OK, now I'm desperate

[KAWWz0rz]

System Specs (or the specs that matter):
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AMD Athlon 1400 (not XP)
768mb PC133 RAM
GeForce3 ti500
ASUS A7A266 motherboard (ALi)
Windows XP Professional
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ok, about a week ago i was getting really horrible performance. i found out that my AGP Texture Acceleration in DxDiag being unavailable was part of the problem, so i downloaded RivaTuner and enabled it. this allowed my 3dMark2001 scores to go from 5500 to 6800. while this is a large improvement, its still a good 1000-1500 under what it should be. does anybody have ANY idea what i can do to fix this, or what the problem might be?

I have the ali agp drivers installed, as well as dx 8.1 (of course i do, it comes with XP). AGP 4x IS enabled, too

any help will be greatly appreciated

 

[starwrs3]

how is your game performance?

 

[KAWWz0rz]

well, for instance, im getting slow down playing halflife. halflife... a 3 or 4 year old game that was made the run reasonably well on a voodoo2. not even using the highest resolution

 

[cakecake]

That might be the best you can go. SiS chipsets have always been in the back of the line in terms of performance until lately mostly because Via has been really pushing the memory timing/speed feature.

1° of separation between my monopoly and yours. That's business with .NET

 

[KAWWz0rz]

so you think my mobo is whats causing the bad performance?
any suggestions on what i should change to? preferably something at or around 100$ would be nice

 

[nja469]

MSI KT3 Ultra and The Epox 8K3AE are both around the $80 mark, but I saw you have PC133 RAM. These and all boards that offer the best performance possible are going to use DDR.

My suggestion is for you to eBay the board and PC133 RAM and get a new mobo and some good DDR. After the sale, your new purchases should only cost a few extra bucks. I'd recommend a Shuttle AK31A for $67 on newegg, which is a great performing - very stable board and it features the KT266A chipset, which is one of the best performing Athlon chipsets. Personally, I use 256MB of DDR and windows xp pro has never used more than 85% of that and I rip DVD's, MP3's and play intense games like GTA3. To start though, googlegear offers 256MB of good brand-name Micron PC2100 (DDR 266) for $60, shipped fedex 2nd day free! Maybe get two sticks if you for sure will need it.

Any Atlon chipset that supports PC100/133 is old and they perform like total ass. The KT266A chipset with DDR will eliminate any bandwidth problems and will give you a better gaming experience. I personally own a AK31A and it's a beautiful board!

Goodluck at whatever you end up doing )

"Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one"

 

[14Dx]

Before you buy memory online, check your local best buy, cicuit city, office depot, etc. Lately they've been crazy and selling 256DDR (pc2100) for around $30. This is a much better price than anywhere online.