Radeon8500 performance

G

Guest

Guest
Just bought a Radeon 8500 expecting stunning performance. I'm definitely disapointed since it should be a huge improvement over my previous Geforce2MX. I didn't expect to have problems with lag with 1024/768 resolution but I do. And it only scores 4900 in 3Dmark2000 compared to the nearly 7000 results displayed in the tests.
Does anyone have similar problems or is it just my card. Or perhaps it's my specs which just is not up to date for this card. I have Duron 800, 512MB, Win2K and uses ati driver 3286 and DirectX8.1.
Does anyone have any suggestions before I switch it for a Geforce3.
 

AMD_Man

Splendid
Jul 3, 2001
7,376
2
25,780
hmmm, something is definitely wrong. Detonator drivers have a tendency to leave its remains on the hard drive and conflict with other drivers. I would suggest that you reformat your hard drive and reinstall Windows and all your apps. Don't forget to back up your work!

AMD technology + Intel technology = Intel/AMD Pentathlon IV; the <b>ULTIMATE</b> PC processor
 

kinney

Distinguished
Sep 24, 2001
2,262
17
19,785
Part of it comes from the use of the Duron. Its a good processor but in games its a great restraint compared to a athlon.

I would get whatever your mobo supports, either a thunderbird athlon or a athlon xp processor.
i wouldnt worry if you can only get a thunderbird they are great processors. check for bios updates on your mobo and see if it now supports athlon xp. if so, get a athlon xp 1500+ or 1700+ like i have, it will bring you probably 20+ fps in your games.

i think you will have similar results with that processor and a geforce3, because both gf3 and 8500 are about equal overall.

"dude your getting a dell", is that kid trying to say he wants to stick his 'dell' in you?
 

bront

Distinguished
Oct 16, 2001
2,122
0
19,780
Issues you might have:

1) Your CPU might be slowing you down
2) Check your AGP Bios settings, make sure it's at 4X
3) Check your AGP Apature size, you want at least 64
4) Make sure you have fully removed old videocard drivers.
5) Make sure you disable any background programs like virus scanners when testing.

I've had a Radeon 8500 OEM/LE for a while, and I got over 7000 on 3DMark2001 with the initial driver set with my Athlon XP 1600+, but the CPU was worth 25% of my score with my old Geforce 2 MX on that platform vs my old Athlon 750.

I sold my soul to Microsoft, and all I got was this lousy operating system.
 
G

Guest

Guest
Thanks for the advice guys. I took it and bought a xp1600+ today...and you know what - now I got a score of 7900. Haven't even upgraded the bios or mobo drivers yet,..that's just amazing...never thougth the processor ment that much. And my games looks much better and doesen't lag.
Now I just need to do a clean install of winXP and it should be even better...
 

hartski

Distinguished
Feb 12, 2002
403
0
18,780
I also was dissappointed when 3DMark2001 gave me 4000+ score with my Radeon 8500 on an AMD Athlon XP 1800+, 768MB PC2100 DDR RAM, MAxtor 60GB ATA133 HDD.

Solution = remove any non-system applications that run at startup and run at the background such as Norton Antivirus, Norton Utilities and other programs that have put themselves to run at startup.

After doing that I got 7111 score on 3DMark2001. The one thing that hasn't change is my Quake III FPS.

Also remove any tweaks that you did on ATI's Display Configuration Utility found at Windows' Display Properties.
Take note of OpenGL and Direct 3D tweaks
 

AMD_Man

Splendid
Jul 3, 2001
7,376
2
25,780
After doing that I got 7111 score on 3DMark2001. The one thing that hasn't change is my Quake III FPS.
That score is still way too low. I get significantly better than that on a 1.33GHz Athlon with SDRAM!

AMD technology + Intel technology = Intel/AMD Pentathlon IV; the <b>ULTIMATE</b> PC processor
 

AMD_Man

Splendid
Jul 3, 2001
7,376
2
25,780
After doing that I got 7111 score on 3DMark2001. The one thing that hasn't change is my Quake III FPS.
That score is still way too low. I get significantly better than that on a 1.33GHz Athlon with SDRAM!

AMD technology + Intel technology = Intel/AMD Pentathlon IV; the <b>ULTIMATE</b> PC processor
 

hartski

Distinguished
Feb 12, 2002
403
0
18,780
yah I know...I'm expecting 8000+. reviews I've read just had 256MB RAM and they even beat my score! I believe there are a few more things I am doing wrong...well frok 4000 to 7000 soon imma reach 9000??? possible???
 
G

Guest

Guest
Oh boy, you got wrong with Windows 2000.
There is no Windows that can do the best performance than the 98. And I tell you that the drives for any NT based system are very poor.
Try running win98se and download Rage3DTweak from voodoofiles.com
Nice card.
My Radeon 7200 (originally RADEON 64MB SDR) scores about 4800+(2%) on my Duron 900 oc 1100@110 with 1.7 volts, Asus A7V133 Raid mobo and 256 MB CAS3 Micron.
Rage3DTweaked: 5144 3dmarks
 

AMD_cErTiFiEd

Distinguished
Jul 11, 2001
592
0
18,980
"I would suggest that you reformat your hard drive and reinstall Windows and all your apps. Don't forget to back up your work!"

LMAO reformat just because of detonators. Try using the detonator destroyers from guru3d.com.


Blame the newbies not the technology
 

Mnx4

Distinguished
Aug 10, 2001
324
0
18,780
Here's my two cents: does anyone think that he could have gotten the OEM version of the 8500? There is a difference between OEM and Retail and that could be what the prob is. But i dunno.

Putting the laughter back in to Slaughter.
 

evil_homer

Distinguished
May 29, 2001
130
0
18,680
I'm just curious as to what type of games you were playing. The whole issue with the Duron is that it's L2 cache is much smaller than a T-Bird's but with the exception of games like Hitman and the like the chance of a second L2 cache hit are small.


Keyboard not found press F5 to continue
 

hartski

Distinguished
Feb 12, 2002
403
0
18,780
I think it has 350Mhz RAMDAC. Shouldn't it be 400Mhz.
I bought OEM and it prolly is the LE version of the R8500.
If that is so I am satisfied with 7411 score in 3dmark2001
and 150 FPS in Q3A 1024x768 32bit 72Mhz refresh rate at Performance mode and 132 FPS at Quality Mode. When I turn on 'compress textures' though I get 160 FPS but still images looks obviously reduced in image quality. well you wouldn't notice it that much anyway right?
 

Smilin

Distinguished
Oct 3, 2001
421
0
18,780
AAAAGH!

Jesus something has got to be wrong if a new video card makes you do an OS reload.

A new motherboard is one thing but a vid card??
 

AMD_Man

Splendid
Jul 3, 2001
7,376
2
25,780
I think it has 350Mhz RAMDAC. Shouldn't it be 400Mhz.
I bought OEM and it prolly is the LE version of the R8500.
If that is so I am satisfied with 7411 score in 3dmark2001
and 150 FPS in Q3A 1024x768 32bit 72Mhz refresh rate at Performance mode and 132 FPS at Quality Mode. When I turn on 'compress textures' though I get 160 FPS but still images looks obviously reduced in image quality. well you wouldn't notice it that much anyway right?
It's a bug in the driver, or in Windows, I'm not sure. I believe it's Windows. It doesn't properly detect any RAMDAC over 350MHz. But yes, you do have a 400MHz RAMDAC. If you have the R8500LE then that is a reasonable score. The Texture Compression issue however, is not normal. With the 6025, ATI has refined Texture Compression so that there is no loss in quality.

AMD technology + Intel technology = Intel/AMD Pentathlon IV; the <b>ULTIMATE</b> PC processor