Matrox Drivers 5.41+ beta ICD are still the best!~

[Casper99]

Nice work Indiana!!!

It appears to be a good combination and like anything in this world is not the end all be all solution but appears to be the fastest and most stable overall.

I hope this info and the hardwork that Indiana has done can be useful to other Matrox Gx00 owners and their tweaking efforts!

Cheers!

[xortam]

Just to clarify and correct my earlier comment about running TGL w/ Q3A ... My earlier test showing big improvements in frame rates at 800x600 resolution was apparently wrong. It looks like I had inadvertently mixed game settings. I reran the tests with the standard Q3A settings (deleting the .cfg file) and found the TGL and PD 6.14 was just slightly faster (3-4 FPS) than the full ICD at lower resolutions (below 1024x768) and barely faster (1 FPS) at higher resolutions. The TGL ran at identical rates with PD 6.14 and the new drivers, PD 6.20 (all tests run on Win98 on PIII-450). The new ICD is just a bit faster than the last release and has closed the gap now between running with TGL and the full ICD to the point where its inconsequential with regards to frame rates (about 1 FPS at lower resolutions). Considering the Q3A cinematic bug in the TGL, its now no longer a worthwhile option over the full ICD.

[Casper99]

xortam,

What is the version of the Full ICD that you used?


\
Thanxs

[xortam]

... Those would be the last two shipping versions that came with the matching driver release: PD 6.20 shipped with the 6.10 driver package and PD 6.14 shipped with the 6.04 driver package. I never bothered with any of the beta versions. BTW, this is also running on a G400 Max. Nothing o/c'ed.

[Casper99]

Email me xortam
I will give you the beta ICD version 5.13.021 this version is not included with any of the powerdesks and you will need to install it in the system folder, i would highly recommend you trying this beta with powerdesk 5.41

Cheers!

[xortam]

You mean these old drivers? I've got too many other fish to fry w/o messing around with some old beta code. Maybe I'll give it a try someday when I'm bored with nothing better to do.

[Casper99]

No that file is a Powerdeask version the ICD i have is version 5.13 and is strictly a ICD found in the windows system files this is a version that is nolonger available from Matrox, anyways no the file i have is just a G400ICD.DLL file.
I hope his clears up any confusion people may have?
If you want them email me its easy to put in and if you dont like it which i doubt you can restore your old file in seconds!

Cheers!

[DentyCracker]

Did some testing with PD 5.41 and 6.10
Don't have the beta ICD so used ICD for 5.41.
3DMark2000 was lower with 5.41. MDK2 was higher with 5.41. It also said 5.41's ICD had lesser OGL capabilities than 6.10's.

[Casper99]

Ok i did some testing to and have included the results so i offer to you to draw your own conclusions. I didnt use 3DMark2000 as it doesnt have openGl in it.
Here are the Test's:

Test#1 with the 6.10 drivers no beta:



Test#2 with the 6.10 drivers and the beta:



Test#3 with the 5.41 drivers no beta:



Test#4 with the 5.41 drivers and the beta:



As you can see they are quite close when using the beta Open GL drivers but they are useless when not using them, so as you can see the best Open GL driver is the beta ICD of mine. It appears that Matrox had a more stable and faster Open Gl ICD in the past as compared to the newer ICD's that are out now.
You can get the beta driver Here

I hope once again that this info helps people to tweak there Matrox cards!
I have also learned that it is possible to overclock the newest drivers using the MGA Tweak and you can get that Here

Cheers!

[This message has been edited by Casper99 (edited 20 November 2000).]

[Bohrn]

As you can see from my sig, I have been using the PD5.41 drivers with the 6.10 ICD. It is the best for my system. Bar none. I did exaustive testing with all from 5.30 to 6.10. Both in D3D and OGL. I compared quality and speed. This (5.41&6.10icd) had the best speed and the best quality. The 5.41 ICD was almost as fast, but there were some visual glitches in Q3 and others. Not really noticable at first, but none were apparent in the 6.10 and it was a tick faster too. I have put alot of time in testing and this is what works best for me. But I have a pretty common system,(BX chipset, generic ram, Vortex2 sound and a G400 32meg), so I can't say anything about this driver combo running on a VIA or other chipset. Also works best on the G200 as I have one of these too. The 5.30 drivers were faster, but there were some funny colours and other artifacts there. Sorry for the long post, but I had to read this Topic as I had recently finished my own testing on this very subject and found the same results on the driver ver, but a different one with the ICD. I had to reply after I had read the various posts. I applaud the spirit of experimentation and testing/tweaking. And I had to put my $0.02 (as one of the regulars calls it) in. Sorry again for the long post.

------------------
AsusP3B-F,iCel466, 128mgsPC133,G40032megSH, Diamond MX300,13.5gigs of HD's,52X CDrom,WinME, PD 5.41 w/ 6.10ICD,Altec Lansing ATP3Subwoofer,
Envision 17",Terrayon Cable modem w/D-Link nic,1 grey cat,1 black cat & 1 calico

[Casper99]

Bravo Bohrn,

Nice to see a fellow BC guy i am from Vancouver Island!
Yes in the testing i found the beta ICD which is differnet than the 5.41 ICD to be a little bit better although all things considered they are closely matched! Please do give the beta drivers a try they really do improve the Open GL performance!

Thanks for your time and input!

Cheers!