Parhelia Drivers

Am I better to install the latest drivers or stick with what came with the
card?

The reason I ask is I remember someone saying the new ones actualy made the
card perfom slower.

--

Dan

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"Dan" <NOSPAMdaniel.pickard.TakeThisOut@fast-trak.net> wrote in message
news:3f263653$0$966$cc9e4d1f@news.dial.pipex.com...
 > Am I better to install the latest drivers or stick with what came with the
 > card?
 >
 > The reason I ask is I remember someone saying the new ones actualy made
the
 > card perfom slower.

According to all tests I've run, the drivers I had back in March were the
fastest. The latest two versions of drivers will speed up a couple of
things, but slow down almost everything else, mostly by disabling fast
writes. In 3DMark2001, I get around 5% lower scores with the latest
drivers, even if some things are speeded up.

Contrary to what some people say, you can't turn fast writes back on again
by registry entries -- sure, the registry entries are there, but that
doesn't help when the drivers have the functions turned OFF. Run speed
tests and you'll see that there's no advantage to changing the registry
settings (a slight disadvantage if anything), but there is a speed benefit
to installing the old drivers with fast write support. The reason for the
removal of fast write support seems to be problems with certain motherboards
and card combinations. Too bad, especially since I have a motherboard with
NO problems.

However, there are quite a number of bug fixes in the new drivers too, which
is why I still use them. If you want the new drivers, don't install the
ones from the "newest drivers" -- they're older, buggier and slower than the
ones you find under "certified drivers". Both have fast writes disabled,
though...

Regards,
--
*Art<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->