I'm just not happy

[Bubba]

I got a GeForce2 Ultra 64MB DDR last night.
I was very disappointed by my 3D Mark2000 score.
I got 7100.
The reason I am upset is because I have seen many posting here, other newsgroups, and on the madoinion web page where people with similar configurations or even less are getting much better scores, like over 8000.
Here is my setup:
A7V rev. 1.02 bios 1006
Duron 600 at 950 (100X9.5)
512 MB PC133 cas2 Crucial ram
SBLive
20GB Maxtor, 7200 RPM, ATA100 on promise controller
Latest VIA drivers
Det 3 drivers 6.49 (what version do you recommend)
DirectX 8a
WinMe (going to 98SE is not an option)
Video card is not overclocked. If you think it would be a good idea, what settings would you recommed?
Should I up the FSB on the MB a little?

Can I get a couple of suggestions?
Thanks.

 

[Guest]

Oc'ing the Vid card would help, but youll notice that most of the guys who have scores like 8000+ either
a)Didnt run ALL the tests, only the ones that their pc especialy excelled in,
b)used the 3dmark cheat,
or c)used a lower resolution
In reality, 7100 is damn good score. The only things I would recommend are oc'ing the card and using the 6.34 or 6.35 drivers (these performed the best in 3d mark in my experience as well as alot of other guys ive met online. you can find them at www.reactorcritical.com and a few other driver sites.)
Sometimes playing around with your bios settings can help, for eample turning AGP fast writes on or off, getting the latest 4 in one drivers (also on reactor critical), getting the latest bios, etc.
The last thing .. is that you made a boo boo by installing DX8 (It will often lower your 3dmark score; youll notice most of the 8000+ guys use 7.0a) This is because DX8 is geared a little more towards image quality than 7 was (not to mention 3d mark isnt Dx8 ready; your score will prolly be much better when 3dmark2k1 comes out as it will have DX8 support.)

Well thats all the advice i have today. Im going to go play Alice now (muahahahah)

<i>Nascar racing is one of the few sports where spectators routinely die</i>

 

[phsstpok]

nVidia Drivers can vary performance by as much as 15%. Here is a link to a comparison of various drivers.

<A HREF="http://www.overclockercafe.com/ned_comparison_pg_5.htm" target="_new">http://www.overclockercafe.com/ned_comparison_pg_5.htm</A>

6.50 is the fastest and is now also the nVidia Reference driver.

This driver did more than more than all my BIOS tweaking but even the tweaking and the 6.50 driver did nothing compared to overclocking the video card.

I don't have an ultra. I don't even have a Geforce 2 but I did manage to get my Duron @1007 and Geforce256 SDR to 5644 the highest score for that combination. (Yes, all the tests were run and in the default 1024x768x16-bit colors). So believe me the drivers make a difffence.

As for the tweaks, these are what worked. KT7 BIOS WZb01 actually boosted my scores by 94 points! (Afterward, I loaded Via 4-in-1 version 4.28a. Now I can't duplicate my high score. I'm about 60 points lower. Go figure). PC-133 memory at CAS2, Turbo timing, 4-way interleave, 4K page mode, 4X agp (only 22 points higher than 2X).

AGP FastWrites do not seem to work with my hardware combination. I get severe video distortion.

Geforce Tweak 2.6.1 was used to overclock my VisionTek Geforce256 SDR to 150/210.

Video overclocking gained me about 800 points.

Tweaking about 200 points.

It's interesting that the difference between my overlocked Duron@1007 (multiplier and FSB) and not overclocking (@600) resulted in only 724 points, 5644 vs 4924.

Update:

Oops! I forgot to make my point!

Although, your score seems low to you. Be aware that all the things I mentioned above can drastically increase one's score. Except for overclocking one's CPU, none of the "enhancements" show up at MadOnion. If the poster doesn't state the facts then you don't know how his system is configured. Plus, as someone else mentioned, some "cheating" is being done. Click on one of the high tests results to see if all the tests were performed.
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by phsstpok on 02/23/01 03:36 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Guest]

7100 is a very good score for a Duron at that speed with the 200Mhz bus. Here are some things that I would check in your configurations though:

1) Make sure that all of your BIOS settings are optimized for more speed.

2) Make sure that your RAM setting is correct at 2-2-2 in the BIOS.

3) Make sure that you video shadowing disabled in the BIOS.

4) Make sure that your hard drive is running in DMA mode and not PIO mode.

5) I recommend using the 6.50 drivers which are the latest "official" version 6 drivers.

6) You are losing a few hundred points from DirectX 8a. I believe there are hacks on the Internet that will allow you to go back to version 7.

7) Overclock the memory portion of the video card. That is where the bottleneck is, not the gpu.

<note> Make sure to have good cooling near the video card if you do overclock. I put one of the socket cooler right next to it to blow out all of the hot air.

I hope this helps.



John Garrett
System Admin - www.elementk.com
Editor - Exploring Windows NT Professional

 

[Crashman]

LOL I get better than that with my GENERIC GTS 32MB running a PIII 700@933! Actually the PIII beats the Athlons at this particular test, and going over 8000 is nearly impossible at that speed. Go to the website and compare to other systems running at your CPU speed. I think the best at 950MHz was somwhere around 8500 and that would be with the experts using all the tweaks that us common folks don't know about.

Suicide is painless...........