CPU bottlenecking?

Hey, thanks for that link. You might want to try the same upgrade I did. Does your mobo hold a Slot 1 processor? If it does go to www.Powerleap.com and look up the PL-iP3/T upgrade. The PSU upgrade didn't help any?

Nope, my cpus a socket 370, I have just about given up, noone seems to know what the problem is. As for the PSU it didn't help at all. I had to buy a new MOBO because dell and other PC makers use proprietary connections for their MOBOs, cases, and PSUs. I couldn't use a standard PSU on the Dell made MOBO.

That's not entirely true. You could have gotten an adapter to use a standard PSU in the Dell for about $10 from Centrix-intl.com, which would have saved you quite a bit. As for the socket 370, that's much better for you since you could go straight to a Tualatin chip (if your bus is 133 you can get a 1.4ghz Tualatin PIII I believe).

It would be cheaper just to buy the 1.4GHz Pentium III Tualatin. Costs more for the powerleap.

That's what I meant. You don't need the Powerleap adapter if you're mobo is a socket 370 instead of a slot 1.

I might try that. How much of an improvement did you see when you upgraded? Does the fps stay above 40 even when a lot of action was on the screen?

Almost always. It very rarely dips to even 35 fps (anything above 30 is perfectly smooth), so it's a very worthwhile upgrade, IMO.

Boo,

WOW! I got thru about 1/2 the thread @ MO.

For your problem, have you got this: http://fae.abit.com.tw/eng/download/bios/st6.htm , it's the latest BIOS for your board.

Since you also have the i815 chip in that Abit board: go to Intel & get the "Chipset Installitaion Utility" & the "Application Accelerator". Both will speed up the transfer of data from the HD to the CPU.

Someone said that the AGP runs thru the PCI: it does NOT! AGP is a dedicated port with direct chipset, memory & CPU access.

Install those, if ya would, & let me know if that makes ANY improvement. Do you also have DX8.1 & is 'Pure Hardware T & L' available for you?

Got a MO 'compare' link?

HTH,

Already hav the application accelerator installed as well as the chipset software, also have the latest bios installed. Pure Hardware T&L is available, and heres my compare link.

http://service.madonion.com/compare?2k1=3923638


and here are my FD results,

Benchmarks Results
Random Pixels 533 KPixels/s
Lines 134,666 Lines/s
Circles 16,794 Circles/s
Rectangles 79,260 Rectangles/s
Texts 715,167 Chars/s
FloodFills 5,879,200 KPixels/s
Draw 42,496 KPixels/s

Boo,

Your MO compare doesn't show me much (dang it) & getting that score higher only requires degrading the video quality. That's what all that LOD bias, AA, anisio, W-buffer, etc. disabling does.

FD shows me a lot! Your random pixels & lines are low! My MX400 triples your line count & my RP's run 433-466. All the rest you smoke me on tho'. I'm running the i810e chipset, Celery 500 & a PCI card.

Do you have Riva Tuner? Increasing the 'core clock' will raise the RP's & lines. Too high & they go back down tho'. :rolleyes:

Have you run the FD HD benchmark or the Multimedia bm? This is an odd problem & so widespread too. There has to be a common element & I'll do my best to help ya find it.

Hmmm,

I dont use the LOD bias in MO, AA is off as is AF, everything is set to normal. I use rivatuner all the time, I'll OC my card and do another test.

Boo,

Have you installed the 'Patch scripts' in Riva? The 'Matched Detonator Database'? They are in 'Power User' & you have to install the ' Matched Det Database' 1st.

What are you clocked @ now?

Quick thought: shutdown your Anti-Virus program & run a benchmark. If you have McAfee .... it has been known to cause problems like this.

Well, OC my card didnt bring up my scores much.

Random Pixels 533 KPixels/s
Lines 136,666 Lines/s
Circles 17,287 Circles/s
Rectangles 79,144 Rectangles/s
Texts 715,151 Chars/s
FloodFills 6,679,200 KPixels/s
Draw 42,803 KPixels/s

Here are the resluts from the HD and MM benches.

HD

Write Speed Average 21.77 MB/s
Read Speed Average 15.84 MB/s



CPU Multimedia Bench Result
Benchmark Index 1,277
Technology SSE
MMX Extensions Yes
Enhanched MMX Extensions No
3DNow! Extensions No
Enhanched 3DNow! Extensions No
Built-in Co-Processor Yes

I'm clocked at 300/650.

Ok, I installed them i think, and Im not running an Antivirus prgram in the background.

Ok, I ran the bench again and got a little bit better results,


Random Pixels 566 KPixels/s
Lines 139,000 Lines/s
Circles 16,934 Circles/s
Rectangles 81,856 Rectangles/s
Texts 722,141 Chars/s
FloodFills 6,680,800 KPixels/s
Draw 43,144 KPixels/s

Boo,

I think we're getting somewhere. One thing I've noticed w/FD: the 1st 'Display adapter' bm is usually low. I run it 2-3 times back-to-back & usually the 3rd time is a fair score. Seems like it needs to warm-up.

Your card came 275/550 stock & you *should* be able to get ~10% on the core & ~18% on the memory. That will get you ~305/650. Be careful, but Riva is pretty safe to use.

If you have a firewall or any other programs you do not need off-line, shut them down while benching. You may find task monitor or something is running & that is affecting the bm. It would affect game play too. Don't forget to turn them back on when you get on-line.

Your Multimedia & HD benches look real good. Your read/write is up where it should be for good data transfer. The CPU is benching high, for a PIII 1Ghz too.

There is a setting in Riva called '256 burst' it is for CPU's w/a 256k L2 cache. If you have 256 L2 cache ( I think you do): it's under "System Global" in power user. Might try enabling it. Right click on it & open the 'help' or simply left click on the lit light bulb.

WHY you are having to 'tweek' is the ? I can't answer. Maybe the 'tweeking' will shed some light on what the 'bottleneck' is.

HTH,

Well, I ran the FD benchmark 4 times, but the results were the same. I've been able to boost my fps up about 5 to 10 frames with some registry tweaking. Still, I should be getting 20 to 30 frames more than what i'm getting. I talked to a guy with a p3 800 Mhz slot 1 and a geforce 4 ti4400 and he gets a constant 40 to 60 fps in games.

I'll be leaving on a trip tommorow, but keep giving your ideas as to what can fix this problem, I'll try them when I get back.

Hmmm.., just noticed something in my device manager. I clicked on Intel(R) 82801BA/BAM SMBus Controller - 2443 and it says "No drivers are installed for this device", and under resources it says "Input/Output Range 5000 - 500F not available", it only uses one resource and its unavailible, could this be whats causing the problem, and if so how do I enable it?

Also, on a lot of other system devices it says drivers are not installed, for example, when I click on Direct Memory Access Controller, it says that the resources are ok, but it also says, no drivers have been installed for this device. Is this normal?

Interesting. I'm on the i810E board & have the 82801 AA SMBUS & it has a driver dated 4-14-2000 from Intel. It's resources are > IRQ 5 & Input/Output range: EEEO-EEEF.

My DMAC driver is dated 7-19-1999 from Intel & the resources are: Use automatic settings & the I/O is: 0000-000F then 0080-008F then 00C0-00DF & Direct Memory Access is: 04.

You may be on to something. :grinthumb

I'll think on it & if I come up w/any ideas > I'll post here.

Have a good vacation, BTW.


***Maybe this will help: http://developer.intel.com/software/products/vtune/vtune60/whatsnew.htm ***