G/FX card upgrade not as fast as expected

Hi all, For the past 6 months I've been happily making do with a lowly Xabre 200 graphics card from ECS (A what?) with 64MB of DDR memory, which I bought at the time because I had read it was good value for money and AGP 8x compliant, and indeed for the 35 pounds I paid I was reasonably satisfied. I could play NR2003, GPL, plus some others on my Athlon XP 1800 without too much trouble as long as I didn't overtax on the graphics side. However, being a non Nvidia or ATI card it had a few idiosyncrasies that were difficult to resolve. Nothing major, but little things where the graphics weren't quite right, such as double shadows in NR2003 and car logos fuzzy (now sorted with new drivers), some screens not displaying correctly, etc. Then at christmas I received F1C 99-02 and the little old card was having to work that bit more to keep frame rates up, even with a modicum of overclocking. Time for a new card. Now, I'm not wealthy enough to go out and spend 100 pounds plus just like that and so I settled for what I could afford, which was a Sapphire Radeon 9200 Atlantis Lite with 128DDR memory for 57 quid (but which I assume would have been over 70 pounds 6 months ago) , bunged it in expecting better things, only to find that things have got slower. I've only got 3D Mark 2000 and so tested it on that using both WinME and Win98SE: Xabre 200 = 8800 Radeon 9200 = 8400 These are approx values, but near enough and with no overclocking for either. In NR2003 I'm sure I could run at 27+ frames from the back of a 28 pack field, whereas, with the same settings I'm now down in the low 20's. What I don't understand is, how can the Xabre card, which had Engine and memory clocks of 199Mhz and only 64Mb of DDR memory outperform the radeon with engine of 247 and 128Mb of 200MHz DDR memory. Admittedly I am only able to run either card at 4x AGP as my ECS K7s5A board doesn't support 8x (yes I need a new mobo too :), but would that make much of a difference anyway, and surely the Radeon would be able to perform as well even if being held back by the system. So, despite 6 months passing and paying more money, I've got a card that runs slower than my old one. I wasn't expecting a huge leap in performance, but at least an extra 10 to 15% perhaps. Any ideas? A couple of other things: Catalyst drivers = 3.6 (or is that 3.7?), though I can't see any updates improving things that much. Also, 2 display drivers show under hardware>>display adapters. Radeon 9200 Radeon 9200 secondary Can only surmise from what I've read that it has something to do with one for 3D and one for 2D. Is that normal for ATI cards? -- Peter Ives (AKA Pete Ivington) Remove ALL_STRESS before replying via email If you know what's good for you, don't listen to me :) GPLRank Joystick -50.63 Wheel -25.01

I don't know the answer to your framerate question. However, it is normal for Radeons to display 2 display adaptors under Device Manager. Peter Ives wrote:

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> Hi all, > > For the past 6 months I've been happily making do with a lowly Xabre 200 > graphics card from ECS (A what?) with 64MB of DDR memory, which I bought > at the time because I had read it was good value for money and AGP 8x > compliant, and indeed for the 35 pounds I paid I was reasonably > satisfied. I could play NR2003, GPL, plus some others on my Athlon XP > 1800 without too much trouble as long as I didn't overtax on the > graphics side. > > However, being a non Nvidia or ATI card it had a few idiosyncrasies that > were difficult to resolve. Nothing major, but little things where the > graphics weren't quite right, such as double shadows in NR2003 and car > logos fuzzy (now sorted with new drivers), some screens not displaying > correctly, etc. > > Then at christmas I received F1C 99-02 and the little old card was > having to work that bit more to keep frame rates up, even with a modicum > of overclocking. Time for a new card. > > Now, I'm not wealthy enough to go out and spend 100 pounds plus just > like that and so I settled for what I could afford, which was a Sapphire > Radeon 9200 Atlantis Lite with 128DDR memory for 57 quid (but which I > assume would have been over 70 pounds 6 months ago) , bunged it in > expecting better things, only to find that things have got slower. > > I've only got 3D Mark 2000 and so tested it on that using both WinME and > Win98SE: > > Xabre 200 = 8800 > Radeon 9200 = 8400 > > These are approx values, but near enough and with no overclocking for > either. > > In NR2003 I'm sure I could run at 27+ frames from the back of a 28 pack > field, whereas, with the same settings I'm now down in the low 20's. > > What I don't understand is, how can the Xabre card, which had Engine and > memory clocks of 199Mhz and only 64Mb of DDR memory outperform the > radeon with engine of 247 and 128Mb of 200MHz DDR memory. > > Admittedly I am only able to run either card at 4x AGP as my ECS K7s5A > board doesn't support 8x (yes I need a new mobo too :), but would that > make much of a difference anyway, and surely the Radeon would be able to > perform as well even if being held back by the system. So, despite 6 > months passing and paying more money, I've got a card that runs slower > than my old one. I wasn't expecting a huge leap in performance, but at > least an extra 10 to 15% perhaps. Any ideas? > > A couple of other things: > > Catalyst drivers = 3.6 (or is that 3.7?), though I can't see any updates > improving things that much. > > Also, 2 display drivers show under hardware>>display adapters. > > Radeon 9200 > Radeon 9200 secondary > > Can only surmise from what I've read that it has something to do with > one for 3D and one for 2D. Is that normal for ATI cards? > -- > Peter Ives (AKA Pete Ivington) > Remove ALL_STRESS before replying via email > If you know what's good for you, don't listen to me :) > GPLRank Joystick -50.63 Wheel -25.01

I don't know the answer to your framerate question. However, it is normal for Radeons to display 2 display adaptors under Device Manager.

Quoted text (67 lines)

> Hi all, > For the past 6 months I've been happily making do with a lowly Xabre 200 > graphics card from ECS (A what?) with 64MB of DDR memory, which I bought > at the time because I had read it was good value for money and AGP 8x > compliant, and indeed for the 35 pounds I paid I was reasonably > satisfied. I could play NR2003, GPL, plus some others on my Athlon XP > 1800 without too much trouble as long as I didn't overtax on the > graphics side. > However, being a non Nvidia or ATI card it had a few idiosyncrasies that > were difficult to resolve. Nothing major, but little things where the > graphics weren't quite right, such as double shadows in NR2003 and car > logos fuzzy (now sorted with new drivers), some screens not displaying > correctly, etc. > Then at christmas I received F1C 99-02 and the little old card was > having to work that bit more to keep frame rates up, even with a modicum > of overclocking. Time for a new card. > Now, I'm not wealthy enough to go out and spend 100 pounds plus just > like that and so I settled for what I could afford, which was a Sapphire > Radeon 9200 Atlantis Lite with 128DDR memory for 57 quid (but which I > assume would have been over 70 pounds 6 months ago) , bunged it in > expecting better things, only to find that things have got slower. > I've only got 3D Mark 2000 and so tested it on that using both WinME and > Win98SE: > Xabre 200 = 8800 > Radeon 9200 = 8400 > These are approx values, but near enough and with no overclocking for > either. > In NR2003 I'm sure I could run at 27+ frames from the back of a 28 pack > field, whereas, with the same settings I'm now down in the low 20's. > What I don't understand is, how can the Xabre card, which had Engine and > memory clocks of 199Mhz and only 64Mb of DDR memory outperform the > radeon with engine of 247 and 128Mb of 200MHz DDR memory. > Admittedly I am only able to run either card at 4x AGP as my ECS K7s5A > board doesn't support 8x (yes I need a new mobo too :), but would that > make much of a difference anyway, and surely the Radeon would be able to > perform as well even if being held back by the system. So, despite 6 > months passing and paying more money, I've got a card that runs slower > than my old one. I wasn't expecting a huge leap in performance, but at > least an extra 10 to 15% perhaps. Any ideas? > A couple of other things: > Catalyst drivers = 3.6 (or is that 3.7?), though I can't see any updates > improving things that much. > Also, 2 display drivers show under hardware>>display adapters. > Radeon 9200 > Radeon 9200 secondary > Can only surmise from what I've read that it has something to do with > one for 3D and one for 2D. Is that normal for ATI cards? > -- > Peter Ives (AKA Pete Ivington) > Remove ALL_STRESS before replying via email > If you know what's good for you, don't listen to me :) > GPLRank Joystick -50.63 Wheel -25.01

In article <[email hidden]>, BRH <"bhoenig<no- spam>"@comcast.net> writes >I don't know the answer to your framerate question. However, it is normal >for Radeons to display 2 display adaptors under Device Manager. > > Cheers for that :)

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>> >> Also, 2 display drivers show under hardware>>display adapters. >> >> Radeon 9200 >> Radeon 9200 secondary >> >> Can only surmise from what I've read that it has something to do with >> one for 3D and one for 2D. Is that normal for ATI cards? >> --

-- Peter Ives (AKA Pete Ivington) Remove ALL_STRESS before replying via email If you know what's good for you, don't listen to me :) GPLRank Joystick -50.63 Wheel -25.01

Peter Ives <[email hidden]> wrote in news:QJb $[email hidden]:

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> Catalyst drivers = 3.6 (or is that 3.7?), though I can't see any updates > improving things that much. > > Also, 2 display drivers show under hardware>>display adapters. > > Radeon 9200 > Radeon 9200 secondary > > Can only surmise from what I've read that it has something to do with > one for 3D and one for 2D. Is that normal for ATI cards? > --

Yes the two monitors are normal in ati drivers. I haven't the foggiest notion why they do that though. Basically you replaced your low end video card with another low end video card. Just because it's an ATI product does not make it a speedy part. Probably you would have to move up to an ati 9600 to see any improvement. Also, you could try the two different 3d rasterizers. There is the default Direct 3d and OpenGl. Good luck getting open gl to work with nr2k3. dave henrie

Peter...you have not made the correct purchase for your needs. As Dave says the 9200 is a low low end card and all the figures you used to compare dont actually do any comparing in the real frames per second world. At the moment you would be able to take it back ,make any excuse up you want,and get a 9600 Pro for �99 like i did. Another option is to get a GF4 ti4800 like i did for my brother which cost �73 and would leave you a very happy man. Just ideas Peter AD "Dave Henrie" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]...

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> Peter Ives <[email hidden]> wrote in news:QJb > $[email hidden]: > > > Catalyst drivers = 3.6 (or is that 3.7?), though I can't see any updates > > improving things that much. > > > > Also, 2 display drivers show under hardware>>display adapters. > > > > Radeon 9200 > > Radeon 9200 secondary > > > > Can only surmise from what I've read that it has something to do with > > one for 3D and one for 2D. Is that normal for ATI cards? > > -- > > Yes the two monitors are normal in ati drivers. I haven't the foggiest > notion why they do that though. > Basically you replaced your low end video card with another low end > video card. Just because it's an ATI product does not make it a speedy > part. Probably you would have to move up to an ati 9600 to see any > improvement. Also, you could try the two different 3d rasterizers. There > is the default Direct 3d and OpenGl. Good luck getting open gl to work > with nr2k3. > > dave henrie

"Dave Henrie" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]...

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> Peter Ives <[email hidden]> wrote in news:QJb > $[email hidden]: > > Also, 2 display drivers show under hardware>>display adapters. > > > > Radeon 9200 > > Radeon 9200 secondary > > > > Can only surmise from what I've read that it has something to do with > > one for 3D and one for 2D. Is that normal for ATI cards? > > -- > > Yes the two monitors are normal in ati drivers. I haven't the foggiest > notion why they do that though.

Most (all?) current and recent ATi cards can output to two monitors. What you're seeing there is the presence of "devices" for each output. If you put two distinct video cards into your PC but only connected a monitor to one then you'd still see both in Device Manager, right? It's just how ATi chooses to implement the hardware support for dual monitors. AFAIK, the AGP spec doesn't allow for more than one AGP video device. ATi found a way around that... D.

"Peter Ives" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:QJb$[email hidden]... > Hi all, > > For the past 6 months I've been happily making do with a lowly Xabre 200 > graphics card from ECS (A what?) with 64MB of DDR memory, Was that an ATi-based card? ATi cards will *sometimes* perform like poop if you upgrade hardware but have older driver fragments lying around. I think rage3d.com had a nice tutorial on removal. Basically cleaning the registry and the system32 folder. I've been there and done it. 100% improvements in speed. FYI, there have been insignificant performance jumps in recent Catalyst versions but I do seem to remember several bug fixes related to the NR sims. Do a cleaning then give Cat 4.2 a try. D.

Peter Ives wrote: > > Now, I'm not wealthy enough to go out and spend 100 pounds plus just > like that and so I settled for what I could afford, which was a Sapphire > Radeon 9200 Atlantis Lite with 128DDR memory for 57 quid (but which I > assume would have been over 70 pounds 6 months ago) , bunged it in > expecting better things, only to find that things have got slower. Would that be a R9200 SE by any chance ? If so, those are dead slow cards, about on par with a GF4MX or a GF2, works well enough for office computers as the 2D output is pretty good and it has a DVI connector for LCD's, but it's no gaming card by today's standards Not sure how it compares to your old one as I've never worked with the Sabre cards, but looking at an old comparison test over at Tom's http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20021218/vgacharts-05.html you'd be hard pressed to push the 9200SE card much past 5-6000 points in 3DMark01, which if we look at the Xabre 400 card would be somewhat equal to your card ? Beers and cheers (uncle) Goy "goyl at nettx dot no" http://www.theuspits.com "A man is only as old as the woman he feels........" --Groucho Marx--

"Dave Henrie" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]...

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> Peter Ives <[email hidden]> wrote in news:QJb > $[email hidden]: > > > Catalyst drivers = 3.6 (or is that 3.7?), though I can't see any updates > > improving things that much. > > > > Also, 2 display drivers show under hardware>>display adapters. > > > > Radeon 9200 > > Radeon 9200 secondary > > > > Can only surmise from what I've read that it has something to do with > > one for 3D and one for 2D. Is that normal for ATI cards? > > -- > > Yes the two monitors are normal in ati drivers. I haven't the foggiest > notion why they do that though. > Basically you replaced your low end video card with another low end > video card. Just because it's an ATI product does not make it a speedy > part. Probably you would have to move up to an ati 9600 to see any > improvement. Also, you could try the two different 3d rasterizers. There > is the default Direct 3d and OpenGl. Good luck getting open gl to work > with nr2k3. > > dave henrie

You mean getting opengl to work with a ATI card? Because it works fine with my nvidia card, and it looks better and runs faster than D3D. bluestringer

What version of Direct X are you running? Download 3DMarks2001SE so we don't have to talk apples and oranges.

"bluestringer" <[email hidden]> wrote in news:VzSXb.1647$[email hidden]: > You mean getting opengl to work with a ATI card? Because it works > fine with my nvidia card, and it looks better and runs faster than > D3D. > > bluestringer > Yes, sorry I wasn't very clear there, I did mean getting OpenGl working with an ATI product. I have had opengl working in nr2k3, but usually I can't even get through the 3dconfig process, it just locks up. So, I just ignore it. :) I will say...At CompUSA, they are having a President's Day sale with ATI 9800 Pro(128meg) selling for $199. That is a great price. Unless you are planning on being heavily involved with either Doom3 or Halflife2, then a 128meg card will still be quite functional. dave henrie

The Radeon 9200 is a very slow card. The SE is particularly slow. I'd consider 9200s a rock-bottom card for F1C so you can't really expect miracles...

On Sun, 15 Feb 2004 19:15:33 +0000, Peter Ives <[email hidden]> wrote: >I've only got 3D Mark 2000 and so tested it on that using both WinME and >Win98SE: > >Xabre 200 = 8800 >Radeon 9200 = 8400 Just flipping around benchmark sites, it seems that's about right. The Xabre 200/400/600 are essentially equal to the Radeon 9200 series. Jason

In article <c0onsr$6cd$[email hidden]>, AD <[email hidden]> writes

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>Peter...you have not made the correct purchase for your needs. > >As Dave says the 9200 is a low low end card and all the figures you used to >compare dont actually do any comparing in the real frames per second >world. >At the moment you would be able to take it back ,make any excuse up you >want,and get a 9600 Pro for �99 like i did. >Another option is to get a GF4 ti4800 like i did for my brother which cost >�73 and would leave you a very happy man. >

How does a GF4 Ti4200 compare to the Ti4800? One of the reasons I bought this particular version of the 9200 card was because one review of it stated that it had outperformed their previous Ti4200 card. -- Peter Ives (AKA Pete Ivington) Remove ALL_STRESS before replying via email If you know what's good for you, don't listen to me :) GPLRank Joystick -50.63 Wheel -25.01

In article <[email hidden]>, Dale Green <[email hidden]> writes

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> >"Peter Ives" <[email hidden]> wrote in >message >news:QJb$[email hidden]... >> Hi all, >> >> For the past 6 months I've been happily making do with a lowly Xabre 200 >> graphics card from ECS (A what?) with 64MB of DDR memory, > >Was that an ATi-based card? >

Nope, these Xabre cards are use neither Nvidia or ATI drivers. They are Sis-based, I believe and have very few updates for them. It took me ages to get hold of some decent drivers that got rid of the graphics anomolies, but they were pretty fast for what you paid. >ATi cards will *sometimes* perform like poop if you upgrade hardware but >have older driver fragments lying around. I think rage3d.com had a nice >tutorial on removal. Basically cleaning the registry and the system32 >folder. > I did remove the Xabre drivers by using add/remove, so hopefully nothing was left over before installing the ATI drivers. Howerver, it could still be worth doing a reg clean and starting again.

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>I've been there and done it. 100% improvements in speed. > >FYI, there have been insignificant performance jumps in recent Catalyst >versions but I do seem to remember several bug fixes related to the NR >sims. >Do a cleaning then give Cat 4.2 a try. >

Cheers for that. -- Peter Ives (AKA Pete Ivington) Remove ALL_STRESS before replying via email If you know what's good for you, don't listen to me :) GPLRank Joystick -50.63 Wheel -25.01

In article <[email hidden]>, Dave Henrie <[email hidden]> writes

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>Peter Ives <[email hidden]> wrote in >news:QJb >$[email hidden]: > >> Catalyst drivers = 3.6 (or is that 3.7?), though I can't see any updates >> improving things that much. >> >> Also, 2 display drivers show under hardware>>display adapters. >> >> Radeon 9200 >> Radeon 9200 secondary >> >> Can only surmise from what I've read that it has something to do with >> one for 3D and one for 2D. Is that normal for ATI cards? >> -- > > Yes the two monitors are normal in ati drivers. I haven't the foggiest >notion why they do that though. > Basically you replaced your low end video card with another low end >video card. Just because it's an ATI product does not make it a speedy >part. Probably you would have to move up to an ati 9600 to see any >improvement. Also, you could try the two different 3d rasterizers. There >is the default Direct 3d and OpenGl. Good luck getting open gl to work >with nr2k3. >

One readme on the ATI cd stated that my motherboard should be using GART drivers. Not sure it would have any benefits, but I've downloaded the latest ones for my k7s5a. Not sure how to get them installed though, or whether it's even worth doing. I read that it has something to do with dealing with large images when loading from HD, possibly. Any ideas, or am I wasting my time? -- Peter Ives (AKA Pete Ivington) Remove ALL_STRESS before replying via email If you know what's good for you, don't listen to me :) GPLRank Joystick -50.63 Wheel -25.01

In article <[email hidden]>, Gil Violette <[email hidden]> writes >What version of Direct X are you running? Download 3DMarks2001SE so >we >don't have to talk apples and oranges. How big's the file. Only on 56k dialup here. Something else I need to be spending money on, to upgrade. Oh well. -- Peter Ives (AKA Pete Ivington) Remove ALL_STRESS before replying via email If you know what's good for you, don't listen to me :) GPLRank Joystick -50.63 Wheel -25.01

In article <[email hidden]>, Goy Larsen <[email hidden]> writes

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> > >Peter Ives wrote: >> >> Now, I'm not wealthy enough to go out and spend 100 pounds plus just >> like that and so I settled for what I could afford, which was a Sapphire >> Radeon 9200 Atlantis Lite with 128DDR memory for 57 quid (but which I >> assume would have been over 70 pounds 6 months ago) , bunged it in >> expecting better things, only to find that things have got slower. > >Would that be a R9200 SE by any chance ? > >If so, those are dead slow cards, about on par with a GF4MX or a GF2, >works well enough for office computers as the 2D output is pretty good >and it has a DVI connector for LCD's, but it's no gaming card by today's >standards >

No, they were on offer at a cheaper price, but I made sure that wasn't what I bought. Like I said, it has more memory and a faster engine core, but runs slower. There's more to these cards than just that I guess. I know the number of 'pipelines?' can affect things, and I'm sure there are various other factors, but I would have thought that the main speed influence would come from memory size/speed and engine speed. -- Peter Ives (AKA Pete Ivington) Remove ALL_STRESS before replying via email If you know what's good for you, don't listen to me :) GPLRank Joystick -50.63 Wheel -25.01

In article <VzSXb.1647$[email hidden]>, bluestringer <[email hidden]> writes

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> >> > Also, 2 display drivers show under hardware>>display adapters. >> > >> > Radeon 9200 >> > Radeon 9200 secondary >> > >> > Can only surmise from what I've read that it has something to do with >> > one for 3D and one for 2D. Is that normal for ATI cards? >> > -- >> >> Yes the two monitors are normal in ati drivers. I haven't the foggiest >> notion why they do that though. >> Basically you replaced your low end video card with another low end >> video card. Just because it's an ATI product does not make it a speedy >> part. Probably you would have to move up to an ati 9600 to see any >> improvement. Also, you could try the two different 3d rasterizers. There >> is the default Direct 3d and OpenGl. Good luck getting open gl to work >> with nr2k3. >> >> dave henrie > > > >You mean getting opengl to work with a ATI card? Because it works fine >with >my nvidia card, and it looks better and runs faster than D3D. >

Hey, it's worth a try. :-) -- Peter Ives (AKA Pete Ivington) Remove ALL_STRESS before replying via email If you know what's good for you, don't listen to me :) GPLRank Joystick -50.63 Wheel -25.01

In article <[email hidden]>, Jason Moyer <[email hidden]> writes

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>On Sun, 15 Feb 2004 19:15:33 +0000, Peter Ives ><[email hidden]> wrote: > >>I've only got 3D Mark 2000 and so tested it on that using both WinME and >>Win98SE: >> >>Xabre 200 = 8800 >>Radeon 9200 = 8400 > >Just flipping around benchmark sites, it seems that's about right. >The Xabre 200/400/600 are essentially equal to the Radeon 9200 series. >

Oh well, if that's the case, then I'm going to have to dust off the CC by the looks of things and get a new, decent mobo, faster cpu, more and faster memory and a shiny new G/FX card. Oooh, the pain!! :) Normally, when upgrading I've not made this kind of mistake, and have managed to go in the right speed direction each time. Looks like I may have been caught out for a change. -- Peter Ives (AKA Pete Ivington) Remove ALL_STRESS before replying via email If you know what's good for you, don't listen to me :) GPLRank Joystick -50.63 Wheel -25.01

Peter Ives

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> > Oh well, if that's the case, then I'm going to have to dust off the CC > by the looks of things and get a new, decent mobo, faster cpu, more and > faster memory and a shiny new G/FX card. Oooh, the pain!! :) > > Normally, when upgrading I've not made this kind of mistake, and have > managed to go in the right speed direction each time. Looks like I may > have been caught out for a change.

One other thing you will find, the newer video cards really don't fully run all their features unless you have a fairly new motherboard. The latest drivers for the motherboard are often crucial in getting good performance from the new cards. When I first upgraded to an ati card, I had a fairly old MB, and on sims like the ISI products, the cars looked like triangular swiss cheese. Texture holes and stretched objects really impacted the view. Once I moved to a new motherboard, all those problems vanished. And finally, you will find that many of the medium priced cards perform very close to the very expensive ones when you use medium to low screen resolutions. Only when you upsize your screen or pile on the special features do you see big gaps in performance. Oops...one other item We ALL should have mentioned at the start. Your default d3d settings may be waaaay to high. Go into the ATI settings and change the d3d sliders from Quality to Performance and you should see some improvement. Also turn off Smoothvision and Ansitrophic filtering. Make sure the Vertical Synce is turned off. PLUS!! A final BONUS tweek. You can edit your ini files in nr2k3 to turn off anistrophic filtering within the sim and get improved fps. Somebody posted a link to a site for Nr2k3 tweeks...is that still around? (anyone?) dave henrie

Peter Ives wrote: > > No, they were on offer at a cheaper price, but I made sure that wasn't > what I bought. Ah good, because like I said, those cards are crap for gaming The 9000/9100/9200 "non SE" series of cards are based on the old 8500 cards, fairly decent cards when they were new, but nothing stellar, they performed about on par with a GF3ti card, in fact I still run one in this very computer and play the odd FPS or strategy game on it > Like I said, it has more memory and a faster engine core, but runs > slower. There's more to these cards than just that I guess. I know the > number of 'pipelines?' can affect things, and I'm sure there are various > other factors, but I would have thought that the main speed influence > would come from memory size/speed and engine speed. In theory you'd think so yes, but if that was true then AMD would have been out of business a long time ago as their XP series of CPU's has not been able to keep up with the Intel P4's on raw CPU speed, maybe the Xabre cards are the Athlon XP's among vid cards ? :-D However, back to the topic, if your card is a regular 9200, then I honestly think you should see a half decent increase in video performance, the 9200's may be low end cards, but they're not *bad* cards and certainly they ought to be faster than a Xabre 200, however, if you can return it, shell out a little extra for the 9600PRO card instead, which in my opinion is the best value of the mid range cards right now, it's not as fast as a GForce 5700 Ultra, but a fair bit cheaper This one.... http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?sku=120318&cks=PRL ....is 85 Pounds, on the other hand, if you're going all out, I'd shell out for the 9800PRO instead, they are on sale now in many places... http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?sku=122901&view=detailed ...at 135 pounds....that's a lot of performance if you can find the cash for it and will serve you well as and when you upgrade the rest of your PC as well, ATI is very aggressive on the pricing these days, if you prefer GForce cards, I'd go for a 5700 Ultra or a 5900 XT or non Ultra Beers and cheers (uncle) Goy "goyl at nettx dot no" http://www.theuspits.com "A man is only as old as the woman he feels........" --Groucho Marx--

In article <[email hidden]>, Goy Larsen <[email hidden]> writes

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> > >Peter Ives wrote: >> >> No, they were on offer at a cheaper price, but I made sure that wasn't >> what I bought. > >Ah good, because like I said, those cards are crap for gaming > >The 9000/9100/9200 "non SE" series of cards are based on the old 8500 >cards, fairly decent cards when they were new, but nothing stellar, they >performed about on par with a GF3ti card, in fact I still run one in >this very computer and play the odd FPS or strategy game on it >

Funnily enough, at the time of installing the Xabre card I was putting together a similar spec computer for my other half, except I used an Athlon XP 2000+, 512 MB pc2100 ram (instead of 384Mb on my computer) and the GF3 Ti200. What surprised me was that the Xabre wasn't that much down on performance to the GF3. Now, if what you say is true, then the Radeon 9200 on my system, being that little bit slower, is likely to also be down on performance compared to the GF3 system which, I guess, isn't really that far off. -- Peter Ives (AKA Pete Ivington) Remove ALL_STRESS before replying via email If you know what's good for you, don't listen to me :) GPLRank Joystick -50.63 Wheel -25.01

The TI 4200 was a "budget" or low end version of the 4600... you can find more out about apples to apples by reading www.tomshardware.com about GFX cards. the problem definitely is that the MFG's are hoping you will be confused... That when "comparing specs" between Gateway or anyone else for that matter, that you wont know that the 5200 cards are the old "mx" card, or cut down-performance versions of a family of cards. I get this happening all the time, friends going "wow, your old p4 2.4 ghz machine is so much smoother and nicer than my 3 ghz machine," but it turns out that he bought the 5200 (newest full feature_but lower performance card) vs mine, wich is the 4600, which was last years (so to speak) highest performance card... when My 4600 was newly released, it was $300. When the 5200 was newly released it was a max of like $175 IIRC. nvidia has similiar levels but I dont know them as well, so I wont try to state them wrong here... Peter Ives wrote:

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> In article <c0onsr$6cd$[email hidden]>, AD <[email hidden]> > writes >> Peter...you have not made the correct purchase for your needs. >> >> As Dave says the 9200 is a low low end card and all the figures you >> used to compare dont actually do any comparing in the real frames >> per second world. >> At the moment you would be able to take it back ,make any excuse up >> you want,and get a 9600 Pro for �99 like i did. >> Another option is to get a GF4 ti4800 like i did for my brother >> which cost �73 and would leave you a very happy man. >> > How does a GF4 Ti4200 compare to the Ti4800? One of the reasons I > bought this particular version of the 9200 card was because one review > of it stated that it had outperformed their previous Ti4200 card.

In article <[email hidden]>, Sting32 <[email hidden]> writes >The TI 4200 was a "budget" or low end version of the 4600... >Actually, I've just seen online a straight comparison between my 9200 and the Ti4200 and, basically, the Ti4200 kicked the 9200's butt. Guess the guy who was claiming his new 9200 outperformed his old Ti4200 was the ventriloquist's private parts. >you can find more out about apples to apples by reading >www.tomshardware.com >about GFX cards. ><snip> >>> >> How does a GF4 Ti4200 compare to the Ti4800? One of the reasons I >> bought this particular version of the 9200 card was because one review >> of it stated that it had outperformed their previous Ti4200 card. > > -- Peter Ives (AKA Pete Ivington) Remove ALL_STRESS before replying via email If you know what's good for you, don't listen to me :) GPLRank Joystick -50.63 Wheel -25.01

In article <[email hidden]>, Dave Henrie <[email hidden]> writes >Peter Ives >> <snip>

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> And finally, you will find that many of the medium priced cards perform >very close to the very expensive ones when you use medium to low screen >resolutions. Only when you upsize your screen or pile on the special >features do you see big gaps in performance. > Oops...one other item We ALL should have mentioned at the start. Your >default d3d settings may be waaaay to high. Go into the ATI settings and >change the d3d sliders from Quality to Performance and you should see >some >improvement.

Have done that and benchmarks are less than 100 apart now. >Also turn off Smoothvision and Ansitrophic filtering. Not sure how to do this. If I remove the x's from the boxes that seems to make things worse, performance-wise.

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> Make >sure the Vertical Synce is turned off. PLUS!! A final BONUS tweek. You >can edit your ini files in nr2k3 to turn off anistrophic filtering within >the sim and get improved fps. > Somebody posted a link to a site for Nr2k3 tweeks...is that still around? >(anyone?) >

Guess that's in the file rend_dxg.ini Anistropic filtering = 0 which I guess is off anyway. -- Peter Ives (AKA Pete Ivington) Remove ALL_STRESS before replying via email If you know what's good for you, don't listen to me :) GPLRank Joystick -50.63 Wheel -25.01

Dave Henrie wrote: PLUS!! A final BONUS tweek. You > can edit your ini files in nr2k3 to turn off anistrophic filtering within > the sim and get improved fps. I assume this is in the rend_dxg and/or the rend_ogl files? Change the 8 to a zero?? (AnisotropicLevel=8) TIA JZach

In article <[email hidden]>, Dave Henrie <[email hidden]> writes >Peter Ives <[email hidden]> wrote in >news:QJb >$[email hidden]: ><snip> > Also, you could try the two different 3d rasterizers. There >is the default Direct 3d and OpenGl. Good luck getting open gl to work >with nr2k3. > OGL worked just fine. Only trouble was it was ACTUALLY slower than D3D by about 3 or 4 fps in NR2003. -- Peter Ives (AKA Pete Ivington) Remove ALL_STRESS before replying via email If you know what's good for you, don't listen to me :) GPLRank Joystick -50.63 Wheel -25.01

That is correct, from all the posts I have ever read reguarding the ATI's... ATI does better with DX, GForce does better with OGL. The rest of the visuals are like trying to determine the amount of Soda you add to a shot of Crown... your Milage may vary :) Peter Ives wrote:

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> In article <[email hidden]>, Dave > Henrie <[email hidden]> writes >> Peter Ives <[email hidden]> wrote in >> news:QJb >> $[email hidden]: >> > <snip> > >> Also, you could try the two different 3d rasterizers. There >> is the default Direct 3d and OpenGl. Good luck getting open gl to >> work with nr2k3. >> > > OGL worked just fine. Only trouble was it was ACTUALLY slower than > D3D by about 3 or 4 fps in NR2003.

In article <[email hidden]>, Peter Ives <[email hidden]> writes: >OGL worked just fine. Only trouble was it was ACTUALLY slower than D3D >by about 3 or 4 fps in NR2003. Good - I'm not the only one who saw slower FPS with OGL. Except mine was a lot more than 3 or 4 fps slower. It was more like 10-12... Eldred -- http://www.umich.edu/~epickett Screamers League IICC League GPLRank -6.0 MoGPL rank +267.80 Ch.Rank +52.58 MoC +741.71 Hist. +82.34 MoH:na N2k3 rank:in progress Slayer Spektera lvl 68 assassin Slayer Spectral_K lvl 38 Necro US East

In article <[email hidden]>, Peter Ives <[email hidden]> writes: >OGL worked just fine. Only trouble was it was ACTUALLY slower than D3D >by about 3 or 4 fps in NR2003. Good - I'm not the only one who saw slower FPS with OGL. Except mine was a lot more than 3 or 4 fps slower. It was more like 10-12... Eldred -- http://www.umich.edu/~epickett Screamers League IICC League GPLRank -6.0 MoGPL rank +267.80 Ch.Rank +52.58 MoC +741.71 Hist. +82.34 MoH:na N2k3 rank:in progress Slayer Spektera lvl 68 assassin Slayer Spectral_K lvl 38 Necro US East

In article <[email hidden]>, Peter Ives <[email hidden]> writes: >OGL worked just fine. Only trouble was it was ACTUALLY slower than D3D >by about 3 or 4 fps in NR2003. Good - I'm not the only one who saw slower FPS with OGL. Except mine was a lot more than 3 or 4 fps slower. It was more like 10-12... Eldred -- http://www.umich.edu/~epickett Screamers League IICC League GPLRank -6.0 MoGPL rank +267.80 Ch.Rank +52.58 MoC +741.71 Hist. +82.34 MoH:na N2k3 rank:in progress Slayer Spektera lvl 68 assassin Slayer Spectral_K lvl 38 Necro US East

In article <[email hidden]>, Peter Ives <[email hidden]> writes: >OGL worked just fine. Only trouble was it was ACTUALLY slower than D3D >by about 3 or 4 fps in NR2003. Good - I'm not the only one who saw slower FPS with OGL. Except mine was a lot more than 3 or 4 fps slower. It was more like 10-12... Eldred -- http://www.umich.edu/~epickett Screamers League IICC League GPLRank -6.0 MoGPL rank +267.80 Ch.Rank +52.58 MoC +741.71 Hist. +82.34 MoH:na N2k3 rank:in progress Slayer Spektera lvl 68 assassin Slayer Spectral_K lvl 38 Necro US East

In article <[email hidden]>, Peter Ives <[email hidden]> writes: >OGL worked just fine. Only trouble was it was ACTUALLY slower than D3D >by about 3 or 4 fps in NR2003. Good - I'm not the only one who saw slower FPS with OGL. Except mine was a lot more than 3 or 4 fps slower. It was more like 10-12... Eldred -- http://www.umich.edu/~epickett Screamers League IICC League GPLRank -6.0 MoGPL rank +267.80 Ch.Rank +52.58 MoC +741.71 Hist. +82.34 MoH:na N2k3 rank:in progress Slayer Spektera lvl 68 assassin Slayer Spectral_K lvl 38 Necro US East

Sorry Eldred, maybe you should post that, once or twice... <G> EldredP wrote:

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> In article <[email hidden]>, Peter > Ives <[email hidden]> writes: > >> OGL worked just fine. Only trouble was it was ACTUALLY slower than >> D3D by about 3 or 4 fps in NR2003. > > Good - I'm not the only one who saw slower FPS with OGL. Except mine > was a lot more than 3 or 4 fps slower. It was more like 10-12... > > Eldred

"EldredP" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]...

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> In article <[email hidden]>, Peter Ives > <[email hidden]> writes: > > >OGL worked just fine. Only trouble was it was ACTUALLY slower than D3D > >by about 3 or 4 fps in NR2003. > > Good - I'm not the only one who saw slower FPS with OGL. Except mine was

a lot > more than 3 or 4 fps slower. It was more like 10-12... > What was that again? :)