Is there any need, or benefit to using the latest, or close to latest version of drivers for a 6800GT AGP card? I was only considering using the 80.xx or 90.xx was all... THANKS
yea, stick with the 8x.xx series drivers. Every time i try to use anything newer than the 90 series drivers, something in the control panel is always broken, no matter how i clean the old drivers out. even doing a clean install of winxp, something is always broken.......EDIT : Oh yea, the 94.20 isn't that bad.....
The thing I've noticed is there seems to be some video codec updates in newer drivers as well. I've been reading some posts around the web on guys liking these: DNA 94.24 Omega 169.21 93.71 Well it doesn't hurt to give them all a spin and run 3D Mark to test them out and see...
3d mark and any other synthetic program proves nothing. Only real world testing has any real meaning. Test with games or whatever program/app your trying to run. I have never used a synthetic to test any computer component. As I said, they prove nothing. At most, they give bragging rights to those who use that type of test but if I can run a game/app smoothly but you can't but your synthetic score is better than mine, sorry but you can have a score that means nothing. Always do real world testing. Nothing else matters. Your score means nothing if you can't run the game/app properly. I use 177.92 for my 7800 gs. They give good performance in many games according to nVidia. I have got much better performance in CoD4 with the 177.92 beta driver than any other driver. 178.xx drivers are buggy for alot of people and should be avoided by most. The 180 series isn't meant for 6 or 7 cards only 8 or higher. DO NOT use old drivers to play new games. In some cases you have to use new drivers to play newer games. The only way to really see what drivers works for you is to test each driver. Very time consuming but it's the only real way to find the best driver for YOUR system.
Sorry if you thought I was a video newbie, I highly doubt the latest drivers are the best for a 6800GT, I also usually only use XtremeG drivers too... I also read there are some bugs I wouldn't want to have to deal with over the latest version, so far they look like crap...
Thanks guys, guess I'm going to have to go with my Geek Video intuition here... I'm running this Xtreme-G 91.47 for the moment: http://files.aoaforums.com/I2576-91.47_XGwin2kxp.exe.html
Actually you are quite wrong, it helps to gauge performance... Sure you can sit in most games watching your frame rates with different drivers to gauge performance, but this is quite crude... Running 3DMark makes it easy to see a score output to see performance differences across different drivers, which is one of the biggest points to using it... But once you have tested drivers out in 3DMark, certainly the next real challenge comes with then how well the drivers play the game, just because one gets higher scores doesn't mean it's a better driver for a particular game. All 3DMark is going to help you understand, is which driver is faster, and then hopefully it plays as good as it benchmarks, that's what it's all about...
Well I have never used it and I game just fine. It was never about being right or wrong. I have my opinon and you have yours is all. I don't need any bench mark to tell me the driver is no good or good when I can see and test for myself in my own game/apps. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out if a driver is good or not. Just a matter of testing with the hardware that you got.
I agree with texasrattler, i get the highest benchmark scores with the 175.xx drivers but my games are not playable with them !
I'm not disagreeing here with you on what you're saying, what I disagreed over is to say that 3DMark is pointless, and it's not, because when you find a few good drivers that play well in a game, and then you test them in 3DMark, you can determine in 3DMark which one will help give you better performance. I'm saying 3DMark is just a testing tool, and after you get good test results you see what you can get in the game, that's all... I said all of this before, that what you test in 3DMark might not play well in games, BUT when you find some drivers that are good for games, THEN you compare them in 3DMark to see which yields better performance. I have gamed for well over a decade and I've used 3DMark on and off since it's been around, like you said it's not rocket science, it's a TOOL, and if you know how to use it, then you can use it to your advantage, over simply testing out drivers by playing them in a game.
I am using the 178.24 drivers on my 6800 GT and don't seem to be having any issues, games such as Cod 1, 2 & 4 run fine. I use Nhancer for the profiles as it's just easier to change stuff.
In an older system that I gave to my son, it uses a 6600gt and runs the 178.24 driver just fine but my system with a 7800 gs likes the 177.92 beta best. I usually only play games with my computer so games are my TOOL. I have no reason to use anything else. What's the point in running any other software besides the one your trying to use? If the driver works for you in your game then your set, if it don't then use an older one or wait for a newer one. I don't use modded drivers so I left that out. All this can be done without ever using a benchmark app, that in the end doesn't really do or prove anything that you don't already know. No reason to keep a driver that works in one game but not the other. But to each his own. We all have our opinons,our own computers and our own way of doing things. What works for one, won't always work for another.
I also have an older card (78GS) and my rule of thumb is to always use the latest drivers. For the games I play, the performance difference between older and newer drivers is always within the margin of error. What the advantage is w/ using newer drivers is game-specific bugs being fixed or better image quality for videos (ie DVDs) and, of course, new features in the CP. As for the newest drivers not supporting older GPUs. Hogwash. All flavors of ForceWare drivers (mobile, Quadro, standard, etc.) are UDA and will work for all GPUs, old and new, regardless if the older card is supported in the INF or not. For those w/ older cards that want to try the latest drivers (that don't have INF support), I always upload them w/ support for all cards at my driver site: http://nf2.stuff.googlepages.com/ (only for XP32, however). BTW, the modified drivers at my site are modified only in the sense that I add DeviceIDs and corresponding parameters for all older cards. Nothing else in the driver is touched and never will be.
