Who bases his/her video driver selection on benchmarks

[Whizzy]

Hi,Just wanted to ask this question, as with each driver release (Nvidia, ATI, Matrox) people are comparing their previous 3dmark scores and go nuts if they are scoring 200 points (or whatever) higher. Since I bought a GeForce 1 (SDR-version, slowest of all now available) i stopped using 3Dmark or any other benchmark for performance testing, only for eye-candy.My judgement on new driver releases has shift from performance (which i allready have plenty.. yes i have) to quality and support.Who else ?

 

[rbV5]

I don't go nuts, but IMHO, the only good use for 3DMark(after the first couple times I ran it) is to compare how a driver change affects performance on MY rig. I actually prefer to play games for my eye candy

 

[DARRIN]

I also look at stability. Some beta drivers give me intermittent lock ups.
I'll do a 3dmark loop for an hour or so and a Quake3 loop to check stability.

 

[MichaelD]

Good thread. Personally, I run 3DM first-thing after a driver change so I can get a basline as to what the driver has done. Then, I'll usually run the RevThunder demo in UT, play a couple of practice rounds and check out a few other games as well.

3DMarks aren't everything. When the 11-series drivers came out, I lost a few 3DMarks as well as a few FPS in most games, but everything looked "smoother". I know that's not exactly a proper technical term, but it did look smoother. Gameplay seemed more fluid as well. My two-cents.

 

[Whizzy]

*Bump*

So... where are all the 3Dmark users ? Why is speed so important to you and do you use drivers that enhance speed or enhance stability and/or quality ? For me 3dMark is something that i run to check weither the display is correct for the driverset. I run UT , B&W and QIII to check stability and support..

 

[Noriaki]

Provided that a new driver does not sacrifice stability and does add significant speed I would take it.

But once I've found a driver set that I'm happy with the stability of I don't tend to upgrade until a windows re-install.

With my current crappy video card I just use the Windows XP default drivers.

I have only ran 3Dmark on my rig about 3 times.

Stability is a much bigger concern to me than a few extra FPS.

 

[Noriaki]

Provided that a new driver does not sacrifice stability and does add significant speed I would take it.

But once I've found a driver set that I'm happy with the stability of I don't tend to upgrade until a windows re-install.

With my current crappy video card I just use the Windows XP default drivers.

I have only ran 3Dmark on my rig about 3 times.

Stability is a much bigger concern to me than a few extra FPS.