Those certified drivers....

[IcedEarth]

... KICK ASS! At least they do in Unreal Tournament. Where I got about 35-45 fps with the other drivers, I get an average of above 65 fps with those certified drivers.

Not that I'm complaining, but how is this possible? I mean, the recent other updates to the drivers never changed anything significant in fps-land. What's so special about those drivers being "certified" anyway?

[Stringy]

Which version were you using prior to the install of the Cert. drivers?

Craig

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P3-700e cB0 @980Mhz - Watercooled, DangerDen waterblock, Enhiem 1046 pump, 8x6x2 HeaterCore Radiator - Asus P2b Rev. 1.10 /w MSI slocket - 128Mb PC100 - G400 DH 32b SGR - IBM 20Gb 75GXP HDD - InWin A500

[IcedEarth]

6.23 was the last version that was able to run stable on my PC (with Win 98). 6.50 and 6.51 would always lock up Tournament.

However, I just discovered that the increase in fps is only significant in 16bit colors. When using 32bit the difference is only about 5 frames at the highest.

[arbymo]

Yep, all new drivers including the certified ones are the best.

They enabled AGP 2x for me on all windows i use 98SE/2000/NT. Of course NT doesn't support AGP transfers, but it shows up with most programs that 2x is enabled.
Not that 2x really matters from 1x, but it's just the feeling that ur getting what u should get and not feeling down.

Also it gave 3D Mark99 Max a big boost, more than 200 marks in the 640x480 test.

I have my G200 for 2 years now, and i was never able to run AGP 2x, with all drivers, all registry hacks, all bios tweaks, 2 different gigabyte mobos (6BXC and 6BXE).

Although the fix is late, but they deserve a late thank you.

now if they just fix the hibernate bug in win2k which shifts the display after resume !!

[G200 PSYCHOMAN]

arbymo, i always had 2xagp support from my g200. I also got a 6bxc. and i use 95!

How CAN you get that much fps increase?????????????????????????????????????

What is so DIFFERENT about CERTIFIED drivers anyway. I gotta try THIS out!!!

BUT the difference from driver versions is 4 to 6 - i can't help but feel LEFT out(from any updates in version6).

[arbymo]

PSYCHOMAN : I really worked hard to enable AGP 2x, or did i ?

It just makes u feel safe, feel that ur not left alone in the dark, whenever i tried to force 2x my system just hangs.

This is with both Win98 Gold/Win98 SE, i don't remember how it was with OSR2, but i don't think it did 2x even.

As for the 3D Mark score increase, i had to say that i also used gigabyte easy tune to overclock more my celeron 300A@450 to 464@FSB 103.

Besides, I made some extra memory tweaking with TweakBIOS, so the increase is a combination of increased performance of CPU, RAM, new drivers and AGP 2x.

Anyone out there still using 3D Mark 99 Max with a G200 ?? i get 3800 marks at 640x480x16, vsync off.
The highest scores i got before was 3600 with 5.xx drivers.
With most 6.04 drivers it was in the range of 3500 marks.

PSYCHOMAN : do u know of anyway to change memory timings in the 6BXC bios and make em permanent ?? not just the CAS latency, but also RAS to CAS delay, RAS precharge, and leadoff command timing.
other than TweakBIOS of course.

BTW, when u compare the latest certified drivers, u'll find out they have the same drivers file sizes and version as the latest drivers for G200, i.e. 6.23/6.24 for win9x and 5.34 for win2k.
so if ur already using those, i don't think it'd make a difference to upgrade to the certified ones.


[This message has been edited by arbymo (edited 12 May 2001).]

[This message has been edited by arbymo (edited 12 May 2001).]

[G200 PSYCHOMAN]

Sorry arbymo, i know nothin about about BIOS tweaking - now i dont really want to tweak anything.
(BTW, i have a MGA not a millenium so the latest cert-driver is 4.33.)

Can anybody with BIOS knowledge help with arbymo???

[harkpabst_meliantrop]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by arbymo:
do u know of anyway to change memory timings in the 6BXC bios and make em permanent ?? not just the CAS latency, but also RAS to CAS delay, RAS precharge, and leadoff command timing.
other than TweakBIOS of course.
</font>

WPCREDIT in conjunction with WPCRSET from H. Oda.

Only problem is, H. Oda no longer supports WPCRSET (the program, that makes the changes pseudo-resident by automatically applying when Windows boots) anymore nor provides it for download on his site www.h-oda.com

However, many hardware tweaking sites still offer both programs for download. Depending on the chipset you might need a seperate PCR file. Do a search on any of the program names and you should get thousends of links ... :-)

--E<:|

[Biggs]

Erm, I use Win2K Pro so would it be much better for me to use the Latest WHQL Release drivers or not? Btw, what changes or performance gain(if there is any) would I get from using them instead of "regular" drivers.?

[arbymo]

harkpabst_meliantrop
thanx for the reply, I have those programs, didn't have time to look for a guide yet.

What i was looking for is a way to make these settings permenant through the bios using a program like modbin which can alter the registers as well.

This way it would work for NT 4/5 and linux as well.

I guess this is no longer a matrox hardware issue .. but thanx anyway

[Double]

Is it just me, or aren't the latest certified drivers kindda old drivers? But only just got certified by MS?

Isn't that the way it works? Matrox keeps pushing out drivers, and now and then MS certifies some of them (like months later), or am I completely wrong here?



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Regards

Double

Specs:
Abit KT-7A Raid (bios ver. WZ)
T-Bird 1 Ghz
256 MB Apacer PC133 CAS2 RAM
G400 MAX
SB Live retail
97 GB of IBM HD (45+30+22)
Hitachi CM753ET 19"
FPS 2000 sound system
RB2000

[omegaRED]

It seems logical ... MAYBE there are fixes of bugs discovered by MS, and then corrected by Matrox. It would also be logical that the certified ones didn`t have fixes incorporated in the latest (beta) drivers.

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Seth, are you ok ?
I`m peachy, Kate. The world is my oyster.