[JayBee]

Hello!

Okay, been trying to sort this out for about 6 months now. Quick run down of my system, to start with:

96Mb EDO RAM
AMD K6-2 400 (overdrive upgrade)
Creative Labs Vanta TNT2 PCI
Windows 98se
ASUS socket7 mainboard (HX chipset)

Okay, I know the system isn't exactly ideal, but it represents the furthest I could expand without buying a new mainboard, RAM and other gubbins that would have been necessary to get back the Ninja PC that I owned three years ago!

Okay, problem is this - shit frame rates. It doesn't matter what I do, Q3A will still drop to 2 or 3 fps when anything remotely big goes on, at 640x480, with all options off or right down.

Q3A's a new game, so it will take advantage of a big L2 cache, and faster memory, both of which I don't have. However, the same problem occurs in Half Life and Unreal. And yes, I've got the patch that makes Unreal see the TNT2.

My gripe is that Half Life was released when my system was state of the art, and Unreal came out before anything as fast as my machine existed, so what gives?

If anyone has ANY suggestions (and yes, I have got the latest drivers and I've played around with system and in-game settings) please tell me. Is there something I should be doing with BIOS settings to get the TNT2 to be fully operational, or has anyone else installed a 400 overdrive and had similar problems?

Cheers,

JayBee

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. . : : j a y b e e

www.sketchboard.co.uk

[shahar2k]

just a suggestion, but I think your computer gets hung up on the Ram, EDO isn't very fast memory, so each time it has to load a new thing in it hangs a bit. no matter how much memory is free
the vanta is a good card I heard, but I'm guessing that your bottleneck is the ram
don't trust me though my computer crashes 3-4 times a day and it's an 800 MHz athelon with a Geforce 2

[Ragnarok]

I have a PIII 450, 64 MB RAM, Voodoo3 3000 and win98se
Q3 runs perfect at 640x480 and quite well at 800x600. UT goes perfect at 800x600
Maybe your motherboard or the ram are causing your probs?

[[Shizo]]

JayBee, thats a POS setup!!! Everybody knows AMD K6/2/3/+ line is all CRAP in working with 3d applications, heavy multimedia loaded games especially.

One way to go here is to sell your junk box, and buy a new system from PARTS. Since all the other crap in your box not very compatible, upgrading will be a more pain.
Here is what you can do to have a flying cheap sys.

Duron 600 - $50
motherboard - $110
*plus if you get the right mobo and care to overclock, you can get your cpu to 800-1GHz range*
PC-133 SDRAM 128Mb - what is it now.. $80?

and a case for $30, thats it you're all set.

[[Shizo]]

oh and a small comparison for you.. comparing K6-2/PII class computers.

I remember from the old days a Quake2 640x480 benchmark where K6-2 500 and PII 500 were compared. With K6-2 - 32fps, with PII - 55 fps!

And did i mention if you get SocketA that its very upgradeable? Later you could buy a 1.5GHz SocketA Processor

[JayBee]

Thanks for the feedback people. Yeah, I know the RAM's a bottleneck, but as I said, the fact that Unreal isn't even running at acceptable rates, and the RAM was standard when Unreal came out, points to something wrong with the system, as opposed to the standard "If you upgraded, it would be faster" answers...

Speaking of which... Thank you Shizo! Yes, I KNOW it's a piece of sh*t. A few points -

1 - I have no money (read - my bank balance is in single figures), and don't see the point in selling my "Junk Box" when I know a few tweaks will get it working just like I want it to. As I've already said, I've seen benchmarks from a similar spec system which are double what I'm getting. I know I should be able to squeze something more out of what I've got.

I didn't need someone to tell me that by buying a faster system, I'd, erm... have a faster system. Thanks for pointing that out.

2 - Quake II runs at over 30fps on a K6-2? I'd be happy with that! I'm not going to pay money for an extra 23fps... Bear in mind that my system is getting something like 10fps on average... on software that was built to scream along on a sub 300MHz system...

In short, thanks people. I KNOW that my system is crap, but I also know it's not as crap as it's being at the moment. What I'm looking for is news from anyone who has had similar problems, or who has heard of this before.

Telling me to upgrade my system isn't doing my ego any good :-)

As an aside... My TV runs at 24fps, and it ain't exactly juddery... what's the big difference between 32fps and 55fps?

cheers people!

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. . : : j a y b e e

www.sketchboard.co.uk

[Chris]

quote

Quote:

I remember from the old days a Quake2 640x480 benchmark where K6-2 500 and PII 500 were compared. With K6-2 - 32fps, with PII - 55 fps!

I got a 450 k6-2 and get 55 on Quake III, and 50-70 on Counter-strike, so they don't suck. It isn't processor that determines it anymore really, it is video card AND compatibility with motherboard.

All depends on the system configs, but k6-2, 3, + doesn't mean slow system necessarily.

[Spitfire]

It�s the RAM. My old rig is a intel p450 with 128mb ram and a 16mb TNT2 and it runs Q3A silkysmooth on 1152x786 with 32bit color and all the goodies on. Check on your system properties to see if the RAM�s working properly, might be fucked.

[[Shizo]]

I can guarantee it's (mainly) the K6-2 cpu here that slows down. Of course slow vid card doesn't help. Even if you had quad GeForce4 128Mb on k6-2 fps would not be higher than +5%!
Anyway gotta run to school. And i wount tell you to upgrade, just buy a new ocmputer

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Chinese student do homework, AND they study real hard!

[Chris]

I still disagree....I think it is the RAM for now. EDO is what 75ns? Someone help me out there.

I think a new motherboard that can handle pc-100 (6-8ns) New (good) motherboard costs like 100 bucks and 128 sticks are only at 100-150 online, that is like 250 bucks for upgrade, 900 bucks cheaper then a brand new system and I think it would greatly increase your fps.

btw, ns = nanoseconds, that is a clock cycle on the processor

[This message has been edited by Chris (edited November 20, 2000).]

[Chris]

BTW, I am not saying upgrading is the answer, I would go get a brand new system if you have the money. Alienware is the best systems for gaming (www.alienware.com)

I have a friend who has one and gets 80-110 fps on 768x1024 res. And that is a 2 year old computer. They are very expensive, but they are the best (top of the line) computers you can buy out there.

Dell's are the more consumer made computers, but are VERY decent. My dad just purchased one and upgraded his video to a GeForce and gets 60-80fps on 768x1024. Their architecture in the dells are very clean and most in not integrated. Which is a good thing.

Do not go a cheap way and buy a e-machine or micron, or compaq, you will just regret it. I went to a lan last weekend and I saw someone just bought a HP and it was only getting 25fps on 640x400! And that was brand new, 700mhz. So it doesn't matter on the processor. It is mostly motherboard and RAM.

[[Shizo]]

be 1337!!!!1
Build one yourself, and then take Dremel� and cut out your nickname on the case.. Then put neon lights inside so it shines.

Did i mention water cooling rig? HEHEHEHHEhejheJHEJ#GG#*$Y$HHEHE&HHE&HEH&$DH&RH&$&H!! #H*NH *RH$*H@*$H @@@!!!!!!##!!!!!!(!)

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Chinese student do homework, AND they study real hard!

[Chris]

quote

Quote:

Build one yourself

Careful with that though. Don't just decide to do it w/o knowledge of each part inside a computer. The easy part is to build the computer. The hard part is to make it work correctly (software, OS wise)

Just cause you install Win98 or even 2000 doesn't mean the system will work correctly. You have to do research on parts and how compatible they are with other parts.

With the right research you can build a great system a couple hundred bucks cheaper, BUT if you don't, you can build a system that cost still couple hundred bucks cheaper, but be very crashy and slow.

I build my first one (PII 333) back in '96 (I think) and although I learned a lot about parts, It ran crappy, and sold it for a loss of 200 dollars.

I have built 6 computers total so far and so far after that first one I have learned one thing, research!

But another thing to consider is the time spent on it. Which would you rather do, spend 1100 on a system which you build (5-15 hours of work, plus loading software, configuring) or spend 1300 on the same system, with parts that you know are compatible and it is already built and configed correctly and has a warrenty on the whole box, instead of each part (Hard-drive, cd-rom, etc.)?

Up to you though. I would void against building own. I refer most of my family and friends to dell or alienware, they are top of the line. Gateway has gone downhill.

[Chris]

quote

Quote:

what's the big difference between 32fps and 55fps?

You would be surprised! Really, sometimes it is a difference between a slideshow and a smooth dvd movie..

[JayBee]

All very interesting...

How many times, doods? Read the question

Seriously, I don't want to be a grouch! Thanks for the suggestions - believe me, if I could afford the new mainboard and RAM, I'd do it. Fact is, I CAN'T. However, I have a system that should NOT give me framerates in single figures.

Oh well...

Something I noticed last night - turned off ALL the options in Unreal, ran it at 320*240...

jerky then smooth... then jerky, then smooth...

did the EXACT same at 1024*768...

Guess it must be the ram...

HOWEVER, I keep saying that the ram I've got was STANDARD when Unreal came out. My system may be shit compared to what is around now, but compared to ninja systems in Unreal's time, my PC is a Cray!

Saying that EDO Ram is causing a bottleneck doesn't make sense here, cos the "Bottleneck" wasn't an issue when Unreal came out - it was standard.

Or is my fast processor causing the RAM to run SLOWER than it did under a slowere CPU?

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. . : : j a y b e e

www.sketchboard.co.uk

[Chris]

quote

Quote:

Saying that EDO Ram is causing a bottleneck doesn't make sense here, cos the "Bottleneck" wasn't an issue when Unreal came out - it was standard.

What do you mean standard, did it say in the requirements of Unreal that 64MB of EDO Ram required or something? I am not sure what you mean.

Usually it just says 64MB Ram, but the difference between PC-100 and EDO ram is very different.

[[Shizo]]

JayBe, quit saying that the games you're playing are old and should run smoothiely on your computer. You don't understand how sucky K6-2 are. And EDO ram? What's your vid card i forget? P2 did their job alright in those times, K6-2 was a cheap cpu for AMD to get some money before their Athlon project kicked in

O ya.. you might wanna try tweaking your BIOS - that's the base of all bases. I remember after tweaking BIOS on my K6-2 and also doing some weindows tweaks i got like 10-15 more fps in Quake2 benchmark! Kixx0rr

be careful though, also flash your mobo with a new bios from companys website but be careful as always with flashing BIOS..

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Chinese student do homework, AND they study real hard!

[Chris]

quote

Quote:

You don't understand how sucky K6-2 are

Did you have a bad experience with k6-2 or something. Did you not read my post? I have a k6-2 450 and get 50-70fps

[[Shizo]]

I did both! I had k6-2 450, then 300 after burning up my 450 trying to overclock to 500.. (worst overclocker). But all K6 is pure damnation, if you read MY post..

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Chinese student do homework, AND they study real hard!

[Chris]

Granted, they aren't good on overclocking, but it is doable, I have overclocked k6-2 50-100mhz no problem, just takes the right cooling and mobo.

I have read your posts...I just don't see why you say all systems with K6-2's are bad and slow...cause they aren't.

BTW, all PIV is out. dell.com has a system out right now with it in there...lowest mhz is 1.4 and highest right now is 1.5

Check it out www.dell.com

[[Shizo]]

HEHEHEheHEHEHEHEheHEHEHheheE P4!!!
I'm not talking to you anymore! heh

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Chinese student do homework, AND they study real hard!

[Chris]

Your weird, now what do you have against PIV?

I already know what type of person you are. The fustrating type that get pissed everytime a new processor comes out cause it out-dates your own system. lol, my roommate is the same way, and I see that in you.

[balistic]

Regarding Pentium 4:

Can I please pay 700$ more for a machine with no balls?

P4 does well with Quake 3, but in practically every other application, and most games, a 1.2 GHz t-bird will pound the living shit out of a 1.5 GHz P4.

Hell, my 700 MHz classic Athlon will out-render a 1.4 GHz Pentium 4.



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"What we're hearing, techno, is the process of trying to create something of the future." - J.M.

Brian "balistic" Prince
3D Artist
Eggington Productions
www.bprince.com

[[Shizo]]

Hhehe as i said, P4/MAC = no talk.
I think me and balistic can talk though.. So bal, so do you use Arctic Silver on your copper Hedgehog with SUNON? heheh
Did you reduce L2 cache divider to overclock more?

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Chinese student do homework, AND they study real hard!

[Chris]

Actually, those prices shouldn't last long at all, due to the fact Intel wants to put AMD out of business, they will be almost the same price as PIII soon. Intel said they have money to lose on PIV so this is the time to but the hammer on AMD (as they said it so nicely heh)

[Chris]

quote:

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, a 1.2 GHz t-bird will pound the living shit out of a 1.5 GHz P4.

Hell, my 700 MHz classic Athlon will out-render a 1.4 GHz Pentium 4.

---

I would like to see actually benchmarks on that before I believe it..you understand

[balistic]

A P4 at the cost of a P3 is still over-priced.

You /do/ realize that a 1GHz P3 costs twice as much as a 1GHz Athlon, and is 30% slower in math-intensive operations?

I have nothing against Intel, but their recent products are vastly over-priced and under-powered. Arguing otherwise is ridiculous.

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"What we're hearing, techno, is the process of trying to create something of the future." - J.M.

Brian "balistic" Prince
3D Artist
Eggington Productions
www.bprince.com

[balistic]

quote:

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Originally posted by Chris:
I would like to see actually benchmarks on that before I believe it..you understand

---

Embarrasing, eh?

[Brue]

I think the answer you are looking for is:
drum role plz.........8

[[Shizo]]

Balistic, there will be many sweetness coming out from AMD recently, i had news on AMD760 chipset that supports Dual processors.. Imagine Dual T-bird 1.5GHz
It will also support DDR ram, nice no?
You can now buy a 600MHz Duron and overclock to 1GHz (plus/minus 100MHz). Costs $50. Its along the lines of PIII 1GHz benches ok? Unfortunately my cpu week is too early, so i got mine only to 900MHz.. 850 stable. With lates weeks everyone was getting around 1GHz.
Check out www.overclockers.com CPU database to see what i mean..

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Chinese student do homework, AND they study real hard!