Originally posted by: Gabbage
I received my Connect3D card yesterday and applied the Omega drivers. To test for artifacts I ran 3Dmark 2001 and the ATI demos and neither gave me any problems. Therefore I am positive that the 9500->9700 hack was successful.
I have a problem, though. For some reason (and I can't think of a single explanation for this) my frame rates seem hardly improved in comparison with my previous card, a GeForce 2 Pro. My 3dmark scores only went up from 3486 with the GeForce to 7214 with the hacked 9500, and the second demo with the vehicle runs at about 25-30 fps. My frame rates in Unreal Tournament 2003 are simply mediocre (maybe 30-45 fps at 1024x768) and in FIFA 2003, a game that ran perfectly fluidly with AA and AF enabled on a Thunderbird 900 with GF4 Ti4600, my frame rates do not hit anything approaching 60. I have a reasonable system, a Tbird 1.33GHz with 256mb of DDR RAM, so it's hard to imagine that my 9500 is limited by existing hardware. Even if the hack didn't work (and I am nearly positive that it did), I think a standard 9500 non-pro should give me better performance. As it is, I have a hacked 9500 that works but provides approximately GF3 Ti200 performance.
Anyone care to offer an explanation? Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Originally posted by: Gabbage
I understand that video performance is directly proportional to CPU speed. However, I do not have anything close to an obsolete system. Agreed, a T-bird 1.33GHz with 256mb of RAM may not be able to draw maximum performance from a Radeon 9700, but it is not so completely out-of-date that I shouldn't still be seeing a major boost in performance.
As I said, I have another system that has a T-bird 900MHz paired with a GF4 Ti4600 and performance on that system is incomparably better than what I am getting with my newer one. For example, I can run FIFA 2003 on the T-bird 900MHz at 1600x1200 without ever seeing a dip in framerate and I am not getting decent performance at 1024x768 with my newer system in the same game. Even if I have a CPU bottleneck it can't possibly be the cause of my problems.
Originally posted by: Gabbage
"Thats very intersting. What I would do personally is rebuild the system from scratch."
The funny thing is, that's exactly what I did! Before I bought the card I was still using Windows 98 and when I read that the Omega hack only works with Windows 2000/XP I decided to reformat the hard drive and start from the beginning. Therefore the 9500 was already in the system when I installed XP Pro.
PS: My T-bird 900MHz has 256mb of RAM.
Originally posted by: psloan
OK success! 3dmark03 scores. with geforce4 card tweaked to max, 201. radeon 9500 from connect3d with stock drivers 2009, with omega 9500-9700 driver 4188!
WHahoo!
omega drivers here http://www.omegacorner.com/index.html
Originally posted by: Techie333
Nobody want to answer my questions...........sob..........how do you OC after you apply softmod somebody??
EDIT: ALso, are Omega drivers better or Wizard???
Originally posted by: elkinm
I understand about the shipping but I think it is worth it to get a modable card. But I don't want to just just return it for no reason. I am a somewhat strange and honest person and somewhat lazy so if it works I might not even bother returning it. But if something realy bothers me about it then I can exchange it and feel fine about it.
Also is there a way to enalble the 256 bit bus but without the 8 pipelines enabled, so I can have at least some benefit from an L shaped PCB?