Detonators, your opinions please.

[old.hazzeryoda]

Hi,
I have been testing out a whole load of nVIDIA detonators on my system using 3DMark2K and 2K1. I'd like your opinion as to which ones to stick with.
I have tested them in 1024x768 res with a GeForce2 Pro 64MB on a 1Ghz proc. with 256MB RAM. No O/C.

3DM2K 3DM2K1
7.58 7532, 3001
7.76 7574, 2969
10.50 7086, 3071
10.80 7034, 3068
11.00 6989, 3098
11.01 6953, 3096
12.00 7182, 3121
12.20 7079, 3109

The 12.00s look the best at first glance but would it be good to choose a 3DM2K1 leader like these? Or would it be best to use a 3DM2K leader like the 7.76? Or should I just use an all-rounder?

thanks.

 

[Testin da Cable]

I'd go with 'all-round'
usually the bleeding edge performance drivers aren't very stable

 

[old.hazzeryoda]

coolio, thanks mate

 

[Ch3tan]

I use 7.58's they work perfec, they 7.76 look okay but are they WHQL certified like the 7.58's? The 11 and above (or is it 12 and above) are optimised for geforce 3.

 

[Embattle]

The tests I'vce seen show the 11.01 in a good position all round, then again 3dmark really doesn't mean that much

 

[Wij]

6.18 is fine 4 me

 

[Ch3tan]

The 6 series are getting seriously outed, trust me Wij try one of 7.52 or 7.58 or one of the 11.0 series they really will give u an fps increase and sometims quality improvement.

To give u an example I used 6.50 in tribes 2 at 1028 *768 32 bps everything on default settings -I got 20 fps and less sometimes 30 indoors but very jerky.

Moved to 7.58 I know get between 25-59 and avg of 40 at same res and really smooth.


edited cause i called Wij Qij not Wij.

[Edited by Ch3tan on 17-05-01 at 18:40]

 

[old.hazzeryoda]

I am currently using the 12.00s on my GeForce 2 pro and they are the smoothest drivers ive used. Although they are not WHQL certified, they are some one of the more stable drivers ive used. I'd use these if you arent too worried about some dodgyness on the additional properties tab of the 'display' panel.

 

[bodhi]

Main reason I got rid of my TNT2u was that the Detonators were buggy piles of shite. Sad state of affairs when you have to buy an ATi card just to get stable drivers

 

[Ch3tan]

Ehh Bohdi? The betas by there very nature are unstable, on some systems the actuall official ones I have never had a problem with.

 

[bodhi]

You never tried running NT4 then?

 

[Wij]

ATI drivers may be stable but they were quite slow in NT4 last time I looked at the benchmarks...

But hey, wot do I know ? I don't have one

 

[Ch3tan]

No thankfully the closest i camt to NTFS was w2k it ran ok, may go back to it soon, but win 98 se serves me fine.

 

[kryt]

The amount of detonator drivers is bewildering. A very common misconception is that if a version works well on your system, it will work just as well on others. There are very, very few people with identical setup, the slightest change between hardware manufacturers is enough to throw system performance off. 12.00 doesnt work too well on my system, although i find 12.40 (which are fake, but amusingly enough seem to work really rather well). I have literally every single real detonator to date on cd, for no particular reason : each have good and bad points, but i dont believe it ethical to say "this driver gives me 5fps more in q3 and 40 more 3dmark2001 points" when it could quite easily slow someone elses system down. I thoroughly believe in people trying for themselves rather then asking "whats the best detonator driver?". Not forgetting of course, that around 1 in around every 6 released detonator on the larger sites such as reactorcritical, tweak3d, ctrl+alt+del, and ESPECIALLY m3dzone are fake (hacks of older drivers or mixing and matching files etc).
Just one of those things. Try it. If you like it, use it.

Kryten