Author Topic: Detonator4 - 21.81 drivers. (Read 1374 times)

jihad · « **on:** September 10, 2001, 03:02:00 PM »

Get in line, nVidea released them today, downloading at a blazing 1.45kbps.

Lephturn · « **Reply #1 on:** September 10, 2001, 03:14:00 PM »

Please, please... if everything is working fine for you now, DO NOT update your drivers.

nVidia has a habit of putting out lots of hosed up drivers.

The hardware is only so fast. The new drivers will not likely make any noticeable difference. Unless you currently have a problem you have been unable to solve, I recommend you just keep your current drivers.

highflyer · « **Reply #2 on:** September 10, 2001, 03:26:00 PM »

On the contrary

Nvidia says that with these new drivers a Geforce 3 should be increased speedwise (bus optimizations) by 30-40 percent

Its worth checking out.

Also it is no bother to delete a few files, and reinstall the older ones if these show no promise

214thCavalier · « **Reply #3 on:** September 10, 2001, 03:58:00 PM »

Aha

and if you really ,REALLY want em go here quick ftp://ftp1.detonator.nvidia.com/pub/drivers/english/Windows/21.81/

COS WHILE THE NVIDIA SITE IS CRASHING AND TIMING OUT FOR THE LAST HOUR I JUST GOT EM HERE AT 12K / SEC

oops caps

whels · « **Reply #4 on:** September 10, 2001, 03:59:00 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by highflyer:
On the contrary

Nvidia says that with these new drivers a Geforce 3 should be increased speedwise (bus optimizations) by 30-40 percent

Its worth checking out.

Also it is no bother to delete a few files, and reinstall the older ones if these show no promise

pre release test have shown a 10 to 40% increase in preoformance with Det4.

highflyer · « **Reply #5 on:** September 10, 2001, 04:10:00 PM »

a simple I agree wheels

mason22 · « **Reply #6 on:** September 10, 2001, 04:25:00 PM »

I'm gonna agree with Lephturn on this one.

However, if you DO own a G3, then go ahead tryem out for us

My ultra is sittin purty with 14.10's from herc untill i see the Nv's are ok.

SKurj · « **Reply #7 on:** September 10, 2001, 04:43:00 PM »

Use Cavalier's link, 120k/sec fer me

40 secs total

SKurj

Tac · « **Reply #8 on:** September 10, 2001, 05:19:00 PM »

I see no big difference with the det 4's in AH as far as fps goes.. I guess only 7fps gain.

However, when using the DX8 AH, its HORRIBLE. Type and the fps drops to 12, fire guns, you lose 5 fps (and im using no tracers!), move views it drops to 10 fps when the view is centering back to front..

In all, dx8 AH does not work well at all with the det4's for me. And yes AA is off and all that good stuff.

Lephturn · « **Reply #9 on:** September 11, 2001, 07:18:00 AM »

10-40% speed increase? I'll believe that when I see it. No driver is going to give you 40% more frames out of an existing card unless the previous ones were completely screwed to begin with.

Always remember... speed isn't everything. If nVidia is claiming the benefit of these newer drivers is speed, stay away from them! Extra speed doesn't come from thin air... they likely had to sacrifice something to get it. Normally that something is stability, consistency, and/or image quality.

I say again... unless your current drivers are busted or you really want to be a ginea pig, keep the drivers you have now. Only those with a GeForce 3 should even consider it, and only then if you know what you are doing and are willing to spend some time re-installing drivers. Oh, and don't believe the tests you'll see on the web where they run Quake 3 and some benchmark program and call them stable. They can still cause problems in AH, so my advice is to wait for a while and see how others do with them in AH on your OS before you mess with them.

Rocket · « **Reply #10 on:** September 11, 2001, 08:00:00 AM »

With my Asus V7700 I found out quickly to stay away from reference drivers and stick with factory released drivers. Saves a TON of problems in the long run.
I am runnin great with the Asus 12.90 drivers with the exception my monitor wakes up all screwed up and I have to reboot to fix it. I had to tell the monitor to never sleep. Funny tho it works great if I turn it off.. just sleep mode screws it up.

S!
Rocket

AcId · « **Reply #11 on:** September 11, 2001, 08:23:00 AM »

Leph,
You do have a valid point, However, I don't agree with your Quote."Extra speed doesn't come from thin air." To a point thats true, but I bet I can write 2 different drivers giving you differing speeds, there is a term out there called "code optimization"

I'm sure your aware of it, and it can be done without loosing quality. I'm not defending Nvidia, I just didn't agree with that one remark.

But then again what if D-O-G really spelled cat?

Lephturn · « **Reply #12 on:** September 12, 2001, 02:01:00 PM »

While "code optimization" can account for some... these guys optimize as much as they can in the first couple of driver iterations. I was careful to say "likely" in that sentence too btw. (Can you tell I'm in the software business?)

I also mentioned that you couldn't get a speed increase like that unless the previous versions were screwed up pretty bad. Honestly, "code optimization" is normally geek-speak for re-designing to avoid the problems encountered in earlier versions. It's not really "optimization" all. When you see a big speed increase in a piece of software, they either fixed a bug that was crippling them, or they did some sort of re-design to build a faster product. Im' in the QA/QC side of the software business, so I've been through this before.

I guess a more accurate statement would be that speed improvements of the 50% range nVidia was touting won't come out of code optimizations alone. My fear was that lots of folks would believe what they were implying and mess up AH with buggy new drivers.

Here is a clip from the little press release nVidia sent out via email:

Quote

Detonator XP also includes:

Performance increases of up to 50% in Microsoft DirectX and SGI OpenGL
applications.

Although carefully worded it gives the impression of a huge speed increase. A false impression for all but GeForce 3 owners I might add. I want to make sure folks don't go slapping these new drivers in their nVidia cards and expecting a big improvement. Every time nVidia puts out a "faster" set of drivers, I spend a crapload of time helping people "fix" their machines by going back to the older ones. I'm just trying to save myself (and others) a bunch of extra work.

I learned this the hard way... just passing on the wisdom so you all don't have to learn it the same way.

SOB · « **Reply #13 on:** September 12, 2001, 03:34:00 PM »

I'm gonna install them tonight. I've got the same GeForce 3 card as Tac, but what the hell, I'm a sucker!

SOB

maddog · « **Reply #14 on:** September 13, 2001, 10:19:00 AM »

Installed new drivers.... ran 5400 on the onion test (3dmark?).. on p3 933, 512MB... AH looks good and fast.... not getting any TAC problems sorry(Geforce3)
maddog