9800 Pro Performance Problem

Ixador

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!

Thanks.
-Ix


**EDIT**
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.

pr0digal jenius

di you run driver cleaner and COMPLETELY get rid of all of your nvidia crap before you isntalled the omegas?..if not run DC 3.2 and get rid of absolutely everything and reinstall thye omegas

Ixador

I didn't first try it. But after some thinking and browing around other forums I did try it. Didn't make one bit of a difference. Any chance it could be my processor? I wouldn't think it would bog it down, but as far as I can observe that is the weakest part of my system.

The_Neon_Cowboy

1st off did you buy retail or OEM? You sure you didn’t get some of the newer cards that now come with lower bit memory? Also make sure you installed your chipset drivers and try reinstalling direct X 9.


The way I see it you have two choices….
•1. Reformat, reinstall
•2. Try using driver cleaner and hope for the best

NVIDIA software/drivers conflict’s with ATI’s, I suspect per design/they meant it to be that way. You have to get off every trace of from your system and then you might run well. But it’s best just to reformat reinstall and get it over with.

Also, you’re using an Intel Celeron, which’s performance is heavily held back by it lack of cache. Also the pc2100 memory is another bottle neck in your system. Also the old sound card can hold you back some. These bottle necks are strong enough to keep you from ever reaching the cards full potential.

Ixador

I am thinking on going to the same PC store and getting another CPU. AFAIK the card is 256 mbit memory. If the memory is what I think I was looking at. IIRC it was L shaped if that has anything to do with anything.


**EDIT**
Are there any ways to increase RAM efficenecy by playing with timings etc? Always wanted to do it, but never really found any definitive information about doing so.

Thanks again folks.
-Ix

Bart1987

I think only Sapphire made radeon 9800 pro with 128bit memory and they only did that with the 128MB version. So that isn't it. I think your chipset drivers aren't working properly. Those scores you are getting are way to low. Also for your system. You should try to reinstall your chipset drivers.

Warpy

Sup,

I had the same problem last year with my NVIDIA FX5900 when i upgraded to my 9800 PRO.

Here is what i did sir:

1. Removed FX Drivers
2. Ran Driver Cleaner

**Make sure you have plugged the power supply into the 9800 PRO card, I know it sounds dumb, but if you have never had one you may not know about it. The reason I say this, is because I missed this crucial step out and my scores where around 11,000!!!

Jalle64

Hey! Welcome to DH!
If you can/can´t set your timings, is up to your mobo/bios and your ram quality! Often with mobobios there are an auto setting checking your rams default speed (SPD chip), and you probably ran/run it that way. So you should check in bios what settings you could change, and also find (if you can!)(maybe have to open the case) , what RAM sticks you got, timings for them etc.
If you ran into probs while testing you just reset the bios and start again! (Look in your manual for how to do reset)!
Good luck!