Large discrepancy in Win98 graphics performance of X850 XT PE

[xtreger]

I'm building a Win98 retro project of my own, using a PCI-e motherboard along with ATI Radeon X850 XT PE. For comparison reference, I used this video:

.

But for some reason there's quite a gap between stats in that video vs. what I'm getting. The person in that video is using a P5PKL-AM SE, with 1 GB RAM, X850 XT PE, C2D E8600 processor, Win98. I'm using P5PKL-AM PS, with 4 GB RAM, X850 XT PE, C2D E8500 processor, Win 98. The Win98 3DMark 2001 SE score in that video seems to be 37k for this setup. However I'm getting 30K score. Also his avg. FPS for Quake 3 is around 600 or so at 1024x768 resolution, while I'm getting slightly more than 400 (I've been careful to match the display settings).

Also, using another one of that person's video, I compared performance in WinXP too. There the performance in 3DMark 2001 SE was matching - around 40k.

So I'm a bit confused - what could be the reason for the large discrepancy in Win98? I've matched the hardware (almost) and the VGA driver.

 

[ShrimpBrime]

Matched what driver? (I didn't watch the videos)

Have you tried Omega drivers? Perhaps a newer or older driver than what dude uses in the video?

W98 kind of sucks. Better off with XP NTFS file system anyways (IMO)

 

[xtreger]

Matched what driver? (I didn't watch the videos)

Have you tried Omega drivers? Perhaps a newer or older driver than what dude uses in the video?

W98 kind of sucks. Better off with XP NTFS file system anyways (IMO)

Thanks for pointing me to Omega drivers! I will try those too.

And yeah objectively speaking XP is better than Win98, but Win98 was part of childhood for me so I'm attached to it lol. Plus, there's some retro games that Win98 is better suited to play

 

[Solaris17]

Thanks for pointing me to Omega drivers! I will try those too.

And yeah objectively speaking XP is better than Win98, but Win98 was part of childhood for me so I'm attached to it lol. Plus, there's some retro games that Win98 is better suited to play

Dont forget directX was a standalone installer back then, not part of the OS. I think 98-XP can handle 9.0c with service packs.

 

[Onasi]

Dont forget directX was a standalone installer back then, not part of the OS. I think 98-XP can handle 9.0c with service packs.

It’s a bit of a weird situation. 98 SE does indeed support 9.0c, but not all the versions. You need ones that are no later than 8th of December 2006. Any newer and it won’t support 98, you would need 2000 at least.

 

[ShrimpBrime]

Thanks for pointing me to Omega drivers! I will try those too.

And yeah objectively speaking XP is better than Win98, but Win98 was part of childhood for me so I'm attached to it lol. Plus, there's some retro games that Win98 is better suited to play

welcome!

Well as far as the benchmark difference, 3dmark 01 SE is sensitive to LOD, memory (system memory too) clocks, of course GPU core clocks as well. It'll be difficult to pin point without looking at everything very very closely.

Here's a quick basic LOD adjuster you can play around with, makes it easy. Should help in some situations for sure.

 

[Carillon]

The linked video shows 2 different scores for the pcie x850, the first one using the same mobo you have with the e8600 is 33k, the second one does not specify and is the 37k you were expecting to achieve.
I wouldn't trust either results

 

[Paganstomp]

Newer drivers may perform worse in benchmarking than older versions. I think Phil's Computer lab addresses that. Then there is RAM speeds & specs and BIOS tweaks... a handful of other things that can cause performance improvements or degrades. I have four systems that can run Windows 98SE. I normally benchmark those systems using Win XP SP2 since driver changes are handled much better then with Win98.

 

[xtreger]

welcome!

Well as far as the benchmark difference, 3dmark 01 SE is sensitive to LOD, memory (system memory too) clocks, of course GPU core clocks as well. It'll be difficult to pin point without looking at everything very very closely.

Here's a quick basic LOD adjuster you can play around with, makes it easy. Should help in some situations for sure.

So I removed a 2Gb RAM stick and voila - score jumped from 30k to 36.3k. Very strange behavior in Win98

Regarding omega drivers - I checked and I think for X850 series they're there only for Win2k onwards

 

[ShrimpBrime]

So I removed a 2Gb RAM stick and voila - score jumped from 30k to 36.3k. Very strange behavior in Win98

Regarding omega drivers - I checked and I think for X850 series they're there only for Win2k onwards

Omega 3rd party was better in most cases because ATI software support was sub par back then.

Haven't played with W98 in many years, though I do have it on floppy somewhere.

Glad you figured it out! Good stuff!

 

[Imperator]

I normally benchmark those systems using Win XP SP2 since driver changes are handled much better then with Win98.

Hi there.
I personally adopted XP SP3 as the retro computer OS.
Why you suggested SP2 ?
I own 2x 775i65G rigs. Main one have revision 3.03 and it has core2quad 6700 and video card Sapphire 3850 AGP and 2GB DDR 400 RAM.
2nd rig have revision 2.03, it has Core2Duo 6600 , Sapphire HD3850 AGP 512MB and 2GB DDR400 RAM.

Both retro rigs have multiple boot.
Lowest OS installed is XP SP3 - x86.
But it would be interesting to have at least on one of them Win 98 SE for testing purposes.

 

[OMORES]

ATI drivers are relatively easy to install on Windows 98, but with some tweaks, you can also get NVIDIA 7900 series cards to run on the same system—bringing next-generation GPU performance into play...The ATI X800 series competed with NVIDIA's 6000 series at the time. On a modern system, I'm getting like 52K in 3DMark 2001SE. (no OC)