7950GT AGP, Vista

[Moph]

I've read the other threads concerning this card.
I am running these drivers:
101.41_winvista_32bit_english
(The only ones which have worked so far.)

I am a bit confused, I replaced a Radeon 9500 with this card, and I notice no improvement in graphics or frame rate. Surely there should be at least some improvement upgrading from a £30 card to a £160 one, even if the drivers aren't fully capable yet. I mean, I still get around 15-20FPS, and lagging graphics when I turn around in WoW, ...and that's in 800x600 resolution.
Originally there was a GeForce 4 MX in the machine, and I upgraded to the Radeon as a housemate was about to re-sell it as it didn't work on his computer.

I'm at a loss as to what's going on here.
I have just read that I may have an underpowered PSU (250W ouch!), so will probably be replacing this with something over 400W. Could that cause the graphics to be limited?
My motherboard is a TriGem IM845G (Imperial) which originally came with the eMachines 770, I checked the specs of it, and it will support a 4x AGP, also this card's specs say that it will run on a 4x AGP too. Is the problem here?

I have been running Windows Vista for about a month or two, and the problems with getting drivers is not enjoyable. Last night I managed to find the only driver which allowed my Sound Blaster to work (kxdrv3538m-full), another third party one. The same is true with this 9750GT, the disc which came with it did nothing, the drivers from nVidia's site did nothing, finally the ones posted here by the devs at least let me use the card..
The drivers Windows Vista Automatic updates offers are more a threat than an improvement. There was an update for the Radeon available, I downloaded it and it threw the resolution/refresh rate out of range of my monitor, and got rid of the ATI control Panels. Took an hour at best to sort out.
There was an update for my Realtec on-board LAN yesterday, I downloaded it around the same time as installing/removing all these drivers trying to get this card to function. While downloading another driver, my connection was cutting in and out repeatedly.. I rolled back the driver for the Realtec card, and that was fixed. It seems Microsoft are sending out downgrades for Vista..

I am unable to revert to a previous OS as basically I don't have one and they're not being sold.

Oh, I also crashed a few times last night with graphical issues on screen and screeching/interference noises coming from my speakers.. Now, that could have been due to the Sound Blaster drivers recently installed, but I'm going to put it down to my PSU as when I reverted back to 800x600 from 1280x768, I no longer crashed. Perhaps there was too much strain on it?



So, can anyone help to shed some light on why there is no noticeable performance increase when upgrading from a £30 card to a £160? It's quite disheartening.

[Scott]

Ok,

Get a bigger power supply for sure!!

Get lastest BIOS update for motherboard.

AGP 8 may have a little effect.

What CPU are running and how much RAM?

[Moph]

It's a Pentium 2.4 GHz, 2 Gig of Ram, the page I've found with info the emachines 770 is here. (http://support.pcworld.co.uk/layout.aspx?CatID={cfede90c-c10a-4238-a615-d30595fbf201}&ID={18652fe1-97e8-4458-83b4-5c838c85b7ab})
However, I've upgraded the hard drive, the RAM, sound card, graphics card, speakers, keyboard, mouse etc, removed the modem card. The sound card is the only one of those which is perhaps not up to scratch as I don't think it's supported anymore.
But as you say, I'll order a new PSU in the next few days.. I hope that will make a difference too.

[Moph]

Hmm.. there seems to be a problem with replying to these posts?

Thanks for the reply!
It's a Pentium 2.4GHz CPU with 2Gig of RAM, the original eMachines 770 specs are at:
http://support.pcworld.co.uk/layout.aspx?CatID={cfede90c-c10a-4238-a615-d30595fbf201}&ID={18652fe1-97e8-4458-83b4-5c838c85b7ab}
but I've upgraded the sound card, graphics card, RAM and hard drive since purchase, and removed the modem card.

[xfxsupport]

Sorry for the delay as I was away from the office on Friday. The power supply could affect the performance as 250w is rather low for that video card. I will team with my engineers on Monday when I get back to the office as they have been working on the new drivers for this video card as well. Is it possible to try the video card in another system, in an attempt to see if there is a system bottleneck or not? Also start a support ticket at www.xfxforce.com in case there is an issue with the video card.


XFX Support

[Moph]

Thank you very much for the replies!
Currently I'm waiting for a shipment of a BIOS upgrade as suggested, also I am putting an order in for a more appropriate PSU which should be with me by the end of the week.
Unfortunately it's not possible to try it in another system as I have only one machine.

Is there any advisable software (benchmarks?) I could run to help discover issues with bottlenecking, or particular limitations in the systems?

Have just opened a support ticket with reference to this thread.


Thanks again for the replies, advice and taking the time to look further into this, I'm looking forward to find out what you and the devs come up with!

[shrach]

4x AGP is not a problem at all, 8x AGP would have no significant impact.

PSU can't be the problem. If the PSU were the main problem, you would be complaining more about crashing and never really get to see "poor performance". How many amps does your psu have on the 12v rail? (Will say on the psu).

Driver cleaner might be an idea, since there might be some left over remnants of the 9500 drivers. I've never seen this personally, but people always talk about it being a problem.

Try running 3dmark05, it'll be a quicker download and benchmark quicker than 3dmark06 and should give us some information to go on. Should just need the cpu score and the 3dmark score to kick things off.

[PP Mguire]

First thing is if your running a Sound Blaster of anything other than an X-FI youll have problems. I believe between that and your PSU is your problem. That 2 gig of ram is it DDR? If it isnt i suggest upgrading the whole works (PSU, RAM, CPU, MOBO) becasue thats your whole bottleneck. If your on DDR then you should be fine. (DDR is RAM by the way) The problem most ppl dont realize with this card is like its PCI-E brother you really need a good solid system to run it in. From what i heard this card was aimed towards the guys with S939 and AGP systems. Which was actualy me about 6 months ago.

I suggest using onboard audio if you can or getting a better sound card. To really see if thats the problem when you get your new PSU take the SB out and uninstall the drivers. See if that helps any.

As to the 4x/8x comment YES there is a difference in high powerd cards and systems. But if your dealing with say a 9800XT and an AthlonXP 1800+ system you wont see much of a difference between bus speeds. I know this from dealing with AGP systems all my life till i got my PCI_E system built.

ONe last thing, with this card i suggest a 500watt PSU at least.

[shrach]

As to the 4x/8x comment YES there is a difference in high powerd cards and systems. But if your dealing with say a 9800XT and an AthlonXP 1800+ system you wont see much of a difference between bus speeds. I know this from dealing with AGP systems all my life till i got my PCI_E system built.

ONe last thing, with this card i suggest a 500watt PSU at least.

This is simply not true I'm afraid. There is a lot more bandwidth available sure, but nothing uses it. If 3dmark would recognise my 7900GS I could run benchmarks in 4x and 8x agp modes to prove it, or you could look at anandtech or firing squad articles etc. Additionally, you will see that the same cards on agp often outperform the pci variant by like 1-2%

(The reason for this, is the ever increasing amount of ram on the cards, which is the preferred location of textures etc. Designers make their games to utilise that ram first up. Compare the bandwidth of the RAM on a modern graphics card (say 50gb/s) to the 16x PCIE bus (4gb/s) and you will see why it's a no-brainer and why the bus speed doesn't really matter once the assets are on the card itself. The agp vs pcie disparity is only really because of bridging chips.)

500watt psu means nothing. I've seen 500watt psus that have 15 amps on an undervolted 12v rail which is pretty worthless. A 300watt psu that has 19amps on the rail would probably be fine, while not ideal in this scenario.

[PP Mguire]

This is simply not true I'm afraid. There is a lot more bandwidth available sure, but nothing uses it. If 3dmark would recognise my 7900GS I could run benchmarks in 4x and 8x agp modes to prove it, or you could look at anandtech or firing squad articles etc. Additionally, you will see that the same cards on agp often outperform the pci variant by like 1-2%I used to argue this same point till i was proven cold wrong by myself. Ask yourself this, why is the ever increasing need for PCI-E 16x in SLI there? If its not needed then they shouldnt have to have it. Same goes for PCI-E 2.0. Ask yourself that. There IS a difference between putting my friends 7800GS in a 4x slot and an 8x slot. Ive seen it myself, and having working on AGP systems for the longest time before switching over, i have quite the experience with it and dealing with arguments such as the such.

500watt psu means nothing. I've seen 500watt psus that have 15 amps on an undervolted 12v rail which is pretty worthless. A 300watt psu that has 19amps on the rail would probably be fine, while not ideal in this scenario.You could say this yes, but its merely for the sake of arguing. Seriously, if you buy a decent named PSU, (IE Antec, Thermaltake, OCZ ect) Your 500 watt PSU will have more 12v than the 300. Be real here.

[Moph]

The RAM in the computer is two sticks of:
1GB 184-PIN UNBUFF DIMM 128MX64 DDR PC2700.

The PSU I have ordered is here (http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?id=13425).
OCZ StealthXStream 600w Silent SLI Ready ATX2 Power Supply.


I have updated my BIOS, I haven't really seen much of an effect at all, except that I now have a "HP" logo at start up instead of my old eMachines one, also, I can't select AGP in the BIOS setup now, it's set to PCI without any other options.. oh well, no big problem there anyway.
Also, (I assume) it's caused a message from Windows Vista that my product key is in use elsewhere and will stop working in three days.. I've raised a support ticket with them about that so it should be sorted soon I hope.

I have run Driver Cleaner, it was good to see a load of registry entries for the old ATI get removed, but it hasn't done anything for performance.

I then ran 3Dmark05:
http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/563/3dmark05scorerr7.jpg
Link (http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/563/3dmark05scorerr7.jpg) in case the picture above doesn't show.
I guess this means my CPU/Motherboard are screwed? Or would that be just the Motherboard, or just the CPU?

/sigh. Well to be fair, I have pretty much hammered the lifetime out of the machine as it's probably seen more uptime than downtime over the last five or six years.


I've also found the motherboard manual I had at purchase, here's some information that may help.



Form Factor: Micro ATX

Processor:
Intel Pentium 4 processor
400 MHZ system bus with an intergrated 256K L2 cache
NOTE
The processor depends on the model of computer you purchased.

Memory:
Two 184-pin 2.5 V DIMM sockets
Each slot supports up to 1 GB memory of 200/266 MHz Non-ECC
Unbuffered DDR Synchronous DRAM (DDR SDRAM)
Note
As your system has sharing memory architecture using the main memory for video memory, the usable main memory size is less than real size when the computer is running

Main Chipset:
Intel 82845G Graphics Memory Controller Hub (GMCH)
Processor/Host bus support
Intergrated DRAM controller
Intergrated graphics AC '97 controller
Intergrated 3D/2D graphics accelerator
Intergrated 350 MHz RAMDAC
Arithmetic stretch blitter video
Power management functions

Intel 82801DB I/O Controller Hub (ICH4)
Support for the PCI interface
Intergrated IDE controller
USB 2.0 and DMA controller
Power management logic
Real-time clock
Support for AC '97 audio devices

Intel 82802AB Firmware Hub (FWH)
Firmware Hub (FWK) interface


I/O Controller:
SMSC LPC47M192 Super I/O Controller
Floppy drive interface
One multimode parallel port
FIFO serial port
Keyboard and mouse controller




For how little I know, the problem is with the card not showing any performance upgrade from the Radeon 9500, or even the GeForce 4 MX 440, so whether or not it makes much of a difference being on 4x, or 8x for the card, I would very much imagine that there should be an improvement no matter what the speed is.



Thanks for the time and effort/thought you guys are putting into this, I really appreciate it.

[shrach]

I used to argue this same point till i was proven cold wrong by myself. Ask yourself this, why is the ever increasing need for PCI-E 16x in SLI there? If its not needed then they shouldnt have to have it. Same goes for PCI-E 2.0. Ask yourself that. There IS a difference between putting my friends 7800GS in a 4x slot and an 8x slot. Ive seen it myself, and having working on AGP systems for the longest time before switching over, i have quite the experience with it and dealing with arguments such as the such.


Well, I explain with reasons why it isn't important and give you various sites where you can read articles on the subject. You base it on your opinion :p

There is no ever increasing push for PCI-E bus speeds atm. In fact, if you look at SLI boards, most can't even run two cards at 16x because the bandwidth is shared. Like I said, consider the fact that if the PCI-E were relevant for performance, cards wouldn't be loaded up with ram that is 10 times as fast. It's future proofing and cad related, not gaming. It's a buzz. Show me some 3dmarks of two systems running this 7800 in both 8x and 4x agp mode. I can't do it with my card, because futuremark won't let me publish due to the fact they think my card doesn't even exist.



I then ran 3Dmark05:

Link in case the picture above doesn't show.
I guess this means my CPU/Motherboard are screwed? Or would that be just the Motherboard, or just the CPU?

/sigh. Well to be fair, I have pretty much hammered the lifetime out of the machine as it's probably seen more uptime than downtime over the last five or six years.


Actually, your cpu score is better than I was expecting, nothing wrong there.

You should be getting about double that performance in the GAMES 3dmark and it's got nothing to do with your card being in 4x agp.

Could you click on systems:details in 3dmark05 and let me know everything it says in there? Save the xml file somewhere and upload maybe?

There's definitely something wrong and hopefully it will be apparent in there.

[Moph]

Sure, here it is:
http://www.wikiupload.com/comment.php?id=158694

Also, another symptom if it helps. Although I think this is down to the driver installed, as the other ones didn't do this, is that when the computer first loads up and logs into windows, the screen flicks black for a second or two as if it's trying to load some graphical library or something. I can also force this as it flicks black for a second when I click the right mouse button on the desktop to make a quick menu appear. Once it has loaded up and got a few black screens out of it's system, it's fine for the rest of the time it's on.

[shrach]

Sure, here it is:
http://www.wikiupload.com/comment.php?id=158694

Also, another symptom if it helps. Although I think this is down to the driver installed, as the other ones didn't do this, is that when the computer first loads up and logs into windows, the screen flicks black for a second or two as if it's trying to load some graphical library or something. I can also force this as it flicks black for a second when I click the right mouse button on the desktop to make a quick menu appear. Once it has loaded up and got a few black screens out of it's system, it's fine for the rest of the time it's on.

Unlikely, but are you using a CRT monitor by any chance?

The file doesn't work, maybe zip it up first. I don't think it liked the file being xml messed with their own file system.

[Moph]

Nope, I'm using a Samsung 23" HD Ready Widescreen LCD TV.

Alright, zipped and uploaded again. Had a quick look around for other sites, let me know if you need somewhere else.

http://www.wikiupload.com/download_page.php?id=158704

I tried downloading the file, and when it asks for the 4 character code, it seems you have to click the 'get' rather than press enter.

[Moph]

Perhaps a better link:
http://www.badongo.com/file/3406856

[shrach]

Perhaps a better link:
http://www.badongo.com/file/3406856

No, I guess it's a problem my end. I can't open any of these xml files. Even if I save one I generate from 3dmark myself, I can't then open it with IE/Firefox:

"Cannot view XML input using XSL style sheet. Please correct the error and then click the Refresh button, or try again later."

Don't suppose you have a PDF printer thing, so you could, "print" the output to pdf and upload that? I have to sleep now, I'll read through the source of the file tomorrow if not, since the information is in there, just very difficult to read in plain text.

[westy87]

ahh the style sheet file should be in the folder with the xml files. In the case of my msn history files the xsl file looks the exact same as the xml file but it has a litle yellow cog overlaid on bottom left corner of the file (viewable under icons mode)

[PP Mguire]

Well, I explain with reasons why it isn't important and give you various sites where you can read articles on the subject. You base it on your opinionTrust me ive read the sites before and do not believe them.
There is no ever increasing push for PCI-E bus speeds atm. In fact, if you look at SLI boards, most can't even run two cards at 16x because the bandwidth is shared.Yea, MOST cant run in 16x SLI, and MOST ppl that are enthusiasts are complaining, but this isnt here nor there. Lets not try and hijack the poor guys thread shall we? ;)

Actually, your cpu score is better than I was expecting, nothing wrong there.

You should be getting about double that performance in the GAMES 3dmark and it's got nothing to do with your card being in 4x agp.This is true, you should be getting a WHOLE lot more performance. Have you tried installing XP on a fresh seperate drive and isntalling drivers that way to see if its the card itself? Have you tried removing the SB like i suggested?

[shrach]

Trust me ive read the sites before and do not believe them.


If you don't believe that a card's internal bandwidth is at least 10x that of the motherboard bus, we are done :p

ahh the style sheet file should be in the folder with the xml files. In the case of my msn history files the xsl file looks the exact same as the xml file but it has a litle yellow cog overlaid on bottom left corner of the file (viewable under icons mode)

Yeah this worked, thanks.

Unfortunately the only thing I see in there is that some of the numbers look "odd".

Total Local Video Memory 508 MB
Total Local Texture Memory 508 MB
AGP Aperture Size 302 MB
------------------------------------
Aperture Size 64 MB


I would have expected to see the two aperture sizes be the same. 256mb? What is it set to in the motherboard bios?

And Total local video memory to be 512mb and texture memory to have been somewhat lower, maybe around 496mb? I'm just going to assume that is something to do with vista though, maybe it's just hiding 4mb which is used for the 2d desktop? I don't know.

I don't think I can help I'm afraid. Trying XP or the card in another machine are the only suggestions and they're ones you don't want to hear :(

[PP Mguire]

If you don't believe that a card's internal bandwidth is at least 10x that of the motherboard bus, we are done I never said that, and that was never the argument. The argument was the cards using the bandwidth of the slot, which eventualy they do. PCI-E is using 8x now which is 8xAGP pretty much. Done.

[shrach]

I never said that, and that was never the argument. The argument was the cards using the bandwidth of the slot, which eventualy they do. PCI-E is using 8x now which is 8xAGP pretty much. Done.

Not in games, they don't because it would hamper their performance to a crawl. Think about it: Normal games performance playing a game from ram on the card switching to texturing across the bus would absolutely hammer performance.

It's the same reason a slow harddrive doesn't really affect gaming performance. Textures aren't passed over the SATA cable in real time, just as they aren't passed over the PCIE bus in real time. Games have loading screens for a reason and cards are loaded with more and more ram because they don't want to use the PCIE bus in real time, which you apparently now admit would absolutely kill the performance of any modern card, but you still think it happens? An XFX 8800 GTX 768MB DDR3 has bandwidth of 86.4g/sec compared to what 4g/sec one way for 16x PCIE. What would be the point of having this ram on the card, if it's going to be bottleknecked by the PCIE bus?

The obvious exception is where something does need to be transferred across the bus, which might be if you are designing/editing and working with large uncompressed textures, or for some reason an asset is not on the card.

Games are made with a texture settings which is pretty much related to the ram on the card.

Sorry Moph, uh, at least we're keeping your thread near the top ;)

[PP Mguire]

Dude, you have absolutely no idea what im talking about at all. Im not talking about RAM on the card, nor am i talking about textures. Dropped subject, and lets leave a thread non-hijacked.

[Moph]

Sorry Moph, uh, at least we're keeping your thread near the top ;)

Heh, don't worry about it.. it's all learning for me.

Anyway, I didnt have much time last night to fiddle about, but I've got kinda fed up and have ordered a new motherboard with 8x AGP, obviously compatible with my current processor chipset and RAM.
And hey.. what's the point of having a card like this if you don't have a decent motherboard to run it on, even if we do sort this out.
...I still don't get why there was no performance increase from the Radeon, maybe I'll put that back in tonight and run the 3Dmark05 again.

My BIOS really doesn't have many options which I can change, neither does it give me all that much information, but I will look at it again tonight as I am in work at the moment.

The support ticket I've opened on the XFX site has basically told me that I have a bottleneck using 4x, and that's that.

When I receive the new board through, I'll re-install Vista, ignore my Sound Blaster totally until the card is in and set up and checked.


Also, I have an old XP restore disk which I first got with the eMachines, however this gave me problems when I last tried to install off it, perhaps due to upgraded hardware or whatever, but I will give it a try again. I just hope that it won't look at the BIOS to check whether it can be used on that system.. i.e. it's an HP Bios now, not an eMachines?

____________________________________________


I always assumed that the Frames per Second in game were governed only by the graphics card?
I thought that it stored the physical information about the 3D world to let the processor deal with all the scripting in it and telling it where to move what. And as such, if the card stores the visible layout of the current map, then it can only be the card which handles the display and no other components are in between. What about the animation of models? Are these stored in the card also or streamed from the processor?
This is probably why I don't understand how the frames per second can be limited by the motherboard/processor. i.e. the frames should only be managed via the graphics card.

Also, thinking about it, isn't it the graphics card which handles the extra surface shader processing? Like transparencies etc.
Is the processor involved in any of this calculation too?

[shrach]

The support ticket I've opened on the XFX site has basically told me that I have a bottleneck using 4x, and that's that.


The problem with the first point is if you take each item in turn:

Your cpu score is actually higher than mine. Your graphics card is faster than mine (I'm using a 7900GS). We're both using 4x AGP and yet my 3dmark is nearly double yours? So how can 4x AGP be the problem with your system? It can't. I'm on XP though, so all else excluded it would be a decent hunch to assume something wrong with vista. I have another pc here, with a different motherboard in it that will handle 8x agp and if I wasn't treading water anyway, I'd switch the card over and prove it.

Obviously no two computers are alike, but I'm getting bored of explaining why AGP 4x is not bottlenecking you :p



I always assumed that the Frames per Second in game were governed only by the graphics card?
I thought that it stored the physical information about the 3D world to let the processor deal with all the scripting in it and telling it where to move what. And as such, if the card stores the visible layout of the current map, then it can only be the card which handles the display and no other components are in between. What about the animation of models? Are these stored in the card also or streamed from the processor?
This is probably why I don't understand how the frames per second can be limited by the motherboard/processor. i.e. the frames should only be managed via the graphics card.

Also, thinking about it, isn't it the graphics card which handles the extra surface shader processing? Like transparencies etc.
Is the processor involved in any of this calculation too?

Well, the cpu will handle a lot of things. In an actual game, your cpu will have to handle the AI of enemies, physics, probably sound shaders and be feeding the gpu with data needed to go ahead and render the scenes.

This is why some games are said to be cpu limited. If there is lots of AI and physics going on, the cpu becomes the limiting factor working all this out and while the gpu might be capable of rendering at say 60fps it's not getting information fast enough from the cpu so it is stuck at say 30fps.

In the real world there is going to be thousands upon thousands of tiny incidents like this that work both ways, which is why you will get a performance upgrade for upgrading either cpu or gpu but when one of the two outstrips the other the gains can be limited. Eg: if you are cpu limited there would be little or no performance hit by upping resolution from say 800x600 to 1280x1024, since the cpu is still doing the same job but the excess gpu power that was wasted before can now be put to use.

[Moph]

I have to say, the FPS difference between 800x600 and 1280x768 in game do actually stay more or less the same. This would suggest that there is nothing wrong with the card, and that the problem lies elsewhere. And since you've shown that the CPU is doing well, and we both run on the same speed anyway.. I also can only conclude that there is either something wrong with the drivers as we have slightly different models, or Windows Vista itself. (..or the Sound Blaster which I will test when the motherboard comes through.)
Now, how many different versions of graphics cards, and therefore drivers have nVidia released over the years? and how many different Operating Systems have Microsoft released too? I might be wrong, but i'm going to go with the graphics card manufacturer at having the most experience. Also since an OS is much larger and more complex (and released with huge gaps between) I'm going to have to assume that it's far more likely there's a problem with the OS. ...although I could be wrong.
Oh.. add to that all the other problems with drivers I've had recently.

Yeah.. I'll see if I can get that restore disc to co-operate and put XP back on for the time being. Hey.. maybe Vista only needs a re-install to reset itself since I do know of people who've had similar systems and they've had higher FPS in Vista.

[shrach]

I have to say, the FPS difference between 800x600 and 1280x768 in game do actually stay more or less the same. This would suggest that there is nothing wrong with the card, and that the problem lies elsewhere. And since you've shown that the CPU is doing well, and we both run on the same speed anyway.. I also can only conclude that there is either something wrong with the drivers as we have slightly different models, or Windows Vista itself.


Seems likely that it is probably vista related but, vista is still somewhat like a mystical untamed beast, so who knows. That res change is pretty expected also though, since new cards are made with the purpose of playing at 1280x1024 and above. Very rarely will you get performance boost at lower resolutions, unless you have all the graphical bells and whistles turned on and even then maybe not. There is something else you could try, if you have doom3 or quake4 you could try a benchmark in those (They use opengl vs directx for 3d accel and perhaps would be unaffected). There's other opengl options, but those are the best ;)


(..or the Sound Blaster which I will test when the motherboard comes through.)


While some sort of conflict is possible, there's no sound in those 3dmarks and you could test this by disabling the soundcard altogether. Seems unlikely.


Now, how many different versions of graphics cards, and therefore drivers have nVidia released over the years? and how many different Operating Systems have Microsoft released too? I might be wrong, but i'm going to go with the graphics card manufacturer at having the most experience. Also since an OS is much larger and more complex (and released with huge gaps between) I'm going to have to assume that it's far more likely there's a problem with the OS. ...although I could be wrong.
Oh.. add to that all the other problems with drivers I've had recently.


The thing is, MS release a standard like directx and the graphics card manufacturers release their drivers to tell the cards how to talk to it. While directx (for the most part) is pretty static, drivers are changed all the time. My pet peeve is how Nvidia screwed up tv/crt dual monitor operations and they've done other things like removing flat panel scaling and colour profiles that don't stick and in the case of some of these issues never fixed them. Since you tried a couple driver versions, they're not all going to have some sort of half-performance bug...are they? Maybe.



Yeah.. I'll see if I can get that restore disc to co-operate and put XP back on for the time being. Hey.. maybe Vista only needs a re-install to reset itself since I do know of people who've had similar systems and they've had higher FPS in Vista.

As annoying as it is, this does seem to be required for a control experiment.

[Moph]

Okay.
I just installed my new power supply, no difference in performance as expected, but it should stop the occasional crash and potential risk etc. It needed to be upgraded anyway.
That rules the power supply out.
I attempted to re-install XP from the restore disc I originally had with this PC, however I was getting the same error as before: "Single user use only, cannot do multiple loads". I have only ever used this disc on this machine although I have re-installed multiple times and changed hardware so this could've caused that problem. This is also the reason why I forced into buying a new operating system: Vista, as XP was no longer in stock and wasn't available.

So, I thought what the hell, let's put the new motherboard in and freshly install Vista. It turns out the company I bought the board from sent me the wrong motherboard, so that's bashed that plan on the head for the moment.

I'm now typing this from a fresh install of Vista on the old motherboard before I download the drivers and try out the card. I've left the Sound Blaster out for the moment.


So I guess we're left with the same three options where the problem is:

Motherboard, Vista or Drivers.


1. My motherboard is below par for the card.
2. High FPS are certainly possible on Vista as I know of similar set-ups which perform well, so why is it having problems with this card? Has Vista been produced with only PCI-E's in mind, and AGP are just a minor after-thought?
3. The drivers aren't complete yet.


Will update the thread with more information when there are developments.. like the right motherboard being delivered.



I agree, XP would be the best and probably ultimate test to figure out where the fault is here.

[Moph]

Just incase you're interested, here's a 3Dmark05 for the fresh install of Vista, and the new power supply.
http://img479.imageshack.us/img479/3079/3dmark05mk2py3.jpg
Link here (http://img479.imageshack.us/img479/3079/3dmark05mk2py3.jpg) if the above picture doesn't show.

[shrach]

Just incase you're interested, here's a 3Dmark05 for the fresh install of Vista, and the new power supply.
http://img479.imageshack.us/img479/3079/3dmark05mk2py3.jpg
Link here (http://img479.imageshack.us/img479/3079/3dmark05mk2py3.jpg) if the above picture doesn't show.

This test is with all the defaults options right? 1024x768 is default res for 3dmark05.

The odd thing to me is that the tests become less cpu intensive 1 through 3. So for example on test 1 I get 23fps with my 7900gs and 21fps on my 6800gt before it died. Test three it is 37fps vs 26fps. Which should roughly demonstrate I am cpu bound on the first test, where as the third test can take advantage of the extra gpu power.

With that in mind, my worse cpu (3040 cpu score) and a 6800gt outscores, your much better cpu (3600 score) and a 7950, on test 1 that SHOULD be cpu limited and we know your cpu is running 3dmark better than mine.

[Moph]

Yup, all defaults apart from enabling all the tests instead of just the first ones.
So.. this just proves that the problem isn't with the CPU, but is with the link between them (motherboard), the drivers, the card or Vista right?

New motherboard on the way which will let the 8x work.
Will test it once it's in and report back the test results again.

The odd crashes have stopped since the power supply has upgraded.

[PP Mguire]

My best guess is that if you install XP it should work fine. He has a point on the Sound Blaster which i didnt think of. 3dmark dosent even use the sound card unless your doing the demo. I have noticed that my card dosent perform nearly as well in Vista as it does in XP. Halo2 is kinda iffy and GRAW is my major test. I get about -10fps in Vista compared to XP. Id be willing to bet that since Vista is pro-future hardware that it dosent know what to do with your AGP bus. Just a guess. Either that, or if you think about it, i dont believe there are any Vista AGP drivers around. That could be a problem too. The best thing to do now is try XP on a seperate HD and see what it does.

[shrach]

Either that, or if you think about it, i dont believe there are any Vista AGP drivers around. That could be a problem too. The best thing to do now is try XP on a seperate HD and see what it does.

If it was a via chipset motherboard I'd be thinking that too, but it's intel and I just can't imagine vista/intel combo could be that screwed up. It really just seems to be some random problem that is frustrating because it doesn't really make any sense at all. No offence to xfx technical support, but it's like the nightmare ticket to receive and no wonder they had no real ideas.

A random idea I had was that the cpu was speedstepping. The cpu tests are fine, the cpu is speeding up, but for some reason it isn't speeding up in gpu intensive applications. This, of course, makes no sense since his cpu doesn't support speedstepping. So, I wonder if vista does something along these lines for some reason because of some sort of obscure hardware reason and...yeah I don't know.

Perhaps you could check your windows xp licence. If it's OEM, you are probably out of luck, but if it's a full licence, you might be entitled to get another xp cd from Microsoft OR it might (PROBABLY NOT) be legal to download a windows xp cd and use your original legitimate cd key...something to do with you owning the licence itself and not the cd it comes on.

[PP Mguire]

If it was a via chipset motherboard I'd be thinking that too, but it's intel and I just can't imagine vista/intel combo could be that screwed up. It really just seems to be some random problem that is frustrating because it doesn't really make any sense at all. No offence to xfx technical support, but it's like the nightmare ticket to receive and no wonder they had no real ideas.It dosent matter what motherboard or chipset it is. If it has AGP then AGP drivers are installed. (even on my older nF3 Ultra board with AGP which had S939). The nVidia driver installer installed an AGP driver along with the usual IDE and SATA drivers, SM bus ect. I havent seen anything like that for Vista. And with previous experience i had one HELL of a drop in performance without those drivers in ANY OS.

[shrach]

It dosent matter what motherboard or chipset it is. If it has AGP then AGP drivers are installed. (even on my older nF3 Ultra board with AGP which had S939). The nVidia driver installer installed an AGP driver along with the usual IDE and SATA drivers, SM bus ect. I havent seen anything like that for Vista. And with previous experience i had one HELL of a drop in performance without those drivers in ANY OS.

I guess you don't remember the huge problems some VIA chipset motherboards had with AGP drivers. First hit in yahoo I came up with (win2k):

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/261606

These VIA "4in1" drivers, were the source/resolution of many problems, where as intel chipset motherboards have pretty much always worked without hitch from a fresh windows install, which I would hope/imagine has carried over into Vista.

[PP Mguire]

Nope i really doubt it now. Im almost certain its a driver issue with Windows Vista. Take a look at the nice little review one of our Bjorn3d Staff made of the AGP 7950GT. Its apparently fine and dandy on XP :)

[Moph]

"Nope i really doubt it now. Im almost certain its a driver issue with Windows Vista. Take a look at the nice little review one of our Bjorn3d Staff made of the AGP 7950GT. Its apparently fine and dandy on XP"

I think we're all pretty certain that the problem lies with Vista, but there's no harm in detailing it even more.

Yup, just a quick note to confirm this even more:
The new motherboard is in, and fulfils all the specs for the card, 8x AGP, 800FSB etc, and still no performance increase as regards FPS, although I must say it does feel slightly smoother especially when rotating the view in the 3D environment.
I haven't re-installed Vista yet with this motherboard, installed it's drivers or run the 3Dmark yet, but the board is only freshly in, so will do this soon and post the results even though I doubt they will tell us much more other than being able to properly eliminate the motherboard from the issue.
(I am also on holiday next week, so won't be able to reply for some time.. don't hijack the thread and get it locked while I'm gone guys! :P)

On a side note, I've tried searching for this problem on google (AGP Vista FPS problems) to see if I can gather more info, and it seems this thread is one of the top hits. It would be nice if we could get a resolution for people coming here with similar problems and indeed if they could post here too to show that it isn't just a couple of people with this problem!


So far, my support ticket with XFX has said that my problem was due to having a 4x AGP motherboard instead of a 8x AGP motherboard.
I have now upgraded this to what the graphics card needs, however there is still no improvement. The ticket is with the XFX technicians to reply so hopefully they can shed some brighter light here too.

[PP Mguire]

Well weve obviously argued that outa oblivion, it is deff not the board. Its almost 100% garunteed that its Vista and pretty much no AGP support at all. Also, its always best to reinstall the OS and drivers after a major hardware update. (Mobo or vid card) Ive noticed you get the best performance results that way. But if your gonna go through that trouble just install XP.

[Moph]

Well, I would, but I don't have a copy of XP. My XP restore disc for the eMachines throws up a message "For single user use only, not for multiple loads", and XP isn't available to buy in the shops... and I think it might be a waste of money to buy it anyway since it would be obsolete once Microsoft sort out the Vista problems.

[shrach]

So far, my support ticket with XFX has said that my problem was due to having a 4x AGP motherboard instead of a 8x AGP motherboard.
I have now upgraded this to what the graphics card needs, however there is still no improvement. The ticket is with the XFX technicians to reply so hopefully they can shed some brighter light here too.

Yeah, see that's the problem they make for themself when they tell you that 4x was the problem. Presumably they hoped you would accept it and that you wouldn't buy a new motherboard.

Its almost 100% garunteed that its Vista and pretty much no AGP support at all.

I have trouble believing Vista has no agp support. A summary search finds people with ATI 1950pro agp cards having no performance problems in Vista for example.

I'm sure XFX support will come up with the answer :)

[Kougar]

Vista works just fine on AGP cards... I first ran Vista on my 9600XT with Areo Glass and everything, so that is not the issue. :)

[PP Mguire]

I never said that they wouldnt WORK on Vista. But the thing is how well? Im still saying its a driver issue whether with the card and Vista, or the board and Vista. Either way still a problem and i think XP would be the ultimate fix here. BTW Moph did you get your PM?

[Moph]

I have the PM. Thanks!

Update:
Back from holiday, all the hardware is in and up to date, compatible and within the 7950GT's requirements.
Will be re-installing Vista once again on the weekend as the current install was put on with the old motherboard.

[Moph]

Alright, just another update:
I've installed a fresh install of Vista on the system with minimum things installed etc. etc..
But the difference with this install is that it has been done all the appropriate hardware, (the last one was installed on the previous motherboard, and the the hardware changed).
So.. This is probably the 'final' or most possibly up to date the install of Vista could possibly be.

And yes, you've guessed it!
No change.
3Dmark05 score is still just below 4000 when I hear it should be just under 8000.

Problem still not solved. XFX tech support can't seem to diagnose the problem either.
Oh, they have also said that the card does perform properly on their Vista machines.

[xfxsupport]

I am out of the office today, but on Monday I will get a 7950GT AGP card and a similar system to yours to determine the proper 3DMark Scores.


XFX Support

[Moph]

Ahh, that'll be great! Thank you very much.

[Moph]

Any news on how the tests are going?

Oh.. also when trying to install the latest drivers, i'm getting this error.
Let's take it one step at a time and solve this part first:

http://img236.imageshack.us/img236/5723/oops2vg1.jpg

I thought I was trying to install the drivers.. but this thing can't seem to find itself. Very odd.

[xfxsupport]

It appears you using Vista still so try the 101.41 driver from www.xfxforce.com as the WHQL does not have support for the 7950GT yet. I would suggest we get away from 3DMark05 as this is a rather older bench mark. How does the 3DMark06 look on your system, or maybe a game of some sort? Also let me know the ticket number and I can see about arranging it so you send the video card in for testing to determin if it is causing any problems at all or not.

[PP Mguire]

Internets to slow to load PM page but Moph, i keep getting my "letter" back dude. I dont think they like the contents. Sorry :(

[Moph]

Ahh crap, that's a pain in the arse.. oh well, xfx support are working on getting the card to what it should be, hopefully :P

And If you'd be willing to send it another way, I'd gladly pay the postage and packaging!

[xfxsupport]

How did testing another application besides 3DMark05 go? Also did you make a ticket at www.xfxforce.com yet?

[JohnZS]

For what it is worth, on XP (32bit) all settings set to Default on the following system.

Pentium 4 3.4 w/HT
2GM RAM
7950GT AGP 512MB
ASUS P4P800-SE
Audigy 2ZS

I get 7212 3dmark05 points
and 4276 3dmark06 points

N/B 3dmark06 defaults to 1280*1024 whereas 3dmark05 defaults to 1024*768

There is a rumour (and this is only a rumour) that a bug in the AGP440.sys means that 32Bit OSes have problems mapping the memory on 512MB cards if an AGP aperture size of 64MB or greater is used, I have yet to know whether there is any truth to this as my appature is set to 256MB but if anyone out there knows if there is any truth to this it might explain the issue of some people having poor performance and not being able to do anything about it as their system for whatever reason triggers this "bug".

John

[PP Mguire]

I dont have a problem with 512mb cards, and i know LOADS of people using the 640 and up 8800 cards. Hey John, do 3dmark06 on 1024x768 and tell me what you get. Becasue that seems about right actualy.

[Moph]

Alright, i'm still using the 101.41 version of the drivers as these are the only ones which have ever worked on my system.

I'm a bit swamped at work at the moment, but will try to give the 3dmark06 a go tonight.
As for other applications, I generally play World of Warcraft (I hope that doesn't knock my credibility here! /grin), and my FPS is around 20 maximum. This is just the same performance as my old Radeon 9550 used to produce (which was only very slightly better than the original geforce4 mx 440).
Also, If I run the pandora.com radio station in the background, my FPS drop by about 25% for some reason, I thought this should only affect the latency, but I guess the flash graphics on the page hold some memory aside?

My ticket number at XFX support is 95400, they have just suggested to me to try and install the 162.18 drivers...

[KushInatoR]

Interestingly enough, I just reformatted my computer and "downgraded" to XP from Vista. I installed the 94.24 drivers from XFX and I've been running Lost Planet and Oblivion last night. I was amazed to see that my fps went up around 9-15. Definitely a plus and the reason why I am now sticking with XP. :)

[PP Mguire]

Whats your system?

[KushInatoR]

Not sure if you were asking me or the other guy, PPM, but I'll list my specs anyways, lol.

Intel Pentium 4 2.8 Ghz with HT
2GB DDR Ram
XFX 7950GT AGP
Windows XP SP2

[PP Mguire]

Yea i was asking you. Not a bad system actualy. Have you posted your 3dmark 06 score so we can compare?

[Moph]

Just a quick update:

XFX have just released an updated driver version of 162.18XFX which specifically has support for the nVidia 7950GT AGP card. I've installed this and it has improved some aspects in game. I haven't had a chance to benchmark it yet, and haven't run a driver cleaner pre-installing this, but will do all this tonight.
However, the FPS in game does seem to be just as low as before.

Also, Windows XP has recently become available to me again...
This will be installed and tested within the week.

[PP Mguire]

Yae, and to show what kinda performance these 7950 monsters can do, ive almost broken the 6k mark with a 3000+

[Moph]

Driver Cleaner run and 3dmark05, score 3950.

XP here we come!

[PP Mguire]

Yea seriously, for 05 that is REALLY sad and the 6800GT can do better.

[Moph]

Yeah.. I submitted my 3dmark05 score online and they compared it with other similar systems..
For Pentium 4's, my processor is well above average, but as for the cards performance against other systems with this card, it's way way below the average.
I'm hoping XP will shed some light on this.. but.. looking at other people's scores, I get the horrible feeling that even the operating system won't cure such a huge deficit.. anyway.. we'll see when XP is up and running within the week.

Thanks for the replies guys and for keeping the thread up :)

[Moph]

Quick update:
Well, the XP install that I was planning to use didn't work afterall.
But at last some good news, a collegue at work has agreed to test the card in his system which has all the capabilities for the card, AND has Windows XP already installed.
Should have some interesting results about this time tomorrow, fingers crossed.

Side note:
Wow.. I just checked the creation date on my XFX support ticket and it's... the 11th June, that's nearly three months on and the support people still seem to be running me around in circles.
I hope that this test will be the start of the end of this huge and never-ending issue.