First post, by Con 2 botones
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Hello!
I have recently received a DFI CA64-TC, revision C (based on Via Apollo Pro 133A) motherboard to test.
Award Bios is dated 2002.
I don´t own a 1.4Ghz Tualatin, but I do own a 1.4Ghz "Tualaron" which is recognized by the board without trouble.
Also, 2 x256MB Infineon PC133 CL2 Ram modules are installed.
HDD is a 80GB S-ATA , connected to the board thanks to a S-ATA to IDE adapter.
2 graphic cards were tried: Nvidia 4200ti & Radeon9000Pro
3 sound devices were tried: Onboard, ISA Creative Vibra16 and PCI Creative Sound Blaster Live 4670
Installed OS is W98Se + Sp3.
Intalled Chipset drivers are Hyperion 4in1 4.43
Nvidia video drivers are Detonator 45.23
Ati video drivers are Catalyst 6.2
When everything was finally setup I started trying some games: Quake III, Max Payne, Serious Sam and Return to Castle Wolfenstein, all of them work fine with both video cards and all sound devices (1024x768, medium and high presets).
The problem comes when I try Alien Vs Predator 2. Unless one disables sound and music at the welcome screen options, the framerate drops to around 14FPS. This happens no matter which resolution or quality preset!!! ...no matter which of the 3 tested sound devices...
Not that when you disable sound the performance turns terrific either, it just goes up to 30, 40 fps levels.
If one doesn´t disable sound and music, the framerate reported by Fraps at the menu screens, is around 70s. Nevertheless, while loading the game it drops to 8fps and when at actual game, it goes to 14fps most of the time, some moments of 20fps.
This system should do much better, we could all agree, couldn´t we?.
I went and tried Alien vs Predator 2 on my 440BX+PIII750+GF2 GTS system and framerate is most of the time above 30, with peaks of 44 (only droping to 20 in a few certain situations). A Thunderbird 1000mhz + nforce does even much better.No sound disabling needed with neither of these systems.
Going back to the DFI CA64-TC based system, I tried Direct X 8.2, 8.1 and 8.0, same results.
Finally I decided trying a fresh Windows 2000 Sp4 install, same lame framerate.
Any ideas on what is going on here?
Only similar case I could find on Internet forums (https://www.avpgalaxy.net/forum/index.php?topic=28200.0) was unresolved, user was experiencing the same issue with a much more capable system than this one I´m testing.
Could this S-ATA to IDE adapter be the cause to this weird issue? If so, it is quite selective, since 4 out 5 games work just fine.
I hear Hyperion 4in1 4.43 is the most suitable, the best, for this chipset. That´s why I didn´t bother trying other versions, should I?
Than you very much in advance!