Radeon 8500 Defies Logic!!!

[CowMan]

OK, I posted a problem I was having with my Direct3D performance a while ago, but I never did enough research before I did so. Aparently the Catalyst drivers have a problem running 32-bit D3D when the desktop is set to 32 bit as well. So I changed my desktop resolution to 16 bit, and guess what? NO IMPROVEMENT WHATSOEVER.
The weirdest thing is the benchmark scores I get with 3DMark 2k1SE. After about an hour of benchmarking here's the results I found, tell me if this doesn't seem a little weird:
800x600 16-bit 10992 marks
1024x768 16-bit 8279 marks
1280x768 16-bit 8560 marks

Think it's a little weird that a higher resolution would get a better score? You aint seen nothing yet:

800x600 32-bit 9923 marks
1024x768 32-bit 4577 marks
1280x768 32-bit 7566 marks

Ok, what the #&%!ing hell!? I'm running a Radeon 8500LE 128 which has never given me problems like this before (aside from being recognized as a YPbPr screen, but that's another post). I even used to get a score of 10236 in the same freaking resolution. I really can't explain it, and I can't even update my drivers because I'll need another monitor to get it to work (see this post http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=373916#373916 Phrase&Searchpage=0&Limit=25&Old=1month&Main=516588 )
Any ideas would be incredibly helpful.

 

[Crashman]

The scores are weighted based on factors such as resolution, hence the funky scores.

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[CowMan]

I understand that the resolution would affect the performance, but it doesn't make any sense that the score would drop so substantially from 800x600 to 1024x768, then RISE BY 3000 POINTS in 1280x768. 1024 is the only resolution I run my games in because it's the only decent resolution my monitor can display at 85hz. I don't know what's changed since I got a 10,000+ benchmark in 1024x768x32, I'm running the same drivers that I did back then. Something is seriously screwed up.

 

[phial]

you must have had something running in the background that was using system resources while teh 1024 test was running





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[CowMan]

No, nothing was running in the backgrond. I've run this test dozens of times now and without any other programs running, 1024x768 ALWAYS performs badly. It boggle this mind that a higher resolution would give almost double the performance.