Page 1
Article Type: Review
Article Date: October 10, 2001
A new Detonator driver? Why, and who cares?
As all sim pilots know, speed is life, and when your frame rate dips below 12 fps, it’s time to think about upgrading your system or reducing the graphics settings. But who wants to do the latter?
It’s not enough to have fast hardware, you have to have up to date drivers. The difference between an early release driver and a late release driver can be 15 percent in terms of speed, not to mention improved stability.
Whenever you have a problem running a game, the chances are you can look to either your video or sound drivers. If neither of these is the source, you may have one of those oddball conflicts with unusual hardware like a NIC card or a SCSI adapater. Of course chipset issues also enter in here, VIA being one of the more notorious, particularly on an overclocked bus.
NVIDIA has been great about providing frequent driver updates, and when there are particular game issues, they are quick to respond. The release of the last Detonator 3 driver was quite some time back, and now Detonator 4 which NVIDIA calls Detonator XP has arrived ahead of schedule.
This most recent release is significant because it comes with a substantial speed bump in both DirectX 8 and OpenGL. It’s interesting, however, that the speed increase is most noticeable with GeForce3 boards. It could be that the benchmarks that are now appearing for ATI’s new RADEON 8500 have created a bit of nervous tension among NVIDIA's marketing and engineering gurus. But whatever the reason for the early release of a new Detonator generation, they are welcome!
While NVIDIA hasn’t talked about the DirectX optimizations in Detonator XP, they have talked about the improvements for OpenGL. The Detonator XP drivers include a new OpenGL 1.3 ICD. The improvements are as follows:
Increased Data Bandwidth:
Detonator XP Software’s new OpenGL ICD optimizes bus data transfers in order to reduce peak saturation of the bus, much like the new DirectX pipeline.
Parallelized Memory Access:
Detonator XP Software’s new OpenGL ICD is more efficient at helping the GPU and CPU access memory in parallel. This allows each processor to cache data before it is transferred between system and graphics memory, increasing performance in high resolution anti-aliasing modes.
Vertex Programs:
Vertex programs have been optimized in Detonator XP Software, yielding performance gains in some applications, and even larger gains in heavily vertex-processing bound applications. Examples of applications that utilize these features are SPECViewperf, Pro/E, and NVIDIA’s Chameleon demo.
I did not run a fresh install of WIN ME, but rather ran the 3DMark and game benchmarks on my current driver installation of 12.41. I swapped out the GeForce2 board and swapped in my Titan 3 GF3. I reran the benchmarks, then I downloaded the 21.81 drivers, a 3.6 MB download. The .exe is self extracting and a simple installation. I had no difficulty and then rebooted my machine.
I had to rerun GeForce Tweak in order to reset my OCZ Titan 3 board to 240MHz clock and 560MHz memory. Then I ran tests in WarBirds III and 3DMark2001. I also tested IL-2 Sturmovik under OpenGL for good measure, since this is a simulation that is known to love NVIDIA boards.
As expected, the greatest performance gain was GeForce3 rather than GeForce2. Where the 3DMark gains roughly 18 percent for GeForce3, it gains about 12 percent for GeForce2.
In game tests showed similar results. WarBirds III ran approximately 5 percent faster on the new drivers.
The GeForce3 improvements showed their stuff running 21.81 in WarBirds III.
Unfortunately, FRAPS doesn’t run in the IL-2 Sturmovik beta. This leaves one to a subjective evaluation of performance.
The only realistic way to accomplish this is to load up a scenario that is very demanding on the hardware. I happen to be very good at designing these scenarios, to the delight and dismay of some of my friends (LOL!)
I launched a campaign mission where my Bf-109 is on the runway awaiting takeoff. I then observed the performance of an I-16 that is overflying the field. Flak and AAA are heavy, there are roughly twenty-five aircraft on the ground, and there are about ten aircraft airborne near the field. Tanks are also moving less than 2 km away and artillery is engaging them.
This scenario was running at around 10 fps on my system under the 12.41 drivers, with Quincunx anti-aliasing ON. I left all graphics settings the same and re-entered the scenario after installing the driver update.
My subjective impression was that there was no difference, or so little as to be undiscernable. Please understand that I had run this campaign mission at least ten times the day before, and three times prior to installing the new drivers. I couldn’t detect any change in image quality, which was already excellent at 1024x768 and 32 bits of color depth.
I then downloaded the Vulpine OpenGL benchmark. This demo reminds me of the demo benchmark with 3DMark2000. It features a tropical island type setting where the camera pans over the water and through the forests from various angles for two or three minutes. The second scenario loads a Laura Croft type figure who wanders through an intricate sci-fi type setting.
After installing the demo I removed the new Detonator 4 driver and reinstalled 12.41. I received an error message when installing Vulpine, but the demo ran fine anyway.
The initial run under the Titan 3 yielded an average framerate of 40.9 fps. The demo supplies a low score, high score, and average score, and even charts your scores for you. As with the 3DMark benchmark, the user can set resolution and color depth and even some additional options.
I then reinstalled the 21.81 drivers and ran the benchmark again. My final score was 44.7 average fps, almost a 10 percent gain.
New drivers usually add increased system stability, and occasionally add new features. The fourth generation Detonator XP drivers appear to be aimed primarily at a performance increase, and particularly at performance on the latest NVIDIA hardware.
If you have a GeForce2 or GeForce2 MX board and are perfectly happy with your 12.xx drivers, there may be no immediate reason to upgrade. But if you are running a GeForce3 board, I recommend you do the painless update and enjoy the extra performance.
TEST SYSTEM:
Base System:
Printer Friendly
NVIDIA Detonator XP Drivers
by Len "Viking1" HjalmarsonArticle Type: Review
Article Date: October 10, 2001
A new Detonator driver? Why, and who cares?
As all sim pilots know, speed is life, and when your frame rate dips below 12 fps, it’s time to think about upgrading your system or reducing the graphics settings. But who wants to do the latter?
It’s not enough to have fast hardware, you have to have up to date drivers. The difference between an early release driver and a late release driver can be 15 percent in terms of speed, not to mention improved stability.
While some gamers are under the impression that speed and compatibility are trade-offs and go together like oil and water, later driver revisions usually combine the two very well. It depends on your video hardware, however. While 3dfx and NVIDIA have generally produced new and stable drivers quite often, other hardware makers have had more than their share of problems.“Detonator 4 and Detonator XP are synonymous”
Whenever you have a problem running a game, the chances are you can look to either your video or sound drivers. If neither of these is the source, you may have one of those oddball conflicts with unusual hardware like a NIC card or a SCSI adapater. Of course chipset issues also enter in here, VIA being one of the more notorious, particularly on an overclocked bus.
NVIDIA has been great about providing frequent driver updates, and when there are particular game issues, they are quick to respond. The release of the last Detonator 3 driver was quite some time back, and now Detonator 4 which NVIDIA calls Detonator XP has arrived ahead of schedule.
 |
| WarBirds 3 Spitfire |
This most recent release is significant because it comes with a substantial speed bump in both DirectX 8 and OpenGL. It’s interesting, however, that the speed increase is most noticeable with GeForce3 boards. It could be that the benchmarks that are now appearing for ATI’s new RADEON 8500 have created a bit of nervous tension among NVIDIA's marketing and engineering gurus. But whatever the reason for the early release of a new Detonator generation, they are welcome!
While NVIDIA hasn’t talked about the DirectX optimizations in Detonator XP, they have talked about the improvements for OpenGL. The Detonator XP drivers include a new OpenGL 1.3 ICD. The improvements are as follows:
Increased Data Bandwidth:
Detonator XP Software’s new OpenGL ICD optimizes bus data transfers in order to reduce peak saturation of the bus, much like the new DirectX pipeline.
Parallelized Memory Access:
Detonator XP Software’s new OpenGL ICD is more efficient at helping the GPU and CPU access memory in parallel. This allows each processor to cache data before it is transferred between system and graphics memory, increasing performance in high resolution anti-aliasing modes.
Vertex Programs:
Vertex programs have been optimized in Detonator XP Software, yielding performance gains in some applications, and even larger gains in heavily vertex-processing bound applications. Examples of applications that utilize these features are SPECViewperf, Pro/E, and NVIDIA’s Chameleon demo.
The Technology and the Tests
All the technological mumbo-jumbo sounds wonderful, but how do the drivers measure up in real life?I did not run a fresh install of WIN ME, but rather ran the 3DMark and game benchmarks on my current driver installation of 12.41. I swapped out the GeForce2 board and swapped in my Titan 3 GF3. I reran the benchmarks, then I downloaded the 21.81 drivers, a 3.6 MB download. The .exe is self extracting and a simple installation. I had no difficulty and then rebooted my machine.
I had to rerun GeForce Tweak in order to reset my OCZ Titan 3 board to 240MHz clock and 560MHz memory. Then I ran tests in WarBirds III and 3DMark2001. I also tested IL-2 Sturmovik under OpenGL for good measure, since this is a simulation that is known to love NVIDIA boards.
As expected, the greatest performance gain was GeForce3 rather than GeForce2. Where the 3DMark gains roughly 18 percent for GeForce3, it gains about 12 percent for GeForce2.
 |
| 3DMark Scores |
In game tests showed similar results. WarBirds III ran approximately 5 percent faster on the new drivers.
 |
| GF2 WarBirds Scores |
The GeForce3 improvements showed their stuff running 21.81 in WarBirds III.
 |
| GF3 WarBirds Scores |
Unfortunately, FRAPS doesn’t run in the IL-2 Sturmovik beta. This leaves one to a subjective evaluation of performance.
The only realistic way to accomplish this is to load up a scenario that is very demanding on the hardware. I happen to be very good at designing these scenarios, to the delight and dismay of some of my friends (LOL!)
I launched a campaign mission where my Bf-109 is on the runway awaiting takeoff. I then observed the performance of an I-16 that is overflying the field. Flak and AAA are heavy, there are roughly twenty-five aircraft on the ground, and there are about ten aircraft airborne near the field. Tanks are also moving less than 2 km away and artillery is engaging them.
 |
| 109 on the Runway |
This scenario was running at around 10 fps on my system under the 12.41 drivers, with Quincunx anti-aliasing ON. I left all graphics settings the same and re-entered the scenario after installing the driver update.
My subjective impression was that there was no difference, or so little as to be undiscernable. Please understand that I had run this campaign mission at least ten times the day before, and three times prior to installing the new drivers. I couldn’t detect any change in image quality, which was already excellent at 1024x768 and 32 bits of color depth.
 |
| OpenGL Benchmark |
I then downloaded the Vulpine OpenGL benchmark. This demo reminds me of the demo benchmark with 3DMark2000. It features a tropical island type setting where the camera pans over the water and through the forests from various angles for two or three minutes. The second scenario loads a Laura Croft type figure who wanders through an intricate sci-fi type setting.
After installing the demo I removed the new Detonator 4 driver and reinstalled 12.41. I received an error message when installing Vulpine, but the demo ran fine anyway.
The initial run under the Titan 3 yielded an average framerate of 40.9 fps. The demo supplies a low score, high score, and average score, and even charts your scores for you. As with the 3DMark benchmark, the user can set resolution and color depth and even some additional options.
I then reinstalled the 21.81 drivers and ran the benchmark again. My final score was 44.7 average fps, almost a 10 percent gain.
Conclusion
Generally one has to spend money to obtain a performance increase in games: add more memory, buy a faster CPU, or purchase a new video board. It’s gratifying to get a performance increase at no cost.New drivers usually add increased system stability, and occasionally add new features. The fourth generation Detonator XP drivers appear to be aimed primarily at a performance increase, and particularly at performance on the latest NVIDIA hardware.
If you have a GeForce2 or GeForce2 MX board and are perfectly happy with your 12.xx drivers, there may be no immediate reason to upgrade. But if you are running a GeForce3 board, I recommend you do the painless update and enjoy the extra performance.
TEST SYSTEM:
Base System:
- Abit KT-7 RAID mobo
- Athlon Tbird 800 at 945 MHz
- 384 MB Corsair PCI 133 CAS2
- Creative SB Live! X-Gamer 5.1
- IBM Deskstar 40GXP 7200 RPM ATA100
- Toshiba 72x TrueX CD ROM
- WIN ME, DX 8.1
- Via 4in1 1.33
- NVIDIA Detonator XP v21.81 driver
- OCZ Titan 3 GeForce3 at 240/560 MHz
- Nvidia GeForce2 32MB
Printer Friendly