New 14.20 nvidia drivers, lost some 3dmark score

[Pinky]

I tried a new set of beta drivers from here (http://www.nvmax.com/downloads/nvidia/load.shtml).

My results:

with the 12.90 drivers, my scores were 5249 (http://speshalk.dyndns.org:1812/bench20001290.jpg) in 3dMark2000 and 2525 (http://speshalk.dyndns.org:1812/bench20011290.jpg) in 3dMark2001 with the specs below.

with the 14.20 drivers, my scores were 5080 (http://speshalk.dyndns.org:1812/bench20001420.jpg) in 3dMark2000 and 2433 (http://speshalk.dyndns.org:1812/bench20011420.jpg) in 3dMark2001.

I didn't see any noticeable improvement with the new drivers. Perhaps someone with a Geforce 3 could give them a try and report back here with the results. I'm going to leave them in for a few days and see if I notice anything or if I encounter any issues. They're still beta, so I definitely won't keep them for long.

**Update -- I checked the readme with the drivers, it appears the geforce 3 is not supported, only the following are:

Adapters supported
------------------
NVIDIA RIVA TNT
NVIDIA RIVA TNT2
NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 Pro
NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 Ultra
NVIDIA Vanta
NVIDIA Vanta LT
NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 Model 64
NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 Model 64 Pro
NVIDIA Aladdin TNT2
NVIDIA GeForce 256
NVIDIA GeForce DDR
NVIDIA Quadro
NVIDIA GeForce2 MX
NVIDIA Quadro2 MXR
NVIDIA GeForce2 GTS
NVIDIA GeForce2 Pro
NVIDIA GeForce2 Ultra
NVIDIA Quadro2 Pro

[MAV]

Pinky, im currently using the 12.90 and they seem to be o.k. But, i also installed the 14.20 and found that the openGL took quite a drop in scores, from 180 down to 74 using Wintune98. So it appears that the 14.20 drivers are a bit buggy on the openGL side of things...maybe thats got something to do with your drop in that benchmark of yours. I have since re-installed the 12.90 drivers, things are back to normall now.
Regards

[Pinky]

I dunno what the 14.20 are really designed for. I have since put 12.90 back, and they seem to be working great. Of course, with the GF3 on the way, I will have little concern for benchmarks.

[DeathScyth_Hell]

Is it better if the score is lower??....sorry i dunno how to use the 3dmark 2000 program...i had a score of 2000 something....is that good or bad?

[MAV]

DeathScyth_Hell (Jul 17, 2001 11:19 p.m.):
Is it better if the score is lower??....sorry i dunno how to use the 3dmark 2000 program...i had a score of 2000 something....is that good or bad?

DeathScyth_Hell, that would depend on your system setup, vid card, cpu etc.....need to know more about your setup to get an idea..
regards

[Pinky]

DeathScyth_Hell (Jul 17, 2001 11:19 p.m.):
Is it better if the score is lower??....sorry i dunno how to use the 3dmark 2000 program...i had a score of 2000 something....is that good or bad?

No, the higher the score the better the benchmark result.

In my benchmark, I lost some performance with the new drivers, which is partially why I posted them here.