OT: Help me with these curious benchmark results...

I know, I know - but I only "do" racing sims... System - 3DMark score GF2MX PCI in 866Mhz P3 - 1960 GF2MX PCI in AMD 1800 XP - 1960 GF4MX440 in AMD 1800 XP - 4255 Here's the thing... I guess I must have been maxing out the GF2 with the 866 so no improvement, yet some of the individual averages are a little higher with the 866... Here's the wierd one, tho: Vertex Shader. 17.7 fps with GF2 in 866, 15.7 with GF2 in 1800, 7.5 (SEVEN POINT FIVE!) with GF4 in 1800. The GF4MX440 is, I suspect, broken as I get curious graphical anomolies in the high detail lobby test, and the F12K2 demo gives me some lovely psychadelic effects in smoke and on tyre sidewalls... Bring on the Ti4200 - should arrive tomorrow... Cheers, Mark Reading, UK

"Mark Davison" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:ah4gag$a03$[email hidden]...

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> I know, I know - but I only "do" racing sims... > > System - 3DMark score > > GF2MX PCI in 866Mhz P3 - 1960 > > GF2MX PCI in AMD 1800 XP - 1960 > > GF4MX440 in AMD 1800 XP - 4255 > > Here's the thing... > > I guess I must have been maxing out the GF2 with the 866 so no

improvement, > yet some of the individual averages are a little higher with the 866... > > Here's the wierd one, tho: > Vertex Shader. 17.7 fps with GF2 in 866, 15.7 with GF2 in 1800, 7.5(SEVEN

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> POINT FIVE!) with GF4 in 1800. > > The GF4MX440 is, I suspect, broken as I get curious graphical anomolies in > the high detail lobby test, and the F12K2 demo gives me some lovely > psychadelic effects in smoke and on tyre sidewalls... > > Bring on the Ti4200 - should arrive tomorrow... > > Cheers, > > Mark > Reading, UK >

Nope not broken...but it's NOT really a GF 4. What the mx 440 is ......is a gf2 with some faster memory thrown in. It cannot do dx8 effects. rather than use 2001 se version of 3dmark, you should probably used the 2000 version. Nvidia should offer a refund to any purchaser who thought because the box said GF4 they were actually getting a GF4. dave henrie

"Dave Henrie" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<7rnZ8.232375$Uu2.50172@sccrnsc03>...

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> "Mark Davison" <[email hidden]> wrote in message > news:ah4gag$a03$[email hidden]... > > Here's the wierd one, tho: > > Vertex Shader. 17.7 fps with GF2 in 866, 15.7 with GF2 in 1800, 7.5 > (SEVEN > > POINT FIVE!) with GF4 in 1800. > > > > The GF4MX440 is, I suspect, broken as I get curious graphical anomolies in > > the high detail lobby test, and the F12K2 demo gives me some lovely > > psychadelic effects in smoke and on tyre sidewalls... > > > > Bring on the Ti4200 - should arrive tomorrow... > > > > Cheers, > > > > Mark > > Reading, UK > > > Nope not broken...but it's NOT really a GF 4. What the mx 440 is ......is > a gf2 with some faster memory thrown in. It cannot do dx8 effects. rather > than use 2001 se version of 3dmark, you should probably used the 2000 > version. Nvidia should offer a refund to any purchaser who thought > because the box said GF4 they were actually getting a GF4. > dave henrie

I know a GF4MX is just a warmed up GF2MX, but the GF2 does 3DMark 2001 and F12002 with no problems (albeit slowly). Areas in 3DMark with no hardware support are skipped, and the GF2 and 4 skip the same tests. The GF4 has issues where the GF2 has none and in the case highlighted above is actually significantly slower. Anyway, this should all be "moo" (it's like a cows opinion - it doesn't matter) later today if my Ti4200 turns up... *OhPleaseOhPleaseOhPlease* Cheers, Mark Reading, UK

"Mark" . Anyway, this should all be

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> "moo" (it's like a cows opinion - it doesn't matter) later today if my > Ti4200 turns up... > *OhPleaseOhPleaseOhPlease* > > Cheers, > > Mark > Reading, UK

I hope it shows up. Good luck with the new card, let us know how things work after you get it in. dave henrie

"Dave Henrie" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:jczZ8.47894$Wt3.34407@rwcrnsc53...

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> > "Mark" > . Anyway, this should all be > > "moo" (it's like a cows opinion - it doesn't matter) later today if my > > Ti4200 turns up... > > *OhPleaseOhPleaseOhPlease* > > > > Cheers, > > > > Mark > > Reading, UK > I hope it shows up. Good luck with the new card, let us know how things > work after you get it in. > dave henrie

I AM PULLING MY FRICKIN HAIR OUT!!! I've got the 4200 now and I wasn't expecting miracles but I thought I'd do better that a 3DMark of 6320. And the Vertex shader benchmark is *still* lower than the GF2MX PCI was on the 866!! 12.9 fps vs 17.7!!! The GF2MX managed 15.7 fps on the 1800XP!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? One thing the 866Mhz setup had was 512Mb SDRAM. There's something wierd going on in this system somewhere. Who's up for helping me out here? There's probably a wrong jumper setting on the motherboard (ECI K7S5A) or a BIOS problem, I reckon. Feck. Mark Reading, UK

I wouldn't be suprised if the GF2 was mis-reporting it's fps. Since it doesn't do dx8 completely, I'm wondering instead of skipping the test it just gave you a false reading. dave henrie (for benchmarking make sure your test is set to equal your desktop...I'd suggest placing your desktop color depth to 1024x720x16 and make sure the test uses the same settings) "Mark Davison" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:ah6ubp$2e6$[email hidden]...

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> > "Dave Henrie" <[email hidden]> wrote in message > news:jczZ8.47894$Wt3.34407@rwcrnsc53... > > > > "Mark" > > . Anyway, this should all be > > > "moo" (it's like a cows opinion - it doesn't matter) later today if my > > > Ti4200 turns up... > > > *OhPleaseOhPleaseOhPlease* > > > > > > Cheers, > > > > > > Mark > > > Reading, UK > > I hope it shows up. Good luck with the new card, let us know how

things

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> > work after you get it in. > > dave henrie > > I AM PULLING MY FRICKIN HAIR OUT!!! > > I've got the 4200 now and I wasn't expecting miracles but I thought I'd do > better that a 3DMark of 6320. And the Vertex shader benchmark is *still* > lower than the GF2MX PCI was on the 866!! 12.9 fps vs 17.7!!! The GF2MX > managed 15.7 fps on the 1800XP!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? > One thing the 866Mhz setup had was 512Mb SDRAM. > There's something wierd going on in this system somewhere. > > Who's up for helping me out here? > > There's probably a wrong jumper setting on the motherboard (ECI K7S5A) or

a

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> BIOS problem, I reckon. > > Feck. > > Mark > Reading, UK > >

Mark... What drivers are you using? And, what are your SBA and FW settings on the mobo and vga bios? You definitely got something set wrong......those two are biggest culprits for low performance on a Ti 4200 or 4600. I just minimized this newsgroup window....left all my FSAA and anisotropic settings "on"....and did a quick n' dirty 3DM2Kse run......it was 8290 with a VS of 42.7fps. This is a 1.4gig with 512DDR and a ti4200. With a clean prep run...I get north of 9500 on 3DM2Kse. But, I've meticulously gone through all system settings.....best bet there is to go to Guru3D, live on their forums for a while. TP "Mark Davison" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:ah6ubp$2e6$[email hidden]...

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> > "Dave Henrie" <[email hidden]> wrote in message > news:jczZ8.47894$Wt3.34407@rwcrnsc53... > > > > "Mark" > > . Anyway, this should all be > > > "moo" (it's like a cows opinion - it doesn't matter) later today if my > > > Ti4200 turns up... > > > *OhPleaseOhPleaseOhPlease* > > > > > > Cheers, > > > > > > Mark > > > Reading, UK > > I hope it shows up. Good luck with the new card, let us know how

things

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> > work after you get it in. > > dave henrie > > I AM PULLING MY FRICKIN HAIR OUT!!! > > I've got the 4200 now and I wasn't expecting miracles but I thought I'd do > better that a 3DMark of 6320. And the Vertex shader benchmark is *still* > lower than the GF2MX PCI was on the 866!! 12.9 fps vs 17.7!!! The GF2MX > managed 15.7 fps on the 1800XP!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? > One thing the 866Mhz setup had was 512Mb SDRAM. > There's something wierd going on in this system somewhere. > > Who's up for helping me out here? > > There's probably a wrong jumper setting on the motherboard (ECI K7S5A) or

a

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> BIOS problem, I reckon. > > Feck. > > Mark > Reading, UK > >

"Tom Pabst" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<ViIZ8.84782$[email hidden]>...

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> Mark... > > What drivers are you using? And, what are your SBA and FW settings on the > mobo and vga bios? You definitely got something set wrong......those two > are biggest culprits for low performance on a Ti 4200 or 4600. I just > minimized this newsgroup window....left all my FSAA and anisotropic settings > "on"....and did a quick n' dirty 3DM2Kse run......it was 8290 with a VS of > 42.7fps. This is a 1.4gig with 512DDR and a ti4200. With a clean prep > run...I get north of 9500 on 3DM2Kse. But, I've meticulously gone through > all system settings.....best bet there is to go to Guru3D, live on their > forums for a while.

SBA - Sideband addressing? FW - ?? I'm using the latest NVidia drivers. I notice that SBA (if I got the acronym right) is available but disbled according to 3DMark's results. I can't find anywhere in the the BOIS that resembles a switch for this. According to the manual - haven't scanned the hardware itself yet, there are only 2 jumper switches on the board. One is to clear the BIOS, the other is to enable that interface who's name I forget - small slot for modem. Gotta be something up somewhere. I wish I knew someone with the same card so I could swap it and give it a try. I said in another post that my framerates in N2K2 have gone up all of 4fps over the GF4MX 440. Not exactly earth shattering, eh? BTW, thanks for the Sears upgrade, Tom, but I haven't had a chance to install it yet because of this problem taking up all my time... Mark Reading, UK

Mark <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]... > "Tom Pabst" <[email hidden]> wrote in messagenews:<ViIZ8.84782$[email hidden]>...

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> > Mark... > > > > What drivers are you using? And, what are your SBA and FW settings on the > > mobo and vga bios? You definitely got something set wrong......those two > > are biggest culprits for low performance on a Ti 4200 or 4600. I just > > minimized this newsgroup window....left all my FSAA and anisotropic settings > > "on"....and did a quick n' dirty 3DM2Kse run......it was 8290 with a VS of > > 42.7fps. This is a 1.4gig with 512DDR and a ti4200. With a clean prep > > run...I get north of 9500 on 3DM2Kse. But, I've meticulously gone through > > all system settings.....best bet there is to go to Guru3D, live on their > > forums for a while. > > SBA - Sideband addressing? > FW - ?? > > I'm using the latest NVidia drivers. I notice that SBA (if I got the > acronym right) is available but disbled according to 3DMark's results. > I can't find anywhere in the the BOIS that resembles a switch for > this. According to the manual - haven't scanned the hardware itself > yet, there are only 2 jumper switches on the board. One is to clear > the BIOS, the other is to enable that interface who's name I forget - > small slot for modem. > > Gotta be something up somewhere. I wish I knew someone with the same > card so I could swap it and give it a try. > > I said in another post that my framerates in N2K2 have gone up all of > 4fps over the GF4MX 440. Not exactly earth shattering, eh? > > BTW, thanks for the Sears upgrade, Tom, but I haven't had a chance to > install it yet because of this problem taking up all my time... > > Mark > Reading, UK >

Mark, read some of your posts & will give it a shot. SBA (side band addressing) is controversial, esp w/ Via chipset MBs. FWIW it doesn't seem to help on my system, XP1800 - Soyo Dragon+ (Via 266a chipset) - GF3 ti200, so I have it disabled because some say it could cause instability. FW (fast writes) OTOH seem to noticeably help. This needs to be enabled in the MB Bios, *and* enabled in a tweaker prog like Rivatuner, GeForce Tweaker, etc. YMMV Only suggestion I have is to make sure that the driver install didn't revert the vid card back to a 1x or 2x AGP setting, as happened to me a couple of times. Using one of the progs above (I prefer Rivatuner) make sure that you have 4x enabled, & that it takes after a reboot. Probably not your problem, but I can't think of anything else. HTH, Brian

Not to rub salt in the wound, but I just built a XP 1800+ with a Ti4200 and saw a 9775 in 3DMark 2001 after setting the BIOS to all performance defaults. This is in Win XP Pro at 10x7x32 and no overclocking. I'd double check all your BIOS settings and make sure the chipset drivers are installed correctly as well. Russ "Mark" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]... > "Tom Pabst" <[email hidden]> wrote in messagenews:<ViIZ8.84782$[email hidden]>... > > Mark... > > > > What drivers are you using? And, what are your SBA and FW settings onthe > > mobo and vga bios? You definitely got something set wrong......thosetwo > > are biggest culprits for low performance on a Ti 4200 or 4600. I just > > minimized this newsgroup window....left all my FSAA and anisotropicsettings > > "on"....and did a quick n' dirty 3DM2Kse run......it was 8290 with a VSof > > 42.7fps. This is a 1.4gig with 512DDR and a ti4200. With a clean prep > > run...I get north of 9500 on 3DM2Kse. But, I've meticulously gonethrough

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> > all system settings.....best bet there is to go to Guru3D, live on their > > forums for a while. > > SBA - Sideband addressing? > FW - ?? > > I'm using the latest NVidia drivers. I notice that SBA (if I got the > acronym right) is available but disbled according to 3DMark's results. > I can't find anywhere in the the BOIS that resembles a switch for > this. According to the manual - haven't scanned the hardware itself > yet, there are only 2 jumper switches on the board. One is to clear > the BIOS, the other is to enable that interface who's name I forget - > small slot for modem. > > Gotta be something up somewhere. I wish I knew someone with the same > card so I could swap it and give it a try. > > I said in another post that my framerates in N2K2 have gone up all of > 4fps over the GF4MX 440. Not exactly earth shattering, eh? > > BTW, thanks for the Sears upgrade, Tom, but I haven't had a chance to > install it yet because of this problem taking up all my time... > > Mark > Reading, UK

On 19 Jul 2002 03:06:18 -0700, [email hidden] (Mark) wrote: >Gotta be something up somewhere. I wish I knew someone with the same >card so I could swap it and give it a try. > >I said in another post that my framerates in N2K2 have gone up all of >4fps over the GF4MX 440. Not exactly earth shattering, eh? Hi Mark I got the ECS K7S5A (same as yours if I read right?) mobo and an Athlon XP 1800+ on Tuesday to replace my Abit KT7 / AMD Duron 700 combo. I got a 3249 score in 3DMark 2001 SE with my GeForce 2 MX 32 MB video card overclocked to 190 core / 209 MHz memory. I got a 2500 score with my old system and 3200 is probably all my current video card can do... I'm planning on getting a GF4 next week. My vertex shader score was 35.4 fps. In N2002 I saw a bigger difference as with my old system I was getting little under 30 fps at Daytona on the front straight with 25 AI cars. Now in the same place I get over 50 fps and I have most of the gfx options turned on, so the difference compared to my old system is almost 30 fps. I'm not sure what your problem could be... did you install the AGP drivers that came on the mobo CD before installing the nVidia drivers? That seemed to help for me. Oh, I'm running the 29.42 drivers at the moment.. Win98. I also re-installed Windows (twice, actually!) which always seems like a good idea when you change your mobo. Anyway, let me know if you have any questions and I'll try to help... - Greger

Oh, and forgot to add that you don't need to change any jumper settings... I've changed some settings in the BIOS, like the memory timing and AGP aperture size (called something else in this BIOS, don't remember what right now) to 128 MB. Most likely there's a conflict with your AGP drivers or something like that. I remember that I got a 1600 score in 3D Mark the first time I ran it after I had installed these new components. Main things that helped was re-installing windows and installing the AGP driver from the CD before installing nVidia drivers. - Greger

"Greger Huttu" <greger.huttu@netikka.??> wrote in message news:[email hidden]...

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> Oh, and forgot to add that you don't need to change any jumper > settings... I've changed some settings in the BIOS, like the memory > timing and AGP aperture size (called something else in this BIOS, > don't remember what right now) to 128 MB. > > Most likely there's a conflict with your AGP drivers or something like > that. I remember that I got a 1600 score in 3D Mark the first time I > ran it after I had installed these new components. Main things that > helped was re-installing windows and installing the AGP driver from > the CD before installing nVidia drivers.

Thanks for the suggestions all. Guru3D seems a good place, too. Thanks, Tom. Not had time to play with the kit but wanted to pop in see if anyone had anymore tips. Didn't want to seem to disappear!! Cheers, Mark

This was fantastic! I had gutted my PC but did not realise I needed to install AGP drivers! Much better now. As you've got the same mobo... Is there a way on enabling fast writes? Do you know if it makes a difference? Cheers, Mark Reading, UK "Greger Huttu" <greger.huttu@netikka.??> wrote in message news:[email hidden]...

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> Oh, and forgot to add that you don't need to change any jumper > settings... I've changed some settings in the BIOS, like the memory > timing and AGP aperture size (called something else in this BIOS, > don't remember what right now) to 128 MB. > > Most likely there's a conflict with your AGP drivers or something like > that. I remember that I got a 1600 score in 3D Mark the first time I > ran it after I had installed these new components. Main things that > helped was re-installing windows and installing the AGP driver from > the CD before installing nVidia drivers. > > - Greger

On Sun, 21 Jul 2002 10:58:21 +0000 (UTC), "Mark Davison" <[email hidden]> wrote: >This was fantastic! I had gutted my PC but did not realise I needed to >install AGP drivers! > >Much better now. Good to hear that it helped! >As you've got the same mobo... > >Is there a way on enabling fast writes? Do you know if it makes a >difference? No idea, haven't seen the option for that or SBA in the BIOS. Maybe a BIOS update would help, but I'm not sure about that. I'll try to check some forums for more info. - Greger

greger.huttu@netikka.?? (Greger Huttu) wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>... > >Is there a way on enabling fast writes? Do you know if it makes a > >difference? > > No idea, haven't seen the option for that or SBA in the BIOS. Maybe a > BIOS update would help, but I'm not sure about that. I'll try to check > some forums for more info. I couldn't find reference to SBA or FW in the BIOS either, but I know SBA is enabled by looking at RivaTuner. The installation of the AGP driver sorted that out for me. The performance increase is substantial in both 3DMark and the real world application that is N2K2. Next time you're in Reading I owe you a pint or two! I still find D3D to give better performance and image quality that OpenGL in N2K2 which is not the norm for GF cards, I believe. I'd certainly be interested to know what OGL setting people around here use... Thanks again, Greger, Mark Reading, UK

On 23 Jul 2002 01:22:31 -0700, [email hidden] (Mark) wrote: >I couldn't find reference to SBA or FW in the BIOS either, but I know >SBA is enabled by looking at RivaTuner. The installation of the AGP >driver sorted that out for me. The performance increase is >substantial in both 3DMark and the real world application that is >N2K2. Both are definitely disabled on my system. The "SiSoft Sandra" util says that there's no Side Band Addressing support so I guess that's because of my GF2 MX then? It also says there's support for FW transfers but I don't know if it's enabled on my system at the moment. Well, the system performance is what I would expect so I'll worry about these later when/if I get my GF4. >Next time you're in Reading I owe you a pint or two! I'll take up that offer one day! :) >I still find D3D to give better performance and image quality that >OpenGL in N2K2 which is not the norm for GF cards, I believe. I'd >certainly be interested to know what OGL setting people around here >use... On my old system I had better performance with OGL, haven't even tried D3D since I got the new mobo and CPU. I use the GeForce Tweaker (http://www.guru3d.com/) for changing the OGL settings etc. I don't think I have any "special" tweaks. Most important fast linear-mipmap-linear filtering enabled, v-sync off and maximum number of frame buffers 3. FSAA off. I've changed the level of texture detail to -1.3, which makes the graphics a little crisper. - Greger

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>System - 3DMark score > >GF2MX PCI in 866Mhz P3 - 1960 > >GF2MX PCI in AMD 1800 XP - 1960 > >GF4MX440 in AMD 1800 XP - 4255

Ok, I just ran 3DMark2001se on my system. It's an Athlon 1.2 with a V5 card. Benchmark was a 'sizzling'.... 1368. There has to be something wrong here. I'd think that the V5 would out-perform the GF2. My *system* is certainly faster that your 866... Anyone out there have the same CPU/vid combo with better results? Eldred -- Homepage - http://www.umich.edu/~epickett My .sig file is in the shop for repairs... Remove SPAM-OFF to reply.

"EldredP" > > Ok, I just ran 3DMark2001se on my system. It's an Athlon 1.2 with a V5card. > Benchmark was a 'sizzling'.... > > 1368. > > There has to be something wrong here. I'd think that the V5 wouldout-perform > the GF2. My *system* is certainly faster that your 866... > Anyone out there have the same CPU/vid combo with better results? > > Eldred Whats wrong is YOU are using a DX8 based test for a card that does not officially support dx8. Yes there are drivers out there that are compatible with dx8 but they do not enable all of dx8's features nor do they improve the performance of the card. I seem to remember when they first updated the benchmark to 2001 they specifically warned against using older cards with that new test suite. USE the 3dmark 2000 version and you will get a more realistic number to grade your system with. dave(oops I said it again)henrie

EldredP wrote:

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> > >System - 3DMark score > > > >GF2MX PCI in 866Mhz P3 - 1960 > > > >GF2MX PCI in AMD 1800 XP - 1960 > > > >GF4MX440 in AMD 1800 XP - 4255 > > Ok, I just ran 3DMark2001se on my system. It's an Athlon 1.2 with a V5 card. > Benchmark was a 'sizzling'.... > > 1368. > > There has to be something wrong here. I'd think that the V5 would out-perform > the GF2. My *system* is certainly faster that your 866... > Anyone out there have the same CPU/vid combo with better results?

What DH said, in addition, on my OC'ed 1.4 my V5 scored about 1800 or so in 3DMark2001SE Beers and cheers (uncle) Goy "The Pits" http://www.theuspits.com/ "A man is only as old as the woman he feels" --Groucho Marx--

In article <Ojn%8.640961$cQ3.103488@sccrnsc01>, "Dave Henrie" <[email hidden]> writes:

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> Whats wrong is YOU are using a DX8 based test for a card that does not >officially support dx8. Yes there are drivers out there that are compatible >with dx8 but they do not enable all of dx8's features nor do they improve >the performance of the card. > I seem to remember when they first updated the benchmark to 2001 they >specifically warned against using older cards with that new test suite. > USE the 3dmark 2000 version and you will get a more realistic number to >grade your system with.

Phooey. Since I've run games that need DX8 or higher(Star wars, N2002), I couldn't understand the problem. Oh well, I won't be upgrading any time soon... Eldred -- Homepage - http://www.umich.edu/~epickett My .sig file is in the shop for repairs... Remove SPAM-OFF to reply.

Sure ya will.. At least a small part :) "EldredP" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]... > In article <Ojn%8.640961$cQ3.103488@sccrnsc01>, <>>Oh well, I won't be upgrading any time > soon... > > Eldred > --

Sure ya will.. At least a small part :) <>>Oh well, I won't be upgrading any time

In article <R6H%8.28453$[email hidden]>, "Mitch Alatorre" <[email hidden]> writes:

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>Sure ya will.. At least a small part :) > >"EldredP" <[email hidden]> wrote in message >news:[email hidden]... >> In article <Ojn%8.640961$cQ3.103488@sccrnsc01>, > <>>Oh well, I won't be upgrading any time >> soon...

Hehe... Eldred -- Homepage - http://www.umich.edu/~epickett My .sig file is in the shop for repairs... Remove SPAM-OFF to reply.