The grinch who stole my FPS

[Guest]

My father unexplicably purchased a new p4 1.8 ghz processor, 512 megs of samsung pc400 rambus, a new intel d850mv motherboard, jaxtor geforce 2 and a new a-pro case and p4 power supply. Over the weekend, I camped out at his house and installed all the components, using the primary ide for the hd (which was ported over from his old computer) and secondary ide for his dvd/cd rom. I reinstalled windows 98 and benchmarked the system using madonion's 3dmark 2000. While I used to post 2000 marks with his old p2 450 mhz 128 sdram, I saw a meagre increase to 2200 points. I loaded a game he bought, IL2 - and cranked up the graphics to 1600x1200 32bit, hell, he's got the goods now - but the game ran dissapointingly slow, so i had to scale back to 1024x768 16 bit. My question is, is this normal? My father said that computers are like audio equipment, that is even though components look better on paper, they don't give all that much more real world performance over what you currently have. I don't have a specific technical question, everything runs fine. No BSOD or any other anomaly, save for the fact the system does not show the overall gains I thought it would have given what we started with. Do I need a new OS? New HD? Any suggestions out there?
Thanks in advance and happy holidays,
nebulus

 

[Kelledin]

Ummmm...

What GeForce 2 is this? A GF2MX200?

Also, <b><i>PC400?!</i></b> I didn't even know they made PC400. In the unlikely event that the above was not a typo, that bandwidth shortage could be what's hurting.

Kelledin
[dave@discovery ~] kill -9 1
init: Just what do you think you're doing, Dave?

 

[Guest]

yes, I think it is pc800 - I just culled from memory sisoft sandra 2000's report i ran after the instal. But I will double check that. The video card is a geforce 2 mx200 with the latest detonator (nvida reference) drivers installed.
thanks
Nebulus

 

[bum_jcrules]

What video card were you using before?

Was it AGP 4x also?

And who is Jaxtor? Maxtor or Jaton? But Maxtor doesn't make video cards.

P4 1.8 should blow the doors off the PII 450. Your problem is probably that no-name video card. Do you have new drivers for it?

Give us more info...

<b>All for one and one for all...and 3 for 5! - Curly - The Three Stooges</b> :lol: <P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Bum_JCRules on 12/17/01 02:26 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Kelledin]

With that vidcard, the 3DMark score might not be surprising. IIRC, the MX200 was so slow that the old TNT2 was defeating it in benchmarks--thus nVidia discontinued the full-blown TNT2 and re-released it as the TNT2-M64 POS.

Kelledin
[dave@discovery ~] kill -9 1
init: Just what do you think you're doing, Dave?

 

[Guest]

It is definitely a Jaton - and while it has 64 megs of ram, it uses sdram instead of the 32 megs of ddr which my father had on his last card, a first generation guillemot geforce ddr which he fried. If you think the no-name graphic card is bottlenecking his system, I'm sure I can call a few friends who can accidently "fry" this card, too. What should I do?
Thanks again,
nebulus

 

[Kelledin]

Let me guess...the Guillemot GF DDR-DVI was an "AGP 3.9x" card--a card that claims to be 4x, but still uses 3.3V?

I suspected as much. I have the exact same card, probably the exact same generation too--I bought my 3D Prophet DDR-DVI as soon as the f0kker was released.

I say fry the thing and get a <i>real</i> GeForce 2.

Kelledin
[dave@discovery ~] kill -9 1
init: Just what do you think you're doing, Dave?

 

[rcf84]

do me a favor and go buy a Radeon 8500 or a GeForce 3.

Nice Nvidia and ATi users get a Cookie.... Yummy

 

[Stiffler]

Thats one bummer !

I would be pissed if I got a system which was so bummed down by a crap Graphics card...

Yeah I agree get a better one... whats you budget ? If its not so high $140ish get a Gainward Geforce 2 Ti500 VIVO its apparently amazing.
Higher budgets go for a Raddeon 8500/Geforce 3 Ti200 (The raddeon has a heck of alot of potential - If you have faith get one), more cash again get a Geforce 3 Ti500.

Tim

I am Homer of Borg ! Prepare to be... MMMhhhhh Doughnuts

 

[Crashman]

LMAO! Yo mon check it out....<A HREF="http://gamershq.madonion.com/compare.shtml?2067265" target="_new">http://gamershq.madonion.com/compare.shtml?2067265</A>. It's the video card, all MX200's suck, even name brand units. In fact there is little difference between any brand of card when you compare model to model with the base memory-some cards do better because they have faster memory.

Anyhoo, the MX200 is the second worst card on the market-after all, they still make the M64...wait, I think you can still get a cheap SiS card or something...lets say that it's the worst GeForce on the market, it only has half the memory buswidth of the TNT2!
OK, cheap improvement-a GeForce 2 MX400, or a Visiontek GTS-V, which is a special cheapo version with SLOWER than standard memory which will still be about 50% faster than that MX200, and up to 100% faster in some games. Same price as the MX400. OR you can get a REAL GeForce2 GTS for a few dollars more. Or you can get a Gainward GeForce2 Ti with 4.5ns memory (DDR450) for around $100.

What's the frequency, Kenneth?

 

[Guest]

I told my father that popular opinion suggests that the video card is the problem. My father is going to buy a GeForce 3 for his computer, leaving me with the Jaton 200 mx (thanks, dad). I guess I'll o/c the hell out of the Jaton and try it out in a rig I assembled from the leftover parts of all his previous upgrades. If it bakes, good riddence I guess. Thank you for your help, gentlemen.
Nebulus

 

[xxsk8er101xx]

hey dude

check out www.newegg.com

they are selling geforce 2 ti's for 112 or 114 around there i forget. Or spend an extra 80 (80, 60, whatever it is, but it cost extra!!!! for all the flamers out there always being picky about details) and get a geforce 3 ti200.

if you gots the budget ... geforce 3 ti500 all the way. I recommend leadtech. Just because they seem good. never had one though so don't take my word for it.

Good luck!

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?id=9933" target="_new"> My Rig </A>

 

[xxsk8er101xx]

ahh cool

sorry i didn't read this post as i posted mine.

check out the geforce 2 ti for yourself *shrugs*



<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?id=9933" target="_new"> My Rig </A>

 

[Crashman]

The Radeon 8500 has more features, and cost less than a GeForce 3, a little more than a GeForce 3 ti200.

What's the frequency, Kenneth?

 

[Matisaro]

Both the ti200/500 and the radeon8500 are good cards, you cant go wrong with either, unless using windows xp, in which case radeon still has some reported issues, but they are VASTLY reduced each driver revision, so it shouldnt be a problem.

I would get the ti200 myself, if is 154 on pricewatch.com(last I checked) and the cheapest 8500(which is oem so its clocked slowe) was like 190.

"The Cash Left In My Pocket,The BEST Benchmark"
No Overclock+stock hsf=GOOD!