*Crappy* performance with a Radeon 9800PRO

HRoseHRose
edited November 2003 in Hardware
I passed from my Creative Geforce3 Ti500 to this Radeon 9800PRO Powercolor and I'm not happy *at all*.

The raw results are that before plugging off my Geforce I had a 9500 on 3Dmark2001.
Plugging in the Radeon, installed catalyst 3.7, overclocked to 412/355. And I got a POOR 14500. (on FFXI bemchmark2 i got another stupid 4800 on hires)
What damn is going wrong? (aside new issues I'm having on my games).

The memory chip doesn't exist.
It's a SAMSUNG 325 K4D26323RA-GC2B
GC2B doesn't exist on Samsung webiste.

What can be wrong?
The rest of my pc seems not the problem, I have an Athlon 2400+ @ 22xx real, 756Mb ram ddr at turbo setting in Bios.
On Sisoft Sandra benchmark the cpu is between the Athlon 3000+ and 3200+

So, I need to know *exactly* why the performance is poor and I need to know if it's because of the gimped videocard or the gimped pc.
It could be a problem on the card?
I thought that no matter of the brand or the type, when the clocks are that good the card should be perfect.

And I'd like to know how I should take benchmarks, in the D3D settings I should put the sliders to 'performance' or 'quality'? What's the common sense?

Comments

  • ketoketo Occupied. Or is it preoccupied? Icrontian
    edited November 2003
    At least on my system, which is a 9700Pro not 9800Pro, moving the D3D slider from the middle to performance only makes a couple of hundred points difference in 3DM2K1. It seems to me you should be scoring in the 18,000 range with that setup.

    Did you do a fresh Windows install? If not, did you at least go COMPLETELY through your system (Program Files, registry, anything identifiable as Nvidia) and delete all the prior video drivers? You definitely need to do that before installing the ATI drivers. What kinds of issues are you having with games?

    What motherboard are you using?
  • HRoseHRose
    edited November 2003
    I get 15100 with performance settings.
    My pc is quite perfect, I take care of it. No active services, no background programs.

    Motherboard is the two years old epox8kha+
    But it still worked great with the geforce3.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited November 2003
    How well did you uninstall your GF drivers?


    Did you just to the add/remove control panel or did you use something like regcleaner and blitz out all nvidia references? Also, you should reinstall DirectX when changing video platforms.
  • TheLostSwedeTheLostSwede Trondheim, Norway Icrontian
    edited November 2003
    Hrose,

    Try this:

    Uninstall video drivers, chipset drivers and utilitys etc. Also run the catalyst cleaner that you can dl from ATI, then install DX9 if you dont already have it (8.1 is faster but 9 is better for gaming and the videocard fully supports it), chipset drivers, videodrivers and finally control panel. Get them separate and DO NOT restart between them. Make 100% sure that ALL Nvidia drivers from the videocard is gone with a detonatorcleaner. At 10X200 at cas 2 and video at slightly slower than your card, i pull off 18K on XP. You should at least get 16K+ depending on how fast memory and fsb you have.
  • HRoseHRose
    edited November 2003
    I formatted the whole c:
    Installed just via motherboard drivers downloaded now from viaarena, directx 9.0b because I couldn't install catalyst without, the catalyst 3.7 without the panel, installed 3dmark2001se.
    Result: 14713

    Without overclocking the card and without changing setting.
    No changes as I expected..
  • pseudonympseudonym Michigan Icrontian
    edited November 2003
    I'm assuming by 756 ram you mean 768 (256+512/3x256). What speeds are the ram?? They aren't different are they (They'd default to the slower I believe)? Someone else might know, but is the DDR affected if you have 2 different sizes of ram?

    If you have 3 256s installed, the memory will actually run slower because it can't utilize DDR I believe.

    I have to run to school, but I'll OC my 2100 to your speeds tonight and see what I can get it to do in 2001.
  • HRoseHRose
    edited November 2003
    I did another test overclocking the card:
    412/355 result: 14851
    When the default setting in powerstrip are: 378/337.50

    34 more in cpu clock and memory and the result is around 150 points in 3dmark ....

    My memory is 3x256Mb
  • HRoseHRose
    edited November 2003
    Did a testo on Sisoft Sandra about the ram.
    The performance is on par with VIA KT333 PC2700U
    My bus is the KT266A

    But I don't think that the ram is causing all that huge difference.
    How can I be sure if it's a gimped videocard or it's a problem with the rest of the pc?
  • pseudonympseudonym Michigan Icrontian
    edited November 2003
    I think the ram is causing your problem. Yank one of the rams and leave the other two in. Make sure the one you yank isn't from slot 1. You should see an increase after doing this.

    edit// check this out. Its about DDR. At the bottom of the page. Make sure your FSB is correct too.
  • JBJB Carlsbad, CA
    edited November 2003
    could the problem be that it is running a 133FSB? Thats going to have a lot lower bandwidth then the NFORCE2 at 200Mhz FSB, so that could cause a lower overall score.
  • HRoseHRose
    edited November 2003
    Removed the third stick of ram.
    Now i have 14884 with normal freq.
    Blah.
  • ketoketo Occupied. Or is it preoccupied? Icrontian
    edited November 2003
    Ya, that's gotta be it - I think many of us (keto sure did) assumed you were running a 166 or even 200+ fsb @ that speed on the 2400+. Looking back thru my notes, when I first got my 2100+, and running it @ 13 X 172, dual channel 2-2-2-5, R9700Pro @ 352/325, I scored 15547. Given the very similar cpu clockspeed to yours, you have better gpu speed, I had better fsb and score, and the nForce2 is a known faster chipset than 266A - I would bet real money that the fsb is your limitation - it's for sure just an educated guess tho.

    Meantime, you still have a very fast system and an outstanding video card, there's nothing out there that will limit or slow down your system, game wise.
  • SimGuySimGuy Ottawa, Canada
    edited November 2003
    MadOnion's 3DMark, versions 99Max, 2000, 2001SE & 2003 love high FSB's.

    That DDR266 & KT266 is starving your system of data. Because of this, you aren't getting anywhere close to a high score, not to mention that VIA chipsets have never been as fast as the NForce 2 platform in any benchmark.

    How do you have the system multiplier & FSB configured? FSB x Multi = 22xx for your processor.

    An NForce2 board and quality PC3200-LL DDR SDRAM will go a long way with your CPU & video card to achieving your 18K mark.
  • HRoseHRose
    edited November 2003
    I'm currently at 139xsomething

    So you are *completely* sure it's not a problem with the videocard itself?
  • SimGuySimGuy Ottawa, Canada
    edited November 2003
    Nope. I'd bet money on the problem being your motherboard's lack of chipset bandwidth & memory bandwidth.

    K4D26323RA-GC2B is 2.8ns second-generation DDR SDRAM from Samsung, rated for 350 MHz operation. I've never seen a 9800 Pro utilize that specific rating of RAM, as this type of memory was originally destined for after-market GF4 Ti4600's that were overclocked out of NVidia spec.

    Running your 9800 Pro @ 412/355 (just shy of XT Speeds) with the same CPU on an NForce2 board & Low-Latency PC3200 RAM should net you 18,000-19,000. Try running 3DMark2003 and give us a score on that. It's much much more 3D card dependent and will instantly tell us whether it's a combination of both, or just the chipset/memory.
  • MediaManMediaMan Powered by loose parts.
    edited November 2003
    Weeeeeeellllllll

    I sit here with a 9800 PRO 256 MB version and something is rotten in Denmark.

    9700 PRO on a Gigabyte 7NNXP NFORCE2 motherboard scores:

    640x480: 18360
    800x600: 17328
    1024x768: 15236
    1280x1024: 12684
    1600x1200: 10599

    I took an image of the hard drive before the ATI drivers went in place. Swap to the 9800 PRO and


    640x480: 15702
    800x600: 14662
    1024x768: 13765
    1280x1024: 12393
    1600x1200: 10719


    Das no good. Das no good at all. All components are the same except for the video card. 9700 PRO was tested with Cat 3.2 and 9800 PRO with 3.8. I've been testing the 9800 PRO for 2 weeks now and it is the first ATI card that has been finicky with me. It wouldn't even run 3DMARK 2001 on a REV 1.04 A7N8X.


    EDIT: And yes...the thing is driving me batty.
  • Mt_GoatMt_Goat Head Cheezy Knob Pflugerville (north of Austin) Icrontian
    edited November 2003
    Aquamark gives a breakdown of CPU and GPU also.
  • MediaManMediaMan Powered by loose parts.
    edited November 2003
    I had the OS ghosted before installing the ATI drivers. Put it back and installed Cat 3.2. No real change in the results. On 5 other motherboard tests the 9700 scores in the range as shown two posts up. 9800 Pro 256 does not. Cat 3.2 or 3.8 is more or less the same.


    Specview Perf scores are crappy too. 1/3 of where they should be.

    /me scratches his head.
  • Omega65Omega65 Philadelphia, Pa
    edited November 2003
    HRose had this to say
    I'm currently at 139xsomething

    So you are *completely* sure it's not a problem with the videocard itself?

    Yeah it's the chipset and bandwidth. My KT400 mobo & R9700Pro (stock) running at FSB166 & DDR333 score in the 14K range.

    I switched the card to a NF2 mobo and running FSB200 & DDR400 and the scores jump to 15.5K

    The VIA KT266A/333/400/400A chipsets lack the bandwidth to score well in 3DMark. Either grab a NForce2 based mobo (Abit NF7-S or Epox 8RDA3+) or at least a KT600 (Epox 8KRA2+) & some quality PC3200 Cas2 memory
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited November 2003
    Well... what brand is your card, MM?

    Did you guys buy your cards OEM or Retail? From what vendor? It's possible you were shafted (if it's a shady vendor) and they gave you an OC'd 9800 SE instead.
  • DisvengeanceDisvengeance
    edited November 2003
    try testing Both the 9800 pro 256 and the 9700 pro, with the same drivers mm. Probably wont be a performance increase, but its just a hunch.:)
  • MediaManMediaMan Powered by loose parts.
    edited November 2003
    Did that been there. CAT 3.2 on same hardware and OS config.

    Going to retest the whole bunch tonight. The two vid cards are straight from ATI headquarters. Could be that AA and Anistropic is suddenly "on" with the 9800 PRO which would be the reason for slow performance. A way outside guess would be that the 9800 PRO...for some unknown reason....turns it on for another unknown reason...

    But it shouldn't

    Gawd I love debugging hardware probs. :banghead:
  • DisvengeanceDisvengeance
    edited November 2003
    Well at the end of the week (thursday) ill have my Radeon 9800XT, and i can run 3D mark and Aquamark, and give ya the results, then you can have an idea of where you should be running;)
  • MediaManMediaMan Powered by loose parts.
    edited November 2003
    Thank you kindly.

    I "should" be running over 18,000 for 3D Mark 2001 SE at 640x480. :wtf:
  • DisvengeanceDisvengeance
    edited November 2003
    My newly added additions to my rig are 2,3,3,6 corsair xms pc3200 ram, radeon 9800Xt, and an abit nf7-s, this is from a dfikt400a (rmad cause it sucked big time), geil 2.5,3,3,6 pc3200, and an ATi radeon 9800 pro a-i-w. my processor is already running at 11x200 = 2200ghz, so i should see quite a performance increase. My old 3d mark score on the DFI was an unsatisfactory 14000.
  • MediaManMediaMan Powered by loose parts.
    edited November 2003
    Found one stupid MM error. The new cats have AA and Anisropic enabled to APPLICATION PREFERENCE by default. This small oversight on my part caused the benches to be a lot less than they actually were supposed to be. They still, however, are just shy of the 9700 PRO with CAT 3.2 installed.

    hmmm.
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited November 2003
    The Cat 3.2 is obviously not optimised for the 9800 Pro... try them both with the Cat 3.8 and see what you get... or wait a few days for the 3.9s!
  • MediaManMediaMan Powered by loose parts.
    edited November 2003
    Those scores were with Cat 3.8 on the 9800 PRO using DX8.1.

    In some benches they fell behind the 9700 PRO and in some they inched ahead. Now testing with the 9800 PRO Cat 3.8 DX9b.

    I would have expected a clear increase across the board...but I got a lot of "ok" and "not so good."
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited November 2003
    something is rotten in Denmark

    That would be Mackanz! :eek2:

    Oops, my bad - Mac is from another Scandanavian country - Norway. Sorry about that, Mac. :)
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