Author Topic: Radeon 9700 FPS (Read 355 times)

leitwolf · « **on:** April 16, 2003, 08:16:50 PM »

I feel i have a problem here with last upgrade.

I get around 70-90fps in the MA (on the pizza map) on this machine:

P4@3.06GHz
Asus P4G8X (Intel E7205 chipset)
2G RAM (4x512)
Radeon 9700 pro

I would expect this machine to be bored while running AH but that's not the case. It actually performs worse than my old system (Athlon XP2000, 1G RAM, Geforce3Ti500) which had steady 90-100 fps (with v-sync) in the MA, dropping to 25-50 when huge mission launched (20+ buff formations)
I have tried everything, fresh install of XP, catalyst 3.2, DX9a, messed with v-sync, quality settings, screen res and so on. (I'm getting up to 190fps offline on some older maps with vsync off. My old sys would've had well above 100 too, but I've never tested it without v-sync)
How many fps can I expect?
How many do you get?

bloom25 · « **Reply #1 on:** April 16, 2003, 08:44:35 PM »

Did you install the chipset drivers that came with the board?

I've also got some VERY bad news for you. The Granite Bay chipset has a bug with AGP 8X graphics cards (Intel admits the problem in its chipset errata page). You will probably start running into system lockups and blue screens.

This is a thread detailing the issues. There is also a link to Intel's chipset errata page for this chipset.

http://hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/5402/

San · « **Reply #2 on:** April 16, 2003, 09:02:29 PM »

leitwolf

I had just about the exact results when I upgraded to a AIW 9700 Pro. Had a Geforce 3 TI 200 frames where always 75 to 80 with vsync on at 1200X1600. After upgrading to the 9700 my frames actually went down a bit. Skuzzy and a few others suggested my processor might be the bottleneck so I tried an XP 2700. I am still running at about 75 fps. All other games perform as expected and 3dmark2001 is on par with similar hardware (13700). I just gave up and turned the framerate counter off. I hope you figure it out.
One thing that struck me as strange is the fact that no matter what resolution I tried with the 9700 pro my inflight framerate never goes above 80 fps. I think theres a bug here somewhere.

bloom25 · « **Reply #3 on:** April 16, 2003, 09:05:33 PM »

What is your monitor refresh rate guys? You frame rate cannot be higher than that (unless you turn off v-sync, which I don't recommend).

San · « **Reply #4 on:** April 16, 2003, 10:23:03 PM »

Mine is 85 at 1200X1600 on a Sony CPD-E540 21". When I first installed my 9700 I ran a bunch of test with vsycn off just to see what it could do. I know that with vsync on I will max out at 85 due to monitor max refresh rate . With vsync off if I get in a GV it will hit 200 fps. Turn vsync back on and get in a plane and I am back to 75 FPS. Just went back and checked in the GV with vsync on and it does hit 85 like expected.

Here is another funny little thing I noticed one night. I have a few systems here at home and I was comparing two of them on the trinity map at 219 taking off in a pony to the south on both systems at the same time. both planes on auto climb hit a spot just after no terrain is visible (just blue sky) and lock in at 75 fps. They stay at 75 for a little while and then go back to normal framerate for each system. I thought this strange because you would expect clear sky with no terrain visible to produce the highest frame rates. With nothing but blue sky visible what could cause a frame rate hit?

Anyway like I said I never figured it out just turned the counter off and stopped worrying about it. I mean heck at 75 fps does it really matter?

leitwolf · « **Reply #5 on:** April 16, 2003, 10:31:23 PM »

I know that there is a bug with the E7502 and AGPx8 but I have yet to see a single blue screen or quirk. Call me lucky but it runs rock solid at x8. I'm no expert but as far as I have heard the bug affects stability not performance.
For comparison I ran AGP at 4x and there was no difference in performance in AH.
Monitor refresh rate is 100Hz which should allow fps to be around 95-100 with v-sync. Again, the old box did achieve this number and the new one is a tad faster - at least on paper.
It's really strange. I'm beginning to feel that the R9700 in AH is undermodeled.

It's too slow! It doesn't hit the published numbers!

qts · « **Reply #6 on:** April 18, 2003, 10:20:39 AM »

I've had a VERY similar problem - see my 'Correct Performance?' threads. It turned out that the video card was operating in PCI mode, not AGP mode. To resolve this I had to reinstall XP and install the motherboard driver first