Nightchill
Can't get enough of FH
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2003
- Messages
- 297
So, I get my new PC. Interested in how it should be performing I have a look at many reviews and get a good idea of what scores it *should* be getting in Quake3 timedemos. Pcpitstop said the graphics card was only 76% as good as its database (which is built from 1000s of other users). Quake3 was also around 30% lower than I'd expect.
The next step was to download a suave of benchmarking software. PC Wizard, CPU-Z, SiSoft Sandra, 3DMark03 and also a few other useful tools like RivaTuner.
The first thing that struck me was the bizarre AGP settings. All of the software was detecting the card but said it was running at 3.3v. For a motherboard that only takes 1.5v, this isn't a good thing. And isn't AGP 8x meant to be 1.5v (or 0.8v) only? Ho hum. More in depth searches, some brief conversations on motherboard.org and suddenly it hits me (insert a simile here), the AGP bus isn't properly set up in WinXP and it had been treating it like a PCI card.
I dig out the motherboard cd and notice immediately a "Install AGP drivers for SiS chipset". Bollocks. Do so and it's all fixed. Performance shoots up.
Then it occurs to me, I don't think I've ever looked at a motherboard cd and almost never installed anything off it. I assumed that AGP functionality was a given, without extra drivers being required. So I look at my fianceé's PC, she's had it for a couple of years, but it supports AGP 2x. There's no easy way to check in win98se (or WinXP for that matter) whether it is working, so I copy some benchmarking utils over.
Her AGP isn't set up properly. Takes a minute to fix once I find the drivers and her performance leaps up.
How many other people have PCs without properly installed AGP? On a high end system the performance difference might go unnoticed. It's quite possible that all the different PCs I've had haven't had it properly set up for Windows.
Anyway, worth checking if you didn't install everything/anything off your mobo cd
*Hangs head in shame*
edit: It wasn't bad before I did this, somewhere around 170fps for Quake 3 with everything on full. After, it was well over 200. I only have an FX5700LE (Lag Edition)
The next step was to download a suave of benchmarking software. PC Wizard, CPU-Z, SiSoft Sandra, 3DMark03 and also a few other useful tools like RivaTuner.
The first thing that struck me was the bizarre AGP settings. All of the software was detecting the card but said it was running at 3.3v. For a motherboard that only takes 1.5v, this isn't a good thing. And isn't AGP 8x meant to be 1.5v (or 0.8v) only? Ho hum. More in depth searches, some brief conversations on motherboard.org and suddenly it hits me (insert a simile here), the AGP bus isn't properly set up in WinXP and it had been treating it like a PCI card.
I dig out the motherboard cd and notice immediately a "Install AGP drivers for SiS chipset". Bollocks. Do so and it's all fixed. Performance shoots up.
Then it occurs to me, I don't think I've ever looked at a motherboard cd and almost never installed anything off it. I assumed that AGP functionality was a given, without extra drivers being required. So I look at my fianceé's PC, she's had it for a couple of years, but it supports AGP 2x. There's no easy way to check in win98se (or WinXP for that matter) whether it is working, so I copy some benchmarking utils over.
Her AGP isn't set up properly. Takes a minute to fix once I find the drivers and her performance leaps up.
How many other people have PCs without properly installed AGP? On a high end system the performance difference might go unnoticed. It's quite possible that all the different PCs I've had haven't had it properly set up for Windows.
Anyway, worth checking if you didn't install everything/anything off your mobo cd
*Hangs head in shame*
edit: It wasn't bad before I did this, somewhere around 170fps for Quake 3 with everything on full. After, it was well over 200. I only have an FX5700LE (Lag Edition)
