Upgraded my Windows 98 overkill machine (850XT PE) from a AMD 64 X2 6000+ (3GHz) to a AMD Phenom II X4 955 (3.2GHz). Quake 3 went from 401fps to 520fps. 3DMark99 went from 7500 to 7900. I’m sure I’ve seen benchmarks with like 20,000+ so maybe I need some sort of 3DMark99 patch?

zuldan wrote on Today, 09:57:

Upgraded my Windows 98 overkill machine (850XT PE) from a AMD 64 X2 6000+ (3GHz) to a AMD Phenom II X4 955 (3.2GHz). Quake 3 went from 401fps to 520fps. 3DMark99 went from 7500 to 7900. I’m sure I’ve seen benchmarks with like 20,000+ so maybe I need some sort of 3DMark99 patch?

Yeah, that 3DMark 99 score seems way too low.

I got 41615 points on my C2D E8600 + X800 GTO rig. Full benchmarks are in this post.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on Today, 10:23:

zuldan wrote on Today, 09:57:

Upgraded my Windows 98 overkill machine (850XT PE) from a AMD 64 X2 6000+ (3GHz) to a AMD Phenom II X4 955 (3.2GHz). Quake 3 went from 401fps to 520fps. 3DMark99 went from 7500 to 7900. I’m sure I’ve seen benchmarks with like 20,000+ so maybe I need some sort of 3DMark99 patch?

Yeah, that 3DMark 99 score seems way too low.

I got 41615 points on my C2D E8600 + X800 GTO rig. Full benchmarks are in this post.

Very nice scores! i’m also using ATi Catalyst 6.2 reference drivers. I changed the motherboard and still getting the same score so it must be the 3DMark99 build I’m using. Do you have a link to the exact build you’re using?

It's probably because of the deprecation of 3dnow and/or a slower internal method emulating "obsolete" instructions like MMX/SSE.

Eg Iirc mmx and sse allowed 4 numbers to be operated on in parallel with olny one command to do so.

Eg "add 1 & 2, 3&4, 5&6, 7&8" would result in 3,7,11,15

If that instruction lost its optimised path, it could still exist as a valid instruction but take 4x longer (in clock cycles). Which hardly anyone would notice given the last software written for it was running on hardware at least 1/4 of the speed.

"3DMark 99 MAX is the first benchmark ever that has been optimized to fully support both Intel Pentium III SIMD and AMD 3DNow! instructions at the engine level."

myne wrote on Today, 10:45:

It's probably because of the deprecation of 3dnow and/or a slower internal method emulating "obsolete" instructions like MMX/SSE […]
Show full quote

It's probably because of the deprecation of 3dnow and/or a slower internal method emulating "obsolete" instructions like MMX/SSE.

Eg Iirc mmx and sse allowed 4 numbers to be operated on in parallel with olny one command to do so.

Eg "add 1 & 2, 3&4, 5&6, 7&8" would result in 3,7,11,15

If that instruction lost its optimised path, it could still exist as a valid instruction but take 4x longer (in clock cycles). Which hardly anyone would notice given the last software written for it was running on hardware at least 1/4 of the speed.

"3DMark 99 MAX is the first benchmark ever that has been optimized to fully support both Intel Pentium III SIMD and AMD 3DNow! instructions at the engine level."

That makes sense. I think I’ll try 3DMark 2001 tomorrow and see if there is a major boost.

zuldan wrote on Today, 10:42:

Very nice scores! i’m also using ATi Catalyst 6.2 reference drivers. I changed the motherboard and still getting the same score so it must be the 3DMark99 build I’m using. Do you have a link to the exact build you’re using?

I think I got the whole 3DMark pack from here on Vogonsdrivers, but it's been so long I can't be sure.

They are also available on the Futuremark website of course.

zuldan wrote on Today, 09:57:

Upgraded my Windows 98 overkill machine (850XT PE) from a AMD 64 X2 6000+ (3GHz) to a AMD Phenom II X4 955 (3.2GHz). Quake 3 went from 401fps to 520fps. 3DMark99 went from 7500 to 7900. I’m sure I’ve seen benchmarks with like 20,000+ so maybe I need some sort of 3DMark99 patch?

the quake 3 scores look good, the 3dmark99 scores are low you probably need the patch for 3dmark99 to unlock the framerate otherwise the benchmark will be locked at 75fps, without the patch my fx5200 was scoring around 6-7000 with the patch its around 12000, the 850xt should do at least double that depending on cpu.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on Today, 10:56:

zuldan wrote on Today, 10:42:

Very nice scores! i’m also using ATi Catalyst 6.2 reference drivers. I changed the motherboard and still getting the same score so it must be the 3DMark99 build I’m using. Do you have a link to the exact build you’re using?

I think I got the whole 3DMark pack from here on Vogonsdrivers, but it's been so long I can't be sure.

They are also available on the Futuremark website of course.

Thanks for the info. I’m using the build from the 3DMark website.

DudeFace wrote on 54 minutes ago:

zuldan wrote on Today, 09:57:

Upgraded my Windows 98 overkill machine (850XT PE) from a AMD 64 X2 6000+ (3GHz) to a AMD Phenom II X4 955 (3.2GHz). Quake 3 went from 401fps to 520fps. 3DMark99 went from 7500 to 7900. I’m sure I’ve seen benchmarks with like 20,000+ so maybe I need some sort of 3DMark99 patch?

the quake 3 scores look good, the 3dmark99 scores are low you probably need the patch for 3dmark99 to unlock the framerate otherwise the benchmark will be locked at 75fps, without the patch my fx5200 was scoring around 6-7000 with the patch its around 12000, the 850xt should do at least double that depending on cpu.

Yes my frames are limited to 75fps for each test. Wish I could find this magical 3DMark99 patch. I’ll try the Vogons 3DMark99 files Joseph linked.

zuldan wrote on 48 minutes ago:

Thanks for the info. I’m using the build from the 3DMark website.

One more tip. Be sure to fully disable V-Sync in the Catalyst Control Center before performing any benchmarks. Both for Direct3D and OpenGL. Don't leave it at "Default" or "Auto" etc. Make sure it's actually turned off.

From what I recall, some earlier versions of 3DMark are affected by this. And certain OpenGL games might also report inaccurate benchmarks unless V-Sync is off in the driver panel.