the lowest of my category. The next lowest is a user with an Athlon 1.1 with 768 ram and a radeon 9800 reg, and he got 24 fps as his average.

One theory I had was that the card wasn't getting enough power and was running at reduced speed. Is there anyway to tell this? I have 2 hard drives, a cd burner, dvd drive, floppy, ide zip, graphics card, and motherboard/cup all running off a 300watt generic power supply. Is it possible that its not getting enough power? If that might be the case, is there any way to check that (software prog possibly?) I dont have a multi-meter to test voltage, and I dont have a higher PSU to swap out. Is there a formula to tell how much stuff you can connect to a power supply (like how much power each item needs in watts to tell if I am over?) Could this theory have any creedence?

Either way, ANY help from you all would be most greatly apprecated. Feel free to post your suggestions/comments and I will try them out and let you know if they work. Thanks a lot guys. Hope you can help me!

Steve
compnut5x
 

FFactory0x

Diamond Member
Aug 8, 2001
6,991
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Well you cpu is the bottleneck to your pc. With a fast gfx card like that you cpu cant process all the info fast enough. By a $50 1700+ and oc the hell out of that puppy. you could get one cheap on the for sale thread.

Others should chime in and agree about your cpu.
 

compnut5x

Junior Member
Oct 7, 2003
7
0
0
Yeah. I was planning to get a new cpu in November (after price cuts come from intel and AMD counters). I was going to go w/ the XP 2700+ as that is the current price/performance break I feel. So I assume that once I get a new cpu the scores will improve, but I still don't understand why a lower performing cpu would get a higher score on Aquamark3.

Steve
 

FFactory0x

Diamond Member
Aug 8, 2001
6,991
0
0
why not save some cash and get either of these? 2100+,1700+ or 2500+ and a really nice hs/fan. This would give you great performance plus if you decide to oc, you could easily do this in the future giving you much more value for the chip