Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: bloom25 on March 11, 2000, 10:30:00 PM
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I was wondering what the rest of you thought. I just purchased a V770 ultra. I'll be running it on a AL440LX board with a cel400 and 96MB ram. (My old video card was an 8mb intel i740.) Do you think I will notice a large performance increase? Also, what drivers should I use? I know that by using Diamond's drivers (newest available of course) you can overclock the card. On the other hand, I've heard that NVIDIA's reference detonator drivers are better, but you lose all the utilities. What should I do here? Would it also be a good idea to invest in another 32MB stick of sdram? (Go to 128mb in other words.)
Just a few questions before I install the card. (Can't do it until Monday.)
Thanks. (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif)
bloom25
THUNDERBIRDS
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Use the 4.10.01.0401 Diamond drivers for D3D games,the nVIDIA drivers are optimized for O/GL applications. You should see a performance increase with this card-especially if you overclock your processor.
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Thanks for the answer, I'll just install the drivers that came with the card, then update them.
Unfortunately I know of no way to overclock a Celeron on a AL440LX board. The FSB is locked at 66 MHz, and the bios will not allow you to change the multiplier setting. (I have heard of a program that allows overclocking called SoftFSB, but I'm a little bit wary to try it, as I'm pretty happy with my system and wouldn't want to damage it.)
bloom25
THUNDERBIRDS
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Here`s the correct procedure for installing your drivers Bloom,and a link to the 4.01 drivers too. (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/wink.gif)
ftp://ftp.diamondmm.com/pub/display/viper/viper_v770/ (http://ftp://ftp.diamondmm.com/pub/display/viper/viper_v770/)
Drivers
Generally speaking, the NVIDIA reference drivers work well on any brand of TNT/TNT2-based card. They are also very easy to work with. In some cases however, some additional features (such as TV-out, etc) may either not function properly or stop functioning altogether. Other than that, these drivers usually tend to be the best mix of stability, speed, and functionality.
It's also possible to mix drivers to obtain different features in one set, but I've found that mixing will bring little benefit, and sometimes it can cause conflicts. The end result usually isn't worth the work. It was at one point in time beneficial, when some driver sets supported some features, and others did not. But now, most driver sets have identical speed-related features, and most of their little fringe benefits aren't really worth all the trouble, in my opinion.
In addition, TNT and TNT2 drivers are completely interchangeable. There are currently TNT/TNT2 drivers for BeOS, Linux, and all Windows platforms (even 3.x!).
For the latest NVIDIA reference drivers:
NVIDIA Driver Page
Installing the New Drivers
When installing your drivers, it is best to do a proper install, which involves switching to a standard display type, purging your system of any old drivers, and installing the new drivers. Read and follow the steps carefully.
Step One
Right click your desktop
Choose Properties
Choose Settings
Choose Advanced
Choose Adapter
Click Change
Here you'll be presented with a couple of options. Choose to display a list of drivers. In the left pane, scroll all the way to the top and choose (Standard display types). Then, in the right pane, choose Standard PCI Graphics Adapter (VGA). Follow the prompts, and reboot.
Step Two
The second step before installing the new drivers is making certain that there's no driver "residue" left behind from previous driver installs. If you're upgrading from a previous set of NVIDIA reference drivers, do the following:
Click the Start button and select Find, and then Files and Folders...
Make sure the Find applet is set to search your C:\ drive and do a search for "nv*.*" - without the quotes
Look for any files found in the C:\Windows\System and C:\Windows\Inf and C:\Windows\Help
Select these files and delete them (do NOT empty them from the Recycle Bin until you know your upgrade has been a success)
Exit the Find applet
Click the Start button and select Run
In the Run box, type regedit; this will open the Windows Registry Editor
In the left-hand pane, navigate to the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\NVIDIA Corporation
Right-click on the NVIDIA Corporation key in the left-pane, select Delete, and click Yes to confirm the deletion
Exit Regedit and hit the F5 key to refresh the registry
If you're upgrading to NVIDIA reference drivers from a manufacturer's proprietary drivers, you have two options. The first option is using an uninstall utility that may or may not have come with your video card. If there is such a utility, you'll find it in the Add/Remove Programs applet in the Control Panel. There may also be such a utility on the drivers CD that came with the card. If you have an uninstall applet, use it. If not, you'll have to take a different approach to "uninstalling" the old drivers. This is where System Info comes in. It's a handy little applet in Windows that displays information about installed components, drivers, resources, etc.. To use it, do the following:
Click the Start button and select Run
In the Run box, type msinfo32
Once System Information opens, click on Components and then Display (in the left-hand pane)
In the right-hand pane, System Info will display a list of information about the display drivers that are CURRENTLY INSTALLED. Each file has a Company Name entry, which you need to pay attention to. If a file's Company Name is either Intel Corporation or Microsoft Corporation, forget that you ever saw it. As for the rest of the files listed, write down the name of each one. Do a Find for these files as outlined in step two (above), deleting each file as you go.
Next, from the System Information utility, select System Configuration Utility from the Tools menu, and select the Startup tab. Look through the list for anything related to your old drivers. For example, when removing Creative Labs' drivers, you may find something that refers to a "Blaster Control," such as bcontrol.exe or blasterc.exe. Uncheck these items, and close the utilities. (If you're prompted to restart, it is recommended that you do so.)
Step Three
Now to install the new drivers.... Make sure you have extracted the .zip containing the driver files to an easy-to-find location. Once you've done so:
(The following pertains only to NVIDIA reference drivers, and may not work properly with non-NVIDIA drivers.)
Right-click the desktop and select Properties
Click the Settings tab, and click the Advanced button
Click the Adapter tab, and click the Change button
Click Next, in the update Device Driver Wizard
Select the radio button for Display a list of all the drivers in a specific location...
Click the Next button and click the Have Disk button
In the Install From Disk box, click the Browse button, and point Windows to where you extracted the new driver files
Click Okay, then Okay again, and in the Select Device window, select either TNT, TNT2, or TNT2 Ultra, depending on which card you own
Click Okay, and then click Next
Let Windows install the new drivers, and click Finish
Click Okay, Apply, and Okay
When prompted to restart your computer, do so.
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Thanks for the information Weazel. Are you running Dx7a? Another question, do you have a v770 ultra? 4.02 readme says that it is the original driver for the 770 ultra. The driver on the list newer than that one says that it added support for dx7. Do you still recommend 4.01?
Thanks.
bloom25
THUNDERBIRDS
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4.02 was only a few FPS slower on my PC. No I have the standard V770,but after reading some O/C reviews on this card it seems that depending on date of manufacture the standard has higher quality ram than the other cards and can run faster than other versions. I have run mine as fast as 165/200 in Warbirds but it doesn`t like AH at that speed.Yes I`m using DX7a.The 4.01 drivers do have the Ultra driver included also,I know how to cheat it for the standard but see no real difference in FPS by doing it.
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I installed the card and drivers without a problem. (I just used the drivers that came with it. Version number that I see is 4.11.01.0400 or something like that. (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/wink.gif) ) I'm getting 45 - 65 fps now. The only problem is that I can't seem to find the utilities that were supposedly installed with the card. I picked standard install, but I guess I got drivers only. How can I fix this?
Thanks for the help.
bloom25
THUNDERBIRDS
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It would be nice if you purchased the GE FORCE 256 DDR. I feel that is the card for the time being.
You will enjoy the upgrade of the new card but with a couole of dollars more -- the ultimate.
Happy viewing.