2851 in 3DMark 2001 :(

UBC_Wiskatos

Hello everybody!

This is really bothering me... I have a Pentium 4 2.4 GHz laptop with 512 MB RAM and a Mobility Radeon 9000 IGP w/ 128 MB of shared RAM... I ran 3D Mark 2001 SE and I got 2851! WTF? Available benchmarks put the Mobility Radeon at somewhere around 7000... I have the latest Omegas installed, and this is really bothering me.

No_Style

Moved by your friendly neighbourhood Styleless Moderator

Welcome to DriverHeaven

Is this a brand new laptop? Did you reformat? If you reformatted, did you use the vendor's restore CDs or a regular Windows XP CD?

UBC_Wiskatos

Nope this is brand new, the first time ever that I ran 3DMark 2001 on this sucker.

No_Style

Did you make sure all driver related and benchmark related settings are set to default?

UBC_Wiskatos

Yep, I made sure of everything like that.

No_Style

Hmm..Could you check the options tab in the Display Properties/ATI Control Panel and click Details. I want to know what the Current Bus Setting is and Memory Size

UBC_Wiskatos

It says AGP 8X and the Memory size is 128 MB (DDR SGRAM / SDRAM(

No_Style

Ok, that verifies that your chipset drivers are working.

Did you make sure you're Laptop isn't using and power saving modes? Go to the Windows Control Panel and under Power Options make sure it's 'Always On' is selected.

Just for info, what brand and what's the model number of your laptop?

UBC_Wiskatos

Yep, tried all of that... Gives me a 100 point boost at most

My laptop is a Compaq R3000 (R3055CA)... I'm running Windows XP Home with SP2...

No_Style

Hmm.. I'm stumped. Ok, let's uninstall the Omega drivers and throw the official ones from the HP/Compaq site.

By the looks of it, you even have a BIOS update. Take a look through this page which lists updates for your components. I'd start with the BIOS flash, it's very easy. I've tried it on my HP and it enabled some new options in my BIOS. They were not major, but they helped.

You will also notice that they have their HP/Compaq-approved video drivers for their laptops. Grab the latest ones and install them after you've uninstalled everything.

After you finish the updates, give the benchmark another whirl.

UBC_Wiskatos

Okay, I did all of that... I now get around 2950... I flashed the BIOS (no extra options from what I could see) and installed the proprietary drivers. This is really strange... I e-mailed Compaq about it but they just told me to clean my Recycle Bin *rolls eyes*

No_Style

Classic. Well, it's good to see the score going up, but we're still a long way's to go.

Go to 'Start Menu' ---> 'Run' and type in "dxdiag". Make sure all the info there is correct. Cycle through the pages and be sure to note if you have any problems in the 'Notes' section.

Also, make sure the 3Dmark01 is Build 330. Try uninstalling and reinstalling it as well.

Have you tried any games on it? Do they perform poorly?

UBC_Wiskatos

I've tried FarCry (plays alright, I'd guess 10-30 fps on Low-Medium at 800x600), Command & Conquer: Generals (1024x768 with all settings turned on except 3D shadows, particles medium, texture medium) and it plays quite well, GTA: Vice City is great at 1280x800, Flight Simulator 2002 plays nicely at 1280x800 (about 20-30 fps at maxed out settings)... Maybe I can try Aquamark... Yeah, I also tried 3DMark 2003, that gives me 500 :P Everything looks good in DxDiag

No_Style

If you can play Far Cry, that's pretty amazing. And the gaming experience you mention appears to be up to par. If uninstalling/reinstalling 3DMark01 Build 330 doesn't help, then I wouldn't worry too much since everything else looks alright. It's still a peculiar situation though

UBC_Wiskatos

Yeah, I'm just hoping Half-Life 2 runs decently.

MobileTerror

I have:

Mobility Radeon 9000 128MB
2.8Ghz P4
512MB PCI 2100

and I was able to get around 6500-6900 as a benchmark score in 3D Mark 2001, but only about 970 in 2003. I think with some new drivers these may improve, perhaps trying new ones may better your score.

- updated - Alirighty, did some research and apparently there is (on some mobo's) an option for throttling (power consumption option) where if you set it to 0% should increase performance. This can be located in your bios when you reboot.

MobileTerror

..

DJSilverBack

Ive got a
P4 3.2Ghz with 800MHz FSB
512MB RAM (upgrading tomorrow to 1GB 400DDR hopefully will improve)
Radeon 9700 128MB

My 3DMark03 score is 3517 with 512MB ram, does this seem ok for the spec?

I thought would of been higer.

SilverBack

DrSteve

I have the exact same notebook as you, UBC_Wiskatos (Presario R3055CA)
I have tried everything to boost performance, and in the end have been able to get a maximum of 3500 in 3dMark2001.
I had similar numbers to your own, but was able to boost my score by applying the newest 'GART Driver' and 'Southbridge/IXP Driver' from the ATI website (I am not sure which of these two did the trick). These are found under WinXP-->Motherboard/IGP drivers from the download section of their website.
These are not separate video drivers. You should also use the latest Omega Drivers, with the 'high performance' settings selected under Advanced3D.
A score of 3500 is quite good for an integrated Radeon 9000/9100 (remember that there is a massive difference between a non-IGP Mobility Radeon 9000 and an IGP Mobility Radeon 9000). You can see the difference between these two cards by looking at the posted scores on the 3dmark resultbrowser.
I have spent many hours trying to boost this performance, but the only significant improvement came from doing what I describe above (and using the newest Omegas).

Louiemaster

well i never trusted 3dmark or anything like that. As long as your games run all right then theres no problem.