G400 overclocking results... what in the hell????

[SPSUguy]

Hey,

I recently ran 3dmark99max with my g400 clocked at the following settings:

125core/ 166mem
150core/ 200mem
162core/ 216mem

Anyway, the more I overclock... the worse the card performs. I mean, everything looks great... but I don't understand whath these numbers mean. I would post a gif of the comparison, but I don't know how. Anyway, here are some examples:

3dmark:
125core 3693
150core 3673
162core 3667

Fill rate with mulit texturing:
125core 206.5
150core 206.5
162core 206.7

See, almost no performance increase. These tests were conducted at 800x600 at 16bit color. Someone please help explain these results. Does overclocking only help at high res and 32bit or something?

Systems specs:

------------------
Abit BH6, Celeron 450, Matrox G400 32mb "MAX", 256mb ram, IBM 10GB, DVD 5x, MX300

[Speedy]

when i overclock scores go down too, but Mtext goes up

------------------
Matrox Millennium G400 Dual Head - English
Resolution 800*600
Color Depth 16-bit Color
Frame Buffer Triple buffering
Refresh Rate VSync Off
CPU Optimization AMD 3DNow!(tm)
3DMark Result 5420.49 3DMarks
Synthetic CPU 3D Speed 9142.76 CPU 3DMarks
Rasterizer Score 2206.33 3DRasterMarks
Game 1 - Race 63.58 FPS
Game 2 - First Person 47.24 FPS
Processor Type AMD-K7(tm) Processor
Processor Speed 500 MHz
Physical Memory 128 MB

[SPSUguy]

Hey,

Ok... now i'm really, really confused and getting a little mad. I posted the fill rate scores above with multitexturing. Well, the scores without multitexturing stay at about 207 as well. So basically no matter what clock speed and no matter whether there is multitexturing or not... the fill rate is 207 Mtexels. Why is that? I thought multitexturing was supposed to increase fill rate capabilities? And I thought that the fill rate formula was something like clock engine speed times number of engines.

Hence at 125core the fill rate should be 250. At 150 it should be 300. And at 162 it should be 324. I realize that these are peak rates... but i should notice some increase. I'm using the matrox overclocker, is it possilbe it's not really increasing the clock speed?

Here's some scores I got on my Voodoo2 SLI config:

Fill rate:
142 Mtexel

Fill rate w/ multitexturing:
277

See? The V2's get much closer to their theoretical fill rate than does the G400. Anyone know why the V2's benefit so much more from multitexturing than does G400? Or is it just me?

thanks

------------------
Abit BH6, Celeron 450, Matrox G400 32mb "MAX", 256mb ram, IBM 10GB, DVD 5x, MX300

[gbm]

Firtst, it looks like you are not changing the clock rate of your card. I don't know how you are overclocking; in Matrox software, be sure to set overclocking for the right mode (unregistered 3DMark runs in 800x600x16). In MGA Tweak click the box labeled "clock monitoring" or something similar. And be sure to click the Apply button in both utilities.

Don't worry about both fill rates being equal. This is a "feature" of the driver, and it definitely isn't the only problem with 5.30.007.

[James]

Ah, gbm sounds like someone who's played with both the Matrox overclocker and MGATweak...

Is the Matrox overclocker good enough? That is, are all the little fiddly settings with the MGATweak worth the trouble or is the one simple slidebar good enough for most people?

I'm trying to figure out which one I should rely on.

Thanks.

[James]

Oh,

I guess I should reply to the first message...

I used the Matrox overclocker and ramped it up to 120%... I might push it further.

Anyway, my 3dMark scores jumped for the first number (the graphics accelerator?) and even went up a bit on the CPU score. Of course, I was testing and even running at the resolution for which I overclosked with the Matrox overclocker.

[Maggi]

Make sure you have VSync disabled ...

and compare the single results from each test, not only the overall score or single items.


------------------
Cheers,
Maggi
________________________

Working Rig:
Asus P2B-DS @ 103MHz FSB
Double Pentium III-450 @ 464 MHz
4 x 128MB CAS2 SDRAM
Matrox Millennium G400 32MB DualHead
Nokia 445Xi (21")
Nokia 447Xpro (17")

Home Rig:
Asus P2B-S Bios 1010 @ 112MHz FSB
Celeron 300A @ 504MHz
2 x 128MB CAS2 SDRAM
Matrox Millennium G400 32MB DualHead @ 150/200MHz
CTX VL710T (17")

[Electric Amish]

Ok SPSUguy, here's the deal. I get about the same numbers as you (~3900) on my Celeron 300a O/C'd to 464. I, too, have been fussing with MGATweak to make some improvements. I can clock all the way up to Fo=310 MHz but, between 270 and 310 there is basically no change in the 3DMark Max score at 800x600x16bpp. What I believe is happening, and a couple people here have confirmed my beliefs, is that we have maxed out our CPU power. In otherwords, the G400 is waiting for the CPU to process the info for it to display.

I managed to run 1 pass through 3dMark at 504 on my cpu and my scores jumped to 4150. Too bad it's not stable.

Anyway, you get the idea??

PS- Oh, it was also suggested that at a higher res, the overclocking of the G400 would make more difference.

Paul

------------------
Retail Celeron 300a @ 464MHz
Abit BH6 v1.01(LN Bios)
128mb Generic PC-100 SDRAM
G400 32mb SH @ Fo=300MHz(5.30 Drivers)
Ovislink 10/100 Realtek NIC
E-Tech 56Kbps Modem
SB PCI128 Sound Card
Asus 40x CDROM
Western Digital Caviar 6.4GB (Win 98SE)
Western Digital Caviar 4.3GB (Red Hat 6.0)
17" Shamrock C708 .25 "Diamondtron" Monitor
(1) 120mm Panaflo Blow-hole
(2) 80mm Fans Card Cooler Style
(1) 80mm Fan @ case front



[This message has been edited by Electric Amish (edited 14 October 1999).]