Radeon 9000 Pro slower then Rad. 32 MB DDR?

[elkinm]

I had problems with my original Readeon so I bought a 9000 Pro 64 MB just to test if it would work. It did so naturaly I tried runnig some games on it mainly UT2K3 and Unreal II.

Unreal II ran much smoother, or at least at first with frames in the 30-40 range at 800x600 or 1024x768 medium to low settigns just like on my original. The problem was that it is smooth and then all of a sudden there is a break during the intro videos. And when entering a battle there is also an extreme slowdow. My old redeon got half the frame rates but was actualy very playable with no extreme slowdowns with or without action.

UT2K3 on the other hand is completely unplayable on my system at 1024x768 even though the framerates are at 50+. The screen is like a fast slideshow.
On the original radeon the gaming was practicaly smooth as silk with only 20-40 fps.

This is with a clean install of the Latest Cat 3.1 based Omega drivers which work best on my system.

Anybody got any ideas why my old slow Radeon is playable but the new and great Radeon 9000 wich runs twice as fast is completely unplayable?

Thanks
elkinm

 

[Vonkhan]

ey? 9000Pro runs UT2k3 just fine on my old system even... PIII 1.1GHz, 512MB PC-133 RAM with nothing else running in Windows 98SE, of course. There's some slowdown in the larger environments, but nothing even close to a "fast slideshow".

 

[jiffylube1024]

The 9000 Pro should be siginificantly faster than the 32MB DDR. Are you running both games at the same setting?

Also, a tip for Radeon 9000's: many people say they get significant speed boosts from overclocking the core. Try overclocking the 9000 (they usually have a lot of headroom to o/c) and see if you can get the framerates to stabilize by pushing the core speed up .

Good luck!

 

[elkinm]

I got to play normaly by reinstalling directx 9 and the drivers one more time. UT2K3 runs faster at the framerate I mentioned before but smooth this time. Unreal II is preaty much just as problamatic, if the scene is not acive it runs very fast, but once I go into a fight I get one or more extreme slowdowns. I tried enabling vsync, but still the same problem. Is there a reason that a 9000 would ever get slower then an original Radeon at the same settigns?

 

[Vonkhan]

If its getting SIGNIFICANTLY slower during firefights, your CPU isnt keeping up ... still seems kinda strange tho, ur system looks decent enough. Try uninstalling UT2K3, defragging ur hard drive and then re-install the game.

 

[elkinm]

UT2K3 run fine. It's Unreal II that has the real problems, I can try the defragment, but I don't think my CPU is limiting me as I had no problem with my old card even though it was slower overall.

 

[Vonkhan]

I'd reccomend doing the defragg, then run Unreal II cranked all the way down. Turn the options on one at a time. See if u can locate a bottleneck when u turn a particular option on or off. Also, this one is a shot in the dark, try playing with dumb bots and then max up the AI. See if that makes a difference.

Unreal II did have more than its fair share of wierd problems ...

If u have a particular hacked version, then the immidiate area around you has no pixels (appears black). U can see objects far away, but not the close ones. The only way to get rid of this is to use software rendering.

 

[kylebisme]

Originally posted by: elkinm
UT2K3 run fine. It's Unreal II that has the real problems, I can try the defragment, but I don't think my CPU is limiting me as I had no problem with my old card even though it was slower overall.

it is not your card it is the game, i made a chanlege for people to post the sreenshots best fps in one of the more demanding points in the game and the best score from a guy with a p4 3.06ghz, 1gb of ddr in dual channel and a 9700pro. he presented a pic of 29fps at the settings he normally plays at and then at my request he presented a shot running at 640x480 with everything the lowest settings where he got a low of 31fps. if you want any better framerate than that i recommend you return the game and buy it again later if the patch they are claiming to have out sometime soon actually resolves the issues. suposeably they will have a demo out sometime soon as well so you can use that to test. that is how i figured it would be best to handle the issue for myself anyway.