What's with AMD's K6-2 line of CPUs? Are the FPUs really that slow?!!

[RSI]

And really not that overclockable?! Sheesh! Alright so it's maybe a little more overclockable than my Cyrix (233 to 262.5), going from 350 to 412.5. But the FPU is absolutely horrible, and I am saying that coming from the Cyrix! My frames are hardly any better than they used to be... I am 150MHz higher than I was before, and I "have 3DNow!", and I'm not getting a monstrous FPS gain?

I remember playing UT when I brought my tower to my cousin's house (who has a P3-450/192MB/TNT2 M64). I had the Cyrix then. He had a 14" for my system, but it still did 1024x768, so I used it. I played in 1024x768 the whole time, with all the eye candy on. And this was on a Cyrix. Now, obviously I wasn't blazing along at 150fps, but it was playable enough for me to enjoy a couple hours of gaming.

My system specs are 96MB PC66 and Banshee on a VA-503+ with Quantum LM hd. The only thing different now is I have a 412.5MHz K6-2 as opposed to the 262.5Mhz Cyrix. Both used/use 75MHz FSB to obtain that setting.

Now why is it I find it impossible to play unless I use 640x480 with lowest settings?! :| :| :|

Sorry for the rant-ish post... This sort of just gets to me a bit.

Also another thing about the K6-2 at 412.5, it's not 100% stable I dont' think. I thought it was, cuz it never crashed and I played hours of 3d gaming, etc. But I read the thread about that guy's computer crashing "because" of the "virus" RC5. Well, I set up RC5 and everything seemed fine, so I'm thinking "great, it's nice and stable". Well, before the day's up, Win2K reboots by itself (it has a setting to do that upon failure I believe).

I thought OK, sh1t happens, maybe that was just a quirk. It happened again the next day (while RC5 running). Now I've quit running RC5 and so far it's not crashing anymore... And I've also disabled the automatic reboot "feature".

I guess my system was never as stable as I assumed it to be. Maybe I should up the voltage a little more? I forget what it's at, but I think it's using 2.4 volts (2.2 volts default). I know voltage is a dangerous thing to screw around with, but I ran this at 2.9v a bit, and thought I had fried it, but did not. 2.9 up from 2.2 seems a bit extreme to me, I'm glad I didn't damage it (this was when I was first setting it up and forgot to change the voltage that the Cyrix used - 2.9).

So, anybody who has K6-2s, if you have any advice or suggestions, tips or patches for anything.. Let me know, please. I could run Rain, but it doesn't seem to work under Win2K for me, and that's my main OS (WinME just sucks too much for me, but again could be my overclocking).

Does 35-40fps in UT with absolute lowest settings sound right?! Sounds a little low to me...

Thanks for any input,

-RSI

 

[jhu]

the reason k6-2's fpu is slower is because it takes at least 2 clock cycles for an fp instruction. on the other hand, mmx and 3d-now instruction take at least one cycle.

you're problem's kinda weird because the cyrix fpu is slower than amd's

 

[RSI]

I thought the Cyrix's FPU was slower than the AMD's as well, but it doesn't seem to be, or not much at least, when not considering 3DNow!. With 3DNow! it seems to be faster than Celeron's FPU according to Sandra 2000 benchmarks... I think it's all BS. The FPU sucks no matter what!

 

[Muerto]

35-40 fps sounds about right for a K6-2. UT is almost 100% CPU dependent. I got about the same on my K6-2 350. And that was with 128 MB PC100 and a Voodoo3 2000. But you should be able to play at 800x600 with some of the eye candy on at least. Maybe it's your RAM and video card.

You might try running the CPU at its default speed. The K6-X chips don't overclock well at all. Any overclocking at all could slow them down. My K6-2 and K6-3 wouldn't overclock at all. Hope this helps.

 

[RSI]

My K6-2 has the CXT core - I thought it was better for overclocking?

Also, I have a PCI video card, the Banshee, and PC66 SDRAM (set to fastest settings in the BIOS).

Yours weren't overclockable at all? My Cyrix was even overclockable, come on!

I think your 128MB PC100 and V3 make the difference though... 96MB PC66 and Banshee are quite a bit slower.

But I dunno.. I remember getting 40-50fps in 1024x768, I don't know wtf happened!

-RSI

 

[toph99]

i'm looking at him gettin 30-40 fps in UT, and on my PIII 500E with a voodoo3 2000PCI143@175 i only get about 48-51 fps average, and i can go down to 32fps on that crane level. weird

 

[rmn]

RSI, I followed the same path going from the same Cyrix to a K6 II 450. After the original blush wore off I started to realize the truth that this was not the great upgrade that I had expected. Anyway, my Duron and soon to be on the scene T-Bird have renewed my faith in AMD with a vengeance! I just wish I could pass on this K6 with something good like maybe a K6 III+ upgrade. I am considering trying the vooddoo 3 2000 and probably will take the risk on the K6III+ purely for the experimental value.
Cheers,
Joe

 

[Jugernot]

Get a new video card and you will probably see a 15-20% increase in most games. When I say new, I don't mean a Banshee AGP. At least go with a Voodoo3 or TNT Ultra.

 

[RSI]

"RSI, I followed the same path going from the same Cyrix to a K6 II 450. After the original blush wore off I started to realize the truth that this was not the great upgrade that I had expected. Anyway, my Duron and soon to be on the scene T-Bird have renewed my faith in AMD with a vengeance! I just wish I could pass on this K6 with something good like maybe a K6 III+ upgrade. I am considering trying the vooddoo 3 2000 and probably will take the risk on the K6III+ purely for the experimental value.
Cheers,
Joe"

I started out with Cyrix. I had a 486, which was a 66MHz DX2. That thing was fast! I ran Win95 with 24MB RAM and I was happy! After a while, that started to get really slow, and I had no CD-ROM or sound. At the time though, CD-ROMs were really new and I thought the local computer store had a really good buy on a 6x. :Q

Well, I got a 6x86MX PR200 on a TX-Pro motherboard with some more RAM, totalled 40MB. That thing was fast too! I remember when Win98 came out... I loaded it up, and I was shocked at how well it ran (expecting it to run like a slug).

The PR200 is a 150MHz chip, I overclocked it to 188MHz (I think it was 188). I was comparing the performance in Win98 to my friend's AMD K6-233/40MB, and honestly I was happy with my Cyrix.

Well, finally we got sound and CD-ROM. Payed over $400 I believe for one of those "kits"... Came with a 10X Pioneer CD-ROM, $75 pair of 120w amplified speakers (as opposed to some really ugly-ass lookin' ones) and a Sound Blaster 16 PnP ISA.

Well, I still have that same Pioneer 10X CD-ROM, Sound Blaster 16 PnP ISA and 120w speakers. My CD-ROM has gotten very finnicky in the past 5 or 6 months.

Well I decided that my motherboard needed to be updated, so I downloaded some crap not knowing what I was doing, and ended up frying the motherboard (either by flashing it wrong or trying to fix it). Well we had to buy a new motherboard of course, and, well, that's the motherboard I'm using right now - the FIC VA-503+ 1MB. I ran the PR200 Cyrix in there for a while, until a very kind and generous fellow was nice enough to send me an MII-300, completely free including shipping. Oh yes, musn't forget the 32MB PC66 SDRAM he chipped in as well.

Oh yeah, I neglected to mention, before that we got 64MB PC66 SDRAM and a PCI Voodoo Banshee. So after we got that, the MII-300 and 32MB PC100 arrived. When I had just the 64MB PC66 SDRAM I ran that plus the old memory we had, so it totalled 104MB (and yes it worked, with 3 different kinds of memory). When I got the MII and 32MB, I took out the old crap memory and so I had 96MB (which is what I have now) and the MII-300, which I was using up till very recently.

Now my computer is exactly the same except I have the K6-2/350 at 412.5MHz...

"Get a new video card and you will probably see a 15-20% increase in most games. When I say new, I don't mean a Banshee AGP. At least go with a Voodoo3 or TNT Ultra."

LOL Jugernot! The Banshee isn't all that bad of a video card. I think I'd upgrade the K6-2 before the Banshee. I think a Duron 933 (which would probably be a 600 OCed for me) with a Banshee would be much faster than a K6-2/350 with a Voodoo III or Geforce MX.

-RSI

 

[jinsonxu]

Durons don't usually clock to 933Mhz, you've mixed that up with the PIII 700Mhz overclock.

 

[RSI]

No I didn't, that was just an example.

-RSI

 

[Peter]

RC5 isn't as much a virus as it is a CPU stress test. With it running, the CPU never idles (and thus is never halted), and keeps spinning at full throttle. This means that apart from its original purpose, RC5 is a good tool to uncover hidden cooling problems.

Regards, Peter

 

[jerrek]

i don't see why the cpu would limit the resolution. if you are cpu limited then you can increase the resultion without loosing any fps. your problems are the v/c (for some games banshee is terrible) or caused by something else - i went from a m2 300 with v2 to a k6-2-400 and it increased my fps by 50-100%. in fact in q2 with the 3dnow patch it could increase my cpu to 450 and not inccrease the fps because it was v/c limited (and a v2 is better than banshee). now i have a k6-3+ 560 and my tnt2 limits my fps above 640*480

 

[Shudder]

CPU can most definitely limit the resolution. When I had a K6-2 450 in something like UT I got 30fps at 640, 800, and 1024 (voodoo 3 3000). It didn't matter what resolution I had it at. When I got an athlon it jumped to about 60 for 640 and 800, but dropped to about 45 with 1024. Finally, a CPU that beats out the video card.

Anything over a Voodoo 3 2000 for a k6 cpu probably isn't getting used very well.

 

[RSI]

"(and a v2 is better than banshee)"

*Ahem*, no. The banshee is quite a bit better, except for one thing - multitexturing. Although theoretically this should make the V2 a lot faster, it doesn't. The Banshee is clocked higher I believe (and if it isn't, mine is ).

Give me a V2 and I'd be glad to prove that the Banshee is faster...

But seriously... Can the V2 go up to 1920x1440? OK OK so it has nothing to do with 3D games, but anyways. Take a K6-2/350 on a VA-503+ with 96MB PC66 SDRAM. Would your Voodoo II be getting 50-120fps in Quake III in 640x480? I think not, that would probably be closer to 15-20fps. Thanks, good bye.

-RSI

 

[RSI]

"(and a v2 is better than banshee)"

*Ahem*, no. The banshee is quite a bit better, except for one thing - multitexturing. Although theoretically this should make the V2 a lot faster, it doesn't. The Banshee is clocked higher I believe (and if it isn't, mine is ).

Give me a V2 and I'd be glad to prove that the Banshee is faster...

But seriously... Can the V2 go up to 1920x1440? OK OK so it has nothing to do with 3D games, but anyways. Take a K6-2/350 on a VA-503+ with 96MB PC66 SDRAM. Would your Voodoo II be getting 50-120fps in Quake III in 640x480? I think not, that would probably be closer to 15-20fps. Thanks, good bye.

-RSI