PCI texture memory size - Why does it make such a big differenc eon 3d mark scores??

[Bigjakkstaffa]

Hi all, id recently been scoring sub 4000 points on 3dmark 2k1 with my gf4 ti4200, much to my horror. The root of this problem was that the PCI texture memory size was set either 0 or 15mb under the control panels. Once i set it to 63, i was back up in the 8-9k's again.

My question is WHY does this factor make such a big difference??!

afterall this is an AGP card not PCI, or is this doggy barkin up the wrong tree (... for a change :rolleyes: )

--Jakk:t

[unreal_outlaw]

the way I see it is more megabytes = good megabytes

[$1500-P4 gamer]

I agree it shouldnt make a dif. Maybe a bug in the bench and your card??? The pci texturing isnt really about this is a agp card. From my understanding its there on a agp card for legacy game support that doesnt do agp. Like dos and older win95 games. Amybe they bench that too in 3dmark-I'll have to try and see if it effects my G3 original. Let you know what I get. Very Interesting indeed!:)

[Grentarc]

maybe 3DMark makes its measures with PCI compatibility or something, coz that is al lthe mem setting affects!

[unreal_outlaw]

Sounds like the PCI settings that we speak off are universal on the agp cards as well

Most good things that happen I wouldnt question..

Example 100$ bill falls from the sky.... Id pick it up and head to wal mart never questioning why It droped...

[Grentarc]

:rolleyes: LOL:D :x :p

[elmo198]

To my understanding isn't AGP just a PCI 33 on steroids, which is PCI 66.. so it may have an affect!!

[AllGamer]

is true

in every Mobo

AGP slot is always shared with the PCI slot 1

[$1500-P4 gamer]

Yes, agp is shared with slot 1 pci. But you also have to remember it has dedicated pipelines to the cpu. Thsi the pci doesnt have and this makes the video card faster on agp beyond just the pcix4 (4x) theory. Its like compareing scsi to ide. Pci to agp.:t

[AllGamer]

yeah that's true if we were just talking about AGP vs PCI

but he was wondering why changes on settings for the PCI will also affect is AGP.

and it's because of that, they are shared.

[germanjulian]

you can set how much system memory your agp card gets in ur bios!!
i dont think the settings in windows display adapter for the pci memory things do anything, especially since it says pci! but i will try it now to see what happens!

about ur low score! happens to me sometimes too, i would say 1 out of 30 boots my system is about 50% slower for no reason for any benchmark! even when playing games and watching the fps i can see this, restart and everything is normal again!
THIS might sound stupid, but is has been happening since i can remember having my system!


i dont have any system problems, lookups crashed etc etc, my system is fine

[germanjulian]

i tested it running 5MB and 128 MB in both open gl and direct 3d no difference whatsoever! You sure u dont have a pci card??

[AllGamer]

yeah he might have a PCI version then

[$1500-P4 gamer]

Yep, I notice no dif either. Like I said some older games cant implement agp into use. So it uses the agp as a pic vid. By doing this it also uses system mem for pci mem. DOS games are a good example of this. Since running in windows it is using a dos box it would then use the pci mem (sys mem emulated). I have no proof of this its just a theory I ran into on the .net. If anyone has any info either way I'm glad to hear it-lay it on us. MAybe I should ask VisionTek support-they might tell me. They have always answered any of my questions about my G3 I got from them.:t

[AllGamer]

I know what you mean, and yeap, it does definitely makes sense. :x

[germanjulian]

ur so clever let me kiss ur *** :-@

[AllGamer]

eeeewwww! , wash your mouth first :p

[$1500-P4 gamer]

and after preferably!:eek: :x :t

[Bigjakkstaffa]

Nope this gf4 is de3ffinitley AGP :x, might just be something in the drivers... games etc perform at the same rate no matter the PCI value is set to - only 3dmark that seems a bit funny about it :confused:

(PS good to be back)

--Jakk:t

[$1500-P4 gamer]

I got my email back from VisionTek on this subject:
"If you’re talking about the size of the memory for textures in OpenGL or DX then leave it at default. Go ahead and experiment if you like. You won’t see any change in performance."

There ya have it from the manufacturer. So I'd say mad onion is whacked. No real performance gain at all from those settings.;)

[Bigjakkstaffa]

Cheers P4 :)

Put that one to rest anyways :)

-Cheers

--Jakk:t

[Rugor]

Ummmmmmmmm,

I'm not sure about the textures, but anyone who knows the subject should have remembered the entire Geforce4 Ti series are AGP-only parts.

It's a good idea to read the post through, first.

Just my two cents.

(Waves Hi to P4)

[$1500-P4 gamer]

Howdy Rugor.:t

[Bigjakkstaffa]

Well ive upgraded drivers since and with the PCI text memory at 63mb i got high high results (9k - ish) and when i install rivatuner and it lowers the value, i can hardly scrape 5000 :mad:

--Jakk:t

[$1500-P4 gamer]

Hmmm, odd! I get no dif. in bench or games no matter the pci mem setting.:confused:

[michaelwest]

Originally posted by Bigjakkstaffa
Well ive upgraded drivers since and with the PCI text memory at 63mb i got high high results (9k - ish) and when i install rivatuner and it lowers the value, i can hardly scrape 5000 :mad:


The same happened to me a few months ago when I tried out rivatuner on my old Celeron 300A MHz computer with Geforce 256. I used to get like around 22 FPS in one benchmark and when I installed rivatuner I only got 15 FPS. It is quite suprising I thought rivatuner would speed up my computer.

I haven't tried rivatuner on my newer upgraded computer though. It may be something to do with the drivers that makes rivatuner slow down.

[Bigjakkstaffa]

Yeah if i wanna benchmark i hafta go into display properties and set it to defaults to override my rivatuner settings... go figure :confused:

--Jakk:t

[Grentarc]

I use NVMax.... i find it to be the best NVidia tweaker around... It also has a fix for the "Infinite Loop" BSOD.. so if ya have the problem (like a friend of mine did, and when i gave him nvmax and he enabled the fix, everything worked... GF4MX440 on a BP6)
It has all the tweaking stuff in it, so get it NOW!:D

[Bigjakkstaffa]

I use it occasionally - only thing is it has a tendancie to remove/uninstall itself whenver i reboot :confused:

--Jakk:t

[Grentarc]

you clicked on install when it first runs don't ya?.. an then make it auto run on startup (minimised ofcourse!)here is how i set mine up:

[AllGamer]

Have you guys noticed that with the new 40.x drivers this PCI thing is totally gone?

[Grentarc]

I am still downloading them :( :mad:

[AllGamer]

are you on a 56 k modem?

those drivers downloads in seconds for me.

try Download accerelador software, like GetRight 4.5d

or other similars :D :t

[Bigjakkstaffa]

Someone gimme a holler when they get WHQL certified -- till then i aint touching the 40.xx's :eek:

--Jakk:t

[foxwolfen]

Originally posted by Bigjakkstaffa
Someone gimme a holler when they get WHQL certified -- till then i aint touching the 40.xx's :eek:

--Jakk:t

I must say that your attitude toward beta drivers is somewhat confusing.... Beta, in the world of software development, is usually a realease that is stable and bug free... its in beta a short while just to confirm that. Alpha is the one to be wary of unless you are a die hard tester like me.

As for WHQL??? It is meaningless... need I remind everyone that a couple of years ago all ATI drivers were WHQL but they were still **** and they knew it..it took court action to get them to admit they were garbage and make reperations to their customers ... I still dont trust ATI because of it.

[Bigjakkstaffa]

Beta, in the world of software development, is usually a realease that is stable and bug free

Anyone who'd played the ut2k3 beta's or is experiencing BSOD's and errors galor with the 40.xx drivers might just disagree with your statment about them being "bug free"...

I used to use beta's but now i dont see the point -- i'll just wait till it goes legit and save myself any hassle farting about with BETA's that have screwed up my system...

and in my experience ATI drivers WHQL or non WHQL were always **** :r

WHQL is not meaningless - look at P $1500 post, WHQL Pending = Beta = Bsods and problems lots of people are reporting.. why do you think they havent been granted WHQL - because theyre not fully stable...

:rolleyes:

--Jakk:t

[foxwolfen]

Originally posted by Bigjakkstaffa



WHQL is not meaningless - look at P $1500 post, WHQL Pending = Beta = Bsods and problems lots of people are reporting.. why do you think they havent been granted WHQL - because theyre not fully stable...

:rolleyes:

--Jakk:t

Hmmm, somewhat valid point..but the reason they are not WHQL is because the drivers were released just before a long weekend... If they are not WHQL by the end of the week i will make a public apology to you here. (up to now there has typically been a three to four day delay between "Beta" and "WHQL")

As for the stability of the new drivers... well, most places on the net have shown a very positive response to them... In fact they are the first drivers out in countless versions that does not bsod me when I click the opengl tab in XP Pro... Nview and ACPI were the culprit for many people for a very long time...

As for your rolleyes well, I guess 14 years in the biz (most recently with IBM's PC division) is meaningless eh? ;)

Shrug

FoxW

[AllGamer]

not WHQL certified is not = to Beta drivers

Drivers are Drivers, when they have been posted officially by nVidia in this case

Beta, drivers the only way to lay hands of them are throught friends, or from inside sources in nVidia or ATI.

so that's what i's called beta drivers.

they don;t go public as they did in 40.x

when ATI or nVidia do post BETA drivers, they actually say it's beta, if you recall in the past.

before stupid MS added the WHQL **** certification. :rolleyes:

[Bigjakkstaffa]

LOL - the rolleyes was taken wrong...

Im not denying your knowledge of the language and indeed you are most correct in saying Beta's are the nexyt best thing to the finished article... the rolleyes was to signify that in this case these drivers are clearly NOT due for general release due to the volume of complaints and issues people are having, and therefore are unfit for beta classification IMO at this stage, perhaps almost beta would be a more suitable definition...

;) Peace -

--Jakk:t

[germanjulian]

well every time i click my geforce 4600 tab in display properties it (display) crashes and i cant get though the features! but hey i got riva tuner so who cares!

these drivers make a lot of difference in the NATURE benchmark in 3dmark! a wopping 25FPS for me!

[AllGamer]

no way only 25+ fps?

i got 35+ fps on the crappy gf4 mx :D :r

i guess these drivers were ment to bring the performance forth for the MX series

LOL ;)

[Grentarc]

yeah.. cruddy 56k.. IN AUSTRAILA!!!!!!!!! high ping.....

Allgamer, i think they meant they got an extra 25 fps in it... i think...

[Ammok]

WHQL? by the time they come theres another six beta's past the mark. I'd disable the "this software does not comply" message if someone could tell me how.

I'll try beta anything just for the fun of it. (cost me a few times but some people never learn):D

[Bigjakkstaffa]

I been thinking about what foxwolfen said... and two or three weeks on -- still no official release.. so much for betas being only 3-4 days away from WHQL certification then :p

--Jakk:t

[AllGamer]

Originally posted by Ammok
WHQL? by the time they come theres another six beta's past the mark. I'd disable the "this software does not comply" message if someone could tell me how.

I'll try beta anything just for the fun of it. (cost me a few times but some people never learn):D

during install it ask you
and then click on Advance
then select make this comply
:t