3DMark score concerns - help ?!

[Guest Muppet22]

Hi Please see attached screenshots which show a low score. Any ideas why?I understand that it's best not to read too much into these scores?Thanks

[Guest Eagle92395]

I think we need some more info... what drivers are you using? WinXP and SP1? Have you updated Windows all the way? Did you recently change anything that could affect drivers? Maybe try re-installing them. What all is running in the background? Try ending programs using CTRL+ALT+DEL. After some more info and when I get home, I'll post some great sites to really trim up WinXP. Hope we can help!

[Guest Rob]

That's fine for a mid-range system. I only get 1,900 with my machine. It's designed to test the FUTURE .. not what we have now. Don't expect your 12,000 scores from the outdated 2001 SE.

[Guest Muppet22]

HiOk,42.86 drivers, formatted the other week so these were the first installed on the 'new' HD.Using XP Home SP1 with all updates downloaded.Nothing much running in the background - only Zone Alarm. I used end-it-all before the tests but I've set it not to terminate ZA.Nothing much has changed recently - I tend not to fiddle too much, but some sites would be great to help me get the best out of my PC!Many thanks once again,EDIT: PS - which is the better card the Ti4800 SE or the Ti4400? I have both here and was just wondering what's best to use.

[Guest Eagle92395]

Hmmm, I still think 850 is a bit low... but I get around 12k with mine using 3dMark, but I have a 2.53Ghz with Ti4200 OCed to 4600 speeds. I use the 40.92 drivers, I tried the beta ones you are using, but I couldn't get some things to work right, so I am going to wait until they are on the nVidia site. As for everything else... sounds like you've done it right with the updates and things. Try the Ti4400 and see if it makes a difference. If not, then I'd go with the last post and say it doesn't much matter. How is your performance in games? If it's satisfactory then I wouldn't worry about it :)

[Guest]

I agree with Rob, 3Dmark 2003 is for cards that support DX9. Last night I replaced my Ti4600(Dx9 not supported) with the 9700pro (Supports Dx9) and got 4300 compared to 650 with the Ti4600Also ran 3Dmark 2001 and got 11800 compared to 9100 with TiMy specsAMD XP 2100+ n/oGigabyte mobo40gig Western Digital512 High performance CAS2 PC133 Mushkin mem n/o (no DDR here)9700pro n/oHercules Fortissimo II sound cardCDRWDVD romViewsonic 17" flat Franklin

[Guest]

There alot of people that say 3dmark 03 is not good for benchmarking at all. better off to test games and enable the fps counter 3dmark 2001 is still better to test then 03 is.

[Guest]

I think the difference is that he's using the new 3DMark version and without a DX9-compliant card there is no way to get much of a score. I'm turning over 13K here with 3DMark2001SE on a 4200 but the score on the new 3DMark is so low I won't even admit to it :-) .TripNorthwood 2.2a at 2.72Ghz Abit TH7II-R512MB Samsung 40ns PC800Gainward 64MB GF4 Ti4200 300/57042.01's DX9 WinXP ProInwin case / Enermax 431W PSU3DMark2001SE = 13223 (40.72's and DX8.1)http://service.madonion.com/compare?2k1=4569591

[Guest PaulL01]

>Hi >>Please see attached screenshots which show a low score. Any >ideas why? >>I understand that it's best not to read too much into these >scores? >>Thanks Hi Tom,A couple of things for you to think about:As is becomming quite clear, FutureMark's 3Dmark03 is a DX9 video card benchmark, not much more than that really. "The more you know, the more you know" -Mike Brady :)Tis a shame and waist as so many titles will continue to utilize DX7-DX8.1 including FS9.So dont be too concerned about the "low score" using your DX8.1 hardware, your score is just fine. :)I would recommend using 3dmark2001SE-Build300(patch-needed if you use DX9) as it not only test DX7 and DX8 much better than 3DM03, but will allow you to see the effects of even small adjustments to your overall system including AGP aperature size, memory timings, fastwrites etc.3Dmark2001SE will continue to be a better benchmark for testing hardware and settings that will continue to be used for some time in up and comming game titles for at least the next year.One thing that I noticed in your settings is that you have AF (Anisotropic filtering) set to a very agressive setting (will cause shimmering).I would recommend that you turn it down to 4xAF for great texture quality or Off for performance as AF kills the fill rate of GF4TI cards.Also uncheck the "sharpen Textures" box as this only doubles what AF setting you have (except it can't double 8xAF). :)BTW, the forum is slow to post!!!

[Guest]

You also need to turn off the anisotropic filtering - it's a killer on the final score. BUT..the new version requires a DX9-compliant video card to get any meaningful results. I'd recommend using the old version (3DMark2001SE) which will give you some numbers you can use as comparison data.TripNorthwood 2.2a at 2.72Ghz Abit TH7II-R512MB Samsung 40ns PC800Gainward 64MB GF4 Ti4200 300/57042.01's DX9 WinXP ProInwin case / Enermax 431W PSU3DMark2001SE = 13223 (40.72's and DX8.1)http://service.madonion.com/compare?2k1=4569591

[John_Tavendale 453]

Higher scores are usually resulting from turning off things such as AA, Ansio etc.I wouldn't read too much into it. You do have slowish CPU in terms of todays available speeds.As long as it runs MSFS and other games to your liking it doesn't really matter what score you get :)

[Guest outtatimeiii]

That is a pretty good score compared to what i get... LOL. Since I got a DX7 card (Radeon 7200), only 1 test runs, and its very choppy. I never really considered 3dmark as a benchmark prog, I mainly got it for the "ooh ahh" factor LOL. And I downloaded this 160MB prog to find out it dont work at all with my card LOL. Oh well. Guess I cant see the visuals till I get a better comp and Radeon :( .

[ckukmale 27]

I wouldnt worry so much about your low score in 3dMark03.From what I read they used different methods of displaying the graphics and unfortunately nvidia cards were not supported so well so that they suffer badly when doing the tests. I think they use a version of the pixel shader code that ATI cards have and the Nvidia cards dont so the Nvidia cards then have to use a slower method of doing it so they suffer lower scores. The geforceFX card has had low scores too because of this. Also as posted before its also because your Geforce4 card doesnt have hardware directx9 support.If your games run fine in real life then thats the important thing or get an ATI card as 3Dmark03 seems to be better suited to those cards but then you wouldnt buy an ATI card just to get a better score in 3dmark03 would you?..Also I think that the 4800 is just a card that supports upto 8x AGP bandwith so even if you had that Im sure you wouldnt get much of a score increase. I read somewhere that its quite a small increase.Craig Kiltie

[Guest Muppet22]

GuysThanks VERY much for all your help!