Nvidia 12.41 OFFICIAL drivers...

[Arcon]

I've tried many drivers, including the 10.80 and of course the old default detonator to try to resolve possible incompatibilities.

These drivers seem rock solid in everything I play regularly, although I still get some odd  minor stutter in WB2 and a little in WBIII.  Not sure if this is WB software related or just my combo of drivers and motherboard.

I have a 950mhz Athlon with pc100 memory
256 megs, Via chipset, using the lastest AGP driver (from the four in one) and DirectX8a, using a Geforce2 MX.

I'm interested in feedback about other peoples experiences with these drivers, and wonder if anyone has more info on the stuttering problem...

Framerates seem very good, Not sure how much better, but seems alot more stable than 10.8

Feedback would be much appreciated!

The drivers can be found directly from nvidia at www.nvidia.com,  I believe

 

[bloom25]

I posted some stuff about these in our hardware forum.  They are pretty good, though they do lack the ability to use coolbits.  

(Oh well, NVMax works.   )

As for the studdering, it's likely due to the little blinking light connection icon for your modem.  In win9x, try removing the icon from the taskbar. My Computer -> dial-up networking -> connections menu -> settings -> uncheck the very top box "show icon on taskbar after connected"  (or something similar).

That will probably fix it, if not, I'd suspect an IRQ conflict and/or driver issues.  Just for fun I'd also recommend a defrag of the hard drive as well.

[FDisk]

I used to run alot of nvidia cards. 9 time outta ten freezing and poor performance was due to BIOS settings... write NVIDIA and ask what they should be

[bloom25]

Freezing and micro screen stutters are quite different.  From what I understood Arcon is having the latter.  Freezing can be caused by enabling fastwrites and sidebanding in the bios, as well as what is known as "Agp driving value."

I just wrote a new tech support FAQ that includes much of what I typed here.  (I forgot to include the driving value thing though, I'll add it later.)  Document file is available from www.engr.orst.edu/~bloom/AHFaq1.doc

[Arcon]

Thanks for the info.  As it turns out, the stutters were fairly minor in AH, but much worse in WBIII(beta).

I recently flashed my bios, updated my hpt ATA100 drivers, and tried to push my machine further into the envelope.  

(KT7-RAID oldest version unstable past 104MHZ FSB)

Result : Some weird progressive failures that  made windows 98SE repeatedly shoot itself in the foot with a shotgun. But in a subtle fashion that still allowed it to limp along  

As a result, I've had to completely rebuild my boot drive with three windows re-installs,  two registry restores from three days ago (Hey, I had a gichy feeling     ) and repeated attempts to get the latest via 4in1 drivers back into my device listing. Read: 5 installs of the via stuff at least, with hand picked hardware installation at least three times. Couldn't even get the DANM CD-ROM up several times. <sigh>

In the end: Nvidia Mx2 in AGP (4X), NVTweak to turn on acceleration, SBLIVE in slot 3, Ethernet adapter (cable modem) in slot 5, latest BIOS and HPT drivers, DX8a, Nvidia 12.41, AGP HAS IT OWN IRQ NOW, things are looking MUCH better and stutter is not an issue (havent tried WBII yet). And Im using the Via 4.32a without a hitch.

I'm locking down this Reg, and have all the files on an alternate partition incase I EVER have to reformat c:, which I barely avoided doing.

I'm sending this detailed info so others can get the "cream of the crop" info, on the cutting edge.

In any case, getting a unique IRQ for the AGP  seems to help.

Just please don't use my technique  

Will be checking out the NV12.42 and maybe 12.46, but things are going very well considering my system specs.

Feel free to mail me if I can help you avoid the tragic learning curve I experienced...

generino1@home.net

[Nethawk]

Bloom - you can still use coolbits with 12.41, you need to replace c:\windows\system\nvcpl.dll with one from a previous version.  I had 12.40 previously installed, and used the nvcpl.dll file from that version and overwrote the one from the 12.41 installation.

I had 12.40, then 7.78 drivers running on my machine (GeForce2 Pro) before putting 12.41 on.  I see a slight drop in level flight framerate, but overall very stable.  I had slight "stutters" in 7.78 which are cleared up now.  I also had frequent blue flashes which cleared up by upping the IO voltage to 3.5v on my motherboard (previously 3.4v).

Currently with 12.41 my framerate in level flight averages around 114.  I am running AGP 4x and have disabled antialiasing.

System Info:

Abit KT7A-Raid
AMD T'bird 1.33ghz
256mb Crucial CAS2 memory
Guillemot GeForce2 GTS PRO 64mb

I have also modified some of the advanced (coolbits) settings, but I am at work and do not have access to that information.

7.78 drivers - best framerate so far
12.40 drivers - best color saturation
12.41 drivers - very stable after a week and multiple 'tweaks'