First of all
I apologize for not having visited this thread again earlier - I got no email from k6plus that new postings are here.
Second: Congratulations !!!
You infected me two weeks ago and I played around again with my old systems the last 2 weeks and also managed to get 4100-something points.
BUT: this was done on my P5A, which gives me only 128mb/s (max 130 sometimes) WRITE performance in everest 2.20 (Win 98SE) (FSB 100)
I never managed to get higher results in write-speed when using 6 x 100 mhz on Win98. When using 5,5x100 it gets up to 170 or 180 when I remember correctly.
Then I installed again Windows2000 and again I ran into the same troubles that I had so many times (all times) before, meaning that FSB is only half of what should be (100) (under xp fsb is oscillating). This happens on the very same machine ... During the last two weeks I tried everything to find out a way of this but with no success. This means that many benchmark programs or sys-inspection tools (like everest) show weired results or don't run at all or in a strange way.
So then I grabbed my GA-5AX 5.2 and installed windows 2000 there. And voila - stable FSB!!!!!
Here (GA-5AX, win2000) I get 141mb/s write speed in everest (2.20). This is a 10% boost !!! compared with my P5A-win98 sytem. Read-speed is the same (360 mb/s) as in Win98, latency also (about 190/191 nanoseconds).
So obviously windows 2000 gives a better memory performance. Maybe you can reach 4300 or even more here! Will you give it a try?
There are some BUTs. First, you can forget ali-agp-utility in windows 2000. Although agp-drivers from I think 1.73 on upwards try to make the driver work with agp-utility via registry IT DOESN NOT. It's a fake. The only thing you can change via agp-utility is agp-mode (1 or 2) or force it into pci-mode. All other things seem to be hard-coded into the driver and it gives a damn what agp-utility does in the registry. I tried 1.72, 173, 174, 180 and I think also 183 but to no avail. So there is no way to for example set gat-mode as I used to in win98. What I have found out also is that there is almost no difference whether using agp 1x or 2x, but setting gat mode to 2 is more important (win 98).
BUT, I have also found out that WITHOUT installing ANY ali-agp driver (from ALI) the performance of the (ali-)driver windows 2000 (svp4, + svp-rollup 1 version2 installed) brings along is VERY good. I found out (via the utility PCI32 from someone called
craig that it enables agp 2x for both the chipset and the vga-card. So I recommend to first stick with the drivers that windows 2000 brings with it from the beginning.
Also ctu-tool does not work in windows 2000. k6speed does! what is important here that you check whether WRITE ALLOCATION is enabled here (with no hole; means NO check at this checkbox). If write allocation is not enabled, you get very poor memory-write results (about 70-80 mb/s).
wpcredit works also in windows 2000.
But before you give windows 2000 a try you probably will try another thing in windows 98 if you have not already done so. In ali-agp-utility set FRAME BUFFER to ALL. This helped me (I think this was the reason) to get over the 4100 mark (from 4030 or so previously).
One other thing with windows 2000 drives me crazy since two days: I can not run ANY OPEN-GL benchmark/game! And this happens with driver versions below the 6x.xx which I know from my research into this problem in the past work in 2D and with games that need only directx 7, but all other directx/direct3D games don't. Interestingly OPEN-GL works perfectly with these drivesrs. Anyway, here I am with driver 52.16 and I can not run a single open-gl based programm. I immediately get an error message. Maybe you have more luck or you find a way out of this problem.
So long, hope to hear some good news ...