New drivers make 3DMARK score lower

[michaelwest]

I have this system:
1.2 GHz AMD Duron
256 MB RAM
HIS Excalibur Radeon 9000
Windows XP

With this setup and with the original drivers I got with the card I get 5140 3DMARK 2001 points.

I downloaded the newest CATALYST 02.3 ATI Radeon drivers and tried out 3DMARK 2001 and only got a score in the low 4000's. How come this happens and how do I make it actually inscrease the score rather then make it go down.

I tried re-installing the drivers and made sure the drivers were totally un-installed before trying the new drivers but no matter how many times I try I keep getting a lower score with the new drivers.

Please Help.

Thanks,
Michael

[tricktx]

no one said that newer drivers ment better 3dmark scores! people just assume that. they catalyst 2.3 drivers are very good ones but dont actually do anything that will boost your 3dmark scrore dramatically

ok then, are games slower with the 2.3's, if no then to hell with 3dmark if yes then we can look into other possibilities.

i personally use the plutonium xp drivers on my radeon 7500 and 8500, these have proved the best in xp for me.

people rely on 3dmark nowadays to give an "accurate" analysis of their machines capabilities, es its a good guide but i know poeple with the same rig as mine get 2000 points higher and some 2000 points lower thats just the way it is.

check your games first to see if they have dropped in fps if so then try the plutonium drivers or revert bak#ck to the old 2.2's


richard

[michaelwest]

I tried out the plutonium xp drivers and the same still happens. I get a score like 4085 and this is about 1100 points less then with the original drivers.

I would continue using the original drivers but counterstrike then goes very slow for me with these drivers. When I try out the new drivers then it goes fast.

Can someone PLEASE help me out so I can have both a good 3DMARK score and good performance in games.

Thanks,
Michael

[tricktx]

why do you care about having a good 3dmark score so what if it sayed you have a 3dmark score of 15,000 even though games are running at 5fps. concentrate on having games running at a good frame rate, dont bother about 3dmark it meens nothing

[OpK Chowdy]

trick, i'm confused as to why you are bashind a benchmarking program. key word: benchmark. if your 3dmark score goes down, most likely your fps in games will too unless it is a driver issue with 3dmark.

[tricktx]

its not that way in many cases, i myself have tried increasing my 3dmark score with divers,texture alterations and general messing about and in the end my 3dmark score was high but my games dropped about 10-15fps, i tried to resolve it by unchecking all the thing s i had done bt in the end i decieded to do a fresh start and not bother with 3dmark atall and concentrate on getting games fps to increase.

i agree though that 3dmark is a good estimation on how capable your computer is at generating 3d but people use it as a total reference to their machines capability. i have 2 rigs set up at the moment 1 gets 6525 and the other gets 5986 (not that much difference) but this machines whipps the others *** in fps in games such as RTCW and GTA3 even though 3dmark would say that the machines are nearly the same.

[Someone Stupid]

3Dmark scores do not mean a single thing. Look at the top ten, look at some of their systems. Celeron O/Ced to around 1.3 ghz and an orginal geforce or something like that in it. it clocked 25000 (highest 3D mark will measure I assume). It just couldn't run 99.9% of the stuff out there, so it wasn't factored into the equation. The new drivers may enable new things on 3Dmark to run, or just not like the way 3D mark runs it. 3Dmark is garbage is my book. Nothing is better than opening up a D3D game that has a the ability to show fps (if not, use fraps, www.fraps.com), then opening up a game which can show the fps on an openGL engine (or use fraps). Use the most demanding games you have, and you have a much cheaper and more realistic benchmark utility. Granted, it won't allow you to boast how you cheated your score up, or put your score up at all. People knowing my 3D mark score isn't important to me, hell, even I knowing my score isn't important to me. I just care how it all runs in what I need it for most.

I'm not a big fan of ATI, but everyone has their own corner in that boxing ring, so I'm not going to open up that can of worms with any comments. I'll keep the discussion to what's at hand. Run with whichever drivers give you the best performance in what you use it for.

[AllGamer]

Yup

All i care when i play my games are Stability, Quality and good Performance

and my card delivers what i need :t