AMD Duron build performance.

[Vinno]

Greetings to all.

Having found it in the my cupboard (after around 25 years) I finally managed to put together a build centered around my old AMD Duron 800Mhz.

The spec is as follows:

Amd Duron 800
Epox 8KTA3L+
768Mb SD100 RAM
Geforce 2 Ti (on Detonator 30.82 drivers)

I obviously had a lot less RAM back then, and my GPU was a Kyro 2 at the time. But it's in the same ball park as the GF2 Ti, I think?

I managed to get Windows 98 installed on it and paired it up with an old 1024x768 monitor.

Now, I don't know if I am misremembering some things but the performance is far lower than I remember/expected.

I started off with Return to Castle Wolfenstein which, even at the lowest of settings, has a wildly fluctuating frame rate which goes from 40ish indoors down to about 10-20 outdoors. Lowering the resolution down to 640x480 doesn't change anything. Outdoor sections are truly unplayable.

Ok, fair enough - that game was a bit later so maybe I played it after upgrading.

So I rooted out my old copy of Ghost Recon which I know for a fact I played hundreds/thousands of hours of on this system. The first level is a big open map which perhaps doesn't help matters, but the frame rate never hits 30. I tried lowering everything to the absolute lowest settings (including resolution) and it does improve things. But I'm pretty sure that I didn't have to do this back then? I used to play the game pretty competitively online so I can't imagine I was at sub-30 fps.

I also tried 1nsane which fairs a tad better, giving me 40ish fps.

I'm just a bit confused as to whether this performance is expected or if there is something wrong somewhere. With the FPS barely changing with resolution drops I'm thinking it's CPU related.

Any help would be great because it's driving me nuts!

Cheers!

 

[Vinno]

Thanks for the replies guys.

Well, I never knew that my poor little Duron 800 was so widely regarded as being crap lol

It was my first ever upgrade after I got a PC a few years prior so I always remembered it fondly. Maybe too fondly!

My plan was to use the system for messing around on late 90s games such as Half Life etc. So maybe it'll be enough for that - I just need to go hunting and find where my copies are.

I do have copies of Quake 3 and 3D Mark 2001 handy though so I'll give them a whirl next time I get the chance.

 

[Vinno]

Socket 462 board? 100% change to an Athlon for not much money, it will be a really nice upgrade

Yeah I know I could, but this was my actual chip from back then so I kinda wanted to build the actual system (or as close to) that I had.

ive got the same CPU in a windows 98 build with a GeForce MX4000 128MB. Everything ive tried runs really well and fast at 1280 x 1024. Star Trek Elite Force. Klingon academy , Max Payne.

Hmm. I'll have to try those games out then. The problem is that I can't see what's causing the issue. It's so easy these days with Afterburner or whatever to see exactly what each component is up to. On Windows 98 I can't find anything to do similar.

 

[Vinno]

Might be worth a Try with less RAM installed - 256MB should be fine. Windows 98 general doesn't play well with >512MB and can need some tweaks. In reality most things that run on 98 won't need all that RAM anyway.



CPU-Z still has a "vintage edition" that runs on 95/98, so should at least show you if everything is running at the correct speed.

DOWNLOADING CPU-Z_1.04-WIN9X.ZIP | CPUID

System information software

www.cpuid.com

I did try initially with 256mb but because of the performance issues I threw more in thinking it could be that.

I'll take some out though when I start messing with it at the weekend.

And that's good to know re@ CPU-Z. I'll give it a go!

 

[Vinno]

Sometimes with this older hardware like this stuff is a bit tired and it doesn't perform well, especially stuff like thermal paste, etc. might be causing thermal throttling.

That said I used to remember playing Quake 2 and the contemporary Jedi Knight games with reasonable enough performance and then I found some old screenshots with the framerate counter and was like ouch - no idea how I found it OK but then at the time we didn't know better. Though I also distinctly remember the massive improvement in performance and visual quality the first time going to one of the higher end Voodoo offerings.

Yeah that's the thing isn't it lol. It's the same when I go back to play PS1 games and they're running at an erratic 20fps or something. At the time it felt normal and that's how I remember it. But going back after living in a 60fps world it's horrendous.

 

[Vinno]

Well I finally got around to having more of a proper play with the system.

I found some old forum posts regarding chipset drivers causing issues, so I re-installed those, which didn't do anything.

Then I messed about with the RAM which also didn't do anything.

Finally I went back into Ghost Recon and started a map up just because I was hoping something miraculous happened, I was getting 8fps with everything on high. I put everything on low and dropped the res down to 800x600 - fps went up to 11.
So then I noticed that the "human shadows" setting has another option below low; turn them off entirely.

I turned them off entirely and the frame rate shot up to 45! I then turned everything else back up to high including the resolution and the fps remained above 40 fps.

I guess the problem was the shadows all this time.

I briefly tried Aliens versus Predator which ran poorly until I put everything on low. Fraps said 16fps but it was definitely more than that so I think Fraps was just having some kind of issue. I also tried Max Payne which sat around 40 something mostly. Seems like I solved the problem for now....a classic case of PICNIC

 

[Vinno]

If I recall correctly I went from a K6-2 450 on some kind of PC Chips motherboard to a Duron 800 on an ABIT KT7 board so I also have quite fond memories of the Duron...I'm pretty sure I overclocked it to 1GHz too with one of those Thermoengine 'core-crusher' HSFs...

Wasn't a fan of the buggy Via KT133 chipset though...there was some kind of compatibility issue with Soundblaster cards that would just cause the entire system to lock up or crash which took me forever to track down...

Like others though I did upgrade to an Athlon Tbird 1200 due the larger cache helping performance quite a lot

I had the exact same upgrade path lol. PC Chips board also. It was terrible! With onboard graphics and no AGP slot.