Aces High Bulletin Board
Help and Support Forums => Technical Support => Topic started by: CyranoAH on March 22, 2002, 01:23:10 PM
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I have tried to update to the new NVidia drivers, to no avail. :(
I never hit the twenties pre-1.09, now it fluctuates severely from the forties all the way down to single digits! :confused:
No changes whatsoever in software, drivers, etc... from 1.08 to 1.09
System specs:
Athlon 800 MHz
640 MB PC100 RAM
VIA Motherboard
Creative GeForce 3 Ti 500 Graphics Card
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy eX Sound Card
Please help!
Daniel
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There is something very wrong with your system...
I do better numbers with inferior equipment
I run 1024 x 768 x 16bpp these days with a GF2 MX running 27.10's at the moment.
OK suggestions:
find dxdiag.exe on your pc run it and post the text file here
Turn up your monitor refresh rate, try to get 85hz or better if you can
Check your IRQ's to make sure the video card and sound card are not sharing IRQ's with ANY other devices. To fix any shares, try moving the offending cards to other PCI slots.
Make sure you are not running 3D anti aliasing in any form.
Have you benchmarked your system in other games and compared?
lets see that dxdiag file and go from there
SKurj
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I've had a 30 to 50% drop in FR as well since 1.09 was introduced... Went from 35 - 45 and fairly stable to a base 23 to 25 which drops like a rock to the 8 to 10 range in smoke or multiple plane environments...
System:
P3 800
392 SDRAM
nVIDIA GeForce2 64Meg MX/MX400, by VisionTek
SBLive 5.1 XGamer
DX 8.1
have reloaded sound drivers, video drivers, tried new and older versions. Playing with different memory mangers now...
--> One note, am using a HBlair hand-me-down MOboard and processor which he was getting much higher frames with on a 32Meg card and less RAM. <--
I also have a Win2K Pro configuration using the same MO & Processor combo which produces poorer overall FRs and gives me a nasty little intermittent flash at the bottom of the screen in AH only. Have tried other online games without the problem. & BTW newer nVIDIA drivers, (from nVIDIA, VisionTek, and MS Update) and WIN2K do not work with AH on my FE (get a green screen and clipbaord rings when loaded but it doesn't lock up the system, have reset my video7.cfg file to every setting with no joy). I have tried drivers from nVIDIA, VisionTek, and Windows Updates... Old, new, and yesterdays newest update @ nVIDIA. The only ones that work for Win2K are the originals that came with my card - all however seem to work normally with Win98SE @ a reduced FR.
Reading the comments posted in other areas, I am inclined to believe that the nVIDIA hardware/software and AH might have a conflict depending on the nVIDIA board manufacturer. Seems to be a recuring theme. I have also researched VisionTek's track record. They seem to be a reputable producer of quality products. I either have an isolated problem with my card, or my system might have other issues affecting my video and drivers... Can you say "format C:"? Before I do that, I'll wait for my query to their customer support and HTCs before I get that drastic... maybe.
Any suggestions for me to try would be greatly appreciated.
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No Antialiasing of any kind.
BUT
I run AH at 1600x1200 32 bit... and I'm not willing to settle for anything less ;)
Will check IRQs, but I doubt there's something wrong in my system, since I was doing ok (actually I was doing excellent) pre-1.09
Daniel
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Originally posted by SKurj
OK suggestions:Check your IRQ's to make sure the video card and sound card are not sharing IRQ's with ANY other devices. To fix any shares, try moving the offending cards to other PCI slots.
SKurj
Skurj.... I have major IRQ conflicts...
IRQ 11 is shared by:
GF2 (AGP)
USB Serial host controller
SBLive (PCI)
NIC (PCI)
and my Modem (must look think it is onbaord) :( :( :(
Where do I start?:confused:
Can I set them manually?
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BigMax i also have those same conflicts but using XP and have no framerate issues in AH
If you were using win9x or ME you would have a problem there...
Not sure what to tell ya...
I have to mess with w2k and see what happens..
SKurj
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CyranoAH
From my POV you don't have the system to run at that video setting...
If you were running 1.4ghz+ I would say sure
SKurj
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Patch 2 is supposed to increase FPS (according to HT in the news section). That is supposed to be out next week. I'd wait for a couple patches before doing anything too drastic on the hardware side of things.
Cyrano, are you actually running PC100 ram in that board, or do you have PC133 ram in there? The reason I ask is because on many KT133 (and KT133a) boards it was possible to run the ram at 133 Mhz and keep the processor FSB at 100 MHz. (Processor is actually 100 MHz DDR = 200 MHz equivilant.) If you do, in fact, have PC133 ram in the system, setting the ram to run at 133 Mhz will gain you a small (but significant) performance increase.
I'd also do some of the general basic things to increase system performance. (Defrag, etc.)
You guys do know that it is perfectly normal (and ok) for all devices to share IRQs 9 or 11 on a Windows 2000 or XP system right? If this is happening in Win98 or ME I'd be concerned though...
Upgrading your drivers is not likely to have any real (i.e. more than 2 - 5 fps) impact on fps. I still prefer the 21.83 drivers, though to be honest I haven't tried the 27 or 28 series yet. (The 23.11 set was a nightmare though... ) I have found that DX 8.1 does give better FPS than DX 8.0a did.
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Originally posted by SKurj
CyranoAH
From my POV you don't have the system to run at that video setting...
If you were running 1.4ghz+ I would say sure
SKurj
Skurj, I'd be willing to entertain that hypothesis if I hadn't been getting pretty good framerates before 1.09 (hardly got below 30)
The CPU may not be top notch, but the Ti 500 kind of compensates ;)
I'll just have to wait till the next patch, I guess.
Thanks all!
Daniel
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I'll try those drivers...
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Really getting PO'd trying to work through this.... Went and looked at my BIOS... AGP was NOT set to 4X... probably a key problem causing low FRs... BUT, now I can't get AH to run with any drivers:mad: ! Am reloadin AH to see if that fixes my problem... will keep yas posted.
Thanks for the help
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Check AGP aperture BigMAx
If its set to anything less than 128, increase it. If AH won't run and its at 256, turn it down to 128
CyranoAH
The Ti500 would compensate IF you had enough power... as it is you barely have enough power for that video card. That card would be much happier if you were pushing 1ghz+ again +)
Keep messing with it
SKurj
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Originally posted by CyranoAH
I have tried to update to the new NVidia drivers, to no avail. :(
I never hit the twenties pre-1.09, now it fluctuates severely from the forties all the way down to single digits! :confused:
No changes whatsoever in software, drivers, etc... from 1.08 to 1.09
System specs:
Athlon 800 MHz
640 MB PC100 RAM
VIA Motherboard
Creative GeForce 3 Ti 500 Graphics Card
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy eX Sound Card
Please help!
Daniel
Make sure that you have the latest VIA 4-1 drivers from Via Hardware (http://www.viahardware.com)
Ack-Ack
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Sorry I may have not read close enough...
Is your AH box on 98se?
If so you CAN change those IRQ assignments.
If you have the manual for the mobo it may list which PCI slots share IRQs. So the first step would be to determine which share with which and move the cards accordingly. physically that is.
In your BIOS you can also set the IRQ's for the slots possibly as well. You will have to experiment with this.
Make sure there are NO cards in the PCI slot which is just below the AGP slot.
From the number of devices you have using the slots, it maybe impossible to get both the video and sound alone, so you may have to experiment with the different devices sharing to see which yields the best performance.
SKurj
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May all be a moot point with the new patch next week.
It appears the FR problem simply boiled down to the CPU power of the computer. Most of the complaints I see contain CPU speeds less than 1Ghz. Those with more than that did not note much frame rate difference between 1.08 and 1.09.
The other common denominator were NVida users. It makes sense now. NVidia uses more AGP memory for thier drivers and data stacks, which would be more effected by the different CPU speeds. ATI uses more of the video ram for this data at the risk of having to swap out textures sooner.
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I think your right about the cpu speed being the culprit. I was greatly affected with my 533 mhz amd chip. There was a problem before 109 though. When I first started AH I had no problems at all, I was very happy with the game performance, then came the server problem with the T1 line or whatever, that was hit one, Then ver 109 came out, that was the killer. I can still play but alot of the fun has gone out of it for me, I still go on squad nights but I dont play the ma anymore. I'm hoping all these problems can be fixed but I dont have alot of faith that patch 2 will solve all the issues affecting gameplay here. Bottom line is, The single most important aspect of mmog's is playability. I have played alot of online games and I have seen lag and instability ruin alot of good games, I'm hoping it doesn't happen to AH.
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Originally posted by SKurj
Check AGP aperture BigMAx
I'm not familiar with that one.... Expound please.
Secondly, we talked online last night about manually setting my refresh on my monitor.... Mine offers me Optimal, Default, and 60; is a Hewlett Packard M50. I think there is a patch/update, will update and try again.
As for PCI slots.... Pulled my modem card to clear an IRQ. Moved my Audio up a slot, and nothing is in my slot adjacent to my AGP slot. I have determined the nVIDIA drivers don't work well if you overlay them. A complete manual uninstall seems to be the only way to change, and don't try to put older ones back in. I did get the new ones working.
I completely reloaded Win98SE on Saturday. Minimum install - Did all the updates, loaded Sound and Video drivers just to see what would happen... Didn't make much difference, if any. I guess the only option left is to wait for the update :rolleyes:
Thanks again,
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hmmm 60hz the only option....
BigMax take a look at RivaTuner, available from http://www.guru3d.com.
Some nVidia drivers had a bug disallowing any refresh rates above 60hz. Now I'm not sure if that affected all OS's though. The RivaTuner comes with the ability to work around this bug.
Your AGP aperture setting is in your BIOS, I think its in Advanced Chipset settings, but click around in there you will find it.
SKurj