Major bottleneck?

[GoNz0]

you have a workhorse not a gaming rig.

 

[m00m1n]

If the difference between an Athlon 1Ghz and an XP2000 is that much, I can order one right now .. I'm just wary of doing that, cleaning off my system and rebuilding it, and then finding the prb still there - I would be devastated I think

 

[Shamus MacNoob]

Good to see that cavlery showed up lol

Yes a defrag is a must and you need to free up some space and also the format option is a good way to start after a new card .. and the default driver.ini is not the best way to go either ...find the proper.ini for your moniter helps when wanting to set the refresh rates .. and of course a better cpu will improve anything ...

I will tell you a short story I had a 64mb mx420 and got my Ti4200 128mb I had never noticed this until I went to my friends and formatted his rig and installed his FX5200 card but in morrowind the rivers looked so wild on his rig ... I came home and looked at mine and saw that mine was like murky ... it was like my new Ti4200 was set like the MX420 somewhere deep in directx instructions so I formatted and wow LOL the water looks so real I feel like jumping in and taking a bath Not to mention that a good format cleans out all old scrap we collect over the monthes and monthes ...

 

[GoNz0]

the 2000 chip will run the system bus at its full speed, it also has a lot more support for graphics. the guy from work got a 7000 3d marks with t-bird 1000 and broke 10,000 1st run with xp2400
not seen him yet to find out what he got after the format.

 

[Shamus MacNoob]

I get 10,800 when I turn the crank on this Athlon 1800+ my average is 10,500 you can see my spec's below I use 768mb DDR

 

[GoNz0]

XP2700, 512 Corsair XMS3000 running the fast timings on ASUS A7V8X with a TI4600 running 325/725 and a 450W PSU to prop it all up.

13336 3d marks.

 

[m00m1n]

Righty, thanks for your advice. I think I'm going to cross my fingers, stick my head between my legs, order a new processor, reformat and reinstall ..

.. and hope

Thanks so much everyone, very much appreciated!

 

[GoNz0]

good luck.

 

[Shamus MacNoob]

Nice Gonzo I am gonna be making myself a new rig passing this one on to my 15 year old .... just not sure yet about what exactly I am gonna use I think this time I am going to go Intel and Ati ... just because I feel like it LOL

 

[Shamus MacNoob]

Originally posted by m00m1n
Righty, thanks for your advice. I think I'm going to cross my fingers, stick my head between my legs, order a new processor, reformat and reinstall ..

.. and hope

Thanks so much everyone, very much appreciated!

Hell yeah take the plunge good luck we are here if needed

 

[m00m1n]

Originally posted by Kermit
Hell yeah take the plunge good luck we are here if needed

Hell, and arent I glad!

 

[m00m1n]

1 * Athlon XP2000+ CPU ordered, should be here Thursday

 

[m00m1n]

Incidentally (if anyone is still watching this thread), what are the correct patches to install for Windows XP for an AMD chip and VIA chipset?

Just the 4in1's? There are lots of other patches, like via agp4x fixes, VIA miniport AGP drivers, etc. I'm a bit lost in them to be honest.

 

[Petros]

4 in 1's definitely...windowsupdate has a processor update, too!

And to answer the question in the name of the thread...

Processor

 

[m00m1n]

Thanks, two monitors DOES rock btw - and I'll never go back to a single either! Add UltraMon into the picture and you have a setup that can make you grin

 

[Taurus]

just do 4in1's. don't bother with the other patches unless you have a related problem down the road. at that point, you would try one or more of those to troubleshoot.

 

[m00m1n]

Just thought you might be interested ..

I gained ~15-20fps and about 30-50% overall stability by changing power supply

I gained ~60-80fps by reinstalling windows

The XP2000+ is yet to arrive, but its due today - and I'll let you know what effect that has

Sooooo happy

 

[GoNz0]

ahh windows loves free space glad its all working out for you.

 

[m00m1n]

Continuation

8003 3D marks with the XP2000+, but I still get the feeling I'm not seeing its full potential .. I'll keep tweaking

Thanks for your help guys If there's anything else you can think of that I might be able to do, please let me know

-- quick edit .. there was one other thing .. I bought a Volcano 7 and stuck it on, and I'm not sure if this is related - but my pc now sometimes wont boot or reboot when its been on - unless I lay it on its side?

 

[GoNz0]

sounds like somthing isnt seated properly mate, if the cpu temp is low and stable there should be no problem from there, the memory might want reseating, just give it a good clean inside, jiggle things about until it behaves.

your cards classed as overclockable should be able to get near 300 mhz on the GPU and the memory should go higher. that should get another 1000 3d marks, may i suggest Riva Tuner to do the card tweaks.

and have you been back through the BIOS and checked those tweaks you did.

also the latest nvidia drivers have the performance/quality settings, slap em all on performance for benchmarking