New computer problems

ACE OwNz J0oO!! · 02-01-2003 10:49pm #1

This is a bit of a long read so only if you have time,

About two months ago i got a p4 2.5ghz 512ddr ram legend computer. This christmas i got a radeon 9700 pro made by connect3d of peats in town. When i use 3d mark i get a score of 11,000 tops and i was expecting much more considering with my petty Geforce 4 mx440 i got 6,000.

My mobo is a Columbia L (GA-8SIML) Ver 1.0 (Legend) µATX motherboard. here are its specs. if you need any more you can get them off http://www.legend-support.com/ the model is the 201.
Socket MPGA 478B.
Supports Intel P4 FC-PGA2 (0.18 Micron, 256 K cache, 400 MHz FSB), 1.4 to 2.4 GHz
Supports Intel P4 FC-PGA2 (0.13 Micron, 512 K cache, 400 MHz FSB), 1.8 to 2.4 GHz
Supports Intel Celeron FC-PGA2 (0.18 Micron, 128 K cache 400 MHz FSB) 1.9 GHz
100 MHz (x4 = 400 MHz) data bus support (Quad-Bumped technology)
System Memory
Supports 2 memory slots
Serial Presence Detect (SPD) support
Supports a maximum memory size of 512 MB (using 2 Ò 256 MB memory modules)
Support only 2.5 V DIMM DDRAM configurations
Unbuffered type support
266 MHz DDR interface
Core Logic (Chipset)
The SiS 650 IGUI HMAC 3D Graphic SDR/DDR Chipset features
Processor Host/Bus support (400 MHz data transfer rate)
Supports DDR 266/200 SDRAM or PC 133/100 SDRAM
AGTL+ and AGTL compliant bus driver auto compensation
AGP 2.0 compliant
Supports additional AGP 4X/2X interface and Fast Write Transaction
The SiS 961 MuTIOL Media I/O features
PCI rev 2.2 specification support.
Supports PCI bus at 33 MHz.
3 PCI bus masters slots (1 combo with CNR connector).
133 MB/s maximum throughput.
Integrated IDE controller supporting PIO Mode 4 transfers at up to 14 MB/s, Ultra ATA/33 mode transfers at up to 33 MB/s, and Ultra ATA/66 mode transfers up to 66 MB/s and Ultra ATA/100 mode transfers at up to 100 MB/s.

What can I do to make this any better?? , I have the latest drivers for the card and i have directx 9. If you can give any information it would be greatly appreciated. Thx

CivilServant · 02-01-2003 11:20pm

Well reading the specs from above it only supports 100Mhz fsb quad pumped. A 2.5 p4 uses at least 133 fsb. So that's a big performance hit there. To check for sure use wcpuid to see what fsb you're running.

ACE OwNz J0oO!! · 03-01-2003 12:14am

It says that the system clock is 99.59mhz
The system bus is 398.38
The multiplier is 25.0
The internal clock is 2489.87

What can i do about this???

CivilServant · 03-01-2003 12:32am

Hmm.. I assumed you had an intel 2.53 but I assumed wrong.:D Intel do make a 2.5Ghz p4 since you have one! Unfortunately you can't change the multiplier on intel p4s only the fsb and since the fsb for that board is limited to 100 I'm afraid you're going to need new components if you want to get some top 3dmarx.

You shouldn't worry too much about it though, 3dmark is just a number. The real tests come in game play. If you turn on anisotropic filtering and 6xantialiasing there's no way a geforce 4 could catch it. Top 3dmark scores are only needed when playing at super high resolutions 1600x1200 with all the eye candy on.

Just to make sure on the 3dmark, check you have anisotropic and aa off, they can dent your score.

ACE OwNz J0oO!! · 03-01-2003 12:45am

So I am stuck with it???
also after about a hour of playing it goes a bit screwey and i have to restart if i want to play a new game but i think that might be because of winXP home.

CivilServant · 03-01-2003 12:59am

God! You make it sound like a terrible affliction I would love to have a 2.5 p4 and Radeon 9700 Pro.:p

It could be winxp home acting up. Try a standard test like quake3 or ut2003 and see what results you get with them. Oh yeah 3dmark likes plenty of bandwidth so to increase the score you could up the fsb not an option atm or increase the bandwidth of your ram. What type of ram do you have? Speed I mean.

ACE OwNz J0oO!! · 03-01-2003 2:38am

I think is 133 or somthing but i cant be sure how do i check

CivilServant · 03-01-2003 10:16pm

Get sisoft sandra and you can compare as it's already got some stats on it. Post up your memory bandwidth and cpu stats.

ACE OwNz J0oO!! · 04-01-2003 7:47pm

In the bios it said my 512DDR ram was DDR266,Is that what you needed to know???? I asked my friend to help with the ram but i cant find out how to tweak it with the bios i have.

CivilServant · 05-01-2003 12:00am

Yeah that's the one. At least you know now what kind of ram you have. Other types are 266, 333 and 400 which described the potential speed of DDR memory.

I asked my friend to help with the ram but i cant find out how to tweak it with the bios i have.

A motherboard with only 100 fsb doesn't give much headroom for effective tweaking.

ACE OwNz J0oO!! · 05-01-2003 12:45am

The motherboard is a bit ****e so i have gathered, During the summer i will have to build my own pc , I will need your expert advice then, Thx for your help:p

RicardoSmith · 05-01-2003 12:51am

Make sure that your AGP setting is 4x or 8x if you have it. As sometimes its defaults to 1x or 2x and that can kill the performance of the graphics card. BTW 11K isn't a bad score but I would have expected somewhere around 13-15k with your rig. Could even be a problem with the drivers too.

Gyck · 05-01-2003 1:31am

You may have to do a registry hack to enable agp 4x or above.

What O/S are you using (or did I miss this)?

See if you can get any info from any mobo discussion boards that relate to your Columbia.

Regards...

ACE OwNz J0oO!! · 05-01-2003 1:45am

WOW can that bE done??!!?!??!?! sweet :eek: My os is a windows XP home

BKtje · 05-01-2003 3:42am

The performance boost from agp x4 to x8 is minimal.
Wont make much of an impact at all.

I gotta agree with the previous posters that ur fsb is your choke point. (most likely at least)
i got a xp2000+ with the 9700pro and i got over 12,000 3dmarks.

Make sure you are using latest ati drivers as well.
I got a huge improvement (over 4,500 3dmarks) when i updated them.

If you dont have lates read below.
Latest catalyst drivers can be found :
http://www.ati.com/support/drivers/powered.html,here

Get both the display drivers and control panel ones under your OS.
Make sure to uninstall your old display drivers and control panel from the add/remove programs menu to ensure smooth runnings

. gl

Does directx9 make a difference to your 3dmarks score?

RicardoSmith · 05-01-2003 3:49am

Originally posted by B-K-DzR
The performance boost from agp x4 to x8 is minimal.
Wont make much of an impact at all.

The point was that if its stuck on agp x1 it will make a difference.

Gerry · 05-01-2003 2:31pm

even 2x to 4x is feck all difference (apart from professional opengl apps), excellent article here:

http://www.lostcircuits.com/video/asus_v9280s/

benchmarks start here if you don't want to read all the background:

http://www.lostcircuits.com/video/asus_v9280s/8.shtml

And no machine is stuck on agp 1x any more, ( unless you have a an athlon with the amd 750 ( irongate) chipset.

Anyway, getting back to the topic, I'm not sure how many 3d marks to expect from your setup, it depends on your resolution, and direct3d settings. As others have said, you may have anti-aliasing switched on, ( I dunno what the defaults are like on ati cards). So make sure you have a good look through the advanced graphics settings in display properties.

RicardoSmith · 05-01-2003 6:20pm

Originally posted by Gerry
even 2x to 4x is feck all difference (apart from professional opengl apps), excellent article here.

I was talking about going from 1x to 4x. Only this weekend I was looking at a friends PC that was underperforming and found it to be stuck on 1x AGP. Switching to 4x showed a noticable improvement and almost 2k more in 3D mark.

Originally posted by Gerry
And no machine is stuck on agp 1x any more, ( unless you have a an athlon with the amd 750 ( irongate) chipset.

We don't all have new machines you know! Actually it was a BX chipset, with a 1Ghz PIII and a GF2ti. I've seen a few machines revert to 1x on occasion even ones with recent motherboards. Seems to be a default setting on some boards.

Gerry · 05-01-2003 6:29pm

Well, I don't have a new machine either

I have a 600e@900 on a bx board ( abit be6-2 raid ), default is agp 2x, you can set it to 1x in the bios ok. What board was your friends machine?

RicardoSmith · 05-01-2003 6:42pm

It was an Asus but I dunno the model number. He had a GF2MX in there and replaced it with the GF2ti but couldn't see any speed inprovement. Until we changed the AGP setting that is.

Gyck · 05-01-2003 7:16pm

It certainly made a difference to me, I got a 20% or 30% increase in my 3d mark going from 2x to 4x, though there could have been some other factor at work that I'm not aware of...

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