Waaaay too low Benchmarks and DVD issues...

[Payne]

First My system;
Athlon 1.2 Ghz
Abit KT7A MB
256 MB Corsair Cas2 PC 133 Ram
AOpen GeForce 2 MX400 64 MB Video
Ricoh 20x10x40 MP7200A
Creative 12x DVD-ROM
IBM 40 GB 7200 RPM HD
SB Live! Sound Card
56.6 PCI Modem
Intel Pro something or other NIC
Ext USB ADSL Modem, Alcatel Speedtouch
Samsung 900p 19 Inch Monitor
Windows 2000 Pro

Nothing is OC'd
Using NVidia whql Drivers

Now the Problems.

The DVD Playback is horridly choppy. It was MUCH better with the same DVD-ROM in my old Celeron 300A (OC'd to like 374) Also, After Playing a DVD I get cursor problems (multiple partial images for the cursor that occur when "mousing" over things that cause the cursor to change, or dragging/dropping items). I also ran a Benchmark for the Video and got much much lower than expected, Like 885!!!! (on 3d Mark). The drivers I use work well with my one 3-D game I play atm, Asheron's Call.

Could all of this be driver issues? Dopes anyone have any ideas of bios settings or tweaks I can use to speed this up? I mean on my old slow crap system the DVD was fine (video in it was TNT2 32 MBV). This is my First Athlon system and my first time upgrading since p2 400's were TOP of the line heh.


Thanks in advance for everyones input


[This message has been edited by Payne (edited 08-06-2001).]

[qgranfor]

Only thing I can think of off the top of my head is that the VIA chipset drivers aren't installed?

[Wuzup101]

Hell on that system you shold be able to play unreal and a dvd at the same time (well ok that's streaching it)...I would second the 4 in 1 drivers havn't been installed or are out of date. Check out www.viahardware.com for some help on that. Other than that I would just make sure you have all the current drivers. And you shouldn't need any bios tweaks to make a DVD run properly or get a better 3D mark score. They should both be fine on your system. Although make sure you ram is running cas2 obviously (if you didnt' already) and make sure the bios are set up correctly for your system.

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AMD Tbird (AXIA) 1Ghz @ 1425mhz w/ OCZ gladiator
Iwill KK266 Raid
384megs crucial cas2 @ 150mhz
Leadtek 32meg Geforce2 GTS Pro (220/415)
Dual 20gig IBM 60gxp Deskstars in RAID 0
Nec 40x cdrom
Sony 12x8x32 CD-RW
17" KDS Avitron flat screan (1024x768 @ 85hz)

[Payne]

Gonna check out the Via Drivers as soon as I get home, I have a sneaking suspicion that I flubbed up there (perhaps because I can't recall adding anything that win2k didn't automatically install other than Video and Modem drivers heh)

[lunat1c]

Well if Win2k automatically installed the video drivers, that could be an issue too.

I believe they dont even have a properties section for the video card, in order to change settings.

I suggest you download the updated Nvidia reference drivers as well.

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AMD TBird 1GHz @ 1.33GHz (133*10x)
Abit KT7A
Crucial 256MB PC133 Cas2
Hercules GeForce2 MX
SB Live! X-Gamer
WD 7200RPM 20GIG ATA-100
Maxtor 5400RPM 15GIG ATA-66

[Payne]

No, I installed Vid and Modem Drivers, Sound too I believe, but everything else was win 2k as far as I can recall (setting up a PC at 4am is a BAD idea heh)

[lunat1c]

Well, still download those VIA 4in1's

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AMD TBird 1GHz @ 1.2GHz (133*9x)
Abit KT7A
Crucial 256MB PC133 Cas2
Hercules GeForce2 MX
SB Live! X-Gamer
WD 7200RPM 20GIG ATA-100
Maxtor 5400RPM 15GIG ATA-66

[Payne]

Thank you everyone, It was the VIA Drivers, at least DVD wise, gonna redo 3D Mark momentarily

[Payne]

Went from 885 to 2030, 150% improvement , but is 2030 decent?

[lunat1c]

Well with your setup thats normal, but you should beable to hit about 2500, that what I get with my GF2MX on the same setup as you. Im using the 12.90 drivers, you may want to try them

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AMD TBird 1GHz @ 1.2GHz (133*9x)
Abit KT7A
Crucial 256MB PC133 Cas2
Hercules GeForce2 MX
SB Live! X-Gamer
WD 7200RPM 20GIG ATA-100
Maxtor 5400RPM 15GIG ATA-66

[Todd a]

I assume you are talking 3D Mark 2001. If so, yes that is fine. Also when you say certified drivers, that can mean quite a bit. For a long time the only "official" drivers you could get from Nvidia's website was 6.50. They just released 12.41 as "official" about a month or so ago. They even have 14.40 floating around. I just picked up these today. They seem just fine so far. Make sure you enable the "cool bits" in the system registry so you can overclock the card. Memory now adays is yeilding much higher and they really is no such thing as low end memroy. I got a budget GeForce2 GTS ($99) and it went from 333 for memory to 400 without a single hitch. This really helps the GeForce cards quite a bit. The core on the other hand only went from 200 to 215, but the performance is pretty nice.

And yes, tweek the memory setting in the system BIOS. You can get an easy 5% performance boost for free. Abit tends to ship the BIOS with pretty conservative memory settings, but can be tweeked out quite a bit. This is why most reveiwers say the Asus boards are faster in reviews, but once tweeked the Abits reign KING. I only have the Abit KT7 myself but it rocks.

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The COMPUTER is your FRIEND!
Happiness is manditory.

[MTECH]

Do you have to install the 4 in 1 drivers if you are running Windows 98 se?

[Todd a]

If you have a VIA based motherboard, then YES!!!!! After installing Windows then it is best to install the 4 in 1 drivers next. Then install the graphics and sound...

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The COMPUTER is your FRIEND!
Happiness is manditory.