Visiontek 9100 PCI benchmarks

[Mloot]

I picked up the 9100 PCI card at CompUSA yesterday. As I understand it, the cards were shipped last week and are just now arriving at CompUSA stores. The card itself was priced at $129.99. I believe the 64mb cards are going for $99.99. The card has the same size PCB as the AIW VE PCI video card and is clocked at 250/250(500). The card has one VGA and one DVI-D connection, but no TV/out.

I ran the benchmarks against my MX440 PCI video card. The benchmarks were 3DMark2001SE, DroneZ (openGL), and the UT2K3 demo. All 440 PCI results are in normal type while all 9100 PCI results are in bold type. Enjoy.

System specs:
Dell 4500S
P4 2.4 (400)
768mb pc2100 DDR
WinXP home edition

Cards used:
Inno3D MX440 PCI 128mb DDR - 270/200(400)
Visiontek 9100 PCI 128mb DDR - 250/250(500)

Test Results - Default settings 1024x768x32
3DMark Score 4557
3DMark Score 7476



Game 1 Car Chase - Low Detail 117.9 FPS
Game 1 Car Chase - Low Detail 112.2 FPS

Game 1 Car Chase - High Detail 41.2 FPS
Game 1 Car Chase - High Detail 47.4 FPS

Game 2 Dragothic - Low Detail 57.5 FPS
Game 2 Dragothic - Low Detail 109.6 FPS

Game 2 Dragothic - High Detail 21.6 FPS
Game 2 Dragothic - High Detail 62.3 FPS

Game 3 Lobby - Low Detail 85.4 FPS
Game 3 Lobby - Low Detail 117.3 FPS

Game 3 Lobby - High Detail 34.7 FPS
Game 3 Lobby - High Detail 52.0 FPS

Game 4 Nature No hardware support
Game 4 Nature 42.5 FPS

Fill Rate (Single-Texturing) 484.4 MTexels/s
Fill Rate (Single-Texturing) 835.5 MTexels/s

Fill Rate (Multi-Texturing) 926.8 MTexels/s
Fill Rate (Multi-Texturing) 1852.2 MTexels/s

High Polygon Count (1 light) 20.8 MTriangels/s
High Polygon Count (1 light) 22.4 MTriangels/s

High Polygon Count (8 lights) 7.4 MTriangels/s
High Polygon Count (8 lights) 8.5 MTriangels/s

Environment Bump Mapping No hardware support
Environment Bump Mapping 101.3 FPS

DOT3 Bump Mapping 74.3 FPS
DOT3 Bump Mapping 82.5 FPS

Vertex Shader 4.4 FPS
Vertex Shader 76.0 FPS

Pixel Shader No hardware support
Pixel Shader 86.7 FPS

Advanced Pixel Shader No hardware support
Advanced Pixel Shader 77.2 FPS

Point Sprite 10.7 MSprites/s
Point Sprite 23.6 MSprites/s




DroneZ OpenGL benchmark: (1024x768x32)

Benchmark results
Rendered Frames: 9721
Rendered Frames: 9721

Minimum FPS: 77.30
Minimum FPS: 94.62

Maximum FPS: 254.49
Maximum FPS: 420.51

Average FPS: 121.4569
Average FPS: 159.2261

Minimum GL K-triangles: 10.17
Minimum GL K-triangles: 13.76

Maximum GL K-triangles: 764.92
Maximum GL K-triangles: 1035.06

Average GL K-triangles: 454.5377
Average GL K-triangles: 584.9707

Minimum T&L K-triangles: 7.32
Minimum T&L K-triangles: 9.60

Maximum T&L K-triangles: 1720.61
Maximum T&L K-triangles: 1915.68

Average T&L K-triangles: 841.7263
Average T&L K-triangles: 1082.9797



UT2K3 Demo:

800x600x32

Flyby:
111.05
134.21

Botmatch:
50.75
46.23


1024x768x32

Flyby:
79.42
113.65

Botmatch:
45.64
44.11


EDIT: A few have expressed doubts that a PCI card can score that high on 3DMark. For clarification, here's the compare link:

link

 

[FearoftheNight]

interesting...not bad for a pci card.

 

[spanky]

damn the mx440 got spanked. but then again it also hit the market a while ago...

 

[bunnyfubbles]

PCI video is starting to make a come back eh? Seems like its been a looooonng time since the V5 5500 PCI has been one of the fastest PCI gaming video board solutions... starting to see a lot more options these days.

 

[Auric]

Those benches aren't so surprising. My 8500 64MB AGP 290/300 got 7900 with a Celeron 1500. PCI will continue to be a huge market as long as Intel cranks out Extreme (Crap) Graphics integrated chipsets sans AGP slot. I think it only dipped a bit when the P4 was initially introduced without integrated chipsets and was one of the main reasons Nvidia was able to do so well for awhile supplying cheap AGP cards. Add another "o" to the looooonng time since the V5 5500 PCI was anything. Afterall, the original Radeon is more than two years old.

 

[nutxo]

Originally posted by: bunnyfubbles
PCI video is starting to make a come back eh? Seems like its been a looooonng time since the V5 5500 PCI has been one of the fastest PCI gaming video board solutions... starting to see a lot more options these days.

voodoo 4500/5500 were pci cards even when they were agp cards, remember?

 

[13bells]

Mloot, nice work once again.

Can the card be overclocked, or is it locked like the 9000s?

Can you post 3dMark2003 #?

Do you think 128 mb, makes a greater performance difference with pci, compared with 64 mb?

Any idea where I can order online?

cheers

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

Originally posted by: 13bells
Mloot, nice work once again.

Can the card be overclocked, or is it locked like the 9000s?

Can you post 3dMark2003 #?

Do you think 128 mb, makes a greater performance difference with pci, compared with 64 mb?

Any idea where I can order online?

cheers

I hear that for those cards, the 128mb cards have slower ram, so be careful of that.

 

[adlep]

Good work, it is nice to know that there are still some choices for people who got stuck without an AGP slot available...

 

[Mloot]

Originally posted by: 13bells
Mloot, nice work once again.

Can the card be overclocked, or is it locked like the 9000s?

Can you post 3dMark2003 #?

Do you think 128 mb, makes a greater performance difference with pci, compared with 64 mb?

Any idea where I can order online?

cheers

I haven't seen it for sale on-line just yet. However, Compuplus indicated that they would sell the card as soon as they got some in stock.

I haven't downloaded or run 3DMark2003 yet. Until now, I was using an MX440 PCI (DX7), so I figured that it probably wouldn't run 3DMark03 (the little part it could run) at more than a slideshow, if it even ran it at all.

I believe the card can be overclocked to some degree. It comes with 4ns RAM, but I have no idea how that translates into the theoretical limits of the RAM speed.

128mb definitely makes a difference, even more so (IMO) with a DX8.1 PCI card. You see, PCI cards cannot (at least this is what I've read) do "texture swapping" with the system memory, so only the VRAM on the card will be used for storing textures. The first time I noticed the principle was when I first got my AIW VE PCI w/64mb RAM. Prior to the release of the 9100, the was one of the top 3 fastest PCI video cards. I got in on the deal where CompUSA was selling Max Payne for $5, so I jumped on it. I soon found, however, that I could only play the game on medium detail at 10x7x32. Any higher detail setting and the game would crash back to the desktop. I could only assume that the higher detail was overloading the card's 64mb of memory. After I fried my VE, I got the MX440 PCI 128mb. All of a sudden, I could play Max Payne at high detail at 10x7x32 smoothly. I figured that the extra VRAM was enough to store the additional graphical information.

A while ago, I had the same card (MX440 PCI), but with 64mb of RAM. I eventually sold it, but I noticed that the 128mb card played Dungeon Siege with less hesitation than the 64mb card.

My final evidence that more memory is beneficial came a couple of days ago when I tried to run the Codecreatures benchmark. The minimum recommended requirements are somewhat steep: 512mb of RAM and 128mb DX8.1 AGP card. The site states that if the card has less than 64mb, then the system's AGP aperture must be adjusted to compensate. After selling my 64mb 440 PCI, I got a Powercolor 9000 PCI 64mb card. Along with the Hercules 9000 PCI, these were the only 2 DX8.1 mainstream PCI cards available at the time. I remember trying to run the CC benchmark on the PC 9000 PCI, and just 2 seconds into the program, CC froze up and displayed some kind of error message. I never could get it to run the benchmark. I think if the 9000 PCI had had 128mb of RAM, it probably would have worked. Well, two days ago, I tried the program again and to my surprise, it worked. I believe CC was using just about all the card's video memory to run the benchmark. At 10x7x32, I got a score of 18.5 fps. I could not try any higher resolutions because I have the 15" CRT that will not go any higher than 10x7x32. Though it has no bearing on gameplay, AFAIK this is the first mainstream PCI video card that can run the CC benchmark.

Btw, both the 64mb and 128mb cards are clocked at 250/250, just like a BBA 8500LE. They don't seem to be clock-locked. I briefly ran mine at 265/265 on 3DMark, which gained me another couple of hundred points or so, but after a few minutes I started getting artifacts, probably due to heat issues. I have a slim-line Dell case (4500S - pic of 4500S), so I have to watch for heat build-up. I previously had used Rage3DTweak v.36, but that version did not recognize my card and thus there was no option to overclock, so I switched to the new v.38. My card was now recognized and the overclocking option was present. The 9100 did not do what my old 9000 PCI did, which was revert back to default speed (on its own) following any 3D application.

All-in-all, I am very pleased with the 9100's performance. When it becomes available and if fundage permits, I might try to see if I can snare an FX 5200 PCI and see how the two compare performance-wise. That might be interesting to see.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Originally posted by: nutxo

Originally posted by: bunnyfubbles
PCI video is starting to make a come back eh? Seems like its been a looooonng time since the V5 5500 PCI has been one of the fastest PCI gaming video board solutions... starting to see a lot more options these days.

voodoo 4500/5500 were pci cards even when they were agp cards, remember?

Which is why they made great PCI cards, I've got a Voodoo 3 3000 PCI myself...

 

[Toro 45]

Thanks for the review,I'm glad to see companies still turning out some good pci cards.

 

[FrustratedUser]

Originally posted by: Toro 45
Thanks for the review,I'm glad to see companies still turning out some good pci cards.

I second that. PCI + lots of V mem makes sense. As long as the PCI bus is not used, or at least used to a minimum, those PCI cards will probably crank out a decent fps. UT2K3 on a PCI card is great news for the poor owners of a non-AGP rig.



:beer:

 

[Pete]

Thanks for the benches, they're very useful. I look forward to you finding the fundage to finagle an FX for further comparison.

 

[nutxo]

Originally posted by: bunnyfubbles

Originally posted by: nutxo

Originally posted by: bunnyfubbles
PCI video is starting to make a come back eh? Seems like its been a looooonng time since the V5 5500 PCI has been one of the fastest PCI gaming video board solutions... starting to see a lot more options these days.

voodoo 4500/5500 were pci cards even when they were agp cards, remember?

Which is why they made great PCI cards, I've got a Voodoo 3 3000 PCI myself...

nah, what im saying is even agp cards ran on pci bus

 

[docman]

so, has anyone seen these online anywhere? the compuplus site only shows the agp versions... bummer!

(ps: this is an nvidia chipset, correct? -- pardon me, very new to the cutthroat video card market =)

cheers...

 

[wojtekn]

I picked up the Visiontek 9100 128mb PCI card and I don't understand why this card is not performing. My pc was running Intel integrated graphics before I intalled the new card. The integrated card was giving me better performance. I disabled the integrated graphics in the BIOS and made sure all the drivers were uninstalled. I ran my test on Medal of Honor and I couldn't believe it, this new card was slowing down significantly. There was absolutely no graphics improvement. The only thing that I can think of that may be causing this problem is that my power supply is only 200W and ATI recommends 250W or 300W. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to improve the performance of this card or am I stuck with my integrated card.

Thanks,
Wojtek

 

[Mloot]

Originally posted by: docman
so, has anyone seen these online anywhere? the compuplus site only shows the agp versions... bummer!

(ps: this is an nvidia chipset, correct? -- pardon me, very new to the cutthroat video card market =)

cheers...

Actually, this is an ATI card. You can find them at tigerdirect here: link



Wojtekn, could you tell us the specs of your pc? Is it a brand name (i.e., Dell or Gateway) and if so, what is the model number? Is it home-built?

 

[wojtekn]

I have a Dell 2350
Pentium 4 2 Ghz, chipset 845GL w/ integrated graphics
256mb
200W power supply
Windows XP

 

[Mloot]

Wojtekn, did you just get your 2350? If so, it probably shipped with the original BIOS. If I remember from the Dell forums, the 2350's original BIOS did not allow an option for disabling the integrated video. It was only after numerous complaints that Dell released a revised 2350 BIOS that gave users that option. Here is a link to Dell's instructions on how to update your BIOS so that you can add a PCI video card:

Link to 2350 BIOS update

The page is a FAQ about disabling on-board video, but the first 3 steps deal with the 2350 exclusively. Have you done this procedure already?

 

[wojtekn]

Mloot, I have already disabled the integrated video in the BIOS by selecting the PCI slot as the primary video adapter. The card works fine on my desktop, I get good video, but playing any games on 1024X768 resolution slows them down significantly. The reason I bought this card was because I thought it would really improve my gaming performance. Do you think my power supply could be the problem? Any other suggestions because if I can't get it to work properly I am going to return this card and stick with my integrated video.

 

[Mloot]

Ok. Did you go into the display settings and under "Adapter" make sure that the integrated video is disabled? Sometimes when I change out a PCI card, I have to not only disable on-board video in the display settings in the control panel as well.

Also, did you go to Add/Remove Programs and look under Intel to make sure you had deleted the Intel integrated video drivers? If you haven't, either go to Dell and download a copy of the drivers to keep somewhere on your desktop or go to Intel and download the latest drivers for their 845GL chipset to keep as a backup in case you need them. I usually use the latest Intel drivers for the 845gL video, instead of the Dell drivers. They seem to work better.

Another thing to check is to go into the Display Settings and make sure that AA and AF are disabled.

 

[wojtekn]

Hi Mloot, under adapter in display settings I am showing the Radeon 9100. So I think that is correct. Also when I go to device manager and see the integrated video it shows as disabled and not working (not using up any resources) If I right click on it I have the option to uninstall (which I have already done before). If I try to unistall again from device manager everytime I reboot I get the annoying "found new hardware" and it shows up in the device manager again enabled. I am pretty sure that the integrated video is not functioning so that probably is not the problem.

One interesting point is when I go to add/remove, when I click on remove the intel video it does not remove it.

I did not see any options for AA and AF. What is this exactly?

I did verify that I have bios A01 which is the updated version. Please let me know if there is anything else I should try.

It just seems that this card is not compatible with my pc although I really wish it was.

 

[Mloot]

I know the 9100 PCI can work in the 2350. Someone named Greesman at the Dell forums reported that he successfully got his to work, but he didn't really report the steps he took to get there.

Have you ever run a benchmark program? Here is a link to 3DMark2001SE, the most commonly used 3D benchmarking tool. Can you download and run the program? It will take about 6 or 7 minutes to run, during which time the program will run a series of 3D scenes on your pc and at the end it will give you a score. It will also give you details about your system, which can be saved as a text document. Will you do this and run the program with your 9100 and post the results here, specifically the details? It might give us a better idea if there are some software conflicts in your system.

Here is a link to where you can download 3DMark:

link

Btw, the main program is freeware, so there is no reason to pay for the Pro version that they advertise on the same page.

 

[wojtekn]

Mloot, the results are pretty amazing considering the let down I had playing Medal of Honor. One interesting thing I noticed during the 9100 benchmark was how much more shiffty the images were compared to the intel integrated benchmark, although the 3D Mark Score for the Radeon was much higher. Maybe a better power supply can juice this card up or maybe I have to adjust some settings. Any other hints?


RESULTS - Radeon 9100

3DMark Score 7162
Game 1 - Car Chase - Low Detail 113.3 fps
Game 1 - Car Chase - High Detail 44.7 fps
Game 2 - Dragothic - Low Detail 104.9 fps
Game 2 - Dragothic - High Detail 60.6 fps
Game 3 - Lobby - Low Detail 111.4 fps
Game 3 - Lobby - High Detail 51.9 fps
Game 4 - Nature 36.1 fps
Fill Rate (Single-Texturing) 733.7 MTexels/s
Fill Rate (Multi-Texturing) 1889.4 MTexels/s
High Polygon Count (1 Light) 22.6 MTriangles/s
High Polygon Count (8 Lights) 8.5 MTriangles/s
Environment Bump Mapping 85.5 fps
DOT3 Bump Mapping 65.2 fps
Vertex Shader 69.1 fps
Pixel Shader 76.3 fps
Advanced Pixel Shader 66.5 fps
Point Sprites 23.5 MSprites/s



RESULTS - Intel Integrated Graphics

3DMark Score 1263
Game 1 - Car Chase - Low Detail 22.7 fps
Game 1 - Car Chase - High Detail 10.4 fps
Game 2 - Dragothic - Low Detail 22.7 fps
Game 2 - Dragothic - High Detail 10.7 fps
Game 3 - Lobby - Low Detail 22.0 fps
Game 3 - Lobby - High Detail 8.4 fps
Game 4 - Nature Not supported by hardware
Fill Rate (Single-Texturing) 185.1 MTexels/s
Fill Rate (Multi-Texturing) 339.6 MTexels/s
High Polygon Count (1 Light) 3.6 MTriangles/s
High Polygon Count (8 Lights) 3.3 MTriangles/s
Environment Bump Mapping Not supported by hardware
DOT3 Bump Mapping 20.5 fps
Vertex Shader 18.8 fps
Pixel Shader Not supported by hardware
Advanced Pixel Shader Not supported by hardware
Point Sprites 1.3 MSprites/s