Horrid 3DMark05 with eVGA 6800

[Nardo]

Alright guys, I got one for you.

I just bought a GeForce 6800 (non-ultra) to replace my old Crucial Radeon 9100, and I got it last night. Since I was doing a major video driver overhaul, I decided to completely wipe the drive and start over with a fresh Windows 2000 Pro Service Pack 4 install (mmm...fresh Windows). Installed the Xtreme-G 77.62 Type 3 drivers, installed all my other things that were necessary, then I disk cleanup'ed and defragmented. This morning, I woke up and ran 3DMark05 (the free version) a received a whopping (sarcastic) 1417. A couple things before you try and figure it out. First, my system specs:

Pentium 4 2.4 GHz Canterwood
512 mb Corsair XMS PC3200 Low Latency RAM
80 gb Hitachi SATA HDD
eVGA GeForce 6800 NU with Xtreme G 77.62 Drivers
550 W PSU

Secondly, I did attempt to unlock the extra pipes and vertex shader but got massive artifacting on 3DMark03, and thus reverted (softmodded using RivaTuner) to stock.

Ok guys, have at it.

 

[2Xtreme21]

- Try switching AGP Fastwrites off / on, depending on what you it them set to right now.
- Install the latest chipset drivers for your motherboard.
- Try another driver, making sure you use driver cleaner when changing.
- When installing the XG's, you may have forgot to check the Series 6 box. This happened with my friend and he was getting very dismal performance until he simply reinstalled the driver.

 

[Nardo]

The AGP Fastwrites may be it. I already got driver cleaner, so I'll give that a go. I can try reinstalling the XG's too.

My favorite parts was when I maxed out UT2K4 at 1280x1024 & 4xAA/8xAF and was like whoa lag. Then I knew something was wrong.

Anyone else? All the help is appreciate.

 

[Cheesetogo]

You were running 3dmark at the lowest settings, right?

 

[Nardo]

Yeah, I disabled the AA and AF before I benchmarked.

Otherwise, the settings are all controlled by FutureMark because its the free version.

 

[Nardo]

I don't want to sound like an arse, but I do know what I'm doing. This result just baffled me, so I wanted to get others inputs.

I do appreciate your time though guys.

 

[NokiaDude]

I remember having a PCI-e 6800NU 256MB card. Is only scored 2-3k 3dmark in 05. 03 it scored about 8-9k.

 

[Crashedout]

I have the same card. Overclock it first, then unlock it. Mine is at the 4200 range after I did that.

 

[Nardo]

Crashedout - Did your's artifact at first (w/o OC'ing it)?

Nokia, according to Firing Squad's "Unlocking the 6800" arcticle, I should be getting in the 3500 range (because 3DMark05 is almost completely GPU dependent):

http://firingsquad.com/hardware/geforce_6800_unlocking/page6.asp

Keep the suggestions coming guys, I appreciate them!

 

[imported_Kensai]

2.4GHz Pentium 4 = Underpowered.
512MB DDR = Not even enough for office work.

 

[Nardo]

Kensai - 512 is more than enough to run HL2 (maybe not Doom 3, but I don't plan on playing it). The Canterwood 2.4 GHz is one of the most easily overclockable (if not THE most) P4. Plus, 3DMark05 is totally reliant on your GPU, so it wouldn't matter what the rest of the system is.

 

[Hard Ball]

I agree that your CPU may be fine, depending on what game you are playing. But 512MB of RAM is rather meager, and forcing the OS to page many of the system processes and background services, and would seriously hamper your gaming performance. 1GB is bare minimum today for the latest games, and 1.5-2.0 GB would be recommended for optimum performance IMO.

 

[blckgrffn]

Oh, come one. 512 is plenty for light gaming. If you like waiting forever to load UT2004 and like Far Cry to stutter now and then, that is your business, but by no means is "only 512" that bad. LOL, you will think that because I am only running 512 right now that I am trying to justiy it, but hell, I have a another 2*256 ballistix to put in, and I haven't had a need too yet, and they are currently just residing in some static bags. Guild wars runs fine, as does Area51. 3DMark05 has nothing to do with ram really, anyway.

The cpu is "slow", but not so slow to skew your results like that. Just try the official drivers, I am sure that it will be fine. My GF with her 6800 16p/6v 375/725 gets about 4400 in 05 with a 2.4ghz processor... a winnie She got about 3800 from what I remember oc'd but not unlcoked.

And out of the 3 6800's I have owned, none of them had artifacts without oc'ing too far or unlocking. If it artifacts when unlocked, I saw you get rid of rivatuner before you do some damage

Nat
Good luck!

 

[Nardo]

Hard Ball - Windows as an operating system can only support 1 gb of RAM, any more than that is completely unnecessary.

Nat - Thanks for rubbing it in my face that I can't unlock mine. What I'm gonna try is using the standard Forceware drivers and then try unclocking again (after removing the XG drivers with Driver Cleaner). I did reverted to stock with Riva Tuner and unistalled it afterwards, but I'm willing to give it one more go. Plus, if worse comes to worse (aka fry the mother), I can go back to my Radeon 9100 which runs UT2K4 at 1280x1024 with minimal options just fine.

Sigh, I'm just dissapointed at that 3DMark05 score and at not being able to unlock it.

 

[Nardo]

Oh, and turn off AGP FastWrite.

 

[TGS]

Originally posted by: Nardo
Hard Ball - Windows as an operating system can only support 1 gb of RAM, any more than that is completely unnecessary.

Ummm... Ok, if you want to believe that you can.

Look at P4 2.4 at the bottom of the list.

Look where the 6800NU stands, that's coupled with a 4000+ and 2x512 MB ram.

Notice again at 12x10 4x 8x, which is under the x700.

P4 at 2.4 and 512MB ram, seems to be ringing some alarms. I could underclock my rig some and put it in within the same specs, and see how close we are.

 

[Nardo]

Windows doesn't take advantage of more than 1 gb, thats what I meant.

Also, The CPU and RAM have nothing to do with 3DMark05. Thats my point.

 

[Nardo]

TGS - Those marks are off. No way does a 6600 GT outperform a 6800.

 

[blckgrffn]

UT2004 is very CPU bound as its engine uses a ton of scripting overhead, those fellows at Epic are greedy when it comes to that... you are going to need a CPU upgrade to get good performance in that game. Any A64 would do the trick, when I upgraded my dads 2800+ AXP to a 3000+ A64, it doubled the framerates on face classic even though I upped the res from 1024*768 to 1152*864 AND turned 2X/4X on.... from 45 average or so to 90+, and that was with a 5900SE and all high settings. If that is the game you play, you definitely need more CPU and more memory. Once you do that, you should fly in UT2k4, regardless of oc/unlocking.

Nardo, I wasn't trying to talk down to you or rub anything in your face in any way! I apologize if I came off that way. I missed the last sentence of your post where you discussed the "major artifacting", rather I caught one of your questions to someone else whether or not that was normal. You are very right when you say that 05 should be very GPU dependant, that is why I gave you the scores my GF got unlocked and/or oc'd - you should be able to approach 3000 points I would think.

Good luck!
Nat

 

[blckgrffn]

Actually, the 6600GT at stock has more fillrate than a 6800, so when bandwidth is not an issue, that coupled with its lower latency memory could very well mean that it could perform faster. I take everything that Toms says with a huge grain of salt, but it could happen and did happen to some extent in Anands own HL2 tests.

Nat

 

[TGS]

Originally posted by: Nardo
Windows doesn't take advantage of more than 1 gb, thats what I meant.

How much memory is you computer using at boot time? With UT2K4 up? After a session what does your Commit Charge Peak at? I bet 10-1 it will be more than 512MB. I'm a a el cheapo work console here, and with no gaming only email and a few small apps I'm peaking at 450MB.

Also, The CPU and RAM have nothing to do with 3DMark05. Thats my point.

These VR guys are nuts then...

 

[Nardo]

The VR test thay are showing the results of the CPU test, I'm talking the strictly GPU depent video tests.

 

[Nardo]

I was just joking Nat, I'm totally shooting for 3000. I've got a whole list of things to do. My best guess is the Chipset is messing up, so I got the latest update from Intel to install tonight.

 

[Nardo]

Well, I've done just about everything I could do. I reinstalled using the basic Forceware drivers, turned of VSYNC, set it to performance image quality, oc'ed it, and I'm not getting it above 1433. I'm fresh out of ideas.

 

[Avalon]

You might find this an odd question, but what PSU do you have exactly?