First off, the gear.
Gigabyte GA5-AX Rev. 5.2 (F3) Bios
Elsa Gladiac GeForce 2 MX 32MB (Elsa 6.34 Drivers)
AMD K6-2 500
256 PC100 SDRAM
Direct X 7.0a
Windows ME
With UT 4.32 and Loki's S3TC fix, I never dipped below 30 FPS unless in a big gun fight. Using the built-in Time-Demo feature, my average consistant frame rate rarely dipped below 30 and the "Last Sec" would usually match the "Average". Even in a nasty 6-way gunfight, both figures never dipped below 17 FPS.
I installed 436 patch the other day and saw my performance get chopped IN HALF! This 436 patch has plagued me with a miserable 15 FPS (even in Single Player mode with a zoomed sniper rifle pointed at wall!!). Wondering if it was the patch, I installed the latest Quake 3 patch as well and took another 50% performance hit there (even at the lowly 512x384 resolution!)
I then susspect Direct X 8 so I uninstall it and go back to DirectX 7.0a. Didn't help at all. I then tried a smorgasboard of drivers - 6.47, 6.48, 6.49 and they never increased performance and in fact gave black screens when exiting UT.
Back at square one - I go back to the Elsa 6.34 drivers and nothing has changed. I uninstall UT and re-install it, patching it back up to 4.32 and still suffered the 50% decrease in performance. Taking a hammer to my rig sounds very tempting at about this time but I figured, "One more try..."
I hack the registry deleting anything related to "Nvidia" and "Elsa" and then I use the add/remove programs to uninstall the Elsa 6.34 drivers. My rig reboots to the "Standard PCI/AGP VGA Display" driver. From there, I launch the Elsa drivers from the SETUP.EXE file (previously, I just used the "Update Driver" from the Device Manager). Computer reboots twice.
I launch UT in practice mode, 5 bots plus myself along with the Relics mutator and I chose "Agony" as the map. Bingo! I 've got my 50% back!! I even let the "Fire when Ready" sit on the screen for a while and notice my Frame Rate shoot up into the low 50s (with the 50% loss, this never got above 25!). Test run for a few hours and it hardly drops below 30 FPS!!
Curios, I launch Quake 3 and my 50% performance is back here as well (even at 1024x728x32bit, my frame rate was close to 30FPS consistantly) Keep in mind, I never uninstalled Quake 3 - I left that alone after I patched it to 1.27.
Now, just a moment ago, I installed the 436 patch again.
I'm back to 15 FPS and leaving the "Fire when Ready" on the screen and watching the counter, it never goes above 30 FPS - it hovers between 22-25!!
How the heck can a patch affect my system so damned bad?!? I just don't get it!
Any suggestions?
Gigabyte GA5-AX Rev. 5.2 (F3) Bios
Elsa Gladiac GeForce 2 MX 32MB (Elsa 6.34 Drivers)
AMD K6-2 500
256 PC100 SDRAM
Direct X 7.0a
Windows ME
With UT 4.32 and Loki's S3TC fix, I never dipped below 30 FPS unless in a big gun fight. Using the built-in Time-Demo feature, my average consistant frame rate rarely dipped below 30 and the "Last Sec" would usually match the "Average". Even in a nasty 6-way gunfight, both figures never dipped below 17 FPS.
I installed 436 patch the other day and saw my performance get chopped IN HALF! This 436 patch has plagued me with a miserable 15 FPS (even in Single Player mode with a zoomed sniper rifle pointed at wall!!). Wondering if it was the patch, I installed the latest Quake 3 patch as well and took another 50% performance hit there (even at the lowly 512x384 resolution!)
I then susspect Direct X 8 so I uninstall it and go back to DirectX 7.0a. Didn't help at all. I then tried a smorgasboard of drivers - 6.47, 6.48, 6.49 and they never increased performance and in fact gave black screens when exiting UT.
Back at square one - I go back to the Elsa 6.34 drivers and nothing has changed. I uninstall UT and re-install it, patching it back up to 4.32 and still suffered the 50% decrease in performance. Taking a hammer to my rig sounds very tempting at about this time but I figured, "One more try..."
I hack the registry deleting anything related to "Nvidia" and "Elsa" and then I use the add/remove programs to uninstall the Elsa 6.34 drivers. My rig reboots to the "Standard PCI/AGP VGA Display" driver. From there, I launch the Elsa drivers from the SETUP.EXE file (previously, I just used the "Update Driver" from the Device Manager). Computer reboots twice.
I launch UT in practice mode, 5 bots plus myself along with the Relics mutator and I chose "Agony" as the map. Bingo! I 've got my 50% back!! I even let the "Fire when Ready" sit on the screen for a while and notice my Frame Rate shoot up into the low 50s (with the 50% loss, this never got above 25!). Test run for a few hours and it hardly drops below 30 FPS!!
Curios, I launch Quake 3 and my 50% performance is back here as well (even at 1024x728x32bit, my frame rate was close to 30FPS consistantly) Keep in mind, I never uninstalled Quake 3 - I left that alone after I patched it to 1.27.
Now, just a moment ago, I installed the 436 patch again.
I'm back to 15 FPS and leaving the "Fire when Ready" on the screen and watching the counter, it never goes above 30 FPS - it hovers between 22-25!!
How the heck can a patch affect my system so damned bad?!? I just don't get it!
Any suggestions?
