Installed a faster processor and got lower fps :(

[FrogMaster 0]

I just swapped a regular Celeron 466 o'clocked to 567 MHz for a Celeron2 566 o'clocked to 705 MHz on my secondary machine (MSI 6163 Pro slot 1 mboard, GeForce SDR).

It is a dual boot Win2k/Win98 setup.

In Win2k I get roughly the same fps in Q3A as with my main machine (BP6 2x583 MHz, GeForce DDR), which is consistent.

The strange thing is that in Win98 I get only half the Win2k fps with the new processor, and only in Q3A!

BTW, fps performances are the same with both oses on the BP6 box.

Both machines have 192 megs of ram and the video drivers are all the same (5.22).

Performance of other apps seems ok. Only Q3A is slower (yes, I did reinstalled Q3A and applied latest patch, but no change, also tried several 5.xx driver sets to no avail).

The two machines are home-lan networked.

Has anyone a clue or at least a logical explanation?

Thx in advance

[ledzeppel 0]

Well thank goodness your drop in fps is in 98 and not 2K. I have no idea why. Since Quake 3 is good to go in 2K, I wouldn't worry too much about it. You didn't have any success getting that new Celery at 100 MHz Front Side Bus (FSB) or 850 MHz?

[euankirkhope 0]

Win98 dosen't use SMP.

 

Also the texture and mipmap settings maybe different in the display panel for win98...

run dxdiag and see what it says, is AGP working.

 

Turn off that seti@home!

 

CPU cache setting may be wrong, or win98 has stopped using it due to a change, or is in some way not utilising it to its full capacity. (maybe a re-install needed?, I've thrown in lots of different CPUs in my PC, but the change from K6-2 to K6-2CXT core in win98 didn't go down to well, but NT4 didn't notice, W2K beta didn't work at the time )

 

 

 

[This message has been edited by euankirkhope (edited 13 June 2000).]

[CUViper 0]

Who said anything about SMP? he said a Celeron2, not 2 Celerons....

[FrogMaster 0]

Yes, it is a Celeron 2 (cumine, mono proc).

FSB is set to 83 MHz to go to 705.

It would go easily to 95 MHz (807 MHs core) but would lock soon after a 3d app has been launched.

I use Intel crappy stock cooler because I did not find a better one yet. BTW, guys, the chip is so small that it is very difficult to achieve a proper thermal contact ... and it gets very hot. Probably needs a copper cooler for good heat conduction.

Q3A is the only app which seems concerned. Everything is OK with DXdiag, AGP, tried all possible settings in OGL and D3D property sheets. All other games I tried (HL, UT...) work fine.

The only difference I noticed thu is in WCPUID applet. It reads L2 cache latency=2 with the cumine and latency=3 with the regular Celeron (set to 3 instead of 5 with Hoda's L2cache applet). Would it be possible that for some reasons I get a huge number of L2 cache misses under Win98 running Q3A?

The idea that L2 cache could simply be disabled is also worth to be digged out.

I'll have a look at that and let you know.

Anyway, thanks for any other thought you may have.

It is an interesting hardware issue.

[euankirkhope 0]

I said Win98 doesn't use SMP, because the system is dual boot (is it?) although there is only 1 processor (was the PC previosly a SMP system, with new mobo?).

 

Thus I deduct that the Q3a folder will be shared between the systems. It may therefore be configured for w2k, but in win98 some extra options may slow the system, by for example copying the folder from the other SMP system. Win98 may handle the multithreaded modes much less poorer. It could be possible.

 

Maybe install a clean version for win98?

[FrogMaster 0]

I'll have a look at that.

What I did is an upload of the Q3A folder from the BP6 (SMP) machine to the MSI 6163pro Celery 2 monoproc machine, then edited the cdkey file to enter the key string for the other Q3A retail cd (I have 2 of them).

To be safe, I applied then the latest patch.

Seta r_smp is set to "0".

Would it be possible that some component of the prog does "remember" it used to be installed on a dual processor machine???

I'll do a clean reinstall of Q3A during the week-end to see what happens.

As far as the Celery2 is concerned, yes, it will boot into both oses when o'clocked to 850 MHz (1.65 volt core, which is standard cumine core PIIIe voltage) but will lock as soon as a 3d app is launched. The chip gets very hot and I believe I need a very good fan/cooler to get it stable.

So, here is my to-do list:

- check L2 cache status and latency

- reinstall Q3A

- reinstall Win98.

Thanks for your input guys.

I'll keep you informed.

I love this prob and I'll fix it