Poor performance on a GeForceFX 5200!

[fuxifuxi]

Hello !

I have wanted to share with you my discontent. I have bought a GeForceFX 5200 card whose fillrate performance doesn't match my old
Creative Annihilator's (GeForce256 DDR) performance. I am working on an
intensive fillrate application and it runs at 180 fps on my old card and at 160 fps on the new 5200 card. I was astonished. I also have found a program that stresses fillrate on nvidia's site and my fillrate performance was about a third of a geforce 3 card.

The conclusion:

GeForceFX 5200 SUCKS !!!

It has the functionality I need, and its core is pretty strong, but memory is its gretest disadvantage.

[aapo]

Originally posted by fuxifuxi
I have wanted to share with you my discontent. I have bought a GeForceFX 5200 card whose fillrate performance doesn't match my old
Creative Annihilator's (GeForce256 DDR) performance.

Do you have FX5200 with a 64 bit memory bus, or is it a proper one (128 bit)? If it's a FX5200 with 128 bit memory bus, it should be a lot faster, so you probably need a driver / Windows reinstall. If it's the infamous 64bit-version, then there's nothing that can be done with it.

[fuxifuxi]

It has an 128 bit wide bus.

It was madeby Asus (model V9520)

[aapo]

Originally posted by fuxifuxi
It has an 128 bit wide bus.

It was madeby Asus (model V9520)

Hmm... The V9520 cards actually sold to customers seem to have somewhat worse memory clocks than advertised. It comes with 331 MHz DDR, when the advertisements claim 400 MHz DDR.

http://www.amdzone.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1279&page=3

Furthermore, all 128 MB Asus V9520 do not necessarily have 128 bit bus. The normal 128 MB V9520 cards with 8 memory chips on board have 128 bit bus, whereas there is supposed to exist a variant with 4 memory chips (see link), which has a 64 bit memory bus. Add to this the slower-than-advertised memory clocks, which lead to a ridiculous bandwith of 2.7 GB/s, about one tenth of the today's top cards. Selling these cards would be an outright fraud IMHO. :mad:

[fuxifuxi]

Yes, my card has a 331 MHz memory clock, but has 8 memory chips.
Also, I have no idea why they sell it at 331 MHz, because mine is working at 406 Mhz (but it think standard memory frequency is 460)

[aapo]

Originally posted by fuxifuxi
Also, I have no idea why they sell it at 331 MHz,

That's easy. The memory chips used in the card are rated by the memory manufacturer to run at most 333 MHz DDR. If they would be run at 400 MHz DDR, it would be quite big overclock for the rams, and quite many of the cards would have overclocking artifacts right out of the box. This would cause a lot of RMAd cards, which they obviously don't want to happen.

[fuxifuxi]

Should I take the card and show it to my seller ?
It should be replaced since it does not meet the advertised standard...

[aapo]

Originally posted by fuxifuxi
Should I take the card and show it to my seller ?
It should be replaced since it does not meet the advertised standard...

I wouldn't bother, because the chips on your card actually can run the advertised speed with overclocking, if I understood you right. I think there is a problem with your setup, because it should be a lot faster than your GF256. Try first a driver cleaning / reinstall procedure, and if it doesn't help, check and fiddle with your computer's AGP settings in BIOS.

BTW, what 3dMark 2k1 scores are you getting?

[fuxifuxi]

My card works most of the time at least 2-3 times faster than my GeForce256, but only when the limiting factor is the geometry. When the fillrate is stressed and geometry is poor, the differences are minimal (when I don't overclock)

[Uttar]

Originally posted by fuxifuxi
My card works most of the time at least 2-3 times faster than my GeForce256, but only when the limiting factor is the geometry. When the fillrate is stressed and geometry is poor, the differences are minimal (when I don't overclock)

That doesn't sound right, considering the theorical specs of both cards.
Could you try a benchmark to give us MPixels/s numbers for 1 texture and multitexture scenarios? Such benchmark exists for example in 3DMark2001 and 2003.


Uttar

[fuxifuxi]

Here are my 3DMark specifications and results:




System Configuration
Operating System Microsoft Windows 2000

DirectX Version 9.0


AGP Rates (Current/Available) 2x / 1x 2x



CPU Intel Pentium III 601 MHz

FSB 100 MHz

Memory 128 MB



Graphics Chipset NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200

Driver Name NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200

Driver Version 6.14.10.5175

Video Memory 128 MB



Program Version 3DMark2001 SE

Resolution 1024x768 32bit

Texture Format Compressed

FSAA Disabled

Z-Buffer Depth 24bit

Frame Buffer Double

Rendering Pipeline D3D Pure Hardware T&L



Detailed Test Results
3DMark Score 2816 3D marks



Game 1 Car Chase - Low Detail 39.6 FPS

Game 1 Car Chase - High Detail 10.7 FPS

Game 2 Dragothic - Low Detail 49.5 FPS

Game 2 Dragothic - High Detail 31.0 FPS

Game 3 Lobby - Low Detail 45.2 FPS

Game 3 Lobby - High Detail 19.3 FPS

Game 4 Nature 12.7 FPS



Fill Rate (Single-Texturing) 249.2 MTexels/s

Fill Rate (Multi-Texturing) 652.0 MTexels/s



High Polygon Count (1 light) 18.6 MTriangels/s

High Polygon Count (8 lights) 2.9 MTriangels/s



Environment Bump Mapping 43.6 FPS

DOT3 Bump Mapping 32.9 FPS



Vertex Shader 33.1 FPS

Pixel Shader 39.7 FPS

Advanced Pixel Shader 23.2 FPS

Point Sprite 7.0 MSprites/s



The benchmark was run without overclocking my card, so at 250/331.

[stefan435]

With a Pentium3 600Mhz it is limiting the performance you will get from that Video card. Your CPU is a bottleneck, and cannot process the information from the Video card fast enough.

[fuxifuxi]

Here is something that I have found with the result browser:

//////////////////////////////////

Score: 3761 Teste1.5 - PIII-550/616MHz - FSB112MHz -FX 5200 / ...

////////////////////////////////////

Score: 3746 MSI GeForce FX 5200 TDR128 2

User: madclo@hotmail.com
Res: 1024x768 32bit
OS: Microsoft Windows XP
Date: 2003-9-24
CPU: Intel Pentium III 602 MHz
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200

///////////////////////////////////


It seems like the CPU is not so limited...

[fuxifuxi]

For the second example, take a look at the following scores:


Fill Rate (Single-Texturing)
(MTexels/s)

my system: 249.2
the other system: 584.2


Fill Rate (Multi-Texturing)
(MTexels/s)

my system: 652.0
the other system: 709.6

Even the core seems to be limited:

Vertex Shader
(FPS)

my system: 33.1
the other system: 45.3


Pixel Shader
(FPS)

my system: 39.7
the other system: 77.5

remember that the other system is a PIII 600 MHz, with a MSI GeForceFX 5200.

[c4c]

The other system had an overclocked FSB..

Be sure to check your drivers...

[Edge]

Hmm, that does seem VERY off. Your fillrate is nowhere near what it should be at, and your 3d mark scores are low as well. At the very least it should be as fast as a TI200 (even with a 600mhz CPU). As AAPO said, you may have a card with 64 bit memory, which would basicly cut the performence in half. The shaders also seem much slower then they should be. Unfortunatly, there are a lot of really, really crappy videocard manufacturers out there, and you may simply have gotten one of the cheapy models with 64 bit memory. I remember how I got an "Apollo" GF2MX, and it's performence was only 10% faster then my Voodoo 3 (and on benchmarks it was supposed to get at least double that). Though an Asus card should be a good brand....where did you get the card from?

[mixsetup]

Just thought is your card running in AGP or in PCI mode like mine did when I first installed it.

[mixsetup]

I also get higher 3D marks with the 44.03 drivers and the Asus enhanced drivers on the Driver CD that comes with the card than the new 50xx drivers

[aapo]

Looking at your benchmark results and reading this (http://www.asus.com/products/vga/v9520m/overview.htm) it certainly seems that you have a 64 bit card. Where did you find the information your card should be 128 bit? It's very suspicious that I could find almost no information about the V9520 memory bus. Just the link above presenting a table in the bottom of the page claiming that all 128MB V9520magic cards come with 64 bit bus. :confused:

It's a very irritating policy to hide product information from consumers, IMO. :mad:

EDIT: Oops, wrong link above, sorry! I meant this (http://www.benchmark.co.yu/print.php?sid=3011)
webpage instead. In the bottom of the review is a table claiming the card has 64-bit memory bus. Doesn't seem too reliable, but it was all I found...

[fuxifuxi]

Thank you, guys. You have been helpfull.

I'll try to take my card back to my seller. Hopefully I'll get a new one, even I doubt it seriously.

Ciao !

[Greg]

Originally posted by fuxifuxi
For the second example, take a look at the following scores:

Fill Rate (Single-Texturing)
(MTexels/s)
my system: 249.2
the other system: 584.2

Fill Rate (Multi-Texturing)
(MTexels/s)
my system: 652.0
the other system: 709.6

.......

remember that the other system is a PIII 600 MHz, with a MSI GeForceFX 5200.

That is very strange, the fill rate should have almost nothing to do with the system and all to do with the video card. You don't happen to be running a 'debug' version of DirectX on one system do you? When I moved my Geforce3 from a faster system to slower one, the overall score halved, but the fillrate and vertex rate scores were identical. When I accidently left the drivers in debug mode, all scores were 1/2 to 3/4 what they would otherwise be.

[mixsetup]

Here we go http://www.asus.com/products/vga/v9520m/overview.htm
This is an overview of the Asus 9520 FX Video cards.It does say 128 bit and 400mhz memory. Facts are the memory doesn't go that high as it is 6nanoseconds memory chips that would make the memory 333mhz not 400.
But in all the adds they say 400 mem and 128bit thats why I bought one and I'm pissed aswell

[Gator]

Originally posted by fuxifuxi
...I have bought a GeForceFX 5200 card whose fillrate performance doesn't match my old Creative Annihilator's (GeForce256 DDR) performance. I am working on an intensive fillrate application and it runs at 180 fps on my old card and at 160 fps on the new 5200 card. I was astonished...

I'm gonna assume you are on a tight budget, but you need an NVidia card for your functions? You might wanna consider a GF4TI instead, they don't have DX9 but they will kick the crap out of FX5200 and FX5600 cards in nearly every application and game. GF4TI's can be had for around $100us these days too. Just a suggestion...

In my opinion, the lowest FX card worth purchasing is the FX5900 non-ultra, because that's the lowest and most affordable Nvidia card with 256bit memory bus. Other than that, it's GF4TI or you move to ATI. ;)

[aapo]

Originally posted by mixsetup
Here we go http://www.asus.com/products/vga/v9520m/overview.htm
This is an overview of the Asus 9520 FX Video cards.It does say 128 bit and 400mhz memory.

No, it doesn't actually say anything about the memory bus. It does say "128-bit, studio-precision color", but that only means it can handle DX9 PS2.0 RGBA colors with it's pixel shaders (4x32 bits), which all NV3x cores can do. It's easy to get confused there, but it has nothing to do with the memory bus of the card. AFAIK they say nothing about the memory bus, they just hide the information. Irritating, isn't it?

[fuxifuxi]

I wanted functionality when I have bought this card. I have that. But I expected performances at the level of a GF3. I received GF2 performance. That is a shame.