Low 3D Graphics - Complex fps

[tomtucker]

Hi all,

When using PerformanceTest 7.0 my setup performs about average compared to the dozen or so similar setups I could find on the 'compare results' page - except for the 3d complex section (the terrain and water one).

I get a measly 33 fps, compared to other systems with the same card/CPU getting on average 60 fps! Nothing seems to change this figure (i.e. changing the resolution, full screen/windowed etc) except for disabling pixel/shader 2.0 (which sends it up to about 600 fps).

Not sure what's going on here - anyone got any ideas? Is there a bottleneck I don't know about? The only thing I could think was that the drivers were out of date, but I can't seem to get my system working with anything but Catalyst 11.5 (circa mid 2011). Nothing seems to be overheating or crashing, either.

My system:
Processor: AMD Phenom II X2 555 3200Mhz
Mainboard: Asus M4A78LT-M-LE
GPU: ATI Radeon HD 5750 1Gb
RAM: 4GB DDR3
OS: Windows XP SP 3

Thanks!

*Just noticed something strange; I installed ATI Tray Tools to see if some light overclocking might change things (it didn't seem to), but I noticed the on-screen FPS counter it adds to the top right of 3D applications by default doesn't seem to agree with the FPS recorded by PerformanceTest itself. It seems to think the 3D graphics complex test is running @ about 70fps (twice as much, which seems reasonable). With Pixel/Shader 2.0 disabled, they seem to register the same FPS in the hundreds.

What the bejesus is going on..?

[David (PassMark)]

Device drivers versions can make a big difference. So you should really have a deeper look at what is preventing you from upgrading to the latest drivers.

Changing your desktop resolution won't have a big impact on the result (if any). As the 'Complex' 3D test forces 1024x768x32bit full screen resolution on all systems to make the results comparable.

Turning off the shaders would effect the benchmark results as it degrades the quality of the scene. For example the water effects are done via shaders.

CPU performance also has a impact on the result. So you can't expect your performance with the old Phenom II X2 to be comparable to new CPUs. This would also explain why overclocking your video card doesn't impact the result much. You might be CPU bound.

I couldn't get the ATI drivers to display a frame rate on my machine here. So can't really comment on that.