Noob question about modded drivers

[APCOR]

I was just wondering if anyone could tell me if there is any real tangible benefits to using all of these modded drivers I see posted on guru3d. I just bought a 6800gt and have been tempted to try them but I am having a hard time acknowledging that someone else can publish a driver better than nvidia. Not to mention there are so many that it would seem like a pain installing and uninstalling all those drivers to figure out which one is best for your system. I do see that they contain certain fixes but are these things that nvidia does not address? Also risk factor - (I have heard of a temp bug on one them) would not let that driver come near my GT. Anyway, wondering if some one would throw me a bone on this.

 

[perillo34]

I am a beta tester over at tweakersrus.com and the extreme G drivers they create can not be topped by anyone, when it comes to perfromance and quality, you get IQ enhancements with no loss in perfromance, in fact considerable gains. All in all they can only make the driver better for the most part. I leave it up to you to find which driver suits you best, the extreme G 71.84 seem to be the most stable beautiful drivers out there, and to avoid the temp bug go with the extremeG 67.66b. FPS do no lie...

 

[otispunkmeyer]

Originally posted by: perillo34
I am a beta tester over at tweakersrus.com and the extreme G drivers they create can not be topped by anyone, when it comes to perfromance and quality, you get IQ enhancements with no loss in perfromance, in fact considerable gains. All in all they can only make the driver better for the most part. I leave it up to you to find which driver suits you best, the extreme G 71.84 seem to be the most stable beautiful drivers out there, and to avoid the temp bug go with the extremeG 67.66b. FPS do no lie...

id recommend the XG drivers too, they are works of art....high quality and fast. great job:thumbsup:

 

[2Xtreme21]

Originally posted by: otispunkmeyer

Originally posted by: perillo34
I am a beta tester over at tweakersrus.com and the extreme G drivers they create can not be topped by anyone, when it comes to perfromance and quality, you get IQ enhancements with no loss in perfromance, in fact considerable gains. All in all they can only make the driver better for the most part. I leave it up to you to find which driver suits you best, the extreme G 71.84 seem to be the most stable beautiful drivers out there, and to avoid the temp bug go with the extremeG 67.66b. FPS do no lie...

id recommend the XG drivers too, they are works of art....high quality and fast. great job:thumbsup:

:thumbsup:

 

[Paktu]

Originally posted by: 2Xtreme21

Originally posted by: otispunkmeyer

Originally posted by: perillo34
I am a beta tester over at tweakersrus.com and the extreme G drivers they create can not be topped by anyone, when it comes to perfromance and quality, you get IQ enhancements with no loss in perfromance, in fact considerable gains. All in all they can only make the driver better for the most part. I leave it up to you to find which driver suits you best, the extreme G 71.84 seem to be the most stable beautiful drivers out there, and to avoid the temp bug go with the extremeG 67.66b. FPS do no lie...

id recommend the XG drivers too, they are works of art....high quality and fast. great job:thumbsup:

:thumbsup:

Agreed, VXG drivers are the best out there IMO.

 

[APCOR]

Ok - the temptation was too great and I tried the G 71.84's. I saw really no difference between G 71.84 and the standard 71.84 betas from Nzone. Granted there may have been some performance improvement in benches, but I don't really benchmark games. The only reason why I have been even interested is because i have minor stuttering problems in Doom 3 I have been unable to resolve. Do any of you know of any extreme drivers that contain certain fixes for that game? That! - would help me see the light with modded ddrivers.

 

[Gamingphreek]

Originally posted by: APCOR
Ok - the temptation was too great and I tried the G 71.84's. I saw really no difference between G 71.84 and the standard 71.84 betas from Nzone. Granted there may have been some performance improvement in benches, but I don't really benchmark games. The only reason why I have been even interested is because i have minor stuttering problems in Doom 3 I have been unable to resolve. Do any of you know of any extreme drivers that contain certain fixes for that game? That! - would help me see the light with modded ddrivers.

How much Texture Memory and how much System RAM do you have. It almost sounds like you are having a lot of swap file use.

Also do you have any programs open in the background.

-Kevin

 

[Spike]

Texture memory? Maybe he knows what your talking about but I don't. Are you referring to the setting in the BIOS for that extra vid mem size?

-spike

 

[APCOR]

Originally posted by: Gamingphreek

Originally posted by: APCOR
Ok - the temptation was too great and I tried the G 71.84's. I saw really no difference between G 71.84 and the standard 71.84 betas from Nzone. Granted there may have been some performance improvement in benches, but I don't really benchmark games. The only reason why I have been even interested is because i have minor stuttering problems in Doom 3 I have been unable to resolve. Do any of you know of any extreme drivers that contain certain fixes for that game? That! - would help me see the light with modded ddrivers.

How much Texture Memory and how much System RAM do you have. It almost sounds like you are having a lot of swap file use.

Also do you have any programs open in the background.

-Kevin

dimension 8400
P4 3.4ghz
1 gig DDR2 ram
80gig HD
bfg 6800 gt OC
400watt Antec PSU

As far as text memory I am too noob to answer. Background apps are all shut off (viruscan disabled) with exception of usb gamepad. I have considered the game pad as a possible problem but I get the same results even when I am not using it.

thanks

 

[perillo34]

Maybe turn off Fastwrites, could be viral, try the 75.90a, they offer performance and speed across the board, but remember that they have a temp bug for GTs, if I were you and were looking for just DOOM 3 fixes and help, go with the VXG 67.66b. THank me later.

 

[Fern]

APCOR

Are playing at "High" or "Ultra" settings?

If Ultra, well I think that is too high as it supposedly requires a card with 512MB. The textures will be un-compressed at Ultra, and you're having only 256MB of vid ram will likley cause stuttering.

From what I read (I can't test myself, I only have 128MB of vid ram), the gfx improvement in ultra over that of High is negligeable anyway.

 

[thanatos355]

what's this temp bug, and what GT (68 or 66) does it effect?

 

[PrayForDeath]

Originally posted by: Fern
APCOR

Are playing at "High" or "Ultra" settings?

If Ultra, well I think that is too high as it supposedly requires a card with 512MB. The textures will be un-compressed at Ultra, and you're having only 256MB of vid ram will likley cause stuttering.

From what I read (I can't test myself, I only have 128MB of vid ram), the gfx improvement in ultra over that of High is negligeable anyway.

What he said.

Also, you shouldn't worry about the temp bug because it's a software problem, it has nothing to do with the phisycal temp of your card. I personally don't recommend the 75.90 because they are full of bugs. From the moment I installed them NFS UND2 crashed immediately, The Project 3D demo showed artifacts then a blue screen appeared (fatal crash!), even working on Opera (2D) caused some strange image tearing. When I went back to 71.84 everthing went back to normal. I only had those problems with the 75.90, I tried many other drivers (including officials) and they all worked perfectly, and I am not overclocking.
Right now I am using 71.90 and they're excellent.
Hope that helps.

edit: actually, I tried the Extreme G drivers once (71.84) but I didn't notice a difference than the regular ones, so I went back. Just my opinion.

 

[PrayForDeath]

sorry, dp

 

[APCOR]

I play on high quality settings with 4AA/4AF at 1024x768. I am OC'd to 6800 ultra speeds 400/1100 so - according to all the reviews and everyone else on these forums those settings should be a cake walk. For some reason (I am clueless as to why) that is not the case with my system.

 

[APCOR]

Originally posted by: perillo34
Maybe turn off Fastwrites, could be viral, try the 75.90a, they offer performance and speed across the board, but remember that they have a temp bug for GTs, if I were you and were looking for just DOOM 3 fixes and help, go with the VXG 67.66b. THank me later.

definately will try vxg's. I dont know how to turn off fast writes. Doesn't that apply to agp cards anyway? I use PCI-e

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: APCOR
I play on high quality settings with 4AA/4AF at 1024x768. I am OC'd to 6800 ultra speeds 400/1100 so - according to all the reviews and everyone else on these forums those settings should be a cake walk. For some reason (I am clueless as to why) that is not the case with my system.

Hmm... seems something's not right. With the Humus tweak (helpful for ATI cards only, the game's optimized for nVidia cards) thats what settings I played on with my 9800p OC'd to XT speeds (slightly higher actually). BUT, I used only 2AA.

Mine stuttered when opening a new level or door etc. But at 128MB of vram (my 9800p) that's to be expected. Only a couple of times did it stutter in action (bunch of those floating/burning heads would do it). I could take that cuz the jump from medium to high is pretty noticeable.

Might be time to run some video benchies to make sure everything is set up right so the card is performing to it capability. Run a few and compare to others' scores. AFAIK at 6800U speeds, it outta be smoother than what you report.

Fern

 

[APCOR]

I have isolated the problem a step further although I am not sure it tells me anything. The stuttering only happens when my FPS dips below 50. So long as I stay between 50 and 60 everything is very smooth even at ultra quality/4AA. But anything less than 50 FPS and looking around gets choppy. It really does not matter wether I open a new door or go into a new area. But in certain spots throughout the game the FPS output takes me into the 40 and 30s. The question I have now is what would cause me to stutter in the 30 - 40 FPS range, but not stutter above 50fps. Solve that and problem nailed!


thanks for the input