Forceware Driver Benchmarks

Posts: 3257 · Posted: Thu May 06, 2004 11:29 am Post subject: Forceware Driver Benchmarks

nVidia ForceWare™ Driver Benchmarks
Intro:
New versions of drivers come out frequently and regularly, but which ones are worth your time to download and update? We set out to answer this question using one of our machines with perhaps one of the most popular GeForce video cards of all time, the GeForce 4 Ti4200. For a very long time they have been one of the best buys on the market (performance/cost ratio), and thus have worked their way into many machines around the world. We tested nVidia’s latest driver version, the 56.72, with their previous two most popular driver versions, the 53.04, and the 45.23. Tests were conducted with the 3dMark01SE (build 330) and 3dMark03 (build 340) benchmark programs. The latest 56.72’s may not be quite what you’d expect.

Test Machine Specs:

Processor: AMD XP 2100+ cooled with AMD Certified fan
Memory:512MB DDR PC2100 RAM
Motherboard: ECS K7S5A with onboard 10/100 LAN and Audio
Power Supply: 300 Watts
Monitor:19"CRT Phillips 109B Monitor
Video Card: GeForce 4 Ti4200 64MB by Chaintech
(Directx9.0b)
Hard Drive 1: Seagate 20 GB w/2MB Cache (for Windows only)
Hard Drive 2: Western Digital 80 GB w/2MB Cache (for everything else)
CD-ROM: 50x
Operating System: Windows XP Professional w/SP1

The Tests:
3DMark01SE (build 330)

7 of 7 Game Tests
6 of 6 Theoretical Tests
4 of 4 Directx 8 Feature Tests
Demo Looping Disabled
Demo Sounds Disabled
Game Sound Effects Disabled
Game Music Disabled
Detail Level High
Resolution 1024x768x32 bit color, compressed textures
D3D Pure Hardware T&L (Textures and Lighting)
No Antialiasing

3DMark03 (build340)

3 of 4 Game Tests (4th test not supported by the GeForce 4 Ti4200)
2 of 2 CPU Tests
5 of 5 Feature Tests
3 of 3 Sound Tests
1024x768x32 bit color
No Pixel Processing
Optimal Texture Filtering
4 Max Anisotropy
Optimal Vertex Shaders
No Repeated Tests
No Fixed Framerates

Publishes by nVidia:
nVidia ForceWare™ Version 56.72
nVidia ForceWare™ Version 53.04
nVidia ForceWare™ Version 45.23

Data:
3DMark2001SE (build 330) (higher is better)

ForceWare™ 45.23 = 8916

ForceWare™ 53.04 = 8915

ForceWare™ 56.72 = 8553

3DMark2003 (build 340) (higher is better)

ForceWare™ 45.23 = 1336

ForceWare™ 53.04 = 1337

ForceWare™ 56.72 = 1317

Graphs:

Hopefully this is not going to be a continuing trend for future nVidia drivers. If you haven’t upgraded to the latest version of the ForceWare™ ’s, you might want to wait. The only good things about the newest driver version are the added fixes and features. If you’re curious to find out exactly what exactly was fixed with the ForceWare™ 56.72 release check out nVidia’s release notes.

Again in the 3dMark03 tests we see a noticeable drop off in the performance of the 56.72 driver. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that nVidia will improve their drivers before the next release.

Conclusion:
We saw decreases in performance across both tests in the latest ForceWare™ 56.72 driver, but whether or not you will actually notice the change in performance is uncertain and may depend on the specific application and settings. We have not yet tested the drivers on nVidia’s newest FX line of cards, so perhaps they are different enough to exhibit positive results. Check back again after nVidia’s next official driver release for more information on the subject. Till then, we recommend you keep your current drivers unless you have an application that is not running properly.