duron900/quake 3

Does anyone know if my quake 3 "demo001" score is too low...
when using the "normal" settings, i get about 94 fps (average).
I know that it is more than enough to play the game, but in newer
games it could be more of a problem. I have checked some benchmarks
where they could get and average of 130 fps with the same chipset/processor
(and a slower vid card). how is this possible, even though their
speed should be equal? In some tests, even a duron 600mhz gets
better scores than 94. I know for sure that it's not the video card,
because even in higher resolutions i still get the same score.
I also tried to tweak the bios settings to their fastest.
Do you know what could be causing this, or is it normal?

My system:
Duron 900 (100mhz fsb)
Abit KT7a (Via KT133)
Asus V8420 (GeForce4 Ti 4200 128mb DDR)
256MB 133MHz SDRAM
Windows 98 SE

THere is a setting in the Q3 config that can CAP FPS. Make sure you don't have it set. (I'm sure it can also be set in the console, but I normally use the config.)

phr0Ze
I've been hiding in the shadows @ THG since 97.

AMD 2600/333
A7N8X Deluxe
2x512MB CorsairXMS 3200
Radeon 9700 Pro
320Gig Raid 0
Sony DRU500A
Yamaha CRW-F1

And what the heck do you do with a 320GB hard drive?

<font color=red>The solution may be obvious, but I can't see it for the smoke coming off my processor.</font color=red>

That's what I mean. What are you doing to fill up your hard drive?

<font color=red>The solution may be obvious, but I can't see it for the smoke coming off my processor.</font color=red>

buy a VCR and a TV-out card, its cheaper

^_^

A few notes, most Q3 benchmarks you see are done at 1024x768, 32 bit color, (max detail). They are also done with sound disabled to eliminate sound cards as a variable. To disable sound create a shortcut for Q3 and change the command line. Add the following to the end; +set s_initsound 0. The line should look something like this, c:\q3\quake3.exe +set s_initsound 0.

Just ran a quick test on my nephew's PC, Duron 900, KT133, Geforce 2 GTS.

Demo001 1024x768, max quality

Sound on - 105 FPS
Sound off - 114 FPS

I would think you would be doing better than this.

This might help. Reload drivers, expecially the 4-in-1 drivers. I find with with KT133 and KT133A (and actually old MVP3 mobos) it works best to do a clean install of the 4-in-1's, nVidia Detonators, and DirectX. For the best results it's important to do all three whenever possible. This is possible with Windows 98SE.

To do a clean install of the 4-in-1 drivers run the installer once but select all the deinstall options. Don't reboot when prompted. Run the installer a second time and let the components install. Don't forget to enabable Turbo Mode for the AGP driver. For KT133 I personally like to stick to the slighly old 4.31 drivers since I never had any problems with these but that's just personal preference.

To do a clean install of the Detonators use a utility called Detonator destroyer (Win9x/ME only) which you can get at <A HREF="http://www.guru3d.com" target="_new">www.guru3d.com</A>. Uninstall the drivers first then run the utility which cleans up stray nVidia files. Reboot as prompted and reload the nVidia Detonators.

To do a clean reinstall of DirectX you need another utility called DirectX Eradicator (Win9X/ME/2000 only). Get it <A HREF="http://www1.freewebz.com/firecat/" target="_new">here</A>.

I can't explain why but it's easy to get video problems and performance problems with VIA chipsets. (You could blame VIA if you want). Don't really know but the collection of above drivers do get "broken" as I call it, from time to time. The clean install procedure I described above fixes a lot of the problems (and headaches).

<b>99% is great, unless you are talking about system stability</b><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by phsstpok on 01/27/03 04:27 PM.</EM></FONT></P>