3DMark03 Bug Report...

[Joe DeFuria]

3D Mark's forums are getting hammered, and I don't really want to register there anyway. Hopefully Worm will find this here....

A couple bugs to report in the "export results to Excel" option:

1) Fill Rate scores are labeled as "MTexels/s", however, they are given as Texels/sec. (Unless my Radeon 8500 is getting 632414490 MTexels/sec!)

2) Many of the cell formats are coded improperly. One example of a correct format is for Vertex Shader test. The format is:
0.0" fps"

So, 13.34 is displayed as '13.3 fps' which is good.

However, many of the formats wrong, such as 3D Mark Score. My results for the score is 773. The Format coded as:
"773 3DMarks"

when it should be
0" 3DMarks"

Because the improper format includes the actual score, the "appearance" of the cell is correct. However, unexpected behavior occurs if you do things like use that cell in a calculation. (Because Excel will carry the format over....)


Also, one concern about the Export to Excel option: I am surprised that you paste the user's Registration Key into the results! Seems likely to have registration keys being inadvertantly passed around....

 

[DeathKnight]

Botched installation file. It always refers to drive C: for free space when you're choosing to install the program. It doesn't report on the target drive that you picked. So unless you have 450Mb of free space on drive C: then you can't install it (whether it be to drive C: or another drive). It doesn't report dive free space or how much space is needed for the installation. After you get the "not enough free space" error you can not go back in the installation because it will continue to give you the error message.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

Possible sound glitch in the demo:

At least on my system, the sound is out of sync with the graphics. (On the first demo, Wings of Fury, only. Other demos are fine.

Easy way to tell: when the "film" starts (The title with the "old film" post processing filter), you visually see the film start...and then a full 2 seconds or so later, you "hear" it start. The rest of the demo (explosions, fly-by noise) is also obviously lagging the visuals by the same amount.

I'm running a Rdeon 8500, Win XP, and Sound Blaster Live...

 

[demalion]

I noticed odd sound behavior in the sound test when I ran it...I had thought it was my configuartion of EAX. I'll doublecheck...perhaps there is something wonky with their sound code.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

demalion...

What sound card do you have? I can't even run the sound test! (Apparently, the SB Live! doesn't support enough sounds in hardware?)

 

[demalion]

I have a SBLive as well, that's why I didn't mention it...it is a 5.1 Platinum though.

I only had 1 sound test complete...I'm operating on a "filthy system" (a 9x OS system that tried to crash but managed to recover ), and I'll get back to you after I configure my settings and reboot in a bit, and run it again, including the first part of the demo.

 

[Crusher]

Interestingly, I just installed DX9 and ran the sound test in dxdiag. The SBLive! Value only played the first 12 of the 16 sound clips. I checked Creative's support page, and there aren't any updated Win2k drivers, so I'm guessing the problems is that they don't have any fully DX9 compatible drivers out yet (at least, not for the older cards, maybe they do for the Audigy 2 series or something).

 

[jvd]

I have alot of stuttering with my 9700pro. I tried installing the newest ati drivers a bunch of times . I'm running a 2000+ athlon 512megs of ram and an audigy. I even overclocked my computer to 2.2ghz and still have the problem . Also sometimes the second demo runs at 3-10fps and sometimes at 40fps(Don't mean during the bench i mean everytime i redo the test) I don't know if its a dirty os or in the drivers or whatever but i thought i'd report all this here.

 

[demalion]

The demo sounded OK to me as far as I could tell with a casual listening.

The sound test sounded exactly the same after I changed some settings around. I'd have to experiment some more, but a DX 9 sound driver issue could easily be the problem.

Creative sound drivers are not on my favorites list, especially non-existent updated VXD (AFAIK, please tell me if you know otherwise) drivers.

 

[Althornin]

I have alot of stuttering with my 9700pro. I tried installing the newest ati drivers a bunch of times . I'm running a 2000+ athlon 512megs of ram and an audigy. I even overclocked my computer to 2.2ghz and still have the problem . Also sometimes the second demo runs at 3-10fps and sometimes at 40fps(Don't mean during the bench i mean everytime i redo the test) I don't know if its a dirty os or in the drivers or whatever but i thought i'd report all this here.

I had the same problem, but only on gmaes 2,3,4 - NOT game test 1.
Turned out to be an app in my systray (TaskInfo) that causes problems with NONE of my games. Weird.

 

[jvd]

heh... guess i have to go through all that to find out which program is causing the problem... heh

 

[demalion]

I saw some results with graphics card speeds listed when browsing the ORB.

Apparently, this function does not work with Radeonator's overclock utility (or perhaps it is something else that prevents this, like an unfortunate regsitration feature decision).
I'm wondering which overclocker(s?) it does work with. I'd guess powerstrip is pretty likely, since it is common to multiple cards, but what else?
If this isn't a registration issue, they could take a lesson from powerstrip which seems to have reading such info down pat (easier said than done perhaps).


On another note, while with current cards the CPU and system have much less of an impact than for 3dmark 2001, it would have been nice if FSB frequency was listed next to CPU frequency.

 

[Himself]

I saw some results with graphics card speeds listed when browsing the ORB.

Apparently, this function does not work with Radeonator's overclock utility (or perhaps it is something else that prevents this, like an unfortunate regsitration feature decision)..

You will notice the powerstrip logo at the bottom of the 3dmark display, they basically got powerstrip to implement that functionality for them, no other overclockers will work for that purpose.

 

[Himself]

Lots of sound issues with my acoustic edge, no sound tests at all under win98se using the 2.59 drivers, works with the 1.89 wdm drivers but only for 32 voices.

Can't submit any results under win98se, but it works under winxp.

 

[Tahir2]

jvd: I had the same problem with stuttering on my first ever run. Fixed this by going to display properties, settings, advanced, troubleshooting and moving the slider down one notch as per Rallisport fix.

I also disabled all programs under XP taskmanager and any non-essential processes apart from pstrip.exe.

Himself: Regarding sound I too have problems with 64 hw voices test on my Acoustic Edge. 32 voices seems fine.

 

[Nick[FM]]

This seems a thread I can dig into.

Joe DeFuria,

About that Export To Excel. We will look into them as soon as possible. I haven't had time to check those, but will try to do so.

About the installer. Sure, it requires ~600MB free space on your C: drive at the moment. There is a "workaround", but it is not an official workaround. At least not until we have it in our FAQ or something. So don't quote me on this yet:

Here's how the shortcut to the 3DMark03.exe should look like, if you need to extract it to some other drive than C:

C:\3DMark03\3DMark03.exe -extract_all:Z:\XXX

Instead of Z, put your drive you want to use, and then instead of XXX the folder. It then extracts the stuff to your desired location, instead of C: At least it did for me.. heh. Then just go to that XXX folder, and run the setup.exe.
But as I said, it's no "official" workaround until we have tested it more. Give it a shot if you like, and please report (here?) how it works.

The sound issues are a tad more difficult... All we can say for now is to download the latest drivers for your soundcard. We know that some drivers are pretty old, but let's hope that the soundcard manufacturers will release new fresh ones soon. Btw, If you have a soundblaster card (Live!, Audigy etc), please check the different soundblaster.com area sites (US, ASIA and EU). They sometimes have different versions as latest drivers available, for the same card. At least they used to.

demalion,

Do you mean that the FSB should be shown next to the CPU MHz, instead of below it? :?

Is the Acoustic Edge supposed to have 63+ 3D sounds support in hardware? If not, then it should only run the 2 first tests. If it still tries to run the third, it is a driver issue. Most likely in any case, it is a driver issue. Old Live! drivers let the Live! TRY to run the 60 sound test. It fails, and exits with some errors. The card doesn't support 60 hw 3D sounds. Newer drivers fix that.

The Radeon 9700 Pro stuttering can be solved by moving the slider Tahir mentioned, one notch down. I'd presume this will be adressed in a future driver release from ATI? Dunno for sure though.. Maybe OpenGL guy can step in and let us know!

Anything else? The 3DMark03 FAQ is a good place to check for info & tips on how to get some smaller problems go away..

 

[Tahir2]

The Radeon 9700 Pro stuttering can be solved by moving the slider Tahir mentioned, one notch down. I'd presume this will be adressed in a future driver release from ATI? Dunno for sure though.. Maybe OpenGL guy can step in and let us know!

I was looking in the credits for my name and lo! there was none to be found! D'oh! By the way I love the music in the demo. It makes all the scenes hang together so much better

 

[demalion]

]...

demalion,

Do you mean that the FSB should be shown next to the CPU MHz, instead of below it? :?

It isn't shown at all in the search and compare search result view, which you're now going to tell me I should have mentioned?! Do I have to spell everything out for you?!

sorry for not mentioning it

Some other problems:

Why is my floppy drive making that annoying sound when starting 3dmark03?

Why is the powerstrip based (thanks Himself!) clock frequency detection of my card not working? Using the actual powerstrip program, the clocks are detected properly, so the authors know what to do to read it properly on my system I'd think...

...
The Radeon 9700 Pro stuttering can be solved by moving the slider Tahir mentioned, one notch down. I'd presume this will be adressed in a future driver release from ATI? Dunno for sure though.. Maybe OpenGL guy can step in and let us know!

The Cat 3.1 release notes mentioned something to do with AGP writes being disabled causing performance issues in 3dmark03, and something else.

Anything else? The 3DMark03 FAQ is a good place to check for info & tips on how to get some smaller problems go away..

Hmm...I guess I'll go read it?

 

[JF_Aidan_Pryde]

I also had the problem with drive C not having enough space although I selected drive D. (The installer file was originally in C)

 

[Nick[FM]]

I was looking in the credits for my name and lo! there was none to be found! D'oh! By the way I love the music in the demo. It makes all the scenes hang together so much better

Thanks! I shall pass the kind words to the sound team!

It isn't shown at all in the search and compare search result view

It is a 3DMark03 Pro feature. You can only search by the GPU/VPU core & mem if you are a Pro user. A good reason for YOU to get the 3DMark03 Pro!

Why is my floppy drive making that annoying sound when starting 3dmark03?

Whaaat? Hehe.. This one is new to me. I need to TRY to reproduce it here. What Floppy drive do you have? Is it overclocked? Maybe a driver issue!

j/k.. No, but I will try to reproduce it here. Any additional info would help!

Why is the powerstrip based (thanks Himself!) clock frequency detection of my card not working? Using the actual powerstrip program, the clocks are detected properly, so the authors know what to do to read it properly on my system I'd think...

That's odd! We tested on almost all cards we could get our hands on, and here it worked on all. Any additional info would be great.. How about a compare url link to your published project? I could then take a look with me fancy admin tool the database bois made for me!

The Cat 3.1 release notes mentioned something to do with AGP writes being disabled causing performance issues in 3dmark03, and something else.

Dunno.. Didn't have time to really dig into that. For all I know, the "workaround" Tahir mentioned should work. At least I have heard so.. Still hoping for OpenGL guy to help us out here..

Hmm...I guess I'll go read it?

I hate to say this, but if you can access it! The servers are so slammed, but do try to hit it. Here's the URL:

http://service.futuremark.com/servlet/Index?pageid=/support/3dmark03