What is the normal 3DMark 2001 score for this GPU? I have only around 9600 points with ASUS A7V266 and AMD Athlon XP 1600+ and 512 MB RAM. All older games lagging (FPS drop). I can't play Far Cry on 1024x768 (Low) without lag and FPS drop. Bad GPU or what?
This GPU belongs to museum! Damn dude, I am surprised there such antique hardware still being used. Ok, I would check temperature right away. Older hardware can easily get hot due to thermal paste being drought and dust all over the place. Check CPU, GPU and motherboard temperatures. If temperatures are fine and there still fps drops, it could be really anything. Obviously hardware gets less reliable with age. So if you overclocking anything, restore it to stock. Again, don't narrow to GPU. Whole rig is old and everything can cause problem.
Hah, that's a blast from the past The 3dmark score seems about right, pretty good actually. I used to have an athlon xp 1500+ @1500mhz with an Geforce 3ti-200. (only a little bit slower than a 9600xt, got a 3dmark2001 score of around 7000 on that rig). I had to run Far Cry @low and 800x600 to get some barely playable framerates back then. It took an athlon 64 3200+ with a radeon 9800pro to play Far Cry decently @med-high settings. It's both very CPU and GPU intensive for that generation.