I just don't get it!

[Ron_Jeremy]

I need ur help guys. I have 3 pc's in my home. All pc's have Counter-Strike (Half-Life) installed. My main pc has a Celeron433/BF6mobo/384Mb ram/ViperTNT2-32. The other 2 pc's are basically "junkers" & inferior to the main machine in almost every way (8 Mb ATI vid card & STB 4400 vid card, 64 Mb ram, cheap mobo's etc etc) & both have PII450's.
Here's the deal: I get 10-25 fps (depending on map) with my main machine but anywhere from 35-55 with the other 2 pieces of crap. I am using Nvidias latest reference drivers for my TNT2. This machine is running NT4.0 but so is one of the other pc's (win98 on last machine). I just don't get it. Why is the machine with the most system & video ram (by huge margins) lagging behind the others. The TNT2 is way newer than the other carsds too! I don't belive a PII450 would be making the diff compared to the Celeron433. I have reinstalled NT several times & found a "fresh" install doesn't help. Can anyone help me? Do I have a config problem? I do not activate/deactivate any settings or filters on the TNT2 properties & everything is left "as is" after driver installation. All pc's are running 800x600 resolution. Thank you very much to all that take time out of their busy schedules to reply.

 

[kal326]

That is strange. Your using the newest Nvidia drivers for the TNT2. Also one of the "junker" machines is running NT aswell. I wouldnt think that a PII 450 with a older vid card would make that much differance over a celeron 433 with an ok vid card. I would try something like q3 if possible for another comparison. I had a classic 600 Athlon with a TNT2 Ultra by creative and my friend had a 466 celeron with a TNT2 Ultra by diamond and under quake3 we were almost identical in fps under win98SE. In fact at some resolutions he even beat me. Another thing, NT4 is not a real gaming OS either, but with the one machine under NT4 still beating your main one makes me wonder if something isnt wrong with the main one. I suggest trying out a few other first person shooter type games and doing there benchmarks for comparison.

 

[phsstpok]

I recall reading somewhere in these forums that the later Detonator 3 drivers should not be used with tnt2 cards but I also recall that they are supposed to be monolithic and will work with all cards. Since I don't have the facts I'm not really sugesting anything except beware and read up on it.

Personally, I suggest Detonator 3, version 6.50 which seem to be the fastest for my Geforce256. Here are some links.

www.nvguru.com
http://www.3dchipset.com/beta/nvidia/list.html

Since I have been mostly an AMD user for 13 years I do not know a lot about Intel platforms so if I am wrong just ignore this. Guessing by the numbers you provided, I would think your PIIs run a 100 mhz FSB. Could the Celeron running on 66 mhz FSB account for some of the difference in performance? Wouldn't the Celeron have a much lower memory bandwidth?