This is a long message so please bear with me!

I recently upgraded my sister's PC, At the time it was only using a cyrix 333 processor (which we all know is cack), 4MB on board Graphics, a Voodoo2 card, 64MB of EDO Ram, an second hand 6 GB hard drive. The motherboard was based on a SIS chipset (5597/98), and I also had a Sound Blaster 64AWE ISA Card

It all started when I purchased an Nvidia Geforce 2 MX PCI card for the system. Based on my previous goings with the series of cards (I have a Geforce 2 GTS in mine), i decided it would be the best short term solution to the little problem until I could a more perminent solution. Anyway The system was churning through the demos of Quake 3 at around 17fps. But the thing that really got me was the half-life performance. It was really struggling on 640x480 Resoulution DirectX!!!

As a result, I went down to the local computer fair and bought a new motherboard (SIS 5595 chipset) and 128 MB of 133Mz SDRAM. I use a K6-2 300 Processor (one I had lying around), and I brought over all the cards, apart from the ISA Sound Blaster, becuase there was no room in the case. Instead i used the on-board sound system.

I installed Windows ME, and all the latest drivers. I tried Quake 3, and still it came in around 17fps!!! There is a bottleneck in there somewhere, but I am at a loss where!!! No matter what resoultion I try it is always around 17fps, so I don't think it is the graphics. I am wondering whether of not it is the hard drive, as it does make quite a noise when accessing data, and when watching the demo sequence from Typing of the dead.

Anything else you guys can think of because I am almost out of options.

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Bob The Builder

http://www.thtproductions.co.uk/

Latest via drivers?

Upgrading from the POS Cyrix 333 to the K6-300 was a good choice!

DIE CYRIX DIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!

What does VIA have to do with the SIS chipsets? Are they the same company or something?

I have to get rid off the Cyrix. It was driving me sister up the wall!!! But unfortunatly I can't tell the difference till I sort this problem out mate....

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Bob The Builder

http://www.thtproductions.co.uk/

I think the bottleneck is with the CPU - the upgrade from the Cyrix to the K6-2 isnt a huge one, the AMD chip has no L2 cache, which kills games performance.
Im not too sure how good the chipset it also, doubt it's any good.

My advice = upgrade CPU+mobo

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In the year of our Lord 1314, patriots of Scotland,
starving and outnumbered, charged the fields at Bannockburn. They fought
like warrior poets. They fought like Scotsmen. And won their freedom.

You could try to find drivers here for that crappy mobo http://www.sis.com.tw/support/download/driver1.htm


SIS is a really bad company to buy mobo's from. The IDE drivers on this site are 2 yrs old so the IDE drivers that come with Windows are probably better. I agree with the above. Get a better mobo. My personal favorite is the Soyo SY5EMA+ or a mobo that supports K+ processors.....but you already bought this mobo so you probably want to fix it.

I upgraded the K6-300 to 500, and there was a 5 fps increase in Q3 (22 fps instead of 17)

I overclocked the PCI card to 180HZ on both setting things in Powerstrip and the system has got a little bit faster but not much.

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Bob The Builder

http://www.thtproductions.co.uk/

I think there must be a bottleneck, because on an old TNT2 with a K62 400 I could get more than 17fps - around 30 I think at 800 * 600 but don't quote me on that. Dos freak is right, if the SIS board uses a Via chipset make sure you have the latest 4 in 1 drivers.