weird timedemo issue (q3)

Post by **prince1000** » Tue Dec 13, 2005 10:09 pm

specs:

XP 2400 @ stock
ATI 9600 XT @ stock no AA/AF, 5.12 cats
1.28 GB PC2100
GA-7VRXP rev. 2 KT333

i've had this setup for almost 3 years with the xt being the latest/last vid card bought over a year and a half ago. i've been able to timedemo upwards of 320+fps @ 800x600 after a format but lately, last 6 months or so i haven't been able to get over 260 at that resolution. strange thing is, at 1024x768 i get 262.4 and 1280x1024 i get 250. all of these are run in osp as well which knocks of around 10 fps vs. vq3.

anyway, i havent fooled with anything in BIOS except maybe cas, switching between 2.5 and 3 (limits of my motherboard), and since i have gotten well over 300fps before with this setup it can't be the cpu bottlenecking all of a sudden.

quite strange indeed...any suggestions?

Post by **prince1000** » Tue Dec 13, 2005 11:09 pm

and not 2 hours after installing latest cats, my timedemo @ 1280x1024 is starting to drop, from 250, to 241 just after i posted this thread and now to 232. even after rebooting.

this is a consistant problem i've noticed since switching from win2000 to XP a few years back but it is more pronounced in SP2 than any other version of XP ive used. i just formatted about a week and a half ago. by next week, my timedemo will be under 200fps probably.

Post by **axbaby** » Wed Dec 14, 2005 12:23 am

are you using the motherboard drivers from xp or did you update them from the mobo website.

default xp drivers are a real FPS killer

Post by **Tormentius** » Wed Dec 14, 2005 12:24 am

That could be a memory leak. Any crashes or is it limited to just degraded performance? Any new apps running in the background?

Post by **Tormentius** » Wed Dec 14, 2005 12:24 am

axbaby wrote:
default xp drivers are a real FPS killer

:icon14:

Post by **prince1000** » Wed Dec 14, 2005 12:37 am

axbaby wrote:are you using the motherboard drivers from xp or did you update them from the mobo website.

default xp drivers are a real FPS killer

come on ax

seriously, everything is up to date. nothing at startup except setpoint/mouseware related stuff.

torm, i have had a few crashes, not since format though. that's actually why i formatted, as well as slow perfromance overall. i've maybe had less than 5 crashes where i had to soft reboot since i built this thing up until about 2 months ago. could be mem as i was pretty indiscriminate about what bought when i bought it.

Post by **prince1000** » Wed Dec 14, 2005 12:39 am

but that still doesn't explain getting the same timedemo scores at 3 different resolutions does it?

Post by **Tormentius** » Wed Dec 14, 2005 1:17 am

prince1000 wrote:but that still doesn't explain getting the same timedemo scores at 3 different resolutions does it?

Humour me and run memtest for a few hours just so we can rule that out. You can get it here.

Post by **axbaby** » Wed Dec 14, 2005 5:25 am

sorry prince ... when peeps say fresh install i figure mobo drivers get skipped over.

happens a lot

Post by **^misantropia^** » Wed Dec 14, 2005 6:55 am

- Is r_swapinterval or r_finish set?

- Is your CPU or video card fan dying (thereby limiting the max speed of the cooled device)?

Post by **Oeloe** » Wed Dec 14, 2005 8:49 am

^misantropia^ wrote:- Is r_swapinterval or r_finish set?

- Is your CPU or video card fan dying (thereby limiting the max speed of the cooled device)?

I wouldn't think he's running at 200 Hz refresh rate?

If you never get more than 60/77/83/100/120 FPS vsync is enabled and capping FPS.

Post by **prince1000** » Wed Dec 14, 2005 1:12 pm

Tormentius wrote:
prince1000 wrote:but that still doesn't explain getting the same timedemo scores at 3 different resolutions does it?
Humour me and run memtest for a few hours just so we can rule that out. You can get it here.

ran it overnight and no errors...

Post by **prince1000** » Wed Dec 14, 2005 1:15 pm

^misantropia^ wrote:- Is r_swapinterval or r_finish set?

- Is your CPU or video card fan dying (thereby limiting the max speed of the cooled device)?

nope. found an older cfg of mine, one that i've had since 2001 and the only difference besides r_ignorehwgamma 0 was s_mixprestep being .08 vs. .05 in my current cfg, and then various hud things. i did get another 10fps when i changed s_mixprestep but even with the older cfg i'm still getting the same results.

i'm going to upload my cfgs and maybe some people can test them and post their results?

edit: and cpu/gpu fans are fine. i actually clean them pretty regularly.

Post by **prince1000** » Wed Dec 14, 2005 1:18 pm

Oeloe wrote:
^misantropia^ wrote:- Is r_swapinterval or r_finish set?

- Is your CPU or video card fan dying (thereby limiting the max speed of the cooled device)?
I wouldn't think he's running at 200 Hz refresh rate? If you never get more than 60/77/83/100/120 FPS vsync is enabled and capping FPS.

neg

(120hz @ 800x600, 75hz @ 1280x1024, and 100hz @ 1024x768)

Post by **dzjepp** » Wed Dec 14, 2005 1:20 pm

It might be the stock xp drivers overwriting your manually downloaded drivers. Drivers.cab is sometimes known to do this without your knowledge (well, mostly when you install drivers and have the internet hooked up and don't cancel out of the "detecting hardware" screen fast enough).

Try running driver cleaner and follow their instructions. Make sure to run the cab cleaner and clean out the video drivers that are in there as well.

http://www.driverheaven.net/cleaner/

Post by **prince1000** » Wed Dec 14, 2005 1:53 pm

i remove anything ATI w/dcpro everytime i install new drivers.

oddly enough this has spread to q4:

32.40 fps in ggl timedemo @ 800x600
31.55 fps in ggl timedemo @ 1024x768

edit: q3 cfg

http://iconoclaste.homestead.com/files/cfgs/osp.rar