Need some advice on which drivers I should use on the following system:

P4 HT 3.06GHz
256Mb (soon to be 512) DDR RAM
Nvidia GeForce MX440SE 128Mb
Win XP SP1

As you can tell from the below-mind-blowing specs, this is my media centre PC. However, I do still need to run LFS on it so I need some drivers for the ageing card (which are currently using the crappy Microsoft ones).

So would the latest 84.21 Forceware drivers offer any advantage over the last 66.93 Performance Omega drivers? Or would the Performance Omegas actually be faster than the latest official Forcewares on this old card?

I've gotten the best performance (in terms of frames per second) from Z-Tweaked 84.20s. If you're looking for quality too, you'd probably be better off with other drivers (dunno which ones though.

I've just noticed that a brand new Z-Tweaked 87.25 surfaced, I'd give them a go based on my previous experience of Z-Tweaked drivers.

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=1401

84.37s are amazing, they gave me a 10FPS boost in LFS. I used to get 45-50FPS, im now bouncing off my 60FPS vsync limit almost constantly.

You use 60 Hz? Would make me go blind within an hour (assuming it's a CRT, of course).

Z-Tweaked 87's it is then- thanks guys Btw, 60Hz is what a lot of laptop TFTs are locked to. Luckily because they don't flicker, there aren't any headache probs.

For what its worth, I'm using the NGO version of 84.56, and have no performance problems - LFS seems to hover around 90FPS most of the time (6600GT). Other games like Doom 3 and Call of Duty 2 run very smoothly as well.

@Stellios Ah whoops what I meant to say was "OIC, what frequency do you use?" (vsync has naught to do with 60 Hz, sry )

Quote from Rtsbasic :

For what its worth, I'm using the NGO version of 84.56, and have no performance problems - LFS seems to hover around 90FPS most of the time (6600GT). Other games like Doom 3 and Call of Duty 2 run very smoothly as well.

With a 6600GT I doubt you'd have performance problems with any recent-ish driver. Personally I found that the Z-T drivers I used were noticeably faster than any NGO modded driver I've tried. Not trying to push my view, just thought if you do change drivers at some point give the Z-Ts a go

Its still easy to overload a 6600GT in some games given the right settings

What video card are you using? Is there any loss of display quality with the Z-T drivers? The NGO's seem to work nice without any quality loss.

Can't say for sure if you'll lose quality, as I can't use any quality at all to begin with but I'd guess the IQ might be slightly poorer. I'm on an AGP 8x FX5200 128MB, unfortunately. Z-Ts are specifically for getting every single FPS out of your card, so I'd imagine some compromises must have been made.

Sounds reasonable. I'll give them a go on my other machine - its only got a Geforce MX4000 or something so needs every FPS it can get

Do the ZTs need SP2 or just not support older cards, as they're not installing. Or do you NEED to uninstall the older drivers first?

Hum not sure about SP2, might well be. I had a peek in the inf file and it definitely has MX440-SE in it. Older drivers do not need to be uninstalled (only newer ones do).

I suggest you go for any recent driver that works without SP2, if that's case

OK thanks I'm going to try the 84 official Forcewares as from what you guys told me they're the next best thing.

Quote from NotAnIllusion :

You use 60 Hz? Would make me go blind within an hour (assuming it's a CRT, of course).

Nah, im on a TFT mate. It does 75Hz but i find it a bit more blurry putting it that high.

Righto, with a TFT it's understandable

Hmmm...

Drivers usually don't care about Service Packs. But I must admit that due to me using an ATI card I'm not 100% sure that nVidia really didn't do anything to their drivers making SP2 necessary.

But anyway I just can't help but STRONGLY advise you to install SP2! The reasons for that are countless - just like the numbers of different malware out there. You are using the internet and Windows is full of known and unknown security holes. Always installing the latest updates from M$ is one very important way to keep at least the number of known holes down to a minimum.

Just my 2 cents...

I'm gonna try those Z-Tweaked drivers out, mainly because I need every extra FPS in many games, especially some of the future HL2 stuff, and LFS starts are awful.

Quote from TiJay :

Need some advice on which drivers I should use on the following system:

P4 HT 3.06GHz
256Mb (soon to be 512) DDR RAM
Nvidia GeForce MX440SE 128Mb
Win XP SP1

As you can tell from the below-mind-blowing specs, this is my media centre PC. However, I do still need to run LFS on it so I need some drivers for the ageing card (which are currently using the crappy Microsoft ones).

So would the latest 84.21 Forceware drivers offer any advantage over the last 66.93 Performance Omega drivers? Or would the Performance Omegas actually be faster than the latest official Forcewares on this old card?

Hi,

I would try yourself to test different drivers version using LFS Benchmark.You can find the link on LFS website in link section.

Sometimes the older drivers are more optimized for older cards.The latest drivers sometime suck on older hardware with FPS drop in huge ammount.

Quote from TiJay :

Do the ZTs need SP2...

eh?

Im wondering if someone has a link to those ZT drivers... lol maybe we will be ocr and T7R drivers too

lol, i have a 6800GT and im using 81.90 getting over 100fps on LFS atm..

i think i should update lol

I'm using the 84 series drivers and will try the benchmarking thing.

Quote :

But anyway I just can't help but STRONGLY advise you to install SP2! The reasons for that are countless - just like the numbers of different malware out there. You are using the internet and Windows is full of known and unknown security holes. Always installing the latest updates from M$ is one very important way to keep at least the number of known holes down to a minimum.

Yup, I will eventually. As my media centre it's not internet connected yet but when it is I'll probably SP2 it.