problems with 3dMark?

[Joe]

Is anyone out there experiencing problems with 3dMark(99 and/or 2000)? Whenever I try to benchmark, my PC seems to crap out on the last test(can't remember what it is) and dump me back to my desktop. I've tried driver versions 5.12 and 4.1x and neither seem to solve the problem.

On a somewhat unrelated topic, when I first tried DVD playback using WinDVD with driver 5.12, the image was clean for regular movies but choppy as hell for anything animated(South Park, Anime, etc.) but when I reverted to 4.1x, playback was smooth.

In a nutshell, am I using flaky drivers or is something wrong with my PC setup?

Here's my system at a glance:
P3 667(not O/C'ed)
128MB 133Mhz RAM
20GB 7200rpm HDD(Prim Master)
AOpen AX63 Pro
ATAPI Pioneer 10X DVD-ROM(Sec Master)
ATAPI Acer 6X CDRW(Sec Slave)
SB Live (Digital Audio version)
G400Max with driver 4.1x
generic 56K winmodem
ISA based pcmcia card slot

Thanx in advance,


Joe

[Marwyn]

oh ! I have the same problem with G400 dual head and 3DMark2000 but why !?! My system is:

SOYO 64A+
PIII 450 on 567 (127fbs)
G400 DualHead
128MB PC100
13GB HDD
AOpen 1040 DVD (tray version)
HP 7100 CD-RW

[SunDriedGrapes]

I wouldn't lose too much sleep over it, if I were you. From what I can tell, 3DMark2000 is pretty worthless as a benchmark.

If you can get it to run in demo mode then you've basically got the best it has to offer...:-)

[Damien Green]

Yep, same problem, under Win2000 the bench crashes to desktop after the first test. Installing 5.04 helped, but the problem still occurs occasionally.

[paulcs]

I think we have to differentiate between the Windows 98 problems and the Windows 2000 problems.

Joe, you are using the oldest possible drivers for your G400. You should uninstall them, using Matrox's uninstaller program, as soon as possible. Given that you are using a VIA motherboard, you should try PD 5.41 and if that doesn't work, PD 5.30.

If the VIA 4in1 drivers are earlier than Ver. 4.16, you might want to upgrade those as well.

What are the 4.1x Matrox drivers? I would be helpful if you refered to the drivers by their PowerDesk version number. These all begin with a five.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[This message has been edited by paulcs (edited 13 April 2000).]

[paulcs]

Except Damien, who I suspect is just having a W2K driver problem, everybody else should check the following:

The the AGP aperture is open to 256 MB in your motherboard's BIOS.

All *video* caching and shadowing are disabled in your motherboard's BIOS.

The G400 is using IRQ 9, 10, or 11.

The G400 is not sharing an IRQ with anything but IRQ Holder for PCI Steering. (It does not matter if Windows reports a conflict or not.)

3DMark 2000 may be a lousy benchmark, but its crashing to the desktop is a good indicator that something's up.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[Damien Green]

You're absolutely right, I'm waiting for the next Win 2K driver release. Under 98 I never had any problems like this, so it could only be a Win 2K driver problem.

[Joe]

I realize this thread is about as dead as a doornail(it took me forever to get around to it; I was a little busy looking for a new apartment). Anyway, thanks to everyone's tips, I am now able to run 3D mark and other games without them crapping out on me.

but here's another question.

Paulcs,
my G400's IRQ is 5. You mentioned that it should be 9,10 or11. Does it really matter? Also, I can't make my AGP aperature greater than 128, but I just assume that's because I only have 128MB system memory.

but again, thanks alot!

Happy gaming,

Joe

[Greebe]

Damien, it's a known issue with 3Dmark 2000. I had a link to MadOnion on this but they've hidden/moved the page.

[Damien Green]

Thanks Greebe - I don't think I'm going to loose much sleep over it, Q3 etc. run fine, after all it's only a benchmark, and to be honest I'm more interested in doing other thinks than testing the speed of my system.