Is Savage4 really that slow?

[kuk]

I have a Diamond Stealth III 32MB PCI, that runs in an AMD Athlon 650@700, 128MB RAM, Win2k system. When running Quake III Demo1, I get only 25fps @ 640X480 normal, and 15fps @ 800x600 normal. Is this normal? The card won't run stable on Win98 (I have to decelerate the card in order to prevent the system of freezing when scrolling text). With the most recent drivers for Win2k, the system also freezes (sometimes even at boot). Overclocking is not an issue, since these problems appears even when the system is running at 650.

Any ideas ?

 

[Adul]

That card is really that slow. May I suggest a card based on the Geforce 2 MX ( Nvidias budget GPU). It'll perform has well has a geforce, but atjust a fraction of the cost. You can pick up one for about $110 bucks online. I think even a voodoo3 2000 would be faster than that card has well.

 

[kuk]

Don't let my "Junior Member" status fool you. I know a lot about these cards, i've done comparisons and a LOT of reading. But since I'm here in Brazil, GF2 MXs are still pretty distant (cost-wise that is). I bought this Savage4 card cause I needed a cheap replacement PCI for my Pentium-100. I thought it was pretty decent, coming with 32MB (2x my system's), S3TC and stuff.

But then money went short, and this card had to go in for the Athlon system. Now that the card is really used, I can only say that I regret buying it. 25fps @ 640X480 is something pretty strange.

My primary system is a PII-300, 96RAM, RivaTNT 1 (the athlon is my secondary ... strange, isn't it?). I don't know if I should swap the graphics card. The difference is that my TNT is AGP, and the Savage4 is PCI.

 

[Lord Gwynz]

That's kind of slow even for a Savage4. Using a Celeron/400@570, 128megs RAM, Diamond Stealth III S4 Xtreme AGP 32meg I would get about 55 fps at 640x480 and 40 fps at 800x600 in Q3 demo001, 32 bit color, 32 bit textures, max graphic settings, all eye candy on. Even the less capable SavageMX (a cross between a Savage3D & Savage4) with 8 megs video RAM in my PIII/450, 128 megs RAM laptop manages at least 30 fps 640x480 Q3 demo001 using same max graphic settings. Have you tried the usual Q3 tweaks like the hunkmegs setting, and S3 tweaks with the S3Tweak program? I wouldn't think there would be that much difference between the PCI and AGP version since it does have 32megs of RAM onboard. And the Xtreme version would be maybe 5fps faster at most than a regular S4.

 

[John P]

I hate my Savage 4!!! It won't play Quake III (locks up). I can't wait to get my TNT2 Ultra back from Guillemot (should be next week) so I can get that thing outta my kids computer and stick this Voodoo3 2000 in there.

 

[duragezic]

Well it isn't a good card but there is definately something wrong. I have a voodoo banshee and I get about 45fps on demo001 640x480, 16bit color, trilinear filtering, no high quality sky, high quality sound, etc.... At 800x600 I get nearly 30fps. The Savage 4 should be significantly faster than my voodoo banshee. Your processor is quite a bit faster too, and that helps at low resolutions like 640x480.

I have no idea what is wrong, but something must be with the very low fps and the stability issues.

 

[imhotepmp]

What motherboard are you using? If youre usings the via kx133 chipset did you get the latest 4in1 drivers? This may solve your problem. Even if it is not a good card, as everybody said it should be much faster.
get them here:
http://www.viatech.com

Hope this helps

imhotepmp

 

[Auric]

Since you are having problems under Win98 too it sounds like it could be an issue with the chipset or BIOS settings. I don't know, my S4 is trouble free under Win98 on a BX board. I have not tried it a lot under W2K for games but it is not equivalent to Win9x for speed yet.

Like Lord Gwynz, when I had Q3 demo installed with a C450, 128MB, S4 AGP it was super smoov at 800x600 with everything on. But again, that was Win9x.

You say you have the latest drivers. I always recommend using the latest reference set and if you have been messing with different install package hacks then in Win9x do the VGA thang, delete all S3 driver files and references in the registry then install the new ones.

Normally I would recommend checking http://sdn.fgn.com but it appears to be down. You might try http://bws.sprintnet.pl instead.

For drivers:
ftp://ftp.diamondmm.com/pub/s3/desktop/395/
https://archive:archive@ranger.s3.com/395drv/?license=accept

Good luck.

 

[Lord Gwynz]

Sure its not a screamer of a card, even when it first came out, but if you don't mind playing at 640x480, it'll give you the best damn looking 640x480 of any card in its price range considering it can do triliear filtering, 32-bit color, and hardware S3TC at a decent speed. It's even faster than a Viper II at that resolution. But it does start slowing down from 800x600 and forget 1024x768, a limitation caused by the 64-bit memory bandwidth from what I hear.

 

[kuk]

Humm ... good feedback here
I love anandtech! Haha =)

Well,

1) I'm using plain ol' quake III, with plain ol' win2k reference drivers (I mean really old ... the new ones will lockup my sys).

2) Yep, I have a KX133 (Abit KA7). I don't remember installing the via4in1 thingy. I know that I downloaded it, installed it, but after the last format I don't think I put it again. But just for the record, I think these Via drivers optimize AGP performance. My card is PCI. I could be wrong.

3) Now here is where the discussion really starts cookin'. Let's start from the top. I have TWO diamond cards: a Viper V550 AGP (RivaTNT) and a Stealth III 32MB PCI (Savage4). I have two systems: my trusty ol' PII-300 on a "??" chipset, and a Athlon 650 on an Abit KA7.

If I use a OS based on the 9x kernel (windows 95, 98 or ME), both systems will SEVERELY lockup when scrolling text. Only a reboot will do. To solve this problem, I have to "decelerate" the card, that is, going to it's setting and setting the slider to the second-worse setting. With this option, DirectX won't work ... I now have a 2D-only card.

With Windows 2000, there is no lockup OF THIS TYPE. My PII-300 + TNT is tremedously stable with nVidia's reference drivers. With the Athlon+Savage4, the old drivers are stable, but the newer ones cause random (but constant) lockups. This happens with Diamond and S3 reference drivers.

I've contacted Diamond about this, but they only sent me a Bios Settings FAQ. Further contact got me no answers. I'm really stumped on this one.



wow, this was a long post ... if you read up till here, congratulations

Well, gotta go ...

 

[kuk]

Bump ... I didn't go through writing all that stuff just to be ignored

 

[Auric]

Did you flash the S4 with the latest BIOS too? Just a thought.

 

[AxelRose]

Sorry gonna say it once, GET RID OF THAT STANK PIECE OF SH*T!



AHHHH Betta Now

Hehe no offense, but why the S4? ANYTHING is better, a voodoo3 2000, 3000, 3500, hell even an old voodoo2. They dont run on any hardware, have rotten drivers, and crappy performance.

 

[glen]

I would rather have a Voodoo 2.
Yeah, a 2. I am not kidding.

 

[kuk]

haha ... this week I just auctioned my Voodoo 2 for about 180 reais (that's about 90 dollars) ... this card is still very popular here. The money is going in for the Plextor 12x10x32. Latter on I'll buy a GF2 MX.

Plz ... no more comments on "uhh, Savage4 sux". I need some constructive comments so I can pin-point what's going on here. 25fps @ 640x480, as I said, is not normal, even for this card.

 

[AxelRose]

Try to Disable Vsync in OpenGL and D3d.

Also, enable S3TC (Texture Compression if possible)


Set Color on desktop to 16 bit

 

[RGN]

I had a Elsa Winner II which was a Savage4 32MB AGP, on a PIII 560 (Overclocked 500) I got about 55fps. That's in 32bit color normal detail. The D@mn doodoo 3 3000 get 60fps in the blase 16-bit color.

So check your settings, these cards really are not that bad.
Try the reference drivers

RGN

 

[Lord Gwynz]

If we're talking Quake 2, sure a V2 SLI would spank a Savage4, and only from 800x600+. On my old K6-3 system, at 640x480 both cards were pretty close to each other doing around 100fps demo1. At 800x600, I believe the V2 SLI got 80fps, S4 60fps, and at 1024x768 the V2 scored 60fps, S4 30fps. But in Q3, the V2's absolutely choked on max graphic settings and looked like crap when I had to use vertex lighting for any kind of decent speed. The whole screen had this puke green, yellowish tinge to it, it was AWFUL especially after I saw how stunningly beautiful it looked in all its 32-bit, max textures glory with the Savage4 card (albeit at 640x480, but it ran damned smooth). I knew at that moment it was Game Over for the Voodoo 2's.

And yeah, I think the mb I was using at the time for my K6-3 system was a VIA based board (Epox MVP3G-M). Stability was kind of dodgy no matter how many times I upgraded the drivers and I only achieved rock solid stability when I upgraded to a BX board with a Celeron and a Abit BE6-2 mb. Also I think the BX boards generally had a more stable and efficient AGP implementation than the VIA boards, I was hoping they would have gotten their act together by now with the Athlon boards(?)

 

[Goi]

Something's wrong with your setup...I used to have a Savage4, and even though it wasn't screaming fast, its by no way that slow...

 

[kuk]

I really urge that you guys before posting would read what I have already written. I already know something is wrong with my setup. I already posted that I'm using the OLDER reference drivers. The new drivers lockup my system. And for the third time, I'm working with a PCI card. It's not an AGP issue.

AxelRose: How do I turn off V-Sync? No can do through the Savage4 Control Panel ... I think it's due to the old drivers. And how do I turn on S3TC with Quake (I can't really remember reading it was possible)

 

[Auric]

Sorry kuk, no more practical advice for you except that it ain't a vsync issue unless your monitor is running at 25Hz

You can use S3Tweak to get at all the options but really, just try to get advice in the forums of those sites I posted. You need to hear from people with the same system.

 

[kuk]

Well, that's the end of that. I'll probably be buying a MX, but don't really know when. Now I have to worry how to find someone stupid enough to buy this card

Just kidding ... maybe I should run it in dual-display mode