New video card, 3D scores up, 2D down

[gman70]

Hello,

I just upgraded my AGP video card to a Radeon HD 3850 from a Radeon 9800 XT.

My 3D scores went way up (769.9 from 109.3 for 3D graphics mark), but my 2D scores went way down (249.8 previously to 128.0 with the new card).

I'm new at this but it doesn't make any sense to me. I have installed the most current driver for the card directly from ATI's website.

My (old) system:
Windows XP SP3
Intel D845PESV motherboard
Pentium 4 3.06 with hyperthreading enabled
2 GB Mushkin PC3200 memory
160 GB Western Digital WD1600AAJB hard drive
Samsung 245BW monitor running 1920 x 1200 resolution
DirectX 9.0c

Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated, thanks!

[David (PassMark)]

It would be interesting to know if anything else changed on your system at the same time. For example, maybe the Windows settings for desktop graphics performance.

But 2D is out of fashion. So I think the major manufacturers aren't even testing / optimising their new cards for 2D. All their development effort in going into 3D and gaming benchmarks.

[gman70]

Thanks for the reply!

No settings changed that I am aware of - I didn't make any changes - and no other hardware was changed between the two tests.

Yes, I got the card specifically for it's 3D graphics performance, I just found it odd that I would take such a hit on the 2Ds side.

Thanks!

[David (PassMark)]

Windows can also do some auto scaling of the desktop graphics. If it detects a more powerful card, it turns on more eye candy. The next result being that is looks better but doesn't work any quicker. But I am guessing in your case it might have already been on maximum eye candy before the new card.

[gman70]

Interesting. I may see if anyone on the ATI forums might have some insight, thanks!