i just dont get it..Slow geforce 4 :(

[touser]

hi all i have a visiontek geforce 4 Ti4600, i bought this card thinking i would see amazing improvements in frame rates over my old card (geforce 2 ultra) however this has not been the case . in flight simulator 2002 i am getting a whopping 13fps,in tribes 2 it never goes above 65fps and sometimes drops to as low as 25fps,in anarchy online i get a whole 32fps in none crowded areas, BUT i get a score in 3dmark2k1SE with everything at default of almost 11k..i just dont understand this! i have looked through every option, vsync is turned off,anti-aliasing is turned off,i have checked and double checked,i even made sure everyhting was turned off with nvmax..does anyone know what could possibly be wrong? or is this just how fast all these really should be? thanks in advance! P.S. this is with the system in my sig.

P.S. here is a link to my 3dmark2k1SE score http://service.madonion.com/compare?2k1=3135730

 

[WeaponX]

Make sure V-Sync in disabled. Get the newest drivers too.

 

[touser]

thanks for the reply WeaponX but as i stated above vsync is turned off i am positive about it, and i am running the 27.70 drivers..these are new..they also gave me the best 3dmark2k1 score of any of them..

 

[TUK101]

Have you gone into safe mode and made sure that the old video card is totally uninstalled? I have had the same problem before with video cards. What was happening is that the games were trying to run on the old video card and drivers and causeing very slow performance. Also make sure that the games that you are trying to play are using the card that you are currently running.

 

[XiveX]

FINALLY!

Thank god I am NOT THE ONLY ONE! I bought the VisionTEk Ti4600 card and installed it in my Dell P3 1ghz, 512MB PC700 RDRAM. The card has a higher maximum framerate, but damn if it doesn't run slow as hell sometimes. It gets very choppy.

I also play Tribes2 and expected to see a huge increase in FPS over my Geforce2 64MB card (dell factory installed). I was INCREDIBLY disappointed when I saw my results. Whenever someone would come near me in Tribes2 my FPS would drop DRAMATICALLY. I mean to like 15-20fps. Now if I was off by myself I could get 80fps or so and thats nice, but this was inconsistent and your are rarely alone in a game like Tribes2. I had tried everything. I tried different drivers, I tried NVMAX, I tried the Geforce Tweak Utility (which I highly recommend as the best Gx tweaker util), coolbits, tweak guides on the net, etc. I tried different drivers, nothing helped! Eventually I got sick of all this and just stuck my Geforce 2 back in. I now get the average 40-60fps in Tribes2, but it is CONSISTENT! It never drops below 40. EVER.

Interestingly enough, with the G4 installed I'd get 7100-7300 points on 3d Mark 2001 SE, but crappy FPS in games like Tribes2 (very inconsistent). However, with the G2/64 back in I get good FPS and its consistent, but only half the score in 3D Mark 2001SE (3300 or so).

Needless to say I am ABSOLUTELY SICK with this card and very angry I bought it. IMHO the problem is one of two things:

1.) A driver issue (Nvidia's drivers aren't stable/optimized for the newer G4 Ti 4600 cards yet)

-- OR --

2.) A CPU Issue, ie my CPU can't send the vid card data as fast as it can process it, thus the choppiness/inconsistent FPS in Tribes2. (This is backed up by the 3D Mark 2001 SE database scores. The higher the CPU, the dramatically higer the total score, even with the same vid cards across the board)

Let me know your thoughts on this....I'm currently building an Althon XP2000+ box with an Abit KR7A-133RAID mobo and 1 gig PC2700 Corsair XMS memory. I'm going to slap the G4 card in there to see if it is in fact ISSUE #2 that is the problem.

Damn I hope I didn't just waste $400

Anyone think it could be just a bad card??? I've seen 3 or 4 other people reporting this same choppy/inconsistent/low FPS with this card....

IDEAS??

XiveX

 

[touser]

well here are my findings..its seems to be a cpu problem but i do not know what..i know this because it does not seem to matter what resolution i am running my games at..in tribes 2 i normally play at 1024x768x32 well for the hell of it i took it down o 600x480x32..at this resolution you would think the fps would rocket way up wouldnt you? WRONG! they didnt budge! they stayed at 65fps they where exactly the same! so i figured ok lets try something else..i set the resolution all the way up to 1600x1200x32! with all settings on the highest they go in tribes 2, guess what! still didnt budge! still 65fps, all this could possibly mean is that the video card has more then enough power and can handle everything i throw at it, but something is happeneing between it and the cpu.. because when i set it to 600x480 it should relieve alot off stress off the video card, yet when i did the fps didnt budge because the cpu still had to do the same amount of work..i just wish i knew what the problem was..but at least i know i am not alone in this

 

[XiveX]

CPU

But I jsut noticed you have a P4 1.7Ghz. That should scream. I'm only running a P3 1Ghz so I thought that would be the problem, but if its happening on your system also, I doubt it is your CPU (could be for me, but how could it be for you?).

Also, I noticed the same things. I could push all settings to the max or lower them dramatically and it would only MINIMALLY effect my FPS in tribes 2 (and as I'm sure you know, max settings in tribes 2 on an older card like my G2/64MB will KILL your FPS). So once again, I'm still not sure whats going on...

I have seen a few other people with this problem through my net scouring like I said, but no one has a solution yet. Its starting to **** me off. I'm contemplating buying a Gainward G4 to test that. Maybe it is just visiontek....ideas???

Xive

 

[touser]

yah i dont know.. what OS are you running.. i am running XP Pro and am wondering if the problem is generic to only XP? i have spent the last 3 days strait troubleshooting this problem but still no luck ..i originally wanted to get a gainward geforce 4 but no one had them ..i am also thinking of returning this card and just waiti9ng to find a gainward if i cannot resolve this problem..

 

[WyrmMaster]

Hmm, i would try a clean format and install.

 

[touser]

did that today it was a complete waste of time..it didnt help at all

 

[XiveX]

yes

I'm running Win2000 Pro (DirectX 8.1, SP-2, Nvidia 28.32). Just did a clean format and reload also. Same result. Thats when I stuck the G2 back in. Found out others having same problems guys. Look here:

http://www.icronticforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=24296

http://discuss.madonion.com/forum/s...dapters&Number=589640&page=&view=&sb=&o=&vc=1

We're not the only ones having these weird Geforce 4 Ti 4600 FPS drops. I've seen several others but I can't find the links again.... sorry

 

[touser]

thanks for those links XiveX i have also posted this quesiton myself on the madonion message boards and the speedguide.net message boards..still no solutions though

 

[touser]

got a reply on the speedguide forum..apparently this guy is having the exact same problems but with the pny geforce 4 ti4400..this is very strange!

 

[XiveX]

NO!!!!!!!!!

Link me please...I'm cross linking this thread here on icrontic.com and maybe if we get enough people with this problem we can find a solution...

LINK?

Also, could it be Tribes 2 ITSELF? Could it be this game just doesn't work right with the G4??

 

[touser]

sure thing check out these 2 i posted em both

http://forums.speedguide.net/showthread.php?s=&postid=638213#post638213

http://discuss.madonion.com/forum/s...1343&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=0&fpart=all

*edit* forgot to answer yer question...
no its not just tribes 2..i am getting the same type of performance in all my games.. tribes 2,flight simulator 2002,ghost recon, anarchy online and MOHAA to mention a few..

 

[XiveX]

VGS!

VGS! Shazbot!

 

[#18]

.

maybe the max fps in your game was set to that 65fps. So the number won't go higher than that. I mean you can set the max fps higher. I don't know about the games you talk about, but for example in counter-strike, the default max fps is set to 72, so no matter what video card you use, the max fps will always be 72. And only after you change the "max fps" to unlimited in a file, then the fps number will be 99 max.

Maybe the same thing to your game, go ask some expert in those games about this.

 

[Muscular Beaver]

no, that smart are the ppl here I think. ive tried it my self anyway. max fps in half life will get me to the max of 99 fps all the time until it gets a bit more crowded or blood textures are all over the floor. then it will drop down to 5 fps in bad cases. and you know that half-life is 4 years old. as I said in other threads before, with my radeon 8500 I had before I had no problems at all.
maybe its only NT-OS related? also its not just one or 2 manufacturerers. I have an leadtek Ti4600 and as you can read, I have the same problems as you guys. Im pretty mad about it. thought I would give nvidia a try for the first time and got a kick in the *** from them.... im very disappointed. also in tribes2 my FPS will fall if I turn the resolution up. I get about 50 to 100 fps with max details and 2x FSAA at 800x600. with 1024x768 I get about 40 to 80 and at 1280x1024 it gets more stable at about 30 to 50 fps. this is all when I hang around at one of the bases in katabatic. I think it will get even slower when there is heavy offense and mortar fire etc. when I turn off FSAA it gets 5 fps faster at best.

I also dont think its hardware related, since we all got pretty different hardware. I for my part have a VIA chipset KR7A mainboard with 768MB PC2400 Corsair RAM and a thunderbird 1.4 at 1.6ghz running w2k.

 

[Muscular Beaver]

maybe we cant get the attention of some hardware site and it will do some tests for us and maybe get then the attention of nvidia. maybe its a serious driver or geforce4 flaw...

 

[touser]

maybe we cant get the attention of some hardware site and it will do some tests for us and maybe get then the attention of nvidia. maybe its a serious driver or geforce4 flaw...

right now i'm thinking it must be a driver flaw..but for that to be true that would mean that every nvidia driver out there right now is flawed for use with the geforce 4..which i find hard to believe whatever it is, it is not just generic to one person, and since already a few people have come up with the same problem on this message board and the others that i posted in, that means there must be many many more out there who also have this same problem.