New Win98 Betas and Overclocking

[paulcs]

I just installed the new beta drivers and ran a few benchmarks. I also jacked up the speed of my front side bus to 129 MHz to give them a run for their money.

While I had no problems running at AGP 2x with the PD 5.41 drivers and TurboGL at 124 MHz, I got hard lockups in the exact same place while running Quake3's Demo001 with the 5.50 betas. Forcing AGP 1x fixed the problem.

The new betas fixed whatever the problem was with AGP 2x at 124 MHz. Emboldened with this knowledge, I raised the bus speed to 129 MHz with no ill effect. AGP 2x is running fine after several runs of Q3 Demo001 and a single run of 3DMark 2000.

The Quake3 shutdown error appears to be fixed. All in all, in my very limited experience, these drivers appear to be far more stable than the last beta set.

I was testing more for "usability" than speed, but here are the benchmarks. Not much of a difference as far as speed goes, but pretty darn fast with far more stability.

Matrox G400 "Vanilla"
PIII 600E Slot 1 at 774 MHz
256 MB Seimens CAS 2 RAM
Turtle Beach Montego II (Vortex 2) "White Box"

Q3 Demo 1, 800x600, 16-bit/16-bit, Dynamic Lights and Marks on Walls Disabled: 70.4 FPS

3Mark 2000 Default Benchmark (such as it is)
3D Marks: 2960
CPU Marks: 262

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[Maggi]

impressive !



Could you do a test for me, Paul ?

Compare the speed of the 64MB texture rendering tests @129MHz FSB from AGP1x vs. AGP2x and see if you really have AGP2x running without probs.



------------------
Cheers,
Maggi

Despite my nickname causing confusion, I am not female ...

[paulcs]

Thanks Maggi. I ran the test again at AGP 2x and got these results:

3D Marks: 2982
CPU Marks: 266
64 MB Texture Rendering: 117.0

The machine had been running all night, by the way.

I forced AGP 1x and rebooted. As usual, the first run of 3DMark 2000 resulted in relatively low marks:

3D Marks: 2921
CPU Marks: 247
64 MB Texture Rendering: 106.3

I ran it a second time at AGP 1x:

3D Marks: 2970
CPU Marks: 265
64 MB Texture Rendering: 110.1

They're awfully close. Do you see a problem? I used both Sandra and PCI List to confirm AGP 1x and 2x, although I think they're just picking up data from the registry.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[This message has been edited by paulcs (edited 11 February 2000).]

[Maggi]

I don't see any problem as long as your rig is running stable at that ridiculous high speed ...

But imo the gap between the two scores is a little too close ...

Did you also try to force AGP2x ?

Reason I ask is that normally the G400 is tested on windows startup and if neccessary, AGP transfer will be set back to AGP1x, even if you've set it to use (not forced) AGP2x.
When you force it ("AGPFlags"="-1"), it will stick to AGP2x and if that is unstable, you might get a lockup.

L8er,
Maggi

[paulcs]

I anticipated this potential problem.

The new beta drivers defaulted to AGP 2x at 129 MHz (85 MHz AGP). When I installed PD 5.41 at 124 MHz last weekend, it defaulted to AGP 1x. Forcing AGP 2x resulted in lockups in Quake3.

After running the AGP 1x checks this morning, I forced AGP 2x using the registry hack and rebooted. Because I had problems with AGP 2x in the past, I ran Quake3's Demo001 and Demo002, and I got clean runs both times. I had to go to work, so I couldn't test further. I'll see if I can get a lockup or crash with UT or the Quake2 Crusher demo tonight.

I am suspicious about the close 64 MB Texture Rendering scores as well. It's always been an odd board, performing below my expectations in some areas and beyond my expectations in others.

I still wonder if I'm having some memory issues with it, as it sometimes appears to be performing like a 16 MB board, although I just can't complain about its performance at ridiculously high FSB speeds.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[This message has been edited by paulcs (edited 11 February 2000).]