GeForce 196.75 WHQL: Up to 30% increase in performance

[Chrono Detector]

What settings?

1920x1080, 16AF, 16AA, all maxed out settings

[FlawleZ]

1920x1080, 16AF, 16AA, all maxed out settings

At that resolution, HBAO on and that level of AA, sounds about right.

[randomizer]

"Up to 30%" means:

1) With certain hardware
2) With certain graphical settings
3) In (a) certain benchmark run(s)

For those of us living in the real world, we can expect no more than 30% of that 30% even in the titles where the big increases are.

[RAW-Raptor22]

I benchmarked my 7950 GX2 rig and got these results:

195.94:

Crysis Warhead Benchmark
v1.2.0.0

The benchmark started at 3/3/2010 8:45:28 PM

System Information
Operating system: Microsoft Windows XP
System memory: 2047 MB
CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU 2.80GHz
CPU speed: 2790 MHz
Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GX2 - 512 MB
Benchmark information
Demo: Airfield
Quality: High
Renderer mode: DirectX 9
Antialising mode: Off
Filtering mode: None
MultiGPU support: Enabled
Boost renderer: Disabled
Use Custom Config File: No
Random .exe: Disabled

Resolution: 1600×1200
Result(1):   Minimum= 3 FPS     Average= 11 FPS     Max= 20 FPS

Copyright 2002 - 2009 Zoltan Nemeth - Roadside

196.75:

Crysis Warhead Benchmark
v1.2.0.0

The benchmark started at 3/3/2010 9:06:08 PM

System Information
Operating system: Microsoft Windows XP
System memory: 2047 MB
CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU 2.80GHz
CPU speed: 2790 MHz
Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GX2 - 512 MB
Benchmark information
Demo: Airfield
Quality: High
Renderer mode: DirectX 9
Antialising mode: Off
Filtering mode: None
MultiGPU support: Enabled
Boost renderer: Disabled
Use Custom Config File: No
Random .exe: Disabled

Resolution: 1600×1200
Result(1):   Minimum= 3 FPS     Average= 11 FPS     Max= 21 FPS

Copyright 2002 - 2009 Zoltan Nemeth - Roadside

With these results I can come to one of two conclusions:

A) The new drivers do little to help the performance of these old cards
or
B) My cards are CPU limited anyways so better drivers wont do much good.

Im leaning more towards B), what do y'all think?

[Jokester_wild]

I benchmarked my 7950 GX2 rig and got these results:


With these results I can come to one of two conclusions:

A) The new drivers do little to help the performance of these old cards
or
B) My cards are CPU limited anyways so better drivers wont do much good.

Im leaning more towards B), what do y'all think?

wait people still run cpu's below 3ghz ? ??

[Amorphous]

And 7950 GX2s? I think I can remember what those used to look like...

wait people still run cpu's below 3ghz ? ??

[randomizer]

wait people still run cpu's below 3ghz ? ??

I run my i7 920 at stock

[skycrane]

Guys, it's not 30% performance improvement in ALL games, just a few titles...

to bad its not a 30% increase in folding, MW, and Collatz i dont know about yall, but if it cant crunch 30% more, where are they getting the speed from ????
extracting it from a small brown hole?

[RAW-Raptor22]

wait people still run cpu's below 3ghz ? ??

Yes, but this is my backup rig. My Q6600/9800GT PC is down, I will test these drivers on it when I fix it.

And 7950 GX2s? I think I can remember what those used to look like...

Its my backup rig and it is actually suprisingly close on DX9 performance to my 9800GT (which also isnt very good) but it was $40 for the GX2. It runs GRID at 1600x1200 with 8x AA maxed out at 60 FPS.

I run my i7 920 at stock

See the PC I built for my dad has its 920 running stock...

[Solus Corvus]

These drivers are slightly faster in a few current games I tried on my 285. But they break several old games I regularly play.

*sigh*

/rolling back to an older set

[RAW-Raptor22]

Yes, but this is my backup rig. My Q6600/9800GT PC is down, I will test these drivers on it when I fix it.



Its my backup rig and it is actually suprisingly close on DX9 performance to my 9800GT (which also isnt very good) but it was $40 for the GX2. It runs GRID at 1600x1200 with 8x AA maxed out at 60 FPS.



See the PC I built for my dad has its 920 running stock...

Oh and I wanted to ask, why do people hate on people running older hardware? Its not even bad older hardware, its not that much slower than what people are running today. I mean a basic dual core (the first dual core to market actually) and two 7950 GTXs can run pretty much anything decently, it might not be the fastest thing ever but it it is certainly capable. I mean these cards are only about 8-10% slower than a 8800GTX which isnt that slow compared to todays cards. I mean a GTX 280 is only about 25% faster. Its not like it used to be where the 6800Ultra blew away the 5950, the 7800GTX blew away the 6800 Ultra, and the 8800GTX blew away the 7950 GTX...

Its getting to the point where there isnt even enough new games to truely tax the new hardware. Crysis on max 1920x1080 runs beautifully on my i7 920/GTX285 SLi rig. I run Crysis Warhead on high settings with 2x AA on the PD820/GX2 computer, and GRID and all Steam games on full. It is not incompetent as a gaming machine. I dont see why everyone has to ridicule someone because their pockets aren't as deep as everyone else. I have an e6300 that's waiting to go into this PC when I get a motherboard that will support it. And FYI this was posted from my PD820 / 7950GX2 PC.

Also FYI I used to post from an Athlon Thunderbird 800 when my main PC was down, this is an improvement. I also keep a fully functioning Celeron 1200 rig (the first PC I built), and a K6-2 450MHz rig (for Flight Sim 95 and Civ2)...

I just dont see the reason for the hate.

[Dainas]

I benchmarked my 7950 GX2 rig and got these results:

With these results I can come to one of two conclusions:

A) The new drivers do little to help the performance of these old cards
or
B) My cards are CPU limited anyways so better drivers wont do much good.

Im leaning more towards B), what do y'all think?

You benchmark with a 7950GX2 with a Pentium D, thats like Fail added with an extra helping of Fail. No nvidia doesnt care about lousy crap like that, if you wanted to see if they care about -vintage- 2006 stuff, try an 8800GTX on a Windsor X2 6000+, or a 2.6ghz core 2 duo.

[Musho]

You benchmark with a 7950GX2 with a Pentium D, thats like Fail added with an extra helping of Fail. No nvidia doesnt care about lousy crap like that, if you wanted to see if they care about -vintage- 2006 stuff, try an 8800GTX on a Windsor X2 6000+, or a 2.6ghz core 2 duo.

Why all the flaming? I'm sure there are more people with older hardware interested in this. If people are going to post benches, it will give us a better view of what these drivers really improve. Do they optimize games, or do they optimize for a single architecture? Posting benches will show that. Flaming, however, will not.

[Movieman]

You benchmark with a 7950GX2 with a Pentium D, thats like Fail added with an extra helping of Fail. No nvidia doesnt care about lousy crap like that, if you wanted to see if they care about -vintage- 2006 stuff, try an 8800GTX on a Windsor X2 6000+, or a 2.6ghz core 2 duo.

Lets try and be a little more tactfull in our responses shall we?
Thanks for reading.
Dave the benevolent mod...until pushed..

[[XC] gomeler]

Oh and I wanted to ask, why do people hate on people running older hardware? Its not even bad older hardware, its not that much slower than what people are running today. I mean a basic dual core (the first dual core to market actually) and two 7950 GTXs can run pretty much anything decently, it might not be the fastest thing ever but it it is certainly capable. I mean these cards are only about 8-10% slower than a 8800GTX which isnt that slow compared to todays cards. I mean a GTX 280 is only about 25% faster. Its not like it used to be where the 6800Ultra blew away the 5950, the 7800GTX blew away the 6800 Ultra, and the 8800GTX blew away the 7950 GTX...

Its getting to the point where there isnt even enough new games to truely tax the new hardware. Crysis on max 1920x1080 runs beautifully on my i7 920/GTX285 SLi rig. I run Crysis Warhead on high settings with 2x AA on the PD820/GX2 computer, and GRID and all Steam games on full. It is not incompetent as a gaming machine. I dont see why everyone has to ridicule someone because their pockets aren't as deep as everyone else. I have an e6300 that's waiting to go into this PC when I get a motherboard that will support it. And FYI this was posted from my PD820 / 7950GX2 PC.

Also FYI I used to post from an Athlon Thunderbird 800 when my main PC was down, this is an improvement. I also keep a fully functioning Celeron 1200 rig (the first PC I built), and a K6-2 450MHz rig (for Flight Sim 95 and Civ2)...

I just dont see the reason for the hate.

*shrug* I run an 8600GTS in my daily rig. If I can game at 1920x1200 with medium-low settings I'm typically happy. However I have become what I'd consider a casual gamer, I'll play a round or two of a game and then go back to work.

[Dainas]

Lets try and be a little more tactfull in our responses shall we?
Thanks for reading.
Dave the benevolent mod...until pushed..

your right sorry, Pentium D and G70-GX2 are funny alone, but together I start to take offense.

[RAW-Raptor22]

your right sorry, Pentium D and G70-GX2 are funny alone, but together I start to take offense.

Its my backup rig, and it plays the games that I play when my main PC is down, as it is now. There is nothing wrong with either of those components. Yes they are outdated and yes they were kinda gimmicky but so what.

Oh and its a G71-GX2.

[Decami]

who cares what people run, its just all clocks and heat, if someone wants to run older hardware its their prerogative. some of us here dont have money for upgrades all the time, and you can bench what you wanna bench, as I said, just all clocks and heat.

[RAW-Raptor22]

who cares what people run, its just all clocks and heat, if someone wants to run older hardware its their prerogative. some of us here dont have money for upgrades all the time, and you can bench what you wanna bench, as I said, just all clocks and heat.

Yup. I run this 7950 GX2 at 600/1400 when stock clocks are 500/1200.

[ryan92084]

no idea if this issue effects non blizzard games. but if true i assume that it would http://forums.battle.net/thread.html...78481&sid=5000

[jaredpace]

Overheat 30% faster with 30% less fan speed today!

[saaya]

hmmm fps improvement in l4d is indeed a bit odd and sounds like a pr move... i wish theyd spend their driver resources on improving fps in games that need them, OR, improve performance of high AA levels so we can get the same fps but with one step up in aa...

and 7950gx2... that was a pretty nice card back then, and offered very nice price perf during G80 days when its price dropped a lot... im surprised to see an nvidia focus member and nvidia forum admin bash somebody for using that card

[donitsi]

196.75 - Now comes with GPU killing temperatures!

[Anemic]

Yeha, great Driver! A dead GPU is always a blast! Thanks Nvidia for testing you drivers before you hand them out to everyone....

[Piotrsama]

The driver was taken down from Nvidia's official site, be careful.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/05/n...-graphics-car/