GeForce 3 brain cruncher -- SOLVED! Thank you!

[Guest]

Alright here's a problem I've been wrestling with like mad, and I'm at my wit's end here. Someone told me people here are pretty smart, so I figured I'd give this board a try. What do you all think of this:

Here's my problem:

Getting lousy polygon processing with my Prophet III. Tribes 2 sucks worse than my G400 did. I get 1500 or less on 3DMark2001 where I get 4300+ on 3DMark2000 and 5800+ on 99.


Here's what the rest of my system looks like:

Athlon T-Bird 1000
Luckystar KX-133 (never heard of em either)
512 MB CAS2 RAM
Windows 2000 SP-2
DirectX 8.0


Here's what hasn't worked:

Resetting BIOS settings
Using the Uninstall program for my G400
Looking for other cards in safe mode
Setting the AGP Driving Value to BA
Banging my head against the desk repeatedly
Disabling AntiAliasing
Reinstalling my Prophet
Reinstalling my Prophet by uninstalling it in safe mode
Installing Nvidia 12.40 drivers
Human sacrifice to various deities
Installing VIA 4-in-1 drivers (v4.31)

None of this helped.

Some people threw some suggestions my way, including some Hercules people. I tried them out:

- Went into Windows 98 and installed the card, then DirectX 8.0a. 3DMark2001 (3DM) didn't show any improvement over Win2K.

- Installed 4-in-1 drivers under 98 and it was there that it gave the option to install in Turbo mode (Win2K had less to install and did not give this option)

- 3DM tests started and showed drastic improvement.... then froze up the system after one second. Subsequent attempts to run 3DM locked up the system before displaying 3D graphics. Tribes 2 graphics distorted terribly after a few moments and left the system frozen.

- Pouted angrily and banged my head on the desk numerous times. This did not improve the situation, and, in fact, gave me a headache.

(At least I now have proof it DOES RUN, but something is still preventing it. I didn't want it running under win98 anyway, so back I went to Win2000.)

- Checked IRQ sharing. Everything was on 11, including the Prophet.

- Couldn't change IRQ's manually, so I used Inkblot78's suggestion of disabling ACPI (setting ACPI driver to "Standard PC").

- Restarted; computer went nuts and reinstalled everything.

- Everything suddenly is using its own IRQ. Hallelujiah. Prophet still sharing with sound card (10), but it's an improvement.

- Tested 3DM. Same low performance.

- Installed 4-in-1 drivers. Same low performance.

- Disabled sound card to free up IRQ. No improvement.

- Repeated pounding of head on desk. No improvement


This crap has been going on for days. I'm going to kill someone. Really.

Prevent the death of someone innocent. Help me out. Please!

--Æ<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by AEternal on 06/20/01 06:29 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Guest]

reformat youre hard drive and do a fresh install of everything. i had to and now everything works fine. before you reformat download all the latest drivers for everything you have that way youre not reinstalling any drivers. good luck

 

[noko]

Is this a Slot A T-Bird with a KX-133 chipset? Or is it a KT-133 chipset. Makes a very big difference. The KX-133 chipset never supported the T-Birds but did run on some boards at 800mhz or less. Which motherboard do you have? Is it a socket or slot A mobo? Your AGP driving value if set wrong can cause the lock ups which you are talking about. Recommend Auto and use PowerStrip to find the initial value for AGP driving value. Have you flash your motherboard rom to the most recent image file? Also old driver files can also cause your wows as well.

 

[mpjesse]

Have you considered the possibility that the card is defective? It could be suffering from crappy memory. Replace it. You've done a through job troubleshooting.

-MP Jesse

"Signatures Still Suck"

 

[HighCv2]

I don't have a gf3 just yet but I ran into the same problem. I "uninstalled" acpi driver changing it to "standard pc". Win2k never booted again. So when I was reinstalling it, I started my setup from win 98, CHOSE TO INSTALL FROM THE HARD DRIVE!, after it rebooted me into the actual setup screen I pressed F9 (I think, try the F keys and it brought me into the emergency console. I exited the console, it restarted the pc. After that it has an option to boot into 98 or continue with win2000 setup, choose win 98, after it boots find the i386 directory on your HDD and find the txtsetup.sif (it's either there or in your root. Find "ACPI options" section and under that there is an option ACPIEnable, set it to 0. after that reboot again and continue with the installation of win2k. Hope this helps. Also visit http://www.geforcefaq.com/faq.cgi#hw:gef:troub:all1irqw2k
and http://www.teamanarchy.com/writeups.php?idx=986866324.
They provide many more solutions, including the one similar to the above. hope this helps!

"He who laughs last doesn't get the joke"

 

[Sihs]

This post is hilarious. I was laughing my guts out. Good job with the troubleshooting man.
First, as Noko said, if you are running a kx133 mobo with a t-bird, that could cause a lot of problems (they are still waiting for det. 15.0199 to fix this). (kidding).
I'd say a crappy motherboard (that is, if the clean install didn't work). Take the card to a friend's pc or sacrifice more people to various dieties. Flash the bios (if you can find a website for this noname motherboard) while banging your head on the desk at a frequency of 3Hz (it won't help the pc, but it will sure kill the time while the bios is flashing).
I really hope you solve your prob. keep us updated with your troubleshooting though.

Sh!t Happens.

 

[HighCv2]

Rofl, flashing bios shouldn't take more then 5 seconds, but headbanging at 3hz will give u a headache even during those 5 seconds

"He who laughs last doesn't get the joke"

 

[Guest]

Yes. I am, in fact, running a SOCKET A ATHLON THUNDERBIRD 1000 MHz in a KX-133 BOARD. What sort of issues have been seen with this before? I haven't had any problems up to this point, and I've had it for the better part of a year.

I've set the AGP driving value back to Auto. Don't know what else I can do about this one or what value it would prefer. Someone said BA or A8. I didn't see any improvement, so I just set it back to Auto.

I've thought of returning it. I don't know if they'll take it back now. It's the 8th day, and I think they have a 7 day limit. Go figure. Try to solve it on your own and get punished for it.

Reformatting is something I'm going to try tonight. I'm overdue for it anyway -- my system is messy as it is. I'll probably recover 10 gigs of space I forgot I had.

Thanks for the replies so far, everyone. I'm still pluggin away at it. Oh and Hercules responded today. They just said to disable IRQ sharing. *sigh* :/

--Æ

 

[Ncogneto]

<font color=red>SOCKET A ATHLON THUNDERBIRD 1000 MHz in a KX-133 BOARD</font color=red>

Dude, read the posts....this is not possible. to get help we first need to know what you actually have.
You either have:

a) a socket a t-bird in a kt-133 chipset
b) a slot-a t-bird in a kx-133 chipset (very bad)
c) a slot a athlon classic in a kx-133 ( fine)
d) a slot a t-bird in a amd irongate 750 chipset board ( fine also)

but what you state is simply not possible.

however, for staters, I suggest booting to safe mode, removeing all video cards if more than one exist, then reboot and re-install the new card. After this, Install via 4.31 drivers.

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing!

 

[Guest]

I had the same problem. I have the same card as you. In 3d Mark 2001 I got 1400. Quake 3 demo001 got like 40 fps at 1024x768 32 color max everything. Now I get 135 fps on the demo at same resolution, and 3d mark 2001 got 5,400 Here is what to do:

right click on desktop and select properties, go to settings tab, click on advanced. Go to GeForce 3 TAB. Inside
go to additional properties. Go to open GL, turn on [use fast linear mipmap linear filtering]. I tried this and its so much faster now. I cant tell the difference in quality.(it says the quality in graphics may degrade) Hope this helps.
DWG

 

[noko]

Do a search and you will be able to find LuckyStar on the net, here are two motherboards they produced for the slot A Athlons.

AMD 750 chipset:
<A HREF="http://www.lucky-star.com.tw/products/mainboard/k7a750.htm" target="_new">http://www.lucky-star.com.tw/products/mainboard/k7a750.htm</A>

KX-133 chipset
<A HREF="http://www.lucky-star.com.tw/products/mainboard/k7va133.htm" target="_new">http://www.lucky-star.com.tw/products/mainboard/k7va133.htm</A>

Now which one do you have? Are you really sure about the 1gh T-Bird? You can run H-Oda program WCPUID which will tell you your L2 cache size of your cpu, if 256kb means a T-Bird, if 512kb means a classic. We need to now in order to help you. Let us know what it says.

<A HREF="http://www.tweakfiles.com/processor/wcpuid.html" target="_new">http://www.tweakfiles.com/processor/wcpuid.html</A>

Upgrade your bios from the above links to the most recent for your mobo is one step you should do.

 

[Sihs]

err...I haven't flashed anything yet (so sue me)
But would take me 20min to f-disk, install windoz and customize it. I know I should get me an image.

Sh!t Happens.

 

[Guest]

Okay, so you guys rock! Thank you so much, noko, for finding Luckystar's site on the web! =D I guess I didn't do enough research and thought I had bought a KX-133, when in fact I had a KT-133. This whole time, I had no idea!! I'm going to see if the 4-in-1 drivers for the KT-133 system do any good. A system format didn't help. (but i have 23 gigs free now ;] ) More to come...

--Æ

 

[Guest]

Okay, more to add to the list of things done:

Reformatted system/Installed DirectX 8.0. No change.
Installed the *KT-133* 4-in-1 drivers. No change.
Installed Detonator 12.60 drivers. No change.
Curled up on bed with teddy bear and sobbed quietly. Felt a little better.

=\ Does this say anything to anybody?

--Æ

 

[noko]

All right do this:
1. Run PowerStrip3.0
2. On PS3 menu - <b>Options - Adapter Information </b>
3. Go to report section and highlight everything in the section and copy it by hitting Ctrl+C
4. Paste results here in the forum by hitting ctrl+V. I should be able to diagnose the problem with that information much better.

PowerStrip3.0 download:

<A HREF="http://www.entechtaiwan.com/files/ps3test.exe" target="_new">http://www.entechtaiwan.com/files/ps3test.exe</A>

Man a GF3 not being used is worst then hell, get off that bed and throw that teddy bear inside of QuakeIII because you are going to fragg it for good.

Well to eat your <b>C kie</b> and have it too, gotta get <b>Rade n II</b><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by noko on 06/03/01 07:38 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Guest]

Diagnostic report - generated on 6/4/2001
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PowerStrip build - 147
Windows build - v.5.0.2195.2.Service Pack 2
DirectX build - v.5.1.2258.400 built by: Lab06_N(mmbuild)
OpenGL renderer - GeForce3/AGP/3DNOW!, v.1.2.2

System board
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CPU speed - 1002 MHz
Type - VIA 8363-686A-6A6LML19C-00
BIOS - Award Bios, 08/17/2000
AGP aperture - 128 MB
AGP transfer mechanism - Disabled
AGP non-local memory - (n/a)
AGP driving value - DBh (N-ctrl=13, P-ctrl=11)
AGP revision - 2.00
AGP transfer rates supported - 1x, 2x, 4x
Current AGP transfer rate - 4x
Sideband addressing - hardware support, but currently disabled
Fast write protocol - (n/a)
AGP texturing - hardware support, but currently disabled

Graphics card #1
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Identity - NVIDIA GeForce3
Memory clock - 458.18 MHz
Graphics clock - 199.66 MHz
IRQ - 11, shared
AGP revision - 2.00
AGP transfer rates supported - 1x, 2x, 4x
Current AGP transfer rate - 4x
Sideband addressing - (n/a)
Display driver - nv4_disp.dll, v.5.13.01.1260
DirectX driver - nv4_disp.dll, v.5.13.01.1260
Attached monitor - Microsoft Plug and Play Monitor
Monitor caps (1) - 1600x1200, 75kHz, 85Hz

Device enumeration
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NVIDIA GeForce3 (020010DEh) - using IRQ11
VIA CPU-to-PCI/AGP bridge (03051106h)
VIA PCI-to-PCI/AGP bridge (83051106h)
VIA PCI-to-ISA bridge (06861106h)
VIA IDE controller (05711106h)
VIA Universal serial bus (USB) (30381106h) - using IRQ11
VIA Universal serial bus (USB) (30381106h) - using IRQ11
VIA CPU-to-PCI/AGP bridge (30571106h)
VIA Audio device (30581106h) - using IRQ5
Creative Labs Audio device (00021102h) - using IRQ11
Creative Labs Input controller (70021102h)
3Com Ethernet controller (905010B7h) - using IRQ11

OpenGL extensions
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
GL_ARB_imaging
GL_ARB_multisample
GL_ARB_multitexture
GL_ARB_texture_border_clamp
GL_ARB_texture_compression
GL_ARB_texture_cube_map
GL_ARB_texture_env_add
GL_ARB_texture_env_combine
GL_ARB_texture_env_dot3
GL_ARB_transpose_matrix
GL_S3_s3tc
GL_EXT_abgr
GL_EXT_bgra
GL_EXT_blend_color
GL_EXT_blend_minmax
GL_EXT_blend_subtract
GL_EXT_compiled_vertex_array
GL_EXT_draw_range_elements
GL_EXT_fog_coord
GL_EXT_packed_pixels
GL_EXT_paletted_texture
GL_EXT_point_parameters
GL_EXT_rescale_normal
GL_EXT_secondary_color
GL_EXT_separate_specular_color
GL_EXT_shared_texture_palette
GL_EXT_stencil_wrap
GL_EXT_texture_compression_s3tc
GL_EXT_texture_edge_clamp
GL_EXT_texture_env_add
GL_EXT_texture_env_combine
GL_EXT_texture_env_dot3
GL_EXT_texture_cube_map
GL_EXT_texture_lod
GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias
GL_EXT_texture_object
GL_EXT_vertex_array
GL_EXT_vertex_weighting
GL_IBM_texture_mirrored_repeat
GL_KTX_buffer_region
GL_NV_blend_square
GL_NV_evaluators
GL_NV_fence
GL_NV_fog_distance
GL_NV_light_max_exponent
GL_NV_multisample_filter_hint
GL_NV_packed_depth_stencil
GL_NV_register_combiners
GL_NV_register_combiners2
GL_NV_texgen_reflection
GL_NV_texture_env_combine4
GL_NV_texture_rectangle
GL_NV_texture_shader
GL_NV_vertex_array_range
GL_NV_vertex_array_range2
GL_NV_vertex_program
GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap
GL_SGIS_multitexture
GL_SGIS_texture_lod
GL_SGIX_depth_texture
GL_SGIX_shadow
GL_WIN_swap_hint
WGL_EXT_swap_control

--Æ

 

[noko]

Allright looks like you have a few clevits which when corrected should turn that sleeping lion into a vicious veracious frag eating weapon. First go into your bios and <b>Enable Fastwrites</b>, the GF lines support fastwrite. Next you have AGP texturing turned off which looks like it disable AGP transfers as well without any DMA support or DME. Which would explain why your bench marks are what they are. So do this:

1. <b>Start</b> - In the <b>Run</b> command type the following <b>Dxdiag</b>
2. This should open up the DXDiagnostic Tool
3. Go to the <b>Display</b> tab and select it
4. In the open window you will see 4 sections:
. . Device
. . DirectXFeatures
. . Notes
. . Drivers
5. In the <b>DirectXFeatures</b> you should see this listed
DirectDrawAcceleration: Enabled . . . . (button that says) <b>Disable</b>
Direct3dAcceleration: Enabled . . . . . <b>Disable</b>
AGPTextureAcceleraton: Enabled . . . . <b>Disable</b>
<b>IMPORTANT!!!: All the above Features should be enabled, the buttons to the right will do what it says on the button either Enable or Disable. Meaning all the buttons should be saying <b>Disable</b> meaning the DXFeatures are Enabled as will be indicated.</b>
6. Perform the two tests, <b>Test DirectDraw</b> and <b>TestDirect3d</b> let me know of any problems with the tests
7. Also in the <b>Notes</b> section please list any warnings.

Please let me know how this works out. You should see a remarkable performance difference when AGP is acutally fully configured right. Appears that the 4in1 drivers are properly configured, I hope you are using the latest 4.31 4in1 finals. Let me know.

Well to eat your <b>C kie</b> and have it too, gotta get <b>Rade n II</b><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by noko on 06/04/01 01:37 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[SerArthurDayne]

Hrmmm.... no graphic card bugs are safe when Noko's in the house

/me gives props for brilliant troubleshooting

 

[noko]

Here is my Graphics card Adapter Report:

Diagnostic report - 6/4/2001
--------------------------------------------------
PowerStrip build - 145
Windows build - v.5.0.2195.2.Service Pack 2
DirectX build - v.5.1.2462.579 built by: Lab06_N(mmbuild)
OpenGL renderer - Radeon DDR x86/MMX/3DNow!, v.1.2.2215 Win2000 Release

System board
--------------------------------------------------
CPU speed - 1335 MHz
Type - VIA 8363-686B-6A6LMI3CC-00
BIOS - Award Bios, 05/08/2001
AGP aperture - 64 MB
AGP transfer mechanism - DMA
AGP non-local memory - 83.8 MB
AGP driving value - EEh
AGP revision - 2.00
AGP transfer rates supported - 1x, 2x, 4x
Current AGP transfer rate - 4x
Sideband addressing - Enabled
Fast write protocol - (n/a)
AGP texturing - Enabled

Graphics card #1
--------------------------------------------------
Identity - RADEON DDR
Memory clock - 182.25 MHz
Graphics clock - 182.25 MHz
IRQ - 11, shared
AGP revision - 2.00
AGP transfer rates supported - 1x, 2x, 4x
Current AGP transfer rate - 4x
Sideband addressing - Enabled
Display driver - ati2dvag.dll, v.5.13.01.3211
DirectX driver - ati2dvag.dll, v.5.13.01.3211
Attached monitor - Microsoft Plug and Play Monitor
Monitor caps (1) - 1600x1200, 75kHz, 85Hz

Device enumeration
--------------------------------------------------
RADEON DDR (51441002h) - using IRQ11
VIA CPU-to-PCI/AGP bridge (03051106h)
VIA PCI-to-PCI/AGP bridge (83051106h)
VIA PCI-to-ISA bridge (06861106h)
VIA IDE controller (05711106h)
VIA Universal serial bus (USB) (30381106h) - using IRQ11
VIA Power management controller (30571106h)
Bridgecom Ethernet controller (09851317h) - using IRQ11
C-Media Electronics Audio device (011113F6h) - using IRQ11


Well to eat your <b>C kie</b> and have it too, gotta get <b>Rade n II</b>

 

[Guest]

Yeah Noko knows his stuff!

Okay it says Enabled on DirectDraw and Direct3D, but AGP Texture Acceleration is greyed out!! I'm wondering if I can set that in the BIOS too...? Rebooting now to see if I can enable Fast Writes, but I don't remember seeing that in the BIOS before; I looked. Back in a sec...

--Æ

 

[Guest]

Okay so here's some new info:

I enabled "Fast R-W Turnaround" in the BIOS because it was the closest thing to "AGP Fast Writes" that I could find. No changes.

But here's something that throws a monkeywrench into the works. By reformatting, I noticed that I suddenly got OpenGL to show up on the list of drivers on Tribes. Just for the heck of it, I selected it. It absolutely BLAZES! Completely maxed out settings with environmental mapping on characters, Quincunx AA, and the kitchen sink -- at least 50 fps without a hiccup. Unreal Tournament does the same thing! What the heck does THIS say? D3D T&L is not working right with my GeForce 3 drivers? I hope I don't have to wait for Nvidia to fix this nonsense. Ack!

--Æ

*edit* Heh, please don't mistake my tone in this post. I'm actually overjoyed that it works and that I don't have to return my card and wait "6-8 weeks" (translation: the rest of your natural life) for a replacement from Hercules. In fact, I think OpenGL looks a ton BETTER than D3D and would much prefer to use that! But not everything is going to use OpenGL, and that's going to be a problem later on, I just know it. </pessimism><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by AEternal on 06/04/01 08:34 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[noko]

Thats good, did you reinstall the 4in1 drivers after the reformat. Also you need to reinstall SP2 to get AGP working right for a via chipset. You could use the Via AGP hotfix but I recommend you use SP2 to get the configuration right for AGP. Sorry, forgot to mention that one, could be the whole problem from the beginning.

How did the DirectX test turn out in DirectX plus any warnings in DirectX?

Did you install Directx8a after format? 12.60 drivers require DX8.

AGP Aperture setting in bios, try 64mb, 32mb, 256mb to see if AGP textures will be enabled. 8mb and less will turn off AGP textures but PowerStrip3 indicates 128mb Aperture?? Still it looks like a AGP problem, once you solve that your GF3 should fly in DX8.


Well to eat your <b>C kie</b> and have it too, gotta get <b>Rade n II</b><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by noko on 06/04/01 11:39 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Guest]

As soon as I finished reinstalled, I installed SP2, then DirectX 8.0a, the VIA 4-in-1 drivers. Turned out I was installing the KX-133 drivers which I have recently found out were not the correct ones. I installed the KT-133 ones over them. Neither seemed to change anything.

Not a single issue in the DirectX tests.

Yes, in the BIOS it says 128MB aperture. That's the max it can go. I'll try lowering it. I'll also try uninstalling the KX-133 drivers and the KT-133 drivers, then reinstalling the KT-133's, just to make sure they're cleaned out (unless they are all the same file names, then I don't see it making much difference).

Back home for more attempts...

--Æ

 

[noko]

You should be getting extremely good performance in DX8 stuff as well with 4600pts plus in 3dMark2001. So hopefully you will solve the problem, just keep working the problem and enjoy the benefits. PowerStrip3 in the Adapter information has some options to configure the AGP bus, you might want to experiment with it if your other methods don't work out. It has a setting to enable AGP textures or not plus DMA seting for AGP.

Well to eat your <b>C kie</b> and have it too, gotta get <b>Rade n II</b>

 

[Guest]

Well, I think I'm about done figuring this out. I'll see if I can get AGP the other issues to work themselves out, but I'm really convinced it's nothing to do with settings, but rather poor drivers. Too many people are getting this type of problems. I think we have to wait for better D3D drivers from Nvidia. For now, OpenGL works beautifully, so I will use that. Hopefully most things I want to do will support it.

Noko, I cannot thank you enough for sticking this thing out and really trying your best to help me. Believe me, this kind of thing is not soon forgotten. You have my sincere grattitude. *bow*



--Æ