GeForce3 - Default settings faster than OC?¿

[mangosta]

Hi everyone, greetings from Mexico :D

I'm a little bit confused and perhaps you can help me clear this issue.

I´ve recently upgraded my whole computer rig and got an MSI GeForce3 3D Card.

I've always favored overclocking stuff, so after installing my card, I immediately got the Geforce Tweak Utility. I was able to overclock my card to 250 Mhz core, 540 Mhz DDRAM without any stability problem. I got a 3DMark2001 score of about 5500.

So, last week I had to nuke Windows and restore it. After installing the latest detonator drivers I ran the benchmark (without overclocking). I was stunned to receive a 6800 score!! I immediately attempted overclocking and to my surprise, I received noticeably lower results than with the default settings. :eh?:

The OCed tests of the Nature demo gave me about 31 frames per second, while the default settings give me 38.4 frames per second, at the same quality levels.

I was puzzled, so I uninstalled and reinstalled several times my drivers and I found out that simply running the GeForce Tweak Utility (without adjusting ANYTHING), noticieably dropped my cards performance by a whole lot. To restore speed I had to remove and reinstall the Detonator drivers. :eek:

What´s going on??? Is this the normal behavior of an Overclocked GeForce3 card? Can I do something that avoids that performance drop??

Thanx a lot!!!!

Enjoy!!!

Mongoose

Here´s my rig
Athlon XP+ 1600Mhz (no overclock yet till I get better cooler)
DFI AD70 SR Motherboard
512 MB PC2100 DDR
6 GB Maxtor HD (5400 rpm)
60 GB Maxtor HD (5400 rpm)
MSI GeForce3
Soundblaster Audigy

[Placid]

Did you check your irq sharing since reinstalling windows?
Try a different overclocking method, maybe coolbits.

[-Exi|e-]

Welcome to the forums!

First off, by installing the tweaker, it probably tweaked your card without you knowing. Like enabling v-sync or anisotropic filtering. These can and will lower your score by quite a bit. Look for these and turn them off. If the tweaker as a "Fastest" setting, try it, you'll probably see an increase in 3dmark2k1.

[mangosta]

:eek: 7470 3dMarks!!! (Speedy Gonzalez - yepa yepa yandale yeeeeehhaaa) :D

Thanks Exile and Placid!!

You were absolutely right. Just clicked on Fastest settings and got it running peachy. When I reinstalled XP, I disabled ACPI and got no IRQ conflicts, so probably that would explain the speed increase, don't you think Placid (well I didn't know if I had conflicts since everything was crammed under IRQ 9, but I read that´s normal under ACPI mode, isn´t it??)

I'm feeling very thankfull and excited!
Wish I could just invite you for some cold Corona beers and some Tequila shots as a reward.

:beer:
Salud!! (cheers)

[-Exi|e-]

Wish I could just invite you for some cold Corona beers and some Tequila shots as a reward.



Hmmmmm beer.....