Author Topic: Geforce 4 440 with bad frame rates (Read 1400 times)

Jayclark · « **on:** April 26, 2004, 05:28:25 AM »

Hi, I installed a Geforce4 Mx 440 pci in a friend's pc for him. Well he'll get fram rates that suck. average is 23 and just looking at sky its about 40 and in fight it can drop to 5. His on board video had a steady 25 and maybe lowest 15. I can not figure out why the frame rates are so bad. His power supply is really below what the card needs and he ordered one but he couldn't wait so I put it in for him. Could an under powered card have less performance?

SKurj · « **Reply #1 on:** April 26, 2004, 06:33:29 AM »

What is the rest of the system?

Also, what resolution is he running his desktop and in game?

I used to use a 440, on an AMD 1800 and it was faster than those numbers he's getting.

SKurj

Gnslngr · « **Reply #2 on:** April 26, 2004, 08:25:13 AM »

I've noticed that the latest drivers for the 440 suck. As soon as I installed them my FR took a HUGE hit. Mine is an AGP though. I uninstalled them and reinstalled the ones I have on disk and all was forgiven...FR went back up. Dont know if this is helpfull cause I cant remember the version and that puter is sitting in a pile right now.

Jayclark · « **Reply #3 on:** April 26, 2004, 09:06:09 AM »

Ok I just called him and he said he has a 500 mhz cpu he wasn't sure if it was a celeron or in the pentium line, 128 megs of ram. And get this a 90 watt power supply:eek: I am surprise it even booted. He told me it was a lil bit under 250 watt. I say thats more than a lil bit. Could the card just be under powered or the card is drawing power away from the rest of the pc and it can not process the game as fast. As for the drivers we used the ones from the cd but the manual says use direct x 8.1 or lower but the cd has 9.0b could that cause a degrade in performance? I never used pci graphcis card. But does it matter which pci slot you should put it in? I read some where it should be the one closes to the cpu but I don't think it would matter.

Roscoroo · « **Reply #4 on:** April 26, 2004, 10:34:22 AM »

1st 128mb's of ram is a huge part of the bottle neck ...
(if he's using XP that pc is just barly running)

90 watt ps were the hell he get that ? most of my old pent 2's ,486's had 200 or 250 watts in them .

the best drivers for the gf 2 / 4 cards are the 30.82 det's

I dont think Dx 9.0b will really have any effect on it .
its just a very slow pc

Jayclark · « **Reply #5 on:** April 26, 2004, 10:44:12 AM »

Yea the pc basicly a paper weight. He is going to upgrade the cpu to a celeron 1.0 ghz and then a lil later he is going to get another stick of 128. As for the power supply I have no clue where the hell that came from. The lowest I seen in a pc was 180 watt. But why would he get a better frame rate with the on board video than the Geforce. The driver off the disk I think it is 41.xx. What should he upgrade first the ram or the cpu? He dosen't have a lot of money. So his options are limited. Thats basicly why I gave him the Geforce4. I might even have a 300 watt power supply around here some where I can give him. I'll try the 30.82 driver.

Roscoroo · « **Reply #6 on:** April 26, 2004, 11:18:52 AM »

stay with the driver from the disc for now .. and try upping the ram . ( and i hope your running 98se on it . )

go to start/run and type in msconfig

go to the start up tab and turn everything off but these 5 essentials...

Scan reg
task monitor
System tray
load power profile
load power profile (yes there are 2 of these)

if you get the ram to 256 and above the fps should pick up some but i wouldnt expect to much ...

he'd be better off saving for a new system then tossing $$$ into that machine especially if he wants to use it for gaming.

get me the number off the mainboard and ill research it alittle more for ya and tell ya if any other tweeks or upgrades can be done .

(i'll get back to ya tommorrow morn here ... its time to run off to work)

I still have a 933mhz pent 3 cpu laying around ( i 'll give it away if the machine can handle it ) it fits the socket 370 pent 2, 3 mainboards

ChasR · « **Reply #7 on:** April 26, 2004, 10:06:02 PM »

If antialiasing and/or anisotropic filtering are enabled on the new card and weren't on the old one that would explain it. Also the number of colors, screen resolution, and the color depth could cause a big difference in frame rate.
Any money spent on a computer in that class is a waste.

Jayclark · « **Reply #8 on:** April 27, 2004, 01:00:35 AM »

All he knows about the board that it is a Intel i810. Its an Hp so theres the main problem:D About the pentium 3 I'll have to get back to you on that becuase all Pentuim 3 I think are FC-PGA socket 370. I could be wrong though. And he has a PPGA socket 370. Power leap has the adapter for it but I am not for sure if it will work with his pc. I emailed their tech support and hopefully it will work.

Roscoroo · « **Reply #9 on:** April 27, 2004, 10:55:34 AM »

ok that means its running the intel 810 chipset .

they made several different sized mainboards with this chipset .

in most of the hp's they were used in there micro atx case...
(is it a very small stack ???)

if this is the case then its probely the asus vm-mew mainboard
or one similar and they are to congested to go to a bigger cpu and heatsink (darn capacitors are in the way on this mb) and the power supply is right over the top of it.

its also a 66mhz buss (this is a huge bottleneck for gaming)

just tell him to look in and get the number or letters off the main board. he might not be able to even up the cpu size on that one.
(and if he did he'll have to find a modified bios and know how to flash it correctly)

About all he could do is add a stick of 256 or more sdram to it .

Jayclark · « **Reply #10 on:** April 28, 2004, 05:25:20 AM »

Well while I was out of town he bought a Asus mother board from ebay Not bad of one but only supports Celeron's Pentuim 3's. Passed 1 gig thought. It has an agp port don't know exactly at what speed though. The specs aren't to bad besides he stuck with the pentuim 3's but it a big leap passed that i810. Right now it is running a celeron 850 mhz until he can find a Pentuim 3 for a good deal. He only bought it for $2.50. I gave him a case to put it in. The other pc is going to a church donation.

Roscoroo · « **Reply #11 on:** April 28, 2004, 06:05:36 AM »

now he just needs an agp video card, any one will do its probely a 4x slot, and toss all the ram you can scrounge up into it and he'll be gamming again.

beshure you use artic silver on the heat sink ,and have good airflow thru the case (pent 3's like to run hot, 54-58c is were mine ran at )

Jayclark · « **Reply #12 on:** April 28, 2004, 06:21:19 AM »

Yep, he is going to use the geforce for now. It does him pretty good I had no use for it. I don' t think he could be happier. I goign to look up his motherboard later to see exactly what it cna do and not do. But what I read of it was a pretty good board. Do you still want to give away the Pentium 3 chip of yours? If so he should buy it.

ramzey · « **Reply #13 on:** April 28, 2004, 07:00:10 AM »

i had (still have ) P4 1.4 with384 mb ram and my framerate on AH was around 20-30 fps . Sometimes below who flew Ruhr sceenario.
After change my mainboard and cpu to amd athlon 2400+ and add 512 mb of ram i have 45-65
And AH2 is playable with good framerate
I purchase gf fx but diference in speed to my gf4 440 was not impressive ( about 20 fps in AH and allmost nothing in AH2)
So gf4 440 i have now is not so bad ;-) special when i paid for it 25$ 4 months ago

Roscoroo · « **Reply #14 on:** April 28, 2004, 07:10:51 AM »

Get it up and running on that 850 . and if its all ok .. I'll give ya the 933 cpu .

i ran it in a gigabite mb with 384 mb's of ram ,and a gf 2 mx 400 .
It had decent fps in ah 25-55 avg (i dont remember it ever going into the teens) win 98se ,dx 8.1 ,30.82 det drivers
And it was never overclocked

the mb gave up the will to live . (i tried a different cpu in it and it was still dead, it would only fire off if i wiggled the power connector.... intermitenly ) so I'm pritty shure the 933 is still good.

so thats why i'll just give it away ...

He may still need a agp vc to get it running .. I'm not shure .