rec.autos.simulators

Marc

     Certainly NOT the first time!!  !! !!!!!  
But I know the nividia card did not work well for me until AFTER I
scrounged around and found all the 3dfx settings to delete.  I'm assuming
he has something similar going on migrating from Nvidia to ATI.  
And it's good to know ATI has all it's settings in plain view, not hidden
like some of Nvidia's are.  Thanks for the info.
dave henrie

http://www.pcwelt.de/downloads/system/systemoptimierung/28204/

http://www.radeonator.tk/

or here:

http://gameguru.box.sk/

http://www.guru3d.com/detonator-destroyer/

I'd say your cpu is the bottleneck.

I run an Athlon 2800 with a 9700 Pro and my cpu is the bottleneck on my
system for nr2003.

-Tim

CPU is *reported* as 2400 at startup so I presume that is correct.
I'm using slots 3 and 2 for my RAM

I know 3DMark means nothing in the sim world, but my scores went up an
expected amount but N2002/2003 went down.  :-(

I am *so* confused.

As far as AA etc as referred to in a previous post, I can see that I can tun
off vsync, but the lowest manual settings for AA and Aniso is 2x so I leave
that as Application Preference.

Um...

BTW thx for the help, everyone.  Much better than the responses I've gotten
from ATI specific groups...

Regards,

Mark Davison
OVAL Deputy Admin
Car #69
http://www.markdavison.clara.net/OVAL/

I wouldn't expect Dx9 to reduce your 3dMarks, as it hasn't cost _me_ any
speed. The March 12 Catalysts are known to cost you some points in 3dmark,
but in turn to speed up games - nobody seems to know why but it seems to
happen like this for everyone.

How far have you gotten meanwhile following the advice you've received in
terms of mobo drivers, installing the proper VGart, etc.?

Your RAM is in the right slots, and if your CPU is recognised properly then
you can't lose that much speed there anymore. You might want to make sure
your AGP speed is set to 66, your CPU Interface is set to aggressive, and
your RAM frequency has been set to Sync (or 100%, nomenclature differs in
some BIOS versions) with your FSB (identical speed - this is faster than
using asynchronous speeds). You might also want to check in the BIOS'
Advanced Chipset settings whether FSB and CPU Multiplier are set correctly
despite them being shown correctly at bootup - just to be sure.

You might have to set System Performance and Memory Timings to 'User
Defined' to be able to adjust the parameters manually. For all I know the
2400 comes with different FSB flavours (133 or 166 I think), so there is a
slight chance of a potential mistake in this area and you should make sure
it's all set correctly. I know it isn't very likely, but I'd check it to be
sure.

I assume you've made sure the in-game settings are identical to what they
were under your GF4 when comparing the speeds? The Radeon loses a lot more
fps with more cars displayed than the GF cards, and while the end result
should still be faster than the GF's, this might be worth looking into.

As a last resort - your 3dMark2001 IMHO looks very low overall. Hence, even
if it's faster than your previous one, IMHO it should be around 15000 rather
than around 12000. So, I'd hazard a guess that there is a slim chance your
graphics card doesn't perform as it should. Have you checked the old
graphics card in the new system, to see if the new system is also slower
with the old graphics card?

I wouldn't be too worried about clean installs and such (I've used the same
Windows installation for 3 years, and even across motherboards with
different chipsets, simply deleting the mobo branch in the system manager to
force a re-recognition). If you deinstall the previous drivers properly in
safe mode (does XP have that?) using Window's deinstaller feature, and
explicitely make the graphics card a Default PCI VGA card before rebooting,
you should be fine.

You _were_ using WinXP on the old system as well, right? Is it possible that
you've set up WinXP in a different way from before? That you've not used
optimisations this time which you'd been using in the previous install?

Achim

I just noticed (duh!) that the system is only seeing 256 of my 512 Mb.

I've tried both DIMMs individually in slot 3 and see 256, but use
slots 3 + 2 (as recommended) or 3 + 1 and I *still* only see 256...
:-(

Wouldn't have thought 256Mb of RAM would've been a performance hit as
opposed to 512 in N2003, though.

I'm getting really pissed off.  With a 5 week old daughter I get
little enough time to practise for my league events, but this is
taking up all my PC time.

Let me just re-iterate my original problem - I'm *not* complaining
that framarates are generally low, I'm confused as to why
2400XP/nForce2/9700Pro would perform *no better* than
1800XP/Sis735/Ti4200 in N2003 being that 3DMark scores have shot up
about 25%.

Mark

I'm not sure your mobo is truly hosed. Was the original package still sealed
or had it been opened before? Maybe first check your BIOS / Advanced Chipset
settings some more to see if perhaps the problem originates from a setting
there. Also, you might want to check the mobo jumpers whether they're in the
correct positions, and also the voltages (in the BIOS).

Apart from that, which motherboard (make and type) and which BIOS version
are you using? Which RAM (type, make) are you using? Are they both
identical, or different types?

As for your original issue, with identical detail and quality settings in
card drivers and sim, the new system should be noticeably faster than the
old one. Hard to tell by how much, as it depends on the settings you're
using (remember, the ATI particularly shines with FSAA and Aniso enabled,
and the higher the resolution gets). If you're not using AA or Aniso, or
weren't using this on the old system, or if you're using fairly moderate
resolutions, the difference will be less visible. But there should be a
noticeable speed increase if only because of the more powerful CPU.

You might want to try the forums on http://www.amdmb.com. There are forums
for various mobo makers, and the audience there is pretty knowledgeable.

Achim

...
...

I'm pretty sure my BIOS setting are sound but may have a hardware
issue as I noted above :(

Now THIS is interesting!  I was unaware of this and am gutted if true.
 I do all my tests at back of grid at Daytona with *all cars ahead*
drawn.

N2002: On the 1800/Ti4200 with no reflections min fps is 30.  Putting
the XP2400 in the same rig allowed me to turn on relections and not
drop below 29fps.  This is running OpenGL.
Without reflections on the new kit (2400/nForce2/9700Pro) min fps is
just below 40 with same settings.  Switch on reflections and I drop to
24fps!

If I can run N2002/2003 all cars ahead, 5 cars behind, full detail
cars (with reflections) and world, medium mirrors, 12 sounds heard,
100% draw distance at 1280x960 and *never* drop below 30 fps I am
happy.
I was so nearly there with the 2400/SiS/Ti4200 I thought I'd be happy
as a pig in sh!t moving to nForce2 and 9700 Pro...

I can live without the fancy shadow business in N2003, but thought
that I *might* have gotten to add shadows onto (but not into) cars.

I'm tempted.

Yes I was using mildly teaked XP home but I found that any tweaks I
tried had precisely zero noticale effect.  Perhaps the same tweaks
*will* be noticable on the new kit...

This whole area is moot until I find out whether I have a hardware
fault - which sadly I think looks likely...

Regards, and thanks for the in-depth, considered response,

Mark

   Ok, let me take a shot at this.  At lower resolutions, anything under
say..12x9  the 9700 & GF4 cards are pretty close.  The real difference only
shows up when you hit the 16x12 resolutions and enable some smoothvisiona
and ansio...the GF4 collapses while the ATI doesn't suffer such a dramatic
framerate loss.  You are not gaining a whole lot of speed, but you should
be able to pile on the features at a much higher rate than GF4 cards can
handle.  Try 1200x900 and crank on extra smoothvision and ansio...you
shouldn't see too much of a drop in fps...(not having owned one yet though,
I can't say for sure.)
dave henrie

I'd try D3D. For me, with the Radeon, D3D is a tad faster in N2k3,
especially when the fancier graphics features are ON. Or at least, D3D's
minimum fps is higher than OpenGL's.

Good luck with your mobo, I hope it's not defective.

Achim