Is my 3DMark2001 score a bit low?

[quarryman]

Ok finally I've managed to get some results. I installed the 3Mark2001 patch and it ran. I left everything at stock speeds:

2.6GHz
200 FSB
DDR 200MHz (400 in DDR) 2.5,4,4,7
9600Pro 400-clock 598-mem

3DMark2001 11463

So after installing DX9.0b and the Cat 3.9s I've only got a small increase. (See original post for specs and scores)

So on with the overclocking.

3.02GHz
232 FSB
DDR 186MHz 2,3,3,7
9600Pro 500-clock 598-mem this card really overclocks well.

3Mark2001: 13314

A nice increase. So I pushed it a bit more:

3.18GHz
245 FSB
DDR 196MHz 2,3,3,7
9600Pro 520-clock 598-mem not sure how much higher this will go.

3Dmark2001: 13556

It seems from fiddling around with settings that the CPU speed has a marginal effect on the score. The biggest increase seems to happen when the card is overclocked.

When I tried to o/c the FSB higher than above 3Mark would crash to the desktop. Also occasionally it would hang altogether forcing me to reboot. I tried to vary the settings to see if it was the gfx card, cpu or RAM causing the problem but i felt the crashing and rebooting was bad for the system and gave up. I'll try more at another time.

I decided to go try the system o/ced to 3.0GHz and play a few games. Loading up Neverwinter nights I found it would hang after a few seconds of play. This was never a fixed point but occured after a very brief period. This was unusual as NWN had never crashed on me o/ced before.

I dropped the speeds down to stock but it happened again. I tried to check few other games, Morrowind Halo etc but same result. This was really bugging me as I now had good speeds but no stability.

I uninstalled and reinstalled the GFx drivers and now *fingers-crossed* everything is going ok. One other problem was playing a DVD it crashed after about 30mins and blue screened telling me a hard disk error?!! Did chkdsk and hopefully this can be avoided again.

I have also installed the Call of Duty hot-fix and I agree with what someone mentioned above it does seem to fix problems with anumber of other games. the 9600pro seems to stop responding to driver instructions and hangs during a game. It usually crashes to desktop, informs you of the error and then sometimes lets you return to the game! sometimes not. haven't had this in a while so maybe it has been solved.

Lastly a few questions. After o/cing the system i found it would boot to the desktop but occasionally would crash during a game. When it crashes is there any way of telling what caused it? Sometimes it crashes to the desktop other times just hangs.

Is there a log where I can look up what caused it? What is the best program for checking stability? I'm looking for something to test CPU, ram and card? Stress thema dn show the stability? I've heard that if you overclock the gfx card and see something called artifacts then its running too fast. What are these and how do i check for them. Also any advice on what i should try do to improve stability would be great. I should point out that the crashes I have experienced have mostly gone away but i haven't been using the system long enough to test it.

forgot to mention my temps. overclocked the CPU at load doesn't seem to get much higher that 45c with minimal cooling. The PSU seems to get up to 63c. I'm happy enough with this.

[s3v]

Try running the FSB at 800Mhz and (hang on, do u have a 400, 533 or 800Mhz FSB pee4?) and tighten up the memory timings to say 6, 2, 2, 2.5.

Make sure you have locked the PCI / AGP bus speed or you will corrupt data going to it, and other devices and in turn can ruin a perfectly good HDD.

Also, try creating a new user in Windows, like 3Dmark, log out of ur usual user, and log back in under the new user, so you almost get a clean slate of windows.

unload all unneccessary services and unload as much our of RAM as possible.

Try it again....

[s3v]

ignore that - i read the first post. u have an 800Mhz FSB jobby...

anyway.. try what i mention above

[quarryman]

Try running the FSB at 800Mhz and (hang on, do u have a 400, 533 or 800Mhz FSB pee4?) and tighten up the memory timings to say 6, 2, 2, 2.5.

see first post. 800MHz

Make sure you have locked the PCI / AGP bus speed or you will corrupt data going to it, and other devices and in turn can ruin a perfectly good HDD.

yup its locked.

Also, try creating a new user in Windows, like 3Dmark, log out of ur usual user, and log back in under the new user, so you almost get a clean slate of windows.

how does that help? are certain drivers only used with specific users or is it that some programs will not run on other user's accounts?

unload all unneccessary services and unload as much our of RAM as possible.

there should be no backround programs running. how do i unload the RAM?

[s3v]

Unload as much OUT of ram as possible, like things in your system tray, virus scanners, firewalls etc.

[Karl|Neo]

hey, seen as this is a 3d mark 01 topic, ive got a:
P4 2.4C
512 Kingmax DDR 433
Sapphire 9800 np
n i got 11150. Is this ok?

[quarryman]

Originally posted by Karl|Neo
hey, seen as this is a 3d mark 01 topic, ive got a:
P4 2.4C
512 Kingmax DDR 433
Sapphire 9800 np
n i got 11150. Is this ok?

can you you check it online? i'm getting that with a very similar system. i would have thought you'd get more with a 9800 though.

Unload as much OUT of ram as possible, like things in your system tray, virus scanners, firewalls etc.

sorry, i didn't know what you meant there. yeah minimal backround programs running

[Enverex]

No, thats awful, I mean REALLY bad, my GF3 on my Athlon XP 2400+ and PC2100 RAM almost beat that....

Not sure why your score is so crap though. Do you have AA or AF turned on in the Driver settings?

NS

[chrisf6969]

Can you provide a link to your scores? Sometimes you can tell by the scores where you strengths/weaknesses are.

BTW... my computer from almost 2 years ago was scoring 10.8k-12.8k at 2.4Ghz... http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=3102871

I accidentally erased a lot of my old scores.... but that link above was from when I first got my system a year & 9 months ago. With a P4 @ 2.4Ghz, single channel SIS645 mobo, 256MB ram, & GF4ti4600. http://www.crowdcontrolusa.com/overclock/system2.html

[quarryman]

Originally posted by chrisf6969
Can you provide a link to your scores? Sometimes you can tell by the scores where you strengths/weaknesses are.

BTW... my computer from almost 2 years ago was scoring 10.8k-12.8k at 2.4Ghz... http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=3102871

I accidentally erased a lot of my old scores.... but that link above was from when I first got my system a year & 9 months ago. With a P4 @ 2.4Ghz, single channel SIS645 mobo, 256MB ram, & GF4ti4600. http://www.crowdcontrolusa.com/overclock/system2.html

so you're getting as much with that almost 2 year old system as I am now?!! And that's with an older gfx card and half the RAM? I was beginning so think my scores were ok.

basically i'm getting 11k at stock and 13k o/ced. which part is holding me back?

its the 4 pixel lines in the 9600pro ain't it? go on just say it!


EDIT: actually i wonder are dx8 cards favoured in the 2001 test? i'm gonna d/l 2003 and see how that goes.

[Enverex]

2001 is system based and 2003 is GPU based, so it is best to go with 2001 as something in your PC is not up to scratch....

NS

[chrisf6969]

Where's your link? I want to see how many fps in each game b/c some games are more bandwidth dependent and some are vid card core dependent etc...

My GF4ti4600 only had 4 pipes. and with my P4 at 2.4Ghz single channel SIS645 mobo it was running at 12800 3dmarks after I tweaked it.... (gained about 2000 points from tweaking and newer drivers, etc)

Then later when I upgraded to dual channel mobo and a 2.53 OC'd to 3Ghz I was getting 15200 3dmarks... http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=6721489

Now with my current system 2.4 oc'd to 3.6 and GF FX5900 (non Ultra) Im getting 20000+ 3dmarks!

Click my signature link and look at my different system configurations as I've upgraded it over the past almost 2 years.

[Karl|Neo]

Hey, thanx night shade, turns out I made a school boy error, had 4x AA n 8x Af on :s, its now back upto a health 15-16000 on '01, n bout 4750 on '03 , thanx agen, im no longer rubbishrubbishrubbishrubbisheing my self

[quarryman]

Originally posted by chrisf6969
Where's your link? I want to see how many fps in each game b/c some games are more bandwidth dependent and some are vid card core dependent etc...

My GF4ti4600 only had 4 pipes. and with my P4 at 2.4Ghz single channel SIS645 mobo it was running at 12800 3dmarks after I tweaked it.... (gained about 2000 points from tweaking and newer drivers, etc)

That computer is not connected to the internet so I haven't been able to do any online comparsion. i might see if I can get it to save the data to a file that I can paste up here.

I'm pretty sure that AA etc is off. it says off on the 3dmark program before i run the benchmark but maybe the driver settings have it on. i'll have a look later.

bottom line is that 11000 doesn't seem great for a 2.6GHz P4 and a 9600Pro. The RAM is OCZ so that is pretty good. i'll try messing around with it more.

[bouncin]

dont pay any attention to what 3d mark says turn aa and af off through ur drivers

[Austin]

11000 sounds about right for a P4 2.6ghz with 9600PRO and nothing o/c'ed. The gfx card is very good (esp o/c'ed wink wink) but your results wouldn't be much lower with a lesser CPU+mobo. If you o/c your gfx card you should be more of 13-14000, most 9600PRO get from 400/300 to around 525/350. Still outside of sythetics you should find you can play most games in high res with AA+AF turned on and max details ... 3Dmark doesn't indicate there's a problem with your setup so I personally wouldn't worry.