Just installed my brand new GTS

[Zenoth]

Wow, what a day.

I ended up buying an ASUS 8800GTS 640MB, since the e-VGA's and BFG's were out of stock. WHAT A BEAST, I mean, physically, compared to my fragile X1800XL in appearance at least. I haven't tested it yet in games, I can't wait to do it, but first I want to configure it similarly or the same way I used to configure driver settings with ATi. I have downloaded the latest official ForceWare drivers, 158.22, I installed them, and rebooted, then it worked fine. Then, I installed RivaTuner 2.1, and it also worked fine, but now I am wondering about something ...

With my X1800XL, I used ATi Tray Tool, and I always avoided using Catalyst Control Center. So, is RivaTuner the ATT of NVIDIA ? If so, then, should I use only RivaTuner and un-install the official NVIDIA Control Panel ? Because right now there is two icons on my task bar, one for RivaTuner, and the other, the famous green and white NVIDIA "eye" for the regular Control Panel (which Oh My God changed a lot since I used it with my Ti series card). At least I can change so many things with RivaTuner, it's quite similar to what ATT did with the drivers settings for ATi cards really, but I fear that the regular NVIDIA's CP could interfere with RivaTuner, will it ? Perhaps they can work perfectly in conjunction whilst it wasn't the case with ATT and CCC ? I don't know, I've been absent on the green pasture since 2003, I can't remember how it worked back then and I surely don't know the details for today's tools to use for the cards, etc. I just want to make sure.

Oh, and, for over-clocking, what's best ? I have seen RivaTuner's OC'ing options, seems quite good and precise. I also heard that ATi Tool works good with NVIDIA cards ? That's what I used for my X1800XL (come to think of it I'll have to change my sig soon). Or perhaps even NVIDIA's default CP's option for OC'ing would be good ? Although I doubt it would (I'm just curious to know).

Alright, I would appreciate all the support and information I need to be aware of guys.

NVIDIA, I am back !

 

[r3zon8]

I prefer to use Riva Tuner for my 8800 overclocking needs.

There is a rumor that the next release of nTune will allow you to set the clock speed of the stream processors independantly of the gpu core or mem clocks. i dont think att or RT support this at all for now...this new feature might cause me to jump ships if that feature does indeed get released.

 

[Deceitkin]

Rivatuner overrides Nvidia's Control Panel, to my experience.
I'd use Rivatuner for overclocking since you can change fan control from 60% to higher, I couldn't manage to do that with Atitool. Atitool's is good for testing the overclock though. Nvidia's CP works fine for overclocking as well(as long as you just increase mhz), I think ntune won't change fan speed in latest drivers though, or maybe that was just for Vista.

 

[Zenoth]

Is there a way to uninstall the regular Control Panel ?

The only thing I see in Add/Remove Programs is "NVIDIA Drivers", and if I start the un-installation process a window pops up asking me which "parts" of the drivers I want to un-install, but the Control Panel isn't there to select, there is only my display drivers, some PCI system management thing, and the nForce chipset drivers.

 

[Zenoth]

Hey guys is there any way to set AA and AF separately between D3D and OGL ?

Because right now, whatever I set for one will get applied for the other. I clicked on the D3D symbol, accessed the options, set AA to Application Controlled and AF to 8x (just for a test), and then I clicked "Ok". Then I re-opened RivaTuner, chose the OGL symbol this time, accessed the options, and AF was set at 8x just like D3D. So I set it at 16x, go back to D3D options and bam, it's now set at 16x ... what a mess. I could adjust both D3D and OGL separately with ATT without any issues. Is there a way to do it with RivaTuner ? If not I'll have to change tool.

 

[Jules]

Rivatuner FTW

 

[Zenoth]

Ok, I ran 3DMark06, and I scored 8244 !

What a difference ! And that's at stock speeds, for now. It literally has double the performance of my X1800XL. With my X1800XL over-clocked at 540/640 I scored 4179, and stock speed would bring me at around 3800'ish. I would say that if both cards are compared at stock speeds I get between 100% to 120% increased performance. That upgrade was long due I can tell you guys.

But that ain't all. I will OC my CPU further, perhaps at 2.6 to 2.8, and I will OC the GTS once I get my hands on a shiny new Zalman FV-1000, the new series of Zalman coolers on their way next week at my store (at least I hope so). I decided to go with a third party cooler right after I ran 3DMark06, because that thing is LOUD. My VF-700 was barely audible even at full speeds in 3DMark06 for three consecutive runs, and the card never ever once went above 61ºC. So, the powerful beast is indeed fast and furious, but is running a little hot and quite loud. I was used to my VF-700's rendering performance and efficiency, and so used to that in fact that from now on I use that as a comparative line.

I might try to OC it tomorrow just out of curiosity, but I'll wait for my new cooler to keep the OC 24/7, I'll play on the safe side, I mean I just bought it today and I haven't even actually played games with it so far, only tweaked settings, tested CS:S Stress Test and ran 3DMark06.

However the more I use RivaTuner and the less I like it. Does it need to be compatible with the latest official drivers ?