omigosh, have I been blind? nVidia detonator's and FSAA

[merlocka]

So, one of my pet peeves about the nVidia reference drivers has been the lack of any FSAA settings available via the quicktweak system tray icon (once they moved the FSAA settings to a seperate tab).

I was using Guru3D's fsaa utility.

Well, I just installed WinXP (was using 98SE) and the 23.11 drivers... I stated searching for nvtweak or something else which would allow me 1-click access to FSAA settings. I know, pretty anal, but I like to switch around settings alot.

Behold, 23.11 drivers have this in the Quicktweak!!! But what freaks me out, is that i had tried 23.11 in Win98SE and this was never there.

Perhaps my Win98 driver installation was hosed up or something. Either way, I'm now happy.

Now If I can just figgure out why my Quake3 fps are crawing in some areas when I play Rocket Arena I will consider my Windows XP experience (pardon the pun) a total success.

 

[BFG10K]

I have noticed that the same driver version sometimes has different settings between the different operating systems. Windows 9x/ME doesn't have FSAA in quicktweak, nor does it have Anisotropic settings or the ability to set the z-buffer to 16 bits in OpenGL. OTOH it has the alternate depth buffering technique in Direct3D which the 2000/XP drivers don't have.

Also after using the 23xx drivers you'll soon discover that there's no way to disable vsync in Direct3D; no matter what setting you use in the driver panel it stays on. I've tried using NVMax and that didn't work either. If you figure out a way how to get around this, let me know.

 

[Insidious]

I use RivaTuner for XP and det 23.11 to disable vsync.

you can get it here (until excite kills my webspace... $@$#@%$ comcast!

(also, the 60Hz fix is GREAT!... it forces the driver to use the max (detected) suported refresh rate of your monitor when the resolution switches)

Just extract it to any directory and double-click rivatuner.exe, then click on the small "customize" button in the 'detonator driver detected' window (the bottom one of the two) then click on the 60 Hz button for the refresh fix or the directX button for the VSync (and other) options or the openGL button etc.

note: this proggy is also great to enable overclocking. once you enable it, the tab will appear (and stay) in the display properties window of XP and you don't need to run riva tuner again!)

have fun!

 

[merlocka]

the 23xx drivers you'll soon discover that there's no way to disable vsync in Direct3D

Crap, I thought it was just me... that's a bummer because with that whole infinite loop bug floating around I really don't want to play the driver swapping game with XP.

 

[Insidious]

If you use RivaTuner you can turn off VSync in Direct3D.... (read my previous post)

 

[ginfest]

<< Also after using the 23xx drivers you'll soon discover that there's no way to disable vsync in Direct3D; no matter what setting you use in the driver panel it stays on. >>



Can you expound on this? I changed the v-sync setting in the Display Properties with Regedt32 open at the same time. The D3D values in the registry changed as I changed the setting? Do you mean that although the setting changes, it's having no real effect?
I notice that my 3D Mark 2001 score is higher with v-sync disabled, than with it enabled, which should indicate that it's working?

 

[BFG10K]

If you use RivaTuner you can turn off VSync in Direct3D.... (read my previous post)

But does it actually work? The drivers ignore the control panel and NVMax settings so unless Riva Tuner is using another registry entry it won't work.

The D3D values in the registry changed as I changed the setting? Do you mean that although the setting changes, it's having no real effect?

Yes - the drivers seem to ignore that registry setting completely.

 

[Insidious]

here's how I checked....

I ran UT. Once the game was running I brought down the console (~) and typed 'timedemo 1' (no quotes) then put the console back up (~)... played for a bit... used my monitor to check it's refresh rate... it said I was at 100 Hz (which is the max my monitor supports at 1024X768X32, so I knew the 60Hz fix had worked...) then after playing for a bit, I brought down the console (~) and typed "timedemo 0' and got this response...

"11479 frames rendered in 115.05 seconds min. 48.81 max 188.65"

{and this with a CD playing in the background.... along with this post..... half-typed waiting for my results}

well, my monitor does not support 188.65 Hz refresh rate... Refresh rate isn't sinked

I also see improvement in my 3DMark2001 scores but am not willing to take the time to get numbers to try and prove it to you.

Seems like you would have more to gain from trying the RivaTuner than spending your time explaining to me why you don't think it would work.

 

[BFG10K]

"11479 frames rendered in 115.05 seconds min. 48.81 max 188.65"

Excellent, it looks like Riva Tuner does work. Unfortunately I didn't really see any difference in the 2311s from the 2250s so I've switched back.

I also see improvement in my 3DMark2001 scores but am not willing to take the time to get numbers to try and prove it to you.

That's OK, I don't need them.

Seems like you would have more to gain from trying the RivaTuner than spending your time explaining to me why you don't think it would work.

Why are you so quick to take offense? I was merely making a speculation based on my previous experiences with the 23xx drivers. I was not calling you a liar if that's what you think, I was only trying to verify that Riva Tuner does something different to NVMax.

 

[Insidious]

you are right about me getting too touchy.... sorry about that

 

[Burnsy]

<< Windows 9x/ME doesn't have FSAA in quicktweak, nor does it have Anisotropic settings or the ability to set the z-buffer to 16 bits in OpenGL. OTOH it has the alternate depth buffering technique in Direct3D which the 2000/XP drivers don't have. >>



I'm using the 23.11 drivers in Win98SE and i can tell you it has got the FSAA and anisotropic settings in the quicktweak. They don't have the 16bit zbuffer setting like you said but it hasn't got the alternate depth buffering in D3D.

 

[BFG10K]

I do know that there are some 98SE drivers which don't have FSAA in the quicktweak while the same version of the 2000/XP drivers do. The point is that the drivers are not consistent across the OSs.

However I don't worry too much about that because the new version of Riva Tuner is very good - a far cry from the older versions I've tried. I'll be using that instead of NVMax because it's much better.

 

[BFG10K]

I'm using the 23.11 drivers in Win98SE and i can tell you it has got the FSAA and anisotropic settings in the quicktweak.

Just a minute, you do know what quicktweak is, right? Quicktweak is not your driver control panel, it's the icon taskbar.

How could you have anisotropic filtering settings there? AFAIK that has never existed in any of nVidia's drivers. You can modify anisotropic filtering from the driver control panel but not from quicktweak.