3DMark03 more GPU stressful than 05 or 06?...or buggy?

[ThunderGod66]

Since I just upgraded the hs/fan on my agp x1950xt, I've been running some tests trying to find the overclocking sweet spot. 3DMark03's Game Test 4: Mother Nature is screwing me up though. It seems to always die at the same spot about 3/4 through when I set my core to anything above 688.

With my core set to 709, I can run 3DMark05, 06, and the Half Life 2: Lost Coast Stress Test over and over but not 03's Mother Nature. Is there a reason that this specific test is failing and nothing else? I just want to know if I'm going crazy for no reason and should maybe ignore it.

It's not my temps because I log them with Ati Tray Tools and it's usually only in the low 50s when Mother Nature crashes. Other tests run it up to the low 60s and it's fine.


Edit: Meh, I guess I'll just lower the core but I'm still curious why 03 would show me the instability better than 05 or 06.

 

[legcramp]

Well, if it's unstable @ those speeds, then its unstable. I guess even though its older than 05 and 06, maybe its using something the newer versions aren't and messing up your core @ the higher speeds.

 

[Jinto]

Im not sure about GPU however I know the CPU test in 3dmark05 is more stressful than the one in 3dmark06.

 

[ThunderGod66]

Yea, I did some digging around and I saw that nvidia didn't like 03 for a few reasons. One of them was:

Not enough DirectX 9
— The game 4 test, dubbed "Mother Nature," doesn't use enough of DX9's new features. Only two of the nine pixel shaders use the new PS 2.0 spec; the other seven use PS 1.4. Thus, "the amount of DX9 represented in the 3DMark03 score is negligible. It's not a DX9 benchmark."

So it was probably something to do with the old PS that's probably not used at all in 05 and 06. Either way, I clocked it down because Neverwinter Nights 2 crashed on me .