I have sinned.. I'm half nvidiot now

[fds]

Based on the recommendations from the quality minded people here I recommended ASUS to my friend and picked up an ASUS V7700 myself too. After all I could hardly criticize NVIDIA otherwise without having actually used one. It's the first time ever for me since the Millennium II to use non-Matrox 2D.

Uninstalled the Matrox drivers, removed my old trusty G400 OEM 32MB single head, in with the ASUS card. Installation went smoothly other than choosing a driver. I'm not quite sure I made the best choice either. I went with the 6.50 drivers which got officially released on nvidia.com just then as opposed to using a newer, leaked set or the ASUS 5.33a drivers (still the same one on their website as on the driver CD).

Any suggestions as to which drivers to use on a GF2 GTS? I usually need OpenGL only and 2D desktop work. All in Windows 2000.

As for my experiences...

First of all I'm glad this monitor (2nd system in signature) is now discontinued for quite some time so no one can make the terrible mistake of buying one. I intend to replace it (is the Sony F400 any good?) soon but until then I'll have to live with it. My biggest problem with it is ghosty text. Is this the Moire thing some of you were talking about in GH? Black text on bright background starts to look more and more ghosty as you increase refresh rate/resolution. It looks as if the same text is printed in light gray just offset by a pixel. On the G400 1024x768 @ 85 Hz was the maximum without this problem appearing, on the GF2 it's already slightly there in this resolution and refresh rate. Not quite as apparent and disturbing as it always was in 1152x864@85 even on the G400 but it's already visible. (Compare this to the another long discontinued monitor I'm using for my primary system with a G400 MAX where I never saw anything like this even at 1280x1024@85.)

Other than this I cannot really say I noticed a decrease in quality, like in color vibrance etc. but then I would need better monitors and a side-by-side comparison to honestly judge it.

In fact there is already a very apparent increase in quality compared to the G400 in 2D when it comes to video overlay handling. Quite frankly I didn't expect this at all. At 1:1 size the two are the same, and both are good at enlarging the overlay as well. Stretching the overlay to a smaller size is where the G400 leaves a lot to be desired especially on interlaced content (BorgTV).
In Windows 2000, that is. I believe in Win9x it used to be better which lead me to believe this was a problem with Win2k. NVIDIA's drivers proved me wrong. (Could be a hardware limitation too though.)
I often watch TV in a small window so this was a very welcome change from the GF2.

Games. I used to go for 800x600x32 bits with everything maxed out w/ bilinear filtering only on the G400. On the GF2 I go for 1024x768x32 with everything maxed out incl. trilinear.

Quake3 was nicely playable on the G400. The GF2 makes it look like if Q3 was a very graphically simple game and always hovers around the 90 maxfps I didn't bother to set higher. Team Arena was getting painful on the G400, and it isn't nowhere near 90 fps on the GF2 either. In fact with a only few bots I start having hitches at 1024 on the huge maps. The 500MHz PIII in this system is obviously very inadequate now. How much faster is the GF2 on faster CPU's? Or is it not being a GF2 Ultra 64 MB more of a performance limitation?

Alice got a whole lot better and I'm getting close to finally finishing it. Not exactly an interesting game but at the least it looks gorgeous greatly enhanced by 1024x768, even if it's only 40 fps on average.

Soldier of Fortune came bundled with the card. It's one of the precious few id engine games I skipped (the other being Daikatana) but I'm looking forward to playing it. I patched it to SOF Gold right away. Is it any fun?

<style type="text/css">.sgn {font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11; color: black;} .sgnlink {text-decoration:none; color: #242472;}.sgnbold {font-weight:bold;}.sgnp3 {font-family: Arial;}</style><hr><div class="sgn">
Supermicro <a class="sgnlink" href="http://www.supermicro.com/PRODUCT/Chassis/sc750.htm">SC750A (CSE-017)</a> chassis, <a class="sgnlink" href="http://www.supermicro.com/PRODUCT/MotherBoards/840/840.htm#Table 2">PIIIDM3</a> motherboard
Intel <a class="sgnlink" href="http://www.intel.com/pentiumiii/">Pentium <span class="sgnp3">III</span> 667MHz</a> x2
Matrox <a class="sgnlink" href="http://www.matrox.com/mga/products/mill_g400/home.htm">Millennium <span class="sgnbold">G400 MAX</span></a> -&gt; iiyama <a class="sgnlink" href="http://www.iiyama.com/product2/9017e.htm">VisionMaster Pro 17 MT-9017T</a>
Creative <a class="sgnlink" href="http://www.soundblaster.com/products/sbliveplatinum/features.asp">Sound Blaster Live! Platinum</a> -&gt; Cambridge SoundWorks <a class="sgnlink" href="http://americas.creative.com/speakers/desktop-theater-2500/">DTT2500 Digital</a>
Microsoft <a class="sgnlink" href="http://www.microsoft.com/mouse/explorer.htm">IntelliMouse Explorer</a> (on USB)
Quantum <a class="sgnlink" href="http://www.quantum.com/products/hdd/atlas_10kii/atlas_10kii_overview.htm">Atlas 10K <span class="sgnp3">II</span> 18.4</a>, <a class="sgnlink" href="http://www.quantum.com/products/archive/atlas_iv/atlas_iv_overview.htm">Atlas <span class="sgnp3">IV</span> 9 WLS</a>, <a href="http://www.quantum.com/products/archive/fireball_lct/fireball_lct_overview.htm" class="sgnlink">Fireball lct08 26</a>, WD Caviar <a class="sgnlink" href="http://www.wdc.com/products/non-current/drives/ac420400.html">AC420400D</a>
Pioneer <a class="sgnlink" href="http://www.pioneer-eur.com/products/multimed/optical/dvd5en.htm">DVD-303S</a>
ZyXEL <a class="sgnlink" href="http://www.zyxel.com/html/product/ta/lcds.html">omni.net LCD Plus</a> (on COM1)
TV Tuner card with Conexant Bt848</div>

<p class="sgn">Abit <a class="sgnlink" href="http://www.abit-usa.com/english/product/motherboards/be6.htm">BE6</a>
Intel <a class="sgnlink" href="http://www.intel.com/pentiumiii/">Pentium <span class="sgnp3">III</span> 500MHz</a>
ASUS <a class="sgnlink" href="http://www.asus.com.tw/products/Addon/Vga/agpv7700d/index.html">AGP-V7700 Deluxe</a> -&gt; MAG <a class="sgnlink" href="http://www.maginnovision.com/Products_discontinues/crt.asp?pn=DX715T">DX715T</a>
Creative <a class="sgnlink" href="http://www.soundblaster.com/products/sbliveplatinum/features.asp">Sound Blaster Live! Value</a>
Quantum <a href="http://www.quantum.com/products/hdd/fireball_pluslm/fireball_pluslm_overview.htm" class="sgnlink">Fireball Plus LM 20</a>, <a class="sgnlink" href="http://www.quantum.com/products/hdd/fireball_lct15/fireball_lct15_overview.htm">lct15 30</a>
Adaptec AHA-2940UW
-&gt; Pioneer <a class="sgnlink" href="">DVD-303S</a>
TV Tuner card with Conexant Bt878


Kyocera FS-600</p>

[Greebe]

fds, in order to become an nVidiot you must 1. own one of their products, but 2. most importantly must be ignorant of facts... ie your not, so therefor 2 cancels point #1

[impact]

Burn the heretic!

heheh actually because you voluntarily chose to suffer in your real life, you'll be granted high rewards in the afterlife... or so they say

[ALBPM]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">That which does not Kill you will make you Stronger..</font>

Get a bigger and better monitor - It'll Kill you...LOL

Paul

[Johnny Ray]

fds,

I also have an Asus 7700, and have been really happy with it. I've been using the 6.50 drivers for some time, and for me they're rock solid. The only problem with earlier driver versions was a "windows protection error" on shutdown. Later "leaked" 6.XX drivers don't offer improved performance, and the DirectX 8 "optimized" 7.XX drivers are definitely not ready for prime-time. I hope you're overclocking your mem.

The card really cranks in OGL games....very impressive. But I disagree about the visual quality. On a good monitor (mine's a Sony GDM-F400), you'll notice how butt-ugly the card is. For games it's great, but for anything else, no way. I have my faithful G400Max on my "work" computer where I REALLY appreciate its sharpness, excellent color, and yep (don't laugh!) -- I'm finally using the dual head and loving it.

John

[Indiana]

The 6.31 still are said to be the "best" drivers for the Geforce-cards delivering the best performance AND stability.

And yes, I've noticed the better Overlay-scaling on the newer Geforces as well. But the sharpness still is below the G400 one.

EDIT: corrected the version number (DOH!)...

[This message has been edited by Indiana (edited 11 February 2001).]

[paulcs]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Indiana:
The 6.32 still are said to be the "best" drivers for the Geforce-cards delivering the best performance AND stability.</font>

Is this a typo?

The alleged Window 98/ME "6.32" set is a hack. I don't think a Windows 2000 6.32 set exists.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[Indiana]

Yes, this is (was) a typo
Anyway, a comparision of some of the current detonators can be found here (german, but I guesss the graphics speak for themselves):
http://www.mediaxplosion.de/hardware.../vergleich.htm

While some of the newer detonators seem to be faster especially in 3DFake2000, the 6.31 is in touch with the fastest in MOST games while the results for the other detonators seem to be quite variable, depending on the used game. This is why quite a few sites call the 6.31 the best overall (IIRC 3DCenter, RivaStation).
But as you can see the differences are not that big, you just should make sure that you're NOT using any 7.x version.