Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB. Low 3D Mark Score. Help!

[Spiffman]

Just got this video card installed the other day and games run amazing and all, but it really isn't measuring up to what I'm seeing hardware sites showing it performing at. I've got DirectX 8.1 and 3D Mark 2001 SE installed and I'm hitting just over 10000. Other websites have this card well into 16000, and I just don't know why. My system specs are listed in my signature.

Any ideas?

[Heon2574]

Check www.ati.com for the latest driver (catalyst 3.5) and also make sure you have fast writes enabled. i have a radeon 7000 card by the way and it doesn't have fast writes. However im sure that if it is disabled on your computer, that might be causing the low score. To get to fast writes, right click your desktop, go to properties, destop, and advanced. Look for an option to enable fast writes. If that still doesn't works you may have to go into your BIOS settings and turn it on. Good luck!

[Spiffman]

Thought I'd give an update.

For starters, FastWrite is on. It's to the point where I'm thinking it is some setting in the BIOS, but I'm really not sure what it would be. =\ Maybe my RAM isn't running in dual channel like it is supposed to or it isn't at 400MHz like it is supposed to be or... I don't even know how I would check that.

Also, I upgraded to DX9 and 3DMark03 because there is a thread on here with a lot more to compare my score to. I'm scoring about a 4600. It's higher than the folks with Radeon 9700 Pros, but it isn't the 5200+ that other people with a 9800 model are reporting. Essentially, here's my setup:

P4 2.4C
ASUS P4P800
2 x 512MB Corsair XMS PC3200
Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB

Now, I see people with the same setup as that (only with less RAM) getting 5000 and above. What could possibly be causing this? ;(

[Floppyman]

Are your chipset drivers installed and working properly? WCPUID might be a good program to download (free), to check whether things are running at the right speed. HTH

[Spiffman]

Latest Intel chipset drivers are installed and I'm running at 2.7GHz right now trying to keep things closer to default. No idea why I'm scoring so low.

Also, if I load the defaults and let it load through, the system keeps asking me to "Press F2 to load defaults" whenever I reboot. It's fine if I set the chip speed to "Manual" and set the FSB between 200-240, but other than that, it asks to load defaults when I tell it to use the "Standard" CPU settings.

*sigh*

Wish it would just work. I'm reading so much trying to figure this out.

[Spiffman]

********************************
FIXED
********************************

Problem? I had V-Sync forced on in all situations. I can notice the difference, so after about the 16th time running through 3dMark03, I noticed that there wasn't tearing ANYWHERE. When frame rates get low, frame tearing becomes somewhat apparent.

New 3DMark score? 5700.

[wolfie]

Originally posted by Spiffman ******************************** FIXED ******************************** Problem? I had V-Sync forced on in all situations. I can notice the difference, so after about the 16th time running through 3dMark03, I noticed that there wasn't tearing ANYWHERE. When frame rates get low, frame tearing becomes somewhat apparent. New 3DMark score? 5700.

thats more like it glad you got it fixed.

wolfie

[mystvearn]

where to get 3dmark?is it free?

[wolfie]

Originally posted by mystvearn where to get 3dmark?is it free?

you can get the free version here: http://www.futuremark.com/download/

wolfie