Not really. A good chunk of this benchmark is geared toward video cards. You can have a P4 3.0GHz with a GF2 MX, and your score is obviously going to be in the toilet. You slap a GeForce FX in there, and you're going to see a much better score. While they don't make a huge impact, memory timings can affect the score...overclocking can affect the score, as can drivers, OS, and other hardware besides the CPU and GPU. It's not an overall system benchmark, and not really a game either, so you need to take the scores with a little salt. It's fun to compare to help figure out if you're doing alright, but don't rely on it as the primary source of determining how fast the PC is.
I now get over 9900 when overclocked @ 445/344 , I could pudh it a bit more but I see glitches at 460/360 so I'll stay with that.
Doing a little OC on the CPU might get you over the 10k mark. Wouldn't take much either. Just raise the FSB a few MHz could do it.
I have the Palomino version of the 2000+ so the processor's unlocked, does it mean I can do absolutely nothing or that I can overclock very slightly ?
If yours is anything like mine, you won't get very far. I've had it up around 1.8GHz (144MHz FSB), but that was on a different board than I have now. Mine hasn't been that great of an OC'er. Try upping the FSB a few MHz at a time for starters. Download and run Prime 95. If that runs for 24hrs without an error, that's considered to be stable. With your RAM, you should be able to run all the timings at their lowest settings as well, if you haven't done so already.
I'll try that tomorrow (or later, depending on how you see it !) I'm using Radclocker instead of rage3d and oced it to 500/344. My 3dmark2001se score dropped to 9585 but my 3dmark03 score increased to 3026. I ran both benchmarks for about 2 hours and that's where my system is rock stable. I achieved 544/344 once in 3dmark03 but it wouldn't do it in 3dmark2001se, then not even in 2003 either, so I dropped the clock to 500 and now it's stable. Why is it that my 2001 score dropped by 3% but my 2003 score increased by 50% ?
I'm gonna reinstall XP anyway, because after uninstalling Radclocker, my card was somewhat slow, I ran 3dmark and got only 7250.
I've not really played around with anything but the Rage3D tweaker. For nVidia cards, I use Riva Tuner. I know they've got Radeon support in the newer versions, but I haven't tried it yet.
A definate improvement!! Do you overclock your cpu too? If I had an athlon id unlock the bugger straight away
If you consider unlocking it, know that using rear windshield defogger is a pain in the ass to use. It's not necessarily hard, but you're dealing with a small area---which has to be masked off and let dry, 1 pair of bridges at a time. The other method, which I'll go for as soon as I can snag the part, is to use a conductive pen. Oh, and doing my Radeon 8500 OC and a slight OC on the CPU, I got 9257 on 3DMark 2k1. I gotta look over my cooling again, since I'm getting some not too cool temps. May be time to consider some watercooling...*dreams of Koolance EXOS*
I dream of ddr! You guys are fighting for 10,000 and im fighting for 5000 I might go springdale and throw in this 2ghz P4a for a quick n easy upgrade, start saving for the P4c. Just wish I didnt go mad on ebay last night now, ww2 stuff doesnt make your comp faster!
"Once upon a time...." There was a time when I was fighting for 3000 (a week ago !) and saw the 10k mark as my ultimate goal in life, now that I'm knocking on heaven's door, I realize that 10k is not that much when you just spent your first pay check for something unimpressive ! The 4 pipelines are just not enough. The card may be clocked very high(398/297) but it doesn't make up for the lack of pipelines. The 9500 Pros are rare I hear so the next best thing is a 9700 Pro. (I'm not going to softmod a 9500, it's too risky to me) Every time I overclock, my score goes down, then when I go back to stock speed, the score stays down, real-world performance also. I don't understand. That, plus I'm a little disapointed in that card. I though I'd be able to play MOHAA with everything maxed at 1024x768 but it's far from being the case. I know my FSB is only 133 (btw Prime95 doesn't pass at 140), but even so, for the price I paid, I thought I'd get something impressive. $310 later ($230 us - the cards cost more here), I'm not impressed. I'm thinking of returning it and paying the difference for something better, or sell it on the net at a reduced price (****). Unless someone tells me something like: "But MOHAA is extremely demanding, even compared to today's games, plus it's badly coded, so it's only normal that performance "sucks" ". I can play at 800x600 with everything maxed, but that's not what I want !
You might try browsing the forums over at www.rage3d.com ---I'm not quite sure what to think. I haven't been paying attention to the Radeon's close enough to know of any major issues. I'm not getting very far with my XP2000+. If I can get this other job, I'm gonna get a watercooling setup and see what I can do. I know my chip is capable of 1.8GHz at least. The problem is heat, and other than run the Vcore at the lowest point, there's not much I can do for overclocking.
Wow you cant get 1024x768 and highest settings!!? The last time I installed MOHAA I had a celron 633 and a pci voodoo 5 and 192mbs pc100. It was crap! But so was every other post MOHAA game. But even with a P4 2ghz @2.4 and 640mbs pc100 and an mx420 (with 4960 my highest 3d mark 2001) I can play every game at 1024x768x32 with highest driver and graphics settings. Ive overclocked the mx420 from 250:166 gpu:ram to 330:210 (sometimes 215 for the ram) and I get great frames out of it. Eneter the Matrix gets 60 fps! I reckon your 9600pro is bottlenecking somewhere, its gotta be! not to be able to play MOHAA at highest settings. Try tweeking the drivers more, leave the in game settings on highest. I often hear people sat they are struggling to get decent settings do run smooth, I have always done ok really thats why Ive never bought a new card. Even the celly 633 and the pci voodoo 5 could play GTA 3 at highest. Antitriscopic filtering slows my system the most, but I have got pc100 and a 480 bus speed! What Anti-aliaising are you running at? I personally think it aint worth the strain on the cards to run at more than 1024x768x32 and 2x AA. Id carry on tweeking though!
Well I think I've found the low score problem. I have to reboot after each run of the benchmark, or else the score drops by a good 1200-1300 points. I can't get that 9900 I was getting though, probably because of the mem timings which are at default(highest). therefore, my 3dmark2001 score is around 9600 and my 3dmark2003 score is around 3200. I don'T have any recent DirectX game though, I can't wait to buy UT2K3 !
UT2k3 isnt really a good program to test your graphics card on cos the engine uses lots of cpu power. Thats why fps are so high in the game. Id get summit like GTA 3 on it or Colin Mcrae 3. I was gonna say battlefield but it uses the cpu (default 20%) to control the AI. I almost guarantee you though, get another stick of pc2700 and you'll closer to 11,000 than 10,000.
