Radeon X800 PRO - Poor performance

ThomasMack

Alright, I'm back. I formatted, installed all my drivers and it's still performing like CRAP. 21FPS On HL2 in "Anticitizen (I think) One".

Please refer to Sapphire X800 Pro not performing as expected if you don't remember my first post.

Here is what I've done. First off, I installed all the latest drivers from ATI (5.3) and the latest chipset for my computer which is: http://www.viaarena.com/downloads/dr...n1_v455vp1.zip

I'm sure my AGP driver is installed right, I read that the Hyperion will automatically detect the drivers to install and DOES NOT give me a option to select which drivers. Is there anyway to bypass this?

Now here are my detailed specs:
http://downloads.sidrahq.com/cpuz.htm
http://downloads.sidrahq.com/dxdiag.txt

My processor:
1.80GHZ AMD 64 bit 2800+ processor NOT overclocked
ASUS K8V SE Deluxe I FLASHED MY BIOS TO LATEST YESTERDAY
40 GIG Maxtor 7200RPM HDD, 80GIG Maxtor 7200RPM, and 250GIG Western Digital 7200 (this is where my games are stored)
17" LCD 1280x1024@75Hz
My game settings for HL2: 6xAA, 16xAF (I've turned it off, same result except the highest frame rate hit over 120 but still dropped to pathetic levels)
My format is clean, I have exactly 34 processes.. and this is:
RadeonTweaker.exe
Firefox
ASUSProb
TASKMGR
svchost
BDSS
VSServ
PDSched
XCommsvr
WDFMGR
Setgamma (I know what it is)
ResumeFix (I know what it is)
bdswitch
bdnagent
bdoesrv
CTHELPER
bdmcon
CLI
svhost
Explorer
aim
spoolsv
svhost x 4
lsass
services.exe (wtf?)
winlogon
csrrss
smss
system
system idle process

Now CPU temperature averages 90F, same with my motherboard
RIGHT NOW it's running at CPU: 105F, Mobo: 104F. It is hot in my room thats why.. they never touch above 115F (I never really seen 115 but yea0
My CPU FAN runs at 5000RPM
My case fan runs at 3000RPM
+12V = 11.52
+5V = 5.134
+3.3V = 3.312
VCore = 1.486

I don't know anything about voltages. I never adjusted, or overclocked.

I use radeon tweak to enable all recommended options for DX which is:
AGP Texture Tiling, AGP Micro Tiling, Back buffer tiling, primary tiling, texture tiling, export yuv textures, use any texture size, enable z-mask, plain tiling, agp textures, lvb, point sprites, texture microtiling, z-compression mode is 3, enable fast z-clear, ensure hyperz is enabled at boot time

My powersupply (I think) is 400watt. I can replace it if NEEDED, but otherwise it stays.

I also have many other fans that keep my system cool, exhaust fan in the back and a harddrive fan+case fan. All running around 2500-3000RPMS.

I have 1.50GIG of memory. Two of them are PC3200 and one of them is PC2700 (i know this isn't good, but there was no performance increase or decrease.. and i couldn't let it lay around, eh?)
Fastwrite is OFF
My AGP Aperture size is 32 (I've had it 128MB, no difference!)

Any help please?

ThomasMack

And please note I'm sure my ram is fine, my system performs top notch. I do a lot of programming, and I use rather intense programs. I defragment with PerfectDIsk 7. I use BitDefender Pro v8 virusscanner (I'm buying it soon :P)

If I have to buy more ram I'll have:
3 512MB's laying around
2 256MB's laying around
and 3 128Mb's laying around
lol :P

Give me a minute and I'll run Spyware programs..

NO Spyware according to spyware search and destroy.

reholli

For starters, after a clean format/install, why not try running your game apps with default driver settings and before installing a bunch of "tweaker" software, none of which is usually needed anway? Does running your LCD at 75Hz over 60Hz buy you any picture or performance improvement? AGP aperture size still seems low....I'd leave it at 128.

ThomasMack

I did run with all the default driver settings. No difference between 75Hz and 60Hz.

I will set aperture size back to 128.

ThomasMack

Here is my powersupply:
400 watts
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...?Sku=P456-4002

According to tiger directs little table on wattage, I require 444 WATTS of power!

Component Wattage Required
Motherboard 15-30
Low-end CPU 20-50
Midrange to high-end CPU 40-100
RAM RAM 7 per 128MB
PCI add-in card 5
High-End graphics board 60-100
IDE hard drive 10-30
Optical drives 10-25

I might buy a new power supply. Is Antec the best? And 500 watt.

Edit: Antec is a bit expensive.
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...103-920&depa=0
That is what I'm looking at for $76, but it's a bit expensive still

How about this:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...170-002&depa=0
Not going for looks, but it's cheaper.
or
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...153-007&depa=0

I wouldn't mind the thermaltake one, though.

ThomasMack

My latency was set to 255. I set it to 16, is this too low? I also see no performance raise.. except I do get 212 FPS inside on America's Army, but when I went on a server it dropped to 50.

Tipstaff

Do you mean the PCI latency for the card? No.. you should never lower that number below 128. In fact, the only reason to lower the latency would be to correct stuttering issues, or to correct sound problems. People have reported that they gain performance when they changed it, so giving it a try won't hurt, but you should remember something: the AGP bus is a graphics enhanced PCI slot, and it requires a higher latency. To quote a friend, "the graphics card carries the load of the bulk of PCI activity during gaming to maintain peformance, and thus requires a higher latency". What will happen by lowering that number down is that your games will run more smoothly, but you will most likely not get a performance gain. However, as I said, it won't hurt to try.

Again, if you have to set that number don't got lower than 128. My adivce, though, would be to keep it at the default.

- Tip

ReDGuiTaR

Still you should change your power supply for a good brand name ... Enermax, Antec, OCZ are the best and you will get what you pay for with those ... too many people overlook the fact that a good powersupply is one of the most important part in a system .. i say throw the extra cash and go for one of the above mentionned brand, it could save your system life one day ....

ThomasMack

I will set my latency to 128.

How is this power supply?
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...153-007&depa=0

redsolar

You may have to turn your fastwrites on. I had the same issue with fastwrites off, and FPS was diving down badly (15 FPS in NBA Live 2005 vs 100 with FW ON). Most AMD64 systems need to have it on.

Pluvious

Coolmaster is highly regarded:

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduc...171-001&DEPA=0

ThomasMack

I already went with a ASPIRE 550Watts... I read reviews and 98% people were happy.

ThomasMack

Ok. I will turn fast writes back on (thanks)

topbob

I have a x800 pro agp also, and i used to get crappy frames in hl2 as well with the offical drivers from ATi, the very latests omega drivers work for me a lot better, i get an extra 40 frames from them.

farkas

If you have 3 sticks of RAM (2 X 400 and 1 X 333) I gather your're running the RAm at 333 ratio ? If so, try taking out the 333 stick, and then go into the BIOS and make sure the RAM and the FSB is set a 200 (400 for RAM).

I know that my board detects my RAM at 333 ratio when set to auto or set by SPD precisely, so put it manual and make sure of the settings. Then do a few quick benchmarks !

Your anti virus seems to be running in the background, if it's disbled for gaming, it might still be using RAM and idle'ing in the process list, so close it if so !

Fastwrites might be better on since you are on Athlon 64 but it's not certain.

Until you get your new PSU, you migh wanna try unplugging components that you are not running when gaming for curiosity, like a 2nd CD/DVD or xtra HDD's if you are curious.

Keep us posted !

regards
farkas

farkas

Also long shot, but the level you mentionned, is there a lot of scripting, cause if so, then it's the CPU holding you back instead of the vid card.

Another thing is the HL2 settings, if it's the only game where performance is "out of spec" then maybe some of the tweaks you like to apply blindly 9Micro tiling the radeon tweaker thing ???) might affect it in stange ways. Or the in game settings ?

Anyways, it's worth a look

ThomasMack

Problem is I have 3 harddrives. All are 7200 RPM. I use all of them, my games go on my biggest harddrive, operating system one my other, etc.

TopBob: If you're using AGP 4x, that may be the result in low frame rate?

Farkas: I just recently added this stick.. I have two PC3200 sticks, and one PC2100 (for some reason it picks up as PC2300).

I will do what you said.. but even with or without I've seen no real changes in speed or anything like that.


As soon as I formatted, installed all my drivers, the first thing I did was play Half Life 2. I Gained about 2 FPS, but it's still running at about 20FPS (this is at the end of the game, where the cydinal blows up, etc.)

I have used Omega's Drivers before with no lose in performance and no gain, which is why I decided to stick with ATI's drivers.

I also emailed ATI but they just told me to reinstall the drivers =\

Anyway the latency keeps resetting back to 255. I know there was a registery key I could change to make Windows not do that..?

Also, anyway to convert back to ATI's OLD control panel that used to be in the display properties? Because the ATI Control Panel will not load for me anymore.

ThomasMack

Have you played HL2? There's really not much going on. Basically the portal thing is blowing up, but it doesn't because time is "frozen" by Gman. There's vibrating of the screen and stuff.. I'll post a screenshot in a few minutes.

As promised:
http://downloads.sidrahq.com/hl2-1.jpg
http://downloads.sidrahq.com/hl2-2.jpg

farkas

Yeah, I finished it also, it was fun. As for your tweaks by radeontweaker etc.. and/or Anti-Virus ? Are they running, have you ytried experimenting with them not running in the process list ?

Also, is it just at that part that the frames drop noticeably ? How about the canal levels ? lots of water and vertex shader intensive stuff, if it runs fine there, then maybe it's more the res and AA + AF in game settings ?

Let us know

ThomasMack

No, it drops on Aniticitzen One (is that what's it called?) when dog is throwing the truck and stuff like that.

Also, I *think* I average about 30-40FPS on the canals. I'd have to try it again because I was playing with my nephew and he was all like "WOW!!" because he's 4 hehe ;P

farkas

And at what resolution are you playing ? and at what anti aliasing setting ? and finally anisotropic filtering ?

Cause so far, the way you are explaining things, it looks to be what it should be like.

That is, when there are any scenes with Dog, it's normal for your CPU to take a hit, so the GPU waits here and there for the CPU, and you get drops like a 20 FPS.

When there are some scenes like the pics you showed me, then it's a mix of how much the vertex engines are taxed with what type of res. If you are running say at 1280 x 1024 with 2 or 4 AA with 4 or 8 AF, then you are getting what I would expect in both instances.

If you are running 1024 x 168 with default settings, you might have 2 AA and 8AF, then it's slightly too low. Something to start fiddling around, like background apps say : Anti-Virus or "Heavy Firwalls" cause they tax your CPU, and then both CPU bound scenes and GPU heavy are topped off cause it does not get a better share of the cpu's time.

A quicky one is to make sure your swap file does not resize. Make sure it's set to manual, and specify the same amount for both minimum and maximum size. Say 512 or 1024 should be enough. Maybe it's already set fixed, just a suggestion cause if XP starts resizing your swap file during gaming, then it's a monkey's wrench in the gears !

If you are running with settings that are less taxing, then it's definately worrying.

Just my 2 cents sor far

regards
farkas

PS : don't forget to mention the settings that you are running at

ThomasMack

What's sad is when I play America's Army, I get 30FPS outside average. I got this on my Radeon 9800SE LITE! With the same settings!

That's why it's worrying me.

Right now I am running:
8xAA and 16xAF with 1280x1024 resolution

Yes, yes, I know this is high but even when I turn it down to or turn it off I really gain little or no performance. Basically, it's always running like crap.

Is there a way to get the temperature of my GPU? I know my friends Nvidia 6800GT he can get temps.. (to see if it's over heating?)

What's bugging me is that I could be walking through the canal... perfect fps. 60FPS maybe, 70. All the sudden it drops to 30.. nothing new, nothing changed..

I know with my Radeon 9800SE LITE I had better performance then this $400 video card.

Let me get my new power supply. It should be here tomorrow or Friday. Probably friday.. and I will post.

Also, I've restored all my settings to default (when I tweaked with RadeonTweaker).

topbob

the card running at 4x wasnt the result of my ad-normally low frames, as i was getting more with my 9700 @ 4x before, its partly due to the fact my card simply doesnt run very efficently on my computer i believe.

farkas

Thanks for the info, at least we have a baseline sorta.

Well, I think that the resolution, the AA + AF are affected by the RAM clock speed and the number of rendering pipelines. Since you have a 12 pipeline, but the same amount of vertex shader as a XT or higher, then I gather it's the res and AF+AA setting.

Sure a faster CPU would help, but just barely. I think Anad's article for CPU on HL2 and GPU's etc..., you would probably net a gain of about 5 to maybe 10 FPS with a top end AMD and another 2 to 5 for dual channel.

Try dropping the res a notch, since IMHO very high quality settings are better suited to 1152 X 864 and lower. Maybe even 1024.

I like 1152 x 864 since it's almost as sharp as 1280, but it does not tax the vid card, especially with quality settings. And it gives you more headroom for the settings you like to play with.

I bought a X800 Pro, but converted it to a XT for the extra pipelines. And all went fine etc... BUT I mostly play with 1152 x 864 or lower when fiddling with 4 X AA and 8 X AF and higher cause then, when I play like Doom 3, I will drop to low 30's myself on a slightly faster CPU and 16 pipes.

I noticed that for me, 8 AF or 16 AF does not have that much of a difference and I like 4 X AA or higher so I stick with 1152 X 864.

Anyways let us know with the new PSU and what you think and such. Good luck

For temp readins you can try the ATITool which is pretty nice. The only reason I started using occasionnally was to play with temp monitoring and automatic fan adjustment acording to temps.

If radlinker could have that,it would be the best !

ThomasMack