ATI Radeon 9800 Performance Issues

Triiad · 23-June-04, 12:30 AM

Hi everyone first post here....just got a quick question for all you Radeon gurus.
I recently called it quits with NVidia ditching my MSI TI4200 AGP 8x 128 meg card.

Went to a local PC store today and purchased an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 256 megs of RAM.

I hooked it up, ran some benchmarks and get ~6000 in 3dmark2001 SE. I've seen people with machines with lower power than mine score higher. I installed the latest Omega drivers and have tried with both the Standard OpenGL and the Special OpenGL with a 2000 increase in 3dmarks while using the special drivers.

Any idea to why this is? I ran Aquamark3 and scored ~14000 whereas people with comparable systems to mine score in the 45k+ range.

System specs are...

WD HDD 120mb 7200 RPM IDE.
MSI 865PE Neo2-LS mobo.
Intel Pentium Celeron 2.4 ghz.
ATI Radeon 9800 pr 256 megs (the brand is ATI, not Sapphire or anything like that /shrug)
768mb PC2100 RAM.
Creative Soundblaser 16 PCI
Onboard LAN.

Everything is at default. No overclocking or anything.

Sorry if this is one of those "beating a dead horse" topics. I looked through several forum pages and didn't really find anything that matches my problem.

Thanks to everyone in advance, and hope we can get this situation sorted out together!

I have did some testing with various games I have. If anyone is familiar with these games maybe it will give some insight to diagnosing the problem.

Jedi Academy- Lags whenever anyone uses force push etc. Basically anything that makes like fog.
Eve Online- Lags anywhere just as much as my NVidia GeForce4 Ti4200 does.
Battlefield Vietnam- Lags on muzzle flashes.
`
I have ran Driver Cleaner to clean out any old NVidia drivers left over. I also have updated my motherboard inf and whatnot. Have also tried the regular Catalyst drivers themselves.

Thanks in advance guys!
-Tri

gorked · 23-June-04, 12:47 AM

Did you plug in the molex connector?

Fu3lman · 23-June-04, 12:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Triiad


	System specs are... WD HDD 120mb 7200 RPM IDE. MSI 865PE Neo2-LS mobo. Intel Pentium Celeron 2.4 ghz. ATI Radeon 9800 pr 256 megs (the brand is ATI, not Sapphire or anything like that /shrug) 768mb PC2100 RAM. Creative Soundblaser 16 PCI Onboard LAN.

i cant stress this enough....welcome to pimprig....

edit, btw gorked, liked the layout of your sig so i tried my hand at something similar, imitation is the ultimate form of flattery...

Triiad · 23-June-04, 12:58 AM

Quote:


	Did you plug in the molex connector?]

Yeah, kinda figured that needed to be plugged in to even have the thing work at all =p.

Anyhow anyone have any ideas? Is it my CPU? To me that seems to be the weakest part of my PC as Celerons are a POS, but is a CPU really enough to hold back a video card that much?

Thanks for the welcome too

TYCOON · 23-June-04, 01:02 AM

I know truform kills the performance on my 9600Xt , check to see its not enabled.

BTW, WElcome to PR

Triiad · 23-June-04, 01:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TYCOON


	I know truform kills the performance on my 9600Xt , check tro see its not enabled.

Just checked it. It's off by default.

mentyl · 23-June-04, 01:15 AM

I have the same vid card and I dont score worth a ****. I can't figure it out but i don't care cause I don't Game, sorry not much help just declaring a similarity.

Arkangyl · 23-June-04, 01:16 AM

Damn, thats a toughie..

I know your CPU might be dettering performance but not that much...

In your Display options area go to SETTINGS > ADVANCED then go to the 3D tab and make sure the following is true for BOTH Direct 3d and OpenGL
Texture Preferences : High Quality (max to the right)
Mipmap detail : high quality (max to the right)
Wait for VSync : Always off (max to left)
TRUFORM : Always off (max to left)

Next go to the SMARTGEAR tab and make sure you're set for 8x AGP with Fast Write ON.

Ok, now head to your BIOS, make sure that you are again setup for 8x AGP with a 64mb AGP Apature.

You said you have the Omega's installed, use their overclocker tool to make sure you're card is at it's default speeds 378mhz core and 338mhz RAM I think? it's been a long time since I''ve been stock

If all that checks out I'm stumped... Make sure you've got a 9800 Pro and not some other card, that's all I can think of...

TekXoID · 23-June-04, 01:24 AM

Turn off the pr0n dialers.

...No seriously though, cleanup background applications, when I game I have no more than 15 processes running.

Triiad · 23-June-04, 01:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arkangyl


	Damn, thats a toughie.. I know your CPU might be dettering performance but not that much... In your Display options area go to SETTINGS > ADVANCED then go to the 3D tab and make sure the following is true for BOTH Direct 3d and OpenGL Texture Preferences : High Quality (max to the right) Mipmap detail : high quality (max to the right) Wait for VSync : Always off (max to left) TRUFORM : Always off (max to left) Next go to the SMARTGEAR tab and make sure you're set for 8x AGP with Fast Write ON. Ok, now head to your BIOS, make sure that you are again setup for 8x AGP with a 64mb AGP Apature. You said you have the Omega's installed, use their overclocker tool to make sure you're card is at it's default speeds 378mhz core and 338mhz RAM I think? it's been a long time since I''ve been stock If all that checks out I'm stumped... Make sure you've got a 9800 Pro and not some other card, that's all I can think of...

Allright, running 3dmark2001 SE now. Will edit with results in a few....

Doing that boosted it to almost 9k....I've read that people with comparable systems get anywhere from 16-20k 3dmarks. What the heck gives?

Does this warrant a format? Is there any remote chance that it is still the NVidia drivers causing problems even though I removed them with Driver Cleaner?

TYCOON · 23-June-04, 01:34 AM

[hijack]Something changed with my 9600Xt that no one could help me with, I was scoring 35,000 In Aquamark with what I would call "Medium" overclocking, after some reading and tweaking I decide to reinstall Windows Xp and Reset my BIOS and start from scratch with my new knowledge. Well after a 100 more MHz of CPU power, tighter RAM timmings and 10/10 MHz Increase on my graphics card I am getting 31,034...EVERY FREACKEN TIME???/????????!?!!#$!@$@!$#

mentyl · 23-June-04, 01:36 AM

Yours lags in areas mine does not, I dont know how positively it affects it but your ram could use an update. I don't have 3dmark2001 just 3dmark03. On Auqua mark I score @ 22326, which is an embarassment thats why I dont talk bout it much.

Triiad · 23-June-04, 01:47 AM

Its not so much that I am not scoring high. Its the fact that I paid 300 bucks for this thing and it BARELY outperforms my GeForce4 Ti4200.

TekXoID · 23-June-04, 01:51 AM

Did you uninstall the nVidia drivers and run driver cleaner in safe mode to
remove the nVidia Driver Dregs BEFORE installing ATi drivers?

mot19 · 23-June-04, 04:35 AM

reformat, its always the best thing to do when upgrading a major part of ur pc

TekXoID · 23-June-04, 04:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mot19


	reformat, its always the best thing to do when upgrading a major part of ur pc

Sad but true. Gotta love windows.

Triiad · 23-June-04, 11:23 PM

Well I spent all damn day trying to find my Windows XP Pro install cd.

Formatted....

And absolutely not one bit of performance increase over before I formatted. Tomorrow this puppy is going back to Microcenter. Should've known better not to stray from NVidia.

Thanks for the help guys.

Chrome_Rust · 23-June-04, 11:30 PM

WHAT!!!! going to give up already? what do you have the AGP settings at in BIOS? i mean there is ALOT more to this than a simple format, what driver version for ATi are you using? did you do ALL of the windows updates? Keep messing with it, you'll get it soon....

TekXoID · 23-June-04, 11:32 PM

You're going to have to try harder than that.

Computer's are like ho's, they need to be slapped back in line every now and then...
as in you need to tweak with the settings, the BIOS would be a good place to start.

23-June-04, 12:30 AM	#1 (permalink)
Triiad Apex Techie Lite Join Date: May 2004 Posts: 21	ATI Radeon 9800 Performance Issues Hi everyone first post here....just got a quick question for all you Radeon gurus. I recently called it quits with NVidia ditching my MSI TI4200 AGP 8x 128 meg card. Went to a local PC store today and purchased an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 256 megs of RAM. I hooked it up, ran some benchmarks and get ~6000 in 3dmark2001 SE. I've seen people with machines with lower power than mine score higher. I installed the latest Omega drivers and have tried with both the Standard OpenGL and the Special OpenGL with a 2000 increase in 3dmarks while using the special drivers. Any idea to why this is? I ran Aquamark3 and scored ~14000 whereas people with comparable systems to mine score in the 45k+ range. System specs are... WD HDD 120mb 7200 RPM IDE. MSI 865PE Neo2-LS mobo. Intel Pentium Celeron 2.4 ghz. ATI Radeon 9800 pr 256 megs (the brand is ATI, not Sapphire or anything like that /shrug) 768mb PC2100 RAM. Creative Soundblaser 16 PCI Onboard LAN. Everything is at default. No overclocking or anything. Sorry if this is one of those "beating a dead horse" topics. I looked through several forum pages and didn't really find anything that matches my problem. Thanks to everyone in advance, and hope we can get this situation sorted out together! I have did some testing with various games I have. If anyone is familiar with these games maybe it will give some insight to diagnosing the problem. Jedi Academy- Lags whenever anyone uses force push etc. Basically anything that makes like fog. Eve Online- Lags anywhere just as much as my NVidia GeForce4 Ti4200 does. Battlefield Vietnam- Lags on muzzle flashes. ` I have ran Driver Cleaner to clean out any old NVidia drivers left over. I also have updated my motherboard inf and whatnot. Have also tried the regular Catalyst drivers themselves. Thanks in advance guys! -Tri

23-June-04, 12:47 AM	#2 (permalink)
gorked Apex Tech Demi-God Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Cali Posts: 1,797	Did you plug in the molex connector? __________________ ______________________________ Counter-Strike Pimps Idle and Perform #SbK on IRC!

23-June-04, 01:02 AM	#5 (permalink)
TYCOON Apex Tech God Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: SCHOOLLLSSS Posts: 4,728	I know truform kills the performance on my 9600Xt , check to see its not enabled. BTW, WElcome to PR __________________ AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ @ 2.7GHz DFI LanParty SLI-D 2GBs PC3200 @ PC3500 // 2.5-3-3-6 EVGA 7950GT 512MB @ Stock Audigy 2 ZS 36Gb Raptor (os) 2x300Gb WD SATA 16MB CACHE (storage) 450Watt OCZ modstream Coolermaster Wavemaster Last edited by TYCOON; 23-June-04 at 01:09 AM.

23-June-04, 01:15 AM	#7 (permalink)
mentyl Apex Tech Fanatic Supreme Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: In the dark place under your house Posts: 687	I have the same vid card and I dont score worth a ***. I can't figure it out but i don't care cause I don't Game, sorry not much help just declaring a similarity. __________________ Pick one Last edited by mentyl; 23-June-04 at 01:16 AM. Reason: add something missed*

23-June-04, 01:34 AM	#11 (permalink)
TYCOON Apex Tech God Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: SCHOOLLLSSS Posts: 4,728	[hijack]Something changed with my 9600Xt that no one could help me with, I was scoring 35,000 In Aquamark with what I would call "Medium" overclocking, after some reading and tweaking I decide to reinstall Windows Xp and Reset my BIOS and start from scratch with my new knowledge. Well after a 100 more MHz of CPU power, tighter RAM timmings and 10/10 MHz Increase on my graphics card I am getting 31,034...EVERY FREACKEN TIME???/????????!?!!#$!@$@!$# __________________ AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ @ 2.7GHz DFI LanParty SLI-D 2GBs PC3200 @ PC3500 // 2.5-3-3-6 EVGA 7950GT 512MB @ Stock Audigy 2 ZS 36Gb Raptor (os) 2x300Gb WD SATA 16MB CACHE (storage) 450Watt OCZ modstream Coolermaster Wavemaster Last edited by TYCOON; 23-June-04 at 01:41 AM.

23-June-04, 01:16 AM	#8 (permalink)
Arkangyl Hoe-lier than Thou Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: far, far away Posts: 2,342	Damn, thats a toughie.. I know your CPU might be dettering performance but not that much... In your Display options area go to SETTINGS > ADVANCED then go to the 3D tab and make sure the following is true for BOTH Direct 3d and OpenGL Texture Preferences : High Quality (max to the right) Mipmap detail : high quality (max to the right) Wait for VSync : Always off (max to left) TRUFORM : Always off (max to left) Next go to the SMARTGEAR tab and make sure you're set for 8x AGP with Fast Write ON. Ok, now head to your BIOS, make sure that you are again setup for 8x AGP with a 64mb AGP Apature. You said you have the Omega's installed, use their overclocker tool to make sure you're card is at it's default speeds 378mhz core and 338mhz RAM I think? it's been a long time since I''ve been stock If all that checks out I'm stumped... Make sure you've got a 9800 Pro and not some other card, that's all I can think of...

23-June-04, 01:24 AM	#9 (permalink)
TekXoID Banned Join Date: May 2003 Location: looking for love in the nearest gay bar Posts: 4,089	Turn off the pr0n dialers. ...No seriously though, cleanup background applications, when I game I have no more than 15 processes running.

23-June-04, 01:36 AM	#12 (permalink)
mentyl Apex Tech Fanatic Supreme Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: In the dark place under your house Posts: 687	Yours lags in areas mine does not, I dont know how positively it affects it but your ram could use an update. I don't have 3dmark2001 just 3dmark03. On Auqua mark I score @ 22326, which is an embarassment thats why I dont talk bout it much. __________________ Pick one

23-June-04, 01:47 AM	#13 (permalink)
Triiad Apex Techie Lite Join Date: May 2004 Posts: 21	Sad Its not so much that I am not scoring high. Its the fact that I paid 300 bucks for this thing and it BARELY outperforms my GeForce4 Ti4200.

23-June-04, 01:51 AM	#14 (permalink)
TekXoID Banned Join Date: May 2003 Location: looking for love in the nearest gay bar Posts: 4,089	Did you uninstall the nVidia drivers and run driver cleaner in safe mode to remove the nVidia Driver Dregs BEFORE installing ATi drivers?

23-June-04, 04:35 AM	#15 (permalink)
mot19 Apex Tech God Join Date: May 2003 Location: arizona Posts: 2,649	reformat, its always the best thing to do when upgrading a major part of ur pc __________________ My Guide to Unlocking the 6800's Extra Pipes My Video Card Overclocking Guide CHECK OUT MY OLD BAND Kill Some Time

23-June-04, 11:23 PM	#17 (permalink)
Triiad Apex Techie Lite Join Date: May 2004 Posts: 21	Pos Well I spent all damn day trying to find my Windows XP Pro install cd. Formatted.... And absolutely not one bit of performance increase over before I formatted. Tomorrow this puppy is going back to Microcenter. Should've known better not to stray from NVidia. Thanks for the help guys.

23-June-04, 11:30 PM	#18 (permalink)
Chrome_Rust Apex Tech God Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Columbus Grove, OH Posts: 2,590	WHAT!!!! going to give up already? what do you have the AGP settings at in BIOS? i mean there is ALOT more to this than a simple format, what driver version for ATi are you using? did you do ALL of the windows updates? Keep messing with it, you'll get it soon.... __________________ 1997 Ford Taurus SHO 3.4L Yamaha V8 Flowmaster Exhaust K&N CAI Clear front corners 1999 Head/Tail Light conversion Full LED Conversion Lowered 1.5" 1996 Ford Crown Victoria P71 2000 4.6L V8 2004 P71 Ziptube Flowmaster Exhaust 1998 12.5" brake upgrade 2002 trans with J-Mod 2800 Stall Converter 3.73:1 gears w/ detriot true trac 90mm MAF 75mm TB 24lb injectors UDP's

23-June-04, 11:32 PM	#19 (permalink)
TekXoID Banned Join Date: May 2003 Location: looking for love in the nearest gay bar Posts: 4,089	You're going to have to try harder than that. Computer's are like ho's, they need to be slapped back in line every now and then... as in you need to tweak with the settings, the BIOS would be a good place to start.