"Nature" Benchmark in 3D Mark 2001?

[Malakai]

If you want another 100 points or so you'll figure out a way to disable it from starting with Windows (*hint: try your options tab in NAV..look for the "Start with Windows" option and disable it)...

tip:

click run and type "msconfig"

than "startup programs"

than uncheck the antivirus software


ill post back to add some other helpful tips after i take a shower

 

[Malakai]

heres a few more 3dmark tips:

the LOD (level of detail) settings in Rivatuner can have a big effect on 3dmark scores.
it scales from +3.0 to -3.0 for OGL and d3d.
the more positive the #, the less detail it has.
the more negative, the higher detail.
draw your own conclusions


and a bug in 3dmark 2k1 (actually noones really sure why this happens):
if u disable the title screen between tests, your score drops from 200-600 points.
the big fps loser when this happens is nature, which alsohappens to be the most important tests.
so u can disable the non-game tests, but never disable the title screens.

umm, in Rivatuner set ansiotropic filtering in d3d and ogl to force level 0 (or 1). this is off, or nearest point. helps scores a bit cause left to the program believe it uses bilinear filtering.

Timings are much more important in 3dmark (as in almost all proggies) than the fsb.
I ALWAYS run the fastest fsb with max timings, at least always have cas, ras, and rtp(or is it ras to cas?) set to 2. in other words 2-2-2.
most of the time if u run 3dmark with a 133fsb max timings and run it again at 166 with slowest timings, the 133 w/fastest wins out decently.
same with 166fsb max and 200fsb slowest.

umm theres more, ill have to think...
everything Takiwa said is good info as well, and changing hte resolution and refresh manually has no effect on my scores either.

 

[takiwa]

the LOD (level of detail) settings in Rivatuner can have a big effect on 3dmark scores.

Under the Power User Tab, in the Detonator\Global Entry, change/make the value to "f". This sets the LOD at -15 to +15

 

[takiwa]

voila!

 

[Malakai]

Under the Power User Tab, in the Detonator\Global Entry, change/make the value to "f". This sets the LOD at -15 to +15

 

[o770]

actually aniso 1 will perform faster than using nearest point. i thought it wouldnt but just recently i tried both and the difference will be noticeable in fact.

by the way.. i was just wondering if there is any kind of contest in the overclockers 3dmark team. do u guys compete for the highest score? whats the point in setting LOD to +15 btw? you wont play games like that.

 

[takiwa]

whats the point in setting LOD to +15 btw? you wont play games like that.

...it's the -15 we're interested in

 

[Malakai]

...it's the -15 we're interested in

shhh!

i dunno if that counts as cheating or not if it runs the score up mad high...

 

[o770]

shhh!

i dunno if that counts as cheating or not if it runs the score up mad high...

it does. 3dmark will detect those things. if you foce anisotropy or LOD and run the tests using the default settings at the end of the benchmark it will say the tests were not run using the default settings.

 

[Malakai]

changing the LOD a little bit is not cheating.

it just depends on whether or not it has a big effect on the scores.

and i dont think it really does that oTTO, ive never heard that before

 

[takiwa]

it does. 3dmark will detect those things. if you foce anisotropy or LOD and run the tests using the default settings at the end of the benchmark it will say the tests were not run using the default settings.

It won't detect driver settings as cheats. If that were the case, you couldn't make ANY changes in driver settings...

On the flip side, I haven't seen much of a difference between -3 and -15 on my runs score-wise. I can tell a slight difference in quality on the screen, but not as big as I imagined it would be...

 

[Malakai]

ok takiwa, thas exactly what i wanted to know. i just dont feel like running the test now.


thanks

 

[o770]

It won't detect driver settings as cheats. If that were the case, you couldn't make ANY changes in driver settings...

On the flip side, I haven't seen much of a difference between -3 and -15 on my runs score-wise. I can tell a slight difference in quality on the screen, but not as big as I imagined it would be...

first of all what version of detonator are you running? there is a bug in the 23.11 (at least the one i know) about the negative lod: it wont work. you need to patch some files of the driver to make it work.
and LOD does affect performance greatly!

if you force anisotropic filter at the driver level 3dmark will detect that and will report the tests as not running with the default settings.

 

[takiwa]

I have never ran a driver lower than 27.**, I always had an ATI before that. I ran the LOD at -15 on the 30.30 drivers a few hours ago, and the tests came back at default settings, so it didn't pick up any driver settings. And I could not see a noticeable difference. Mind you my eyes and yours are different. I wear contacts as it is, and I don't have the greatest vision in the world, so my experience may be different than yours. What I do know, however, is that it returned a score of 9568, which is lower than the 9626 I had previously, with LOD on -3 using the 29.80's...

 

[o770]

takiwa, check this out. the bug was introduced in the version 23.10.

 

[takiwa]

takiwa, check this out. the bug was introduced in the version 23.10.

Maybe the "bug" is in the 3DMark on my machine...I d/l'ed the 330 patch, but other than that it's a standard install...either way, I' run it again in a while and see. I'm switching back to the 29.80's. The 30.30's are too slow...

 

[o770]

you need to extract the files from the regular .exe file with winrar and patch the files before installing the driver. it wont work if you patch the files the system is already running.
you can find the patch in the RT patchscripts. RT will do all the job.