Im just about to give up. :(

Insanity

Insanity

Insanity

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5 Jun 2005
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Tasmania (Australia)
Alright, a few weeks ago i was running a 3Ghz prescott (478), which did its job, but not as well as it could. I was getting below par 3Dmark scores (about 1000 marks short on 03), aswell as below par games performance, and in the end i just put it down to a crap CPU... which it was.

Anyway, a couple of weeks back, my motherboard went to motherboard heaven so i though i'd do the whole upgrade thing since i had an excuse. And i did. Replaced it with an X2 3800+ and an Abit KN8 - SLI board. Got that all up and running, but with one issue... i have the same damn problem. Im still getting low 3Dmark scores, and below par games performance.

Here's a list of everything that just aint right:

3Dmark Scores:
- 01: 24689
- 03: 17296
- 05: 8346
- 06: 4364

Game Performance:
- Live For Speed: Can run over 130fps untill you put 4 or so cars infront of me, that will drop it below 60fps. More cars = Lower FPS.
- BF2 seems smooth for a while, then all of a sudden will crawl to a hault. Clearing the cache sorts that out, so i think its a game problem.
- Lost Coast Demo: 30fps on the beach with HDR on, havent checked with it off, but it ran better with my Prescott! Reaches around 60fps going up the mountain, depending where im looking... what happened to the uber dual core support? =/
- CS Source: Fine unless i have more than 5 or 6 players infront of me. More players = Less FPS.

You get the idea...

I expect the performance to drop with more happening on the screen at once, but im sure the drop shouldnt be so drastic. At one stage i got 14fps on Live For Speed. :|

One odd thing is, with LFS one day it will be very playable, and the next... well, not so good. Which is just strange.

Anywho... I am running the 81.85 nvidia drivers, i have the newest set of nForce 4 drivers, aswell as the dual core patch and i've done a clean install of everything. So, im 100% certain its not a software issue. So, it has to be hardware.

Things I've Done To Test The Hardware:
- Ran memtest86: Found no errors, but i had bad framerates in LFS after i booted back into Windows. (leaning towards the ram being faulty)
- Ran all the 3Dmarks: Lower than normal scores, but no artifacting/crashing.
- Ran SuperPi: I think i did the 1mb test, it took 42 seconds...

I did something else too, but i cant remember what it was. =/

System Temps:
- CPU: Idles around 25c - 30c
- Video Card: Idles around 40c - 50c
- Ambient Case Temp: Mid 30's

Havent checked the temps under load, cause personally i dont think thats the issue.

Jeez... this is a long post, sorry about that, just thought i'd lay everything out instead of spending time answering questions about stuff i should have said anyway.

So yeah, thats the lot... im at a loss, and im temped to sell the damn thing and buy a console. :(

EDIT: Not overclocking the CPU, but the card is at EE speeds. (490/1.30)
 
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Ummmm, how big is your moniter and what resolution do you use?

I think those scores dont look really bad, granted they may be a bit lower that what they may usually be, if someone has a similar rig it may be useful if they post their 3DMark scores as well.
 
I have a 19" TFT, so 1280x1024.

I knew i should have added that in... :rolleyes:

And yes, everything is set to Application Controlled in the video control panel.
 
FPS will be dictated by your GX card not your CPU and FPS are not all that important anymore so turn the counter off unless there is a real problem. 15 FPS is all your eyes can possibly conceive anything above is just superflues to your eyes.
 
15? how about no. There's a lot of rubbish floating about concerning 'percieved' fps and the human eye, that post there is a prime example of it (even if you ment 75fps and not 15)
 
I can tollerate 50fps, anything under that is well... an eyeballs bleeding expirience.

I think thats different for everybody, but i seriously doubt ANYBODY would think 15fps is smooth.
 
I can tollerate 50fps, anything under that is well... an eyeballs bleeding expirience.
Click to expand...

So if I flash a deck of cards at you in one second you can recite most of the numbers bar a couple?

That is just simple numbers, animation frames contain vast amounts of data.

If by accident you have the brain of a cat which can see higher frame rates then you wont mind the loss of colour. It is just impossible and all animatioons including the ones on TV are based on the same simple formula 15 FPS.
 
Of course i'd see 'em, i just wouldnt be able to recall them because i have a crap memory. :p

Anyway, back on topic, i aint interested in card tricks.
 
Ruhbarb said:
So if I flash a deck of cards at you in one second you can recite most of the numbers bar a couple?

That is just simple numbers, animation frames contain vast amounts of data.
Click to expand...

That's a really daft thing to say. Even if your eyes were infact only capable of 15fps input like you said, for that to work smoothly with a monitor you'd have to be in sync with it. 29fps is used on TVs for a reason - it's the bare minimum that people will tolerate, and games will tend to look poor in 30fps (depending on your monitors refresh rate/quality)

Honestly though, insanity, if you're finding a drop like you describe and it's upsetting you so much, why on earth are you still running in 1280*1024 ?
 
Ruhbarb said:
So if I flash a deck of cards at you in one second you can recite most of the numbers bar a couple?

That is just simple numbers, animation frames contain vast amounts of data.

If by accident you have the brain of a cat which can see higher frame rates then you wont mind the loss of colour. It is just impossible and all animatioons including the ones on TV are based on the same simple formula 15 FPS.
Click to expand...

the eye's detect motion, or the difference in. They dont pic out key frames and remember them.

http://amo.net/NT/02-21-01FPS.html


that should answer your questions and misconceptions.
 
Anyway, back on topic, i aint interested in card tricks.
Click to expand...

Then you need to upgrade your grafics card not your CPU.

I wont go into the video fps thing I was trying to make a point not explain how it works, 15 FPS was simply taken from when I used to make my own animations and that is the formula I used based on scientific theory.
 
I dont need to upgrade anything, i've seen people with lesser systems out-performing mine in games.

And you're dreaming if you think FPS is entirely down to a videocard. Why do you think people are always talking about CPU bottlenecks?
 
PAL signal refreshes every 25fps and who can say TV is jerky? so really anything aboive that should be fine! dont worry about it synthetic becnhmarks arnt the be all and end all of perforamnce
 
Ok... if somebody misses the point one more time, im gonna cry.

Im not all that fussed about benchmarks, that was just another example of my system underperforming. I want and should have better framerates!
 
lucifersam said:
PAL signal refreshes every 25fps and who can say TV is jerky? so really anything aboive that should be fine! dont worry about it synthetic becnhmarks arnt the be all and end all of perforamnce
Click to expand...


pal works by interleaving frames. it is 'percieved' as being smooth because one frame is 'blurred' into the next. progressive displays (lcd's, pc mopnitors ect) are quite different, and require a higher framerate for the same percieved smoothness.

I dont want to go off on a tangent on this,but read that link. its all in there:)
 
Just lower the resolution you play games at. Simple as. 3DMark really isn't important.

My native res is 1280x1024, but I play at 1024x768 (or the setting just above that if the game has one) so I get better frame rates. I like to be able to have an fps of around 50.
 
Right, have you formatted the HDD? If not, I suggest you do so. If you have, I suggest you download the latest drivers for everything in your system, CD-ify them (or put them on a storage drive). Format the windows drive again then start from scratch with the drivers on the CD/storage drive.
 
41secs in 1mb super pi? that sound off to me, im getting 29 secs. Id make sure your ram is tuned up, and give a go at overclocking the cpu, another 300mhz will give a huge boost in fps.
 
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