Seems I need FR help

[Tilt]

The recent AHoptest seems to show my FR in a very poor light in comparison to other similar and even lower spec'd systems.


View,AH,None,Obj,Both

TWR Fwd 31 31 32 32
TWR Left 27 27 28 28
TWR Rigt 31 31 32 32
TWR Bac 29 30 30 30
Grnd vis 19 19 26 27
Grnd left 19 19 23 23
Grnd rig 16 16 25 25
Grnd Bck 16 16 23 23
P51d fwd 32 32 33 33
P51d bck 25 25 26 26


tex = 512

res =1280 x 1024

pre loadeding to video and system memory

skins are not preloaded.

hardware vertex shading = on (system dumps when off)

FR unlimited

System vid settings

Performance

slider set to high performance

AA = 2 x Quincux

Antiscopic what its are on Application driven.

3D

Fog emulation on

128meg

(no v synch on this page)

Open GL

32 bit

V synch on by default (switched it off for above figures)

Other

Monitor refresh rate is either adaptor or optimum (seems to make no dif even tho I constantly play with it)

every thing else default.


AH video and graphics

My default  AH Graphics set up is even slightly worse than the above test

ground detail to 3 miles

other sliders at 75% .

All boxed unchecked.

My default AH Video has gamma at 1 and all boxes checked.

My dx diag is below and is current

I also have a *.nfo file for my system whilst  AH is running but reduced.

basically the PC is stripped to the core in terms of "running tasks"leaving OS and gameware/network drivers. AH and the Saitek profiler as the only exe's running.

Some points on OS and memory.

The OS is Win 98 and I have enabled Dual channel to recognise the 1024 meg. Which is in the form of 2 x 512 sticks.

I have 3 Mother Board mem stick slots (1, 2 & 3) but use 2 & 3 as 1 does not seem to recognise any thing.

I have run a program called memtest which reports no errors.

I need to check the MB clock speeds but I know that the sticks are rated higher than the system clock speed. I get a bit confused trying to interpret the bios with respect to this.

Voltages seem OK but I am not always sure what they should be exactly.

I have run a program called registry checker which has found and cleaned up some stuff since the DXdiag below was generated.

The PC "shares" its monitor, keyboard and mouse with another via a switch box

any suggestions?

[JTs]

if i'm reading your dxdiag right your using nvidia driver 53.04. this is not one of the best ones for AH.  for windows 98 try the 61.76 drivers and for xp use the 61.77.  also use a driver cleaner. try this one.

http://www.drivercleaner.net/

nvidia driver archive for 61.76
http://www.nvidia.com/object/win9x_archive.html

[Tilt]

Thanks I'll try that tonight.............

new driver then run driver cleaner?

any bios advice out there?

[Skuzzy]

Turn off AA and see what that yeilds.  Also, for the optest, disable preloading to system memory or disable video preloading.  Try it both ways.

[zmeg]

It seems the guys with alot of vid ram are gettings the best gains, so most likely turning off preload to vid mem will do the trick.

[Skuzzy]

The 5500 has a lot of RAM, but the RAM is pretty slow.  It's not going to perform all that well, but I am curious as to what will happen when AA is disabled.
My guess is the performance will reflect what the rest of the people posting have seen.

[Tilt]

Originally posted by Tilt



View,AH,None,Obj,Both

TWR Fwd 31 31 32 32
TWR Left 27 27 28 28
TWR Rigt 31 31 32 32
TWR Bac 29 30 30 30
Grnd vis 19 19 26 27
Grnd left 19 19 23 23
Grnd rig 16 16 25 25
Grnd Bck 16 16 23 23
P51d fwd 32 32 33 33
P51d bck 25 25 26 26


tex = 512  res =1280 x 1024

Having installed 61.67 (tried them once before as they were still in my download file I do not know why I stuck with 53.04) and cleaned the drivers and re installed.

The following is with AA off  but preload still enabled.

View,AH,None,Obj,Both

TWR Fwd 37 37 38 38
TWR Left 31 30 38 38
TWR Rigt 31 31 38 38
TWR Bac 32 32 38 38
Grnd vis 11 10 30 30
Grnd left 0910 19 19
Grnd rig 09 09 19 19
Grnd Bck 09 09 19 19
P51d fwd 25 25 33 34
P51d bck 19 19 38 38


A curates egg but I think the 53.04 were better..the areas of improvement are where AA would have had more work to doon the previous setting. Nothing comparable with the reports of similar spec systems however.


Now with preload to vid off but preload to sys left on

View,AH,None,Obj,Both

TWR Fwd 39 39 40 40
TWR Left 32 32 40 40
TWR Rigt 33 33 40 40
TWR Bac 34 34 40 40
Grnd vis 11 11 30 32
Grnd left 10 11 20 20
Grnd rig 10 10 20 20
Grnd Bck 10 10 20 20
P51d fwd 27 27 35 36
P51d bck 20 20 39 40

Obvious improvement but note the rows of 40's seems something is capping stuff some how.

Now with all pre load off..............

View,AH,None,Obj,Both

TWR Fwd 57 57 57 57
TWR Left 50 50 57 57
TWR Rigt 53 53 57 57
TWR Bac 53 53 57 57
Grnd vis 16 16 47 48
Grnd left 17 17 28 28
Grnd rig 14 14 28 28
Grnd Bck 15 15 28 28
P51d fwd 42 42 54 57
P51d bck 28 28 57 57

Further improvement again rows of 57's this time.

Now I will pre load vid but not sys.

View,AH,None,Obj,Both

TWR Fwd 44 44 45 45
TWR Left 37 37 45 45
TWR Rigt 38 38 45 45
TWR Bac 38 38 45 45
Grnd vis 13 13 35 36
Grnd left 13 13 22 22
Grnd rig 11 11 22 22
Grnd Bck 11 11 22 22
P51d fwd 30 30 40 42
P51d bck 22 22 44 45

So it seems that taking out the sytm pre load has the biggest impact but infact preload in general has no benefit at all.

It suggests to me that there is a speed issue with all my memory...

For the life of me I do not know how to check this.........

I will take it as a given that the 5600 memory is slow but if its slow on mine its slow on others who show better figures.

How about my system memory?

Bus speeds?
Clock speeds?
Multipliers?
Could the mother board be shot or could I have cocked up some bios settings?

Anyway I am going to clean out the 61.67 and re install the 53.04 and run the test again with nothing preload.

More later

[Tilt]

I stand corrected the 53.04 is not as fast as the 61.67 when nothing is preloaded.

Back to plan B

[Skuzzy]

Wait a minute.  You are on Windows 98?  If that is the case, you are going to suffer some performance issues.  Windows 98 does not have the memory management to deal with the amount of data the game needs.
Preload into system RAM should be turned off for Windows 98.  I am surprised it worked reliably.

[Tilt]

OK DDR Ram clock in Bios was set to "by SPD" is now set to "auto"  (dont ask why SPD!!)

CPU is still 133 x 15

Nothing preloaded

View,AH,None,Obj,Both

TWR Fwd 59 59 70 71
TWR Left 48 48 63 64
TWR Rigt 52 52 69 71
TWR Bac 52 52 64 65
Grnd vis 16 16 50 52
Grnd left 16 16 48 48
Grnd rig 14 14 42 44
Grnd Bck 14 14 40 41
P51d fwd 40 40 52 54
P51d bck 46 46 59 59


Sys preloaded

Takes a hit.

Huh just read you last post....explains much!

OK I have no problem upgrading this machine to XP what might it bring me.......(other than loads of required driver upgrades)........not expecting garantees in your answer.

[Tilt]

Bios stuff

AGP aperture was 256 so I set it to 128 (dont know what that will bring)

AGP is X8 support is enabled ..I assume disabling returns it to X4? its still enabled.

AGP fast write is enabled.......

 should I try changing any of the above?

[Skuzzy]

I would disable fast writes as it can cause stability isses and does not really provide any performance gains for AGP4X/8X cards.

Your biggest issue Tilt is Windows 98 poor memory management once it gets past 256MB of RAM.  XP corrects that and should provide you with higher levels of performance.

[Tilt]

one Win XP (home) upgrade purchased I will load it tonight after resetting the AGP fast write and down loading 61.77 for XP ready for use.


Thanks for your help.

After I have stripped XP of its fripperies (useless running tasks)

I may re run the test just to show any improvement over win98.

[Skuzzy]

Just FYI Tilt, I have never known anyone to have truly food luck with an upgrade of the OS.

Good luck with it.

[Tilt]

OK all settings as above with Winxp loaded.

Nothing preloaded.

View,AH,None,Obj,Both

TWR Fwd 65 65 72 72
TWR Left 53 53 64 64
TWR Rigt 58 58 71 72
TWR Bac 56 56 65 66
Grnd vis 18 18 55 57
Grnd left 18 18 50 50
Grnd rig 16 16 47 48
Grnd Bck 16 16 44 45
P51d fwd 43 43 56 58
P51d bck 50 50 60 60


As above with sys preloaded

TWR Fwd 67 67 71 72
TWR Left 55 55 63 64
TWR Rigt 51 61 71 72
TWR Bac 58 58 65 66
Grnd vis 18 18 56 57
Grnd left 18 18 50 50
Grnd rig 16 16 48 49
Grnd Bck 16 16 45 46
P51d fwd 44 44 57 60
P51d bck 51 51 59 59


So Winxp gives marginally better performance with  preloaded to sys mem than with it not preloaded!

further the hit on loading to vid mem was less than 1FPS in nearly all samples.

So thanks for the advice!  Win XP seems to be a winner.

It was not trouble free:rolleyes:

I had NTLDR missing due to cloned OS via disk imaging when I had upgraded my HD.

I had to restor the MBR via recovery.

I still have two versions of OS boots in the same partition which causes me to choose one on start up.

I have not stripped stuff down yet (eg it still wants to load its firewall and stuff)

And it some times does not find my KB and mouse thru the switch (most annoying).

but this stuff will be fixed in time when I find out how.