ages ago with supposedly low performance early ati drivers and the stock oem clock of 250/250 core/mem my radeon 8500 scored 7500+ in 3dmark2k1se, highest was 7666.

now I can't even make 6800, usually 6500 or less

rig:
amd xp1700+@1466mhz
radeon 8500 64mb ddr oem @ 270/270 (runs at 275 and even 279 just fine, but keep it at 270 due to changing environment temperatures) using modified bios +core & mem slight vmod
windows 2000
directx 8.1b
6118 drivers (same results with 6071, 6094 and 6118)
using radeonator 2.0 beta 1 to enable hardware features disabled by default (like T&L)
all anisotropic filtering and fsaa is forced disabled
no w buffer
z buffer 32 + z compression 3
all sliders set to max performance
latest via 4in1 4.40(p3)
sp2 + all windows patches except sp3
whether i remove all nonessential processes and stop nonessential services has nearzero effects on the scores

results:
GLExcess 1.2 5569
VGLMark (Opengl1.2+High Quality@1024x768x32bpp) 47.1fps
N-Bench v1 4992
N-Bench v2 1762
Codecreatures Benchmark Pro v1.0.0 1068
3DMark2001 6555 or less
3DMark2001SE 6555 or less

the scores above are using dx9+6118 with dx9 support except for both 3dmarks, which being buggy and unreliable refused to run even setting registry entries saying dx8.1 was installed and not dx9

so i cleared dx9 and reinstalled dx8.1 for 3dmark

I had many times scores 7100+ up to 7666 before on the same rig with the radeon at stock 250mhz speeds.

Xeib

my best guess is that your radeon is optimized to use it's stock clocks. So, if you set it too high it could be going haywire trying to process too much crap.

This is indeed strange to see since ur radeon 8500 getting only 2000 marks more than my gf4 mx420 64mb DDR.


Athlon XP 1800+ @ 1640mhz
Flash Geforce 4 mx 420 64mb DDR
256mb CL2.5 Hynix DDR266 Memory
ECS K7s5a Motherboard

this board was produced before the 'powered by' vs 'built by' stuff

in hardware it's identical to the retail thats clocked at 275/275

and I've carefully modified both its core+mem voltages and the bios to be the same as retail

so it's identical to an original retail radeon 8500 now.

----

as it's said that with every new ati driver release the performance gets better as they 'mature' I doubt using more recent drivers would cause this,

ive been trough so many reinstalls I've lost count
so it's probably not an old install needing a refresh kinda thing.

found something interesting today though

I wiped out the video drivers to install the just released catalyst 2.2

before changing the default installed settings I ran 3dmark2k1se and I got 7800 or so

I ran radeonator, didnt change anything, just saved the settings as the cat2.2 defaults

ran 3dmark2k1se again and it was now 7500-7600

I configured the settings I always put, all vsyncs off, all fast stuff and compressions on, forcefully disabling fsaa and anisotropic filters, sliders to maximum performance and etc.

run 3dmark2k1 and its now down to 6500-6600

now how can enabling hardware accelerated features or enabling things like z compression and all the others reduce the score?

here are my results:
GLExcess 1.2 5508
VGLMark (Opengl1.2+High Quality@1024x768x32bpp) 48.1fps
N-Bench v1 5048
N-Bench v2 1764
Codecreatures Benchmark Pro v1.0.0 1172
3DMark2001 7536
3DMark2001SE 7636

my previous results with the leaked dx9 6118 and dx9 beta1 were:
GLExcess 1.2 5569
VGLMark (Opengl1.2+High Quality@1024x768x32bpp) 47.1fps
N-Bench v1 4992
N-Bench v2 1762
Codecreatures Benchmark Pro v1.0.0 1068
3DMark2001 n/a
3DMark2001SE n/a
both 3dmarks gave me a bogus 'directx8.1 isnt installed properly' error even after I used the registry patch showing directx as 8.1

the differences are minor and probably only within the margin of error rather then any real differences

what I can't figure out is how my scores can go down even if I use the specific 3dmark2k1se profile that comes with radeonator, which in theory should give the best results, it gives the same 6500 or close by result.

Xeib

Try using an older version of the VIA 4in1s

I would suggest looking at your bIOS settings, might have disabled some of your AGP settings in order to overclock. FastWrite, 4x, ect...

none of the radeon boards support fastwrite and agp4x + 256mb aperture are enabled

without wanting to flame you for being stupid or anything, i think u have answered ur own question.

Radeonator's "optimized" settings are obviously not working with ur setup, and u obviously do not know how to set up the settings correctly manually. so either learn how to do this or avoid using it altogether.

what is the point of using an optimization tool if it does the exact opposite for you?

why have u got the agp appature set so high? there is no need for it to be set at any higher than 64mb in ur setup or 128 max.

to me common sense says if u score higher with the settings enabled by the drivers than after using the optimizer some of the settings u have chosen obviously reduce performance.

so if u must use radeonator. i suggest trial and error benching, changing only one setting at a time and running bench 3 times to allow for testing variation

say I'm an idiot if you want but you don't have to be an (censored) at doing it, as for learning to configure the settings for best performance, show me anywhere where all those settings are explained and I might have something to learn, but it's OBVIOUS that it's not that I'm an idiot the problem since ENABLING just one setting like 'fast performance' REDUCES the score, btw I'll just call you a coward for not even using a name to post your reply and leave it at that.

Xeib

I put my AGP aperture at 128mb because when I set it to 64 my system becomes a little bit unstable (random blue screens). I have 256mb of ram