Calling all 7900GTO owners - help needed :-)

[Germanicus75]

Hello fellow TW fans :-)

Hope I can ask you GTO owners out there a few bugging questions to get my rig optimized as well as poss

My specs:

Athlon64 3800+ single core (2.4 Ghz, Venice) – not overclocked
2 GB OCZ dual-channel CAS2 DDR400 RAM
ASUS A8N-E nforce4 PCI-e mobo
(Win XP SP2)

My previous GPU was an ATI Radeon X800XL PCIe 256 MB (oc at 449:506 and using the latest Omega drivers).

I’ve just bought an MSI 7900GTO 512 MB. Using at stock speeds.

Here are my questions:


1) Does anyone know what kind of warranty comes with the MSI card (there’s nothing in or on the box) and how one activates it (if necessary)?

2) What drivers have people found give the best performance so far? I’ve tried the 91.47 drivers that came with the card and the XTreme-G 92.91 drivers. The standard Nvidia drivers generally gave marginally better results in 3DMark 2001/2005/2006 and the X2 rolling demo, but the XTreme drivers gave a 5 FPS average better performance in a Rome Total War BI custom battle.

3) Does anyone know if you can safely disable “nvsvc32.exe” in the startup processes list? As far as I can see all it does is consume memory.

4) From the GTO, I only saw about a 1 FPS improvement (!) on average when playing Rome Total War custom battle compared to my X800XL, but when I tried the first demo for Medieval Total War2, I almost doubled my FPS compared to the ATI card. Any ideas why? The two games are based on the same engine, although MTW2 is more graphic intensive.

5) Compared to the X800XL, I’ve almost doubled my 3dmarks in 3Dmark 2005, but only gained about 1200 3dmarks in 3Dmark 2001 – anyone know why?

6) When I run 3DMark 2005 and press Details under the “System” section to get my specs, under the GPU specs it states “0.0 Hz” under VGA Memory Clock and VGA Core Clock. Does anyone else have this?

7) Is 3DMark 2006 now the only benchmark worth using?

And now the biggies:

1) Has anyone fried their GTO clocking it at GTX level on the mem?

2) Overclocking the card. I’m trying with RivaTuner v.2 16.1 – and the best I can get is 705 core, 745 mem (i.e. mem not even close to GTX level). If try to raise the mem higher, I get a message saying the driver failed to pass the internal test for that clock frequency (I’m using the XTreme-G drivers).
Can you guys help me get my card to GTX mem levels (assuming the answer to 1) above is “no” ;-)

3) How can I get Windows, Riva, 3DMark etc. to recognize my card as a GTX?

Thanks a lot for any helpful advice! :-))

Cheers, Germanicus91

[AlfonsoVIII]

I am no expert so please do not be upset if I am wrong.

Hello fellow TW fans :-)

Hope I can ask you GTO owners out there a few bugging questions to get my rig optimized as well as poss

My specs:

Athlon64 3800+ single core (2.4 Ghz, Venice) – not overclocked
2 GB OCZ dual-channel CAS2 DDR400 RAM
ASUS A8N-E nforce4 PCI-e mobo
(Win XP SP2)

My previous GPU was an ATI Radeon X800XL PCIe 256 MB (oc at 449:506 and using the latest Omega drivers).

I’ve just bought an MSI 7900GTO 512 MB. Using at stock speeds.

Here are my questions:


1) Does anyone know what kind of warranty comes with the MSI card (there’s nothing in or on the box) and how one activates it (if necessary)?

The warranty should be on the card, or if you bought it online, the site should. However it is best to contact MSI with the warranty, but I thought that most products come with a warranty card. I have a BFG Tech GTO OC and it has a lifetime warranty.

2) What drivers have people found give the best performance so far? I’ve tried the 91.47 drivers that came with the card and the XTreme-G 92.91 drivers. The standard Nvidia drivers generally gave marginally better results in 3DMark 2001/2005/2006 and the X2 rolling demo, but the XTreme drivers gave a 5 FPS average better performance in a Rome Total War BI custom battle.

I would stick with the drivers on the CD from the card. I have issues with the 91.47 drivers in RTW but none in M2TW, but I have not seen any increase in performance between the 2 latest drivers on M2TW.

3) Does anyone know if you can safely disable “nvsvc32.exe” in the startup processes list? As far as I can see all it does is consume memory.

Start > Run > msconfig > Startup tab > Uncheck the nvsvc32.exe

4) From the GTO, I only saw about a 1 FPS improvement (!) on average when playing Rome Total War custom battle compared to my X800XL, but when I tried the first demo for Medieval Total War2, I almost doubled my FPS compared to the ATI card. Any ideas why? The two games are based on the same engine, although MTW2 is more graphic intensive.

I think the RTW engine is unrefined and not as perfected as the M2TW as I get better M2TW fps compared to RTW fps.

5) Compared to the X800XL, I’ve almost doubled my 3dmarks in 3Dmark 2005, but only gained about 1200 3dmarks in 3Dmark 2001 – anyone know why?

Different 3Dmark yields different results.

6) When I run 3DMark 2005 and press Details under the “System” section to get my specs, under the GPU specs it states “0.0 Hz” under VGA Memory Clock and VGA Core Clock. Does anyone else have this?

Sorry, I do not use 2Dmark so I cannot answer this question.

7) Is 3DMark 2006 now the only benchmark worth using?

From what I have read, 2006 requires a better rig to even use it on compared to 2005. Make sure your rig can handle 2006 before using it.

And now the biggies:

1) Has anyone fried their GTO clocking it at GTX level on the mem?

I have heard it done countless times with 0 fries. But some stock ones have fried.

2) Overclocking the card. I’m trying with RivaTuner v.2 16.1 – and the best I can get is 705 core, 745 mem (i.e. mem not even close to GTX level). If try to raise the mem higher, I get a message saying the driver failed to pass the internal test for that clock frequency (I’m using the XTreme-G drivers).
Can you guys help me get my card to GTX mem levels (assuming the answer to 1) above is “no” ;-)

I am no expert in OCing video cards, but I doubt you will see much difference anyways, you have an awesome card already.

3) How can I get Windows, Riva, 3DMark etc. to recognize my card as a GTX?

All I can say is that CPUz will see my 4200 X2 as a 4200 X2 no matter how slow I underclock it. I beleive it is impossible to do that since the card is embedded with what kind of card it is.

Thanks a lot for any helpful advice! :-))

Cheers, Germanicus91[/QUOTE]

[Spart]

The thing with Rome and 3DMArk 01 is, that X800XL is enough for them both in graphical sense, so you can't get any better results.. Both Rome and Mark01 depend lot on the cpu. But don't worry, new games will surely notice your 7900GTO. :wink:

And just run 3DMark 06 or 05, older ones are pretty worthless. Point of these programs is to cause difficulties even with high-end systems.

[Germanicus75]

Thanks alot Alfonso and Spartacus, that answered almost all my questions :-)
Maybe I won't bother overclocking the card after all. I'm probably going to hold out too for an FX-57 when they're get cheaper early next year. I think it will run MTW2 well enough. I've noticed the FX-55s are already disappearing off the shelves...

Cheers! Germanicus91