Det driver question, Help?

[Mr.DLucey]

Well here's the story. I first had a MSI Ti4200-64 loaded the driver that came with it 6.14.10.4403 (Pre DET) used it for like a year. Got a Mad Dod Ti4200-128 and kicked down the Ti4200-64 to my back up rig. Never up updated the driver. So I was thinking I could get some free performance out of a newer driver. I ran 3DMark2001se to see were I was at, which was 10,552. Ran it again now at 10,223, it always seems to be different every time I run it but always around 10,300. Always slower the second time too, is this normal, does it need a fresh boot? Well back to the story. Down loaded the newest Detonator driver 45.23, installed it. Ran 3DMark2001se new score 9,909 -WHAT? Run again now 9,628-NOOOOOOOO. Well.............. It time for "GOBACK", man I love that program. Restored it to same configuration at initial boot. Ran 3DMark2001se score 10,646, run again, 10.369. Well that better, but why?

Why didn't the new driver lower my score?

What would be a better driver for me?

[resonatorman]

Absolutely normal. 3dmark is a piece of crap, results vary by some hundred points each time. The newest dets got rid of the "optimizations" for game 4 (nature) and now yield significantly lower numbers.
Best driver for your card is Omega 43.45 BTW. Best driver for high benchmark results (not for gaming) : 42.68.

[Mr.DLucey]

Got a link to the Omega 43.45?

[Steven4563]

http://www.driverheaven.net/downloads/index4.htm

:) all the omega drivers are there

[Mr.DLucey]

Hey thanks "Steven4563" for the link, when I upgrade, how much drop in 3dmark score would be normal for the omega driver as I know it will be lower but look better.

[resonatorman]

Only if you choose "Quality" setting. W/ "Performance" installation your score will rise, and what is more, games will run faster.

[Mr.DLucey]

Originally posted by resonatorman
With "Performance" installation your score will rise, and what is more, games will run faster.

Thanks very much to you all,


EDIT:

OK I just installed the Omega (set to performance) driver that's based on the 43.45 driver, to replace my old driver and my 3dMark scores were 10,572, second run 10,447 (About the same as the old driver) , well at least they weren't any lower. Ya I going to keep it and try it for a while.

[Mr.Guvernment]

^^
always reboot after running a bench - otherwise your score wil just get lower and lower :)