cvearl
12-04-02, 10:52 AM
I cross post this as it is buried 10 feet deep in an old thread and I wanted to share these findings and comments. Also, this reply is also not on the same subject as my 64 vs. 128MB thread.
As some of you may have already read in my previous posts, I was getting ticked off at the Jitters effect some games gave me when maxing the texture settings in them. I have been reading around for weeks and posted my original 64 vs. 128MB Jitters question in several forums. I was trying to figure out if my issue was that I only had 64MB and if I should spend some more cash to go to 128MB. The pattern I began to notice was that people with 128MB G4Ti4400/4600 and Radeon 9700 Pro cards were not complaining of this issue. That originally led me to believe that perhaps it was because they have 128MB cards. Since I have not really been able to prove yes or no, I loooked at other possibilities and ultimately solved my JKII Jitters when run in "Very High Texture" mode. After thinking about it, it was not only that the people not complaining had 128MB but also that thier cards all sported faster memory. My MSI G4Ti4200-64TD is default clocked at 513Mhz. G4Ti4400/4600 sport faster video memory starting at 550Mhz - 600Mhz and faster on the 9700Pro. While 10-15% faster meory does not sound like it should make that much difference, I did some looking around. I found a review of my card at HardOCP where they specifically noted that the memory on the MSI 4200 card was 3.4ns and that it is rated for 556Mhz. Just to let all of you know that I am not an overclocker. At least not since the Celeron 300A days anyway. I always felt it was more work than what you got in the end. However I wanted to test the faster memory theory out. Also, knowing that the review of this 4200 also eluded to the fact that MSI put an oversized cooler and faster memory on board while including an overclocking utility right in thier driver properties, MSI was tryin to attract overclockers. They actually encorage it! To test, I installed thier 31.00 driver (is that an MSI modified 29.82??? who knows) and then tested JKII. The Jitters were still present. Then I pushed the memory from 513 to 556 and did a 3DMARK 2001 SE run a few times making sure there were no visual artifacts. There were none at all which would confirm that the memory is indeed rated for 556Mhz. HardOCP actually settled on 608Mhz as thier maximum reliable speed but I don't like to push things to far. I like quality over speed any day. Anyway, I then fired up JKII again and Viola! no more jitters!!!!! This leads to two comments. First, I thorize that it is not the actual increase in speed of the RAM that solved the problem as it only increased my 3DMark score by about 4 or 5%. Instead I beleive that memory is more efficient when it is run at it's rated speed and when "underclocked" by the vendor as in the case of this card, you can uncover small annomlies such as the Jitters when I pushed all the settings to max in JKII. This is because you really are not pushing the memories envelope until you go to these higher settings. As I stated earlier, going to the Highest Texture Setting did not actually drop the framrate by any noticable amount, but the jitters in the textures appeared. This all probably comes down to a memory timing issue where in the lower setting, the ram has a harder time syncronizing with the GPU for delivering texutres accurately. If this is all true, my final comment is that I wish that manufacturers would just optimize clocks at the factory for best performance/visual qualitly and stop selling "overclockable" product. I would rather they do that at the factory for me so that I can spend more time using the Freakin product and less time tweaking to get the card to it's proper settings in the first place. nVidia has reference designs for a reason! Follow the design Aholes! and if you want to swap out for faster memory, then clock it properly!!! I have half a mind to send this to MSI if they could even read it but it would be a waste of time. Overclocking has turned into a sport. ATI on the other hand is known for shipping thier cards (8500LE being one acception) tuned for maximum speed and stability and most people have trouble getting even a few percentages out of ATI 9700 Pro cards. Thank you ATI. This is one of the reasons I am likely going to buy a 9500 Pro!
Peace out!
Charles.
As some of you may have already read in my previous posts, I was getting ticked off at the Jitters effect some games gave me when maxing the texture settings in them. I have been reading around for weeks and posted my original 64 vs. 128MB Jitters question in several forums. I was trying to figure out if my issue was that I only had 64MB and if I should spend some more cash to go to 128MB. The pattern I began to notice was that people with 128MB G4Ti4400/4600 and Radeon 9700 Pro cards were not complaining of this issue. That originally led me to believe that perhaps it was because they have 128MB cards. Since I have not really been able to prove yes or no, I loooked at other possibilities and ultimately solved my JKII Jitters when run in "Very High Texture" mode. After thinking about it, it was not only that the people not complaining had 128MB but also that thier cards all sported faster memory. My MSI G4Ti4200-64TD is default clocked at 513Mhz. G4Ti4400/4600 sport faster video memory starting at 550Mhz - 600Mhz and faster on the 9700Pro. While 10-15% faster meory does not sound like it should make that much difference, I did some looking around. I found a review of my card at HardOCP where they specifically noted that the memory on the MSI 4200 card was 3.4ns and that it is rated for 556Mhz. Just to let all of you know that I am not an overclocker. At least not since the Celeron 300A days anyway. I always felt it was more work than what you got in the end. However I wanted to test the faster memory theory out. Also, knowing that the review of this 4200 also eluded to the fact that MSI put an oversized cooler and faster memory on board while including an overclocking utility right in thier driver properties, MSI was tryin to attract overclockers. They actually encorage it! To test, I installed thier 31.00 driver (is that an MSI modified 29.82??? who knows) and then tested JKII. The Jitters were still present. Then I pushed the memory from 513 to 556 and did a 3DMARK 2001 SE run a few times making sure there were no visual artifacts. There were none at all which would confirm that the memory is indeed rated for 556Mhz. HardOCP actually settled on 608Mhz as thier maximum reliable speed but I don't like to push things to far. I like quality over speed any day. Anyway, I then fired up JKII again and Viola! no more jitters!!!!! This leads to two comments. First, I thorize that it is not the actual increase in speed of the RAM that solved the problem as it only increased my 3DMark score by about 4 or 5%. Instead I beleive that memory is more efficient when it is run at it's rated speed and when "underclocked" by the vendor as in the case of this card, you can uncover small annomlies such as the Jitters when I pushed all the settings to max in JKII. This is because you really are not pushing the memories envelope until you go to these higher settings. As I stated earlier, going to the Highest Texture Setting did not actually drop the framrate by any noticable amount, but the jitters in the textures appeared. This all probably comes down to a memory timing issue where in the lower setting, the ram has a harder time syncronizing with the GPU for delivering texutres accurately. If this is all true, my final comment is that I wish that manufacturers would just optimize clocks at the factory for best performance/visual qualitly and stop selling "overclockable" product. I would rather they do that at the factory for me so that I can spend more time using the Freakin product and less time tweaking to get the card to it's proper settings in the first place. nVidia has reference designs for a reason! Follow the design Aholes! and if you want to swap out for faster memory, then clock it properly!!! I have half a mind to send this to MSI if they could even read it but it would be a waste of time. Overclocking has turned into a sport. ATI on the other hand is known for shipping thier cards (8500LE being one acception) tuned for maximum speed and stability and most people have trouble getting even a few percentages out of ATI 9700 Pro cards. Thank you ATI. This is one of the reasons I am likely going to buy a 9500 Pro!
Peace out!
Charles.