ATI Radeon 7500: only 2100 points in 3dmark 2001

[sweetsonik]

Why oh why do I keep having this low score over and over again?? What should I do? Please, if you have a similiar system as I do, reply your radeon/bios etc. settings in order for me to pinpoint the problem, thx =)

Settings:
1024*768 32bit no Antialising
test run with ati driver's default settings as well as
in tweaked settings, score always about 2090.

System:
PIII 800MHz
256 RAM
17' monitor
ATI Radeon 7500 64mb DDR Retail (build by ati)
VIA Apollo Pro Plus motherboard chipset 2x AGP
20 gig HD
Windows 98 SE

Drivers:
Latest VIA 4in1 pack
Latest ATI Radeon drivers 4.13.7189

[CPUfrier]

if u said 2x agp....then that is the reason why u got the low scores if u had 4x agp u would get the high scores

[Jimstep]

Your score depends alot on what you graphics card settings are set to. For instance, if you turn on all the good visual stuff, even the fast card on the market will get very low scores. The high scores are usually obtained by turning off all the good stuff, like

setting vsync to no
no anisotropic
no antialiasing
double buffering instead of triple buffering

I'm not an expert on all the settings, but these will definitely effect the benchmark scores.

The other thing that effected my scores negatively is the VIA chipset drivers. I am using the 4.37a drivers with no problems. There was one release that caused problems.

I have a nVidia card. The newest drivers with that card will make my card run really slow. In fact, the benchmark will not run properly.

Regards!

[sweetsonik]

The problem here is the odd slowness of memory bandwidth with my via apollo pro plus chipset. And as i already said before, I DID NOT use any antialising NOR any other fancy things that might slow the card down, AND besides, do you really think that radeon 7500 64mb DDR retail would give such low score as 1900 EVEN with the fancy settings on, i mean c'mon =) And the vsync really doesn't cause more that a 10 points of minus in the 3dmarker. Now as I have discovered the problem, I am about to buy a new motherboard with 4xagp and a better chipset among other things. So after this all should be in order. No replies needed here so to say. Thx anyway, but almost 3/4 of the replies i have gotten, have been very similiar, even that one guy, who really seems to "know it all", and replies, 2xAGP is twice as slow as the 4xAGP.. that QUITE isn't true, actually there's only about 17 % of performance increase.

[Slapshot]

I just ran 3DMARK on my wifes computer which is close to yours.

PIII 1GHZ
256 Meg memory
20 gig HDD
intel 815EEA2 mobo
Radeon 7500
on board sound
WinXP

3DMARK 2001 score: 3156

I was pissed until i saw your post.

My comp is

AMD 1700XP+
512 meg Sdram
20 gig HDD
ECS K7S5A mobo
Geforce3 Ti 200 overclocked 220/500
SB Audigy Gamer
Win 98 SE

3DMARK 2001 score: 5140

Seems to me you are running a bit slow because you would think Win XP would cause the scores to be lower than 98SE.
What version of DirectX are you using might try 8.1 if your not there already and update the drivers from the ATI website.

[Jimstep]

Slapshot: These are the scores I am getting without overclocking anything.

3DMark2001 score of 5469:

MSI K7T Turbo Limited 6330 mobo with 4.37a VIA drivers
VisionTek Xtasy 6564 G3Ti200
AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1.4Ghz (266Mhz)
512Mb 133Mhz Atlas SDRAM CL2

Using default settings on everything.

[sweetsonik]

Do you people actually READ these posts? Oh well, anyway, the problem I am having, ISN't due to ANY drivers or settings, cause I have tried them ALL, and i DO have all the latest drivers for every freaking thing, i ain't stupid... 8.1, yes, i have it. Now as i said earlier, the problem here IS the very very very low memory bandwidth of my motherboard chipset. I am going to buy me self a new mobo as soon as I get my money arranged. Now believe me, I have some experience with these things and I think I know that this problem is this, not any driver/setting problem.. believe me!!
thank u =)

And no more helpy helper replies, since i got the problem =) But if u reaaaally want to say that "u could try to disable antialising" or "do u have the direct x 4, you should dl the latest" ooor something like "format everything and install everything again".. (btw i tried that, didn't affect the score), Don't bother.

[Jimstep]

sweetsonik:

I don't think anyone was trying to offend you or your intelligence. You asked for help. We don't have any way of knowing your depth of knowledge by what you posted.

I answer questions based on what I think will help. Nothing more, nothing less. If you already tried what is suggested, great!. There are a lot of pieces to the puzzle that make up performance. You have to look at them all. It sounds like you did and you are remedying the problem.

Good luck! Have a nice life.

[sweetsonik]

.. i just got sick 'n tired of all the replies i got from many different places where i had written that i had disabled all the stuff that could make it slow and said that i have all the latest drivers, then always someone came and insisted that i would go get the latest drivers or disable the antialising =) Now when i posted these questions bout my card, i was pretty pissed since i got so freaking low scores with pretty good machine. Now i've gotten over it and i know the problem lies in my motherboard chipset somewhere =) Thx for all ur tries of helping me.. too bad none of them got me anywhere =) Oh well.. hope i didn't make u feel bad or anything.. And u have a nice life too m8.

[shaggy]

Hope you are still calm.

Where did you find out about the this Apollo pro problem ?

I would just like to read up about it.

thanks

[sweetsonik]

..As i ran the memory benchmark with sandra 2001 latest ver i think, I got as a result very poor memory bandwidth speed with my VIA Apollo Pro Plus chipset. The score was 146 mb/s and the other similiar machine setups' got around 300 mb/s.. Now this might tell u something.. Umm, I posted this low speed at another forum and there was people who said this score was way too low and suggested on bying me self a new mother board, which i'm prolly gonna do pretty soon.

Now about those so called "angry posts" =) I wasn't actually angry at anyone, I just wanted to write a little aggressive text, since i was fed up with this on going "For god's sakes DON'T USE ANTIALISING..." =) Now in my position, once u have heard that sentence for about 20 times, u kinda get this feeling that now's the time to write some more aggressive text =).. Really, I ain't a bad person.