Drivers for TNT2?

[grandslammer]

Hi All!

So, what would be the best nvidia drivers for a CL TNT2? Currently running the CL drivers based on the 2.08 set.

From other posts, I gather the 5.08's are out of the question. I like to game, UT in particular. What about the 3.77's? Worth trying?

Friend recommended 3.48's. Any input here?

Thanks

Mike

[This message has been edited by grandslammer (edited 03-16-2000).]

[RobRich]

For the best visual quality and stability of the 3.xx driver sets, I would go with the 3.77 release. With 3.77. the speed of the OpenGL rendering engine is on par with 2.08 in 32bit color, and slightly faster in 16bit. The D3D driver is also much more fined tuned, as the texturing issue is finally fixed (since 3.72). As for performance, nVidia has about reached the maximum potential for the hardware, so newer driver version are to add more features and offer greater compatiblity and support.

You are correct with the 5.08 set, leave them alone. They offer some really neat features, but have some serious issues. The D3D driver has stabilty concerns, and lacks in overall performance (with my TNT-2 anyway). The OpenGL driver has been improved greatly, but has issues with several games. It misaligns textures and causes banding in many major games on the market. The 5.08 is really an Alpha release, and should be treated as such. Igf you wish to experiment with the 5.08 OGL, then just copy the 5.08 "nvopengl.dll" into your windows system directory. Then, if you want to change back, just copy the 3.77 driver back in the dir. Simple solution.

If you like the 2.08 set, stay with it. They offer good performance and the least compatibility concerns. The performance difference between 3.77 and 2.08 is rather small. The biggest reason I run 3.77 is better control over the driver's unlying operation. Through registry changes, you can easily modifiy the properties of the 3.xx driver's. The older 2.08 driver didn't offer as much control over the vid card hardware through the software drivers. I also think the built in overclock option is prety cool in 3.xx. If you want to give them a try here's a good resource:

www.reactorcritical.com (http://www.reactorcritical.com)

Also, you might want to read this older post of mine:

http://www.sysopt.com/forum/Forum4/HTML/001618.html

It was about the 3.72 driver set, but all the info regarding proper installation and the registry features still apply.

[grandslammer]

Thanks RobRich. I had the reactor critical site, but had no idea what driver version was good to go.

I'm going to give it a shot now, wish me luck! By the way, it looks like we have similar systems.

AMD K6/2-450 @ 500
128mb Gen PC100
mvp chipset
1mb m'board cache
CL TNT2 AGP/32
so on and so forth.....

Anyway, thanks again, I'll let you know what happens.

Mike

[grandslammer]

Well Rob, so far, so good. Installation of new drivers (3.77) went well. Now I'm gonna go run UT and 3DMark2000 and see how it goes.

Thanks for all your help. I guess I keep my head up my rear pretty far, because I had no idea NVidia drivers were that far above 3.0, and had not even heard of the 5 series.

Thanks again,

Mike

[RobRich]

Glad I could help out! http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif I've benchtested every driver release from 2.08 up. I most commly use the following apps to test:

-3dMark 2000 (D3D)
-WinTune98 (D3D and OpenGL)
-Quake2 (OpenGL)
-Need For Speed 4 using FRAPS (D3D)

I've also used others such as Tirtanium and Fog City, but I find that the above testes provide enough data for my tests. My current graphics system specs, also:

-k6-2 450 (2.4v) @ 523 2.9v
-AZZA pt-5vml m/b (512kb cache)
-128meg IBM Cas2 PC100 SDRAM
-Creative Labs TNT-2 non-Ultra @ 150/183

Also, have you installed the latest VIA MVP agp drivers? The current release is 4.20, and can be downloaded in the latest 4-in-1 driver package from VIA. Here's the VIA sites:

www.viatech.com (http://www.viatech.com)
www.via.com.tw (http://www.via.com.tw)

[grandslammer]

Yeah, it hasn't been that long since I downloaded trhe latest 4-in-1 from VIA. So, I most likely have the latest. But I will check it out.

I seem to have gained a little (like 2 to 3 fps) in UT, my favorite game. I don't think it's my imagination....

I'm going to run 3DMark 2000 now and see if it shows any improvement. You run your CL TNT2 (non-ultra) at 150/183, huh? Mine just doesn't like it that fast.... Even epoxied a 486 fan to the heat sink. Oh well, I usually run it at 140/170, a little over the stock 125/150.

Well of to 3DMark, I'll Be BACK!

Mike

[RobRich]

I can actually run upto 160/220 with extreme cooling, but it still proves to be rather unstable. I run 150/183, since that seems to offer me rock hard stablity. To reach that point, I used two socket7 fans attached to the oem heatsink, plus one socket7 fan atteched to the back directly cooling the core's backside. Could also be the fact that my AGP bus is set to 63mhz (@95mhz FSB on mvp3 chipset), which adds to stability at a cost in performance.

[grandslammer]

well I ran 1259, down from 1384 on 3DMark2000. Oh well..... Any registry entries that may do well? In the control applet I disabled fog emulation, went for trilinear, (anisotropic? maybe?), etc, etc, etc...

Anyway, any suggestions would be appreciated. but, it looks good anyway.

Thanks again for all your help

Mike

[Spencer]

I did use the 3.68 with my non-ultra TNT2 card and they worked fine. The card came with Creative's version of the 3.53 drivers. I believe the 3.68 were smoother and a little faster. I've used the 3.68 and 3.77 with my geForce DDR and the 3.77 seem to be the best for me. RobRich who posts here quite often seems knowledgable and has done some comparisons and seems to feel the same. Correct me if I'm wrong RobRich.

[RobRich]

For the best score, set it to bilinear filtering. You can also adjust your auto-mipmap methed. Mipmapping allows your vid card to more effectively transfer information across the data bus, but at a loss in some graphics quality. For the absolute speed, you could set it to 12 (1-12 is range), then set the detail level to best performance. The output might look wierd, but the card is now running max potential. For a more worthwise approach, you may try running it at a mipmap of 12 with detail set to best image quality. Then compare the scores to a mipmap value of 0, which give you the best visuals.

Also, amke sure to disable the vsync for directx. This option can be found under the DX advaced options in the nVidida control panel, but you have to apply the Coolbits registry hack that I mention in the link I have above. I would set the render ahead part of the disable vsync to either 1 or 2 frames, since anymore sometimes causes controller lag in games. This should buy you a few points in 3dMark.