WTH? extremely poor performance w/ my new radeon 9500 pro

[CurtisEbear]

I know 3dmark is kind of outdated, but i wanted to try it to see what sort of increase i got from my geforce3 ti200. had my gf3 overclocked to 220/500 and was getting a 3dm score of ~7120.

so i get the Radeon, uninstall nvidia drivers, put the 9500 pro in, install the drivers (not sure which version...whichever ones are from early november 2002), and run 3dmark. I was looking for something around 10,000 or so...? I got a score of 7890. Seems pretty dang low to me.

any suggestions? Do I need to reinstall the ALI drivers for my motherboard when i get a new video card? I don't know whats wrong...

 

[SickBeast]

go into display properties and open the "smartgart" tab...make sure your agp is enabled...

that's all i can think of off the top of my head. good luck.

 

[DClark]

What kind of processor are you using?

Make sure V-sync and/or FSAA isn't enabled, and yes, you may want to re-install the motherboard drivers.

 

[ChuaChua]

ahhh maybe your CPU or RAM is not that fast.
CPU is a bottleneck on mine. So is RAM.

8xxx max in 3DMark2001 SE build 330.
7xxx if i turn on FSAA (4x and 6x) and AF

specs:
P4 1.4Ghz
128MB RDRAM
Radeon 9500 pro 128MB

 

[CurtisEbear]

I have windows xp, running an XP 1600+, 512 mb pc 2100 DDR RAM...

my freind has a Geforce4 ti4400, which apparently is pretty comparable to my card, and he has the same system setup as me, and he's getting way higher 3dmark scores...i reinstalled the mobo AGP drivers, and installed the latest catalyst drivers...nothin. gonna go make sure the AGP is enabled or whatever...let me know any other suggestions

 

[Duvie]

May not have done a thorough cleaning of drivers....

May want to do a fresh reformat and install of winxp....
Then instal mobo drivers
< reboot >
Then install direct x 9.0 drivers
< reboot >
Then I would use the cat 2.5 or 3.0's for you card...
Install control panel
< reboot >


Unless there is someother system limitation like the hdd or mobo I think it is low as well....

In my system below I get

Radeon Le 8500 250/500 (below retail settings) = 10000 in 3dmark2001se (lower build then the one you listed)...I even think when I ran at default 1.6a and pc2100 ddr I still got like 8500-9000

Radeon 8500 DV 225/425 = 9200

Geforce MX 440 310/615 = 8064

Diff....

My processor would be more like a 2700xp since I have a 784mhz system bus
My ram is oc'd to pc2700+ levels and cas 2,2,2,5...this makes a difference but I would be surprised if it was more then like 400pts....

I would think the 9500 should get 1000+ easy and so should have been close to my 8500's....the fact you arelower then my direct x 7.0 only GF4mx card is to be concerned

EDIT: An ALI mobo huh??? The light may be getting brighter....List al specs of mobo....go ahead and run some sissoft memory bandwith scores as well. i like to see what that pc2100 is really running at. I would also check to see ali agp chipsets have no 4x agp issues or anything...

 

[CurtisEbear]

yeah, i may end up reformatting and reinstalling everything...i'll work on it for a while though. If i can at all help reformatting and reinstalling everything, i'd like to. I hate doing that.

I would assume my benchmarks should be somewhere around where this guys are

 

[Duvie]

Should be closer but he does have a superioir mob owith far mor superior mem controller....

You need those cat 3.0's installed!!! Got them???

 

[CurtisEbear]

I'm not sure what you want for specs on the mobo, so i just copied some stuff. All I know is its an Asus A7A266...

Socket A AMD Athlon/Duron processors to 1.2+ GHz
Chipset: ALi M1647 North Bridge and ALi M1535D+ South Bridge
266 MHz Front Side Bus
2 unbuffered DIMMs with up to 2GB of PC1600/PC2100 DDR SDRAM support
3 unbuffered DIMMs with up to 3GB of PC133 SDRAM support
C-Media CMI-8738 PCI 4-channel audio chip (optional)
AGP Pro slot with AGP 4X/2X/1X support
5 PCI slots, 6 USB ports, 2 Serial and 1 Parallel ports
Dual channel Bus Master IDE ports supports ATA-33/66/100
ATX Form Factor
Wakeup on LAN, Wakeup on Ring, chassis intrusion
PC Health MonitoringTM

what are sissoft memory bandwith scores?

EDIT: not sure what catalysts i have...whichever are the most recent ones. I just downloaded them about 2 hours ago from ATI's website.

 

[wicktron]

You're most likely being held back by CPU/mem/chipset limitations. But even then GF3 -> 9500pro should be more dramatic than that.

 

[WalMart1564]

i read somwhere that some MBs dont like ati cards and need to have there bios updated?

 

[selfbuilt]

I know another poster on another board who had a similar problem (and similar score issues), even with everything set correctly and updated AGP drivers. His problem only went away (i.e. his scores went up to the expected level) after a clean install of the OS. A bummer, but probably good to clean things up a little from time to time anyway.

 

[BoomAM]

I upgraded my XP1800 machine from a GF3Ti200 to a 9700PRO. I went from 7xxx to 10287. Your scores dont seem that bad. Check on the ORB of 3DMark and compare your system on the 3D accelerator comparison thing.
IMO 3DMark isnt the definitive benchmark in 3D performance, it just a synthetic benchmark. Try benchmarking in UT2003 or SeriousSam2, and tell us your results then.

 

[Duvie]

Originally posted by: BoomAM
I upgraded my XP1800 machine from a GF3Ti200 to a 9700PRO. I went from 7xxx to 10287. Your scores dont seem that bad. Check on the ORB of 3DMark and compare your system on the 3D accelerator comparison thing.
IMO 3DMark isnt the definitive benchmark in 3D performance, it just a synthetic benchmark. Try benchmarking in UT2003 or SeriousSam2, and tell us your results then.

yes you are right...just a synthetic benchmark...However when compared to like systems it should be close to comparable in the scores...I have always been able to compare my system and score close to the average on that system. IE you never see me running a thread asking about is my 3dmark score low...cause I already know...instead I ask how can I improve it.

that all being said I still think you are a bit low but make sure you do a clean install, especially since you just downloaded cat 3.0's which are the newest drivers and likely have reminence of anywhere from cat 2.3-2.5's on your system. ATI uninstalls are tricky cause they are picky for total removal...

Go to www.rage3d.com and look for a program that is an universal driver cleaner for nvidia and ati...I have tried it and it seems to really work!!!