View Full Version : HardOCP's 56.56 Driver Overview
Very good overview IMO Brent :)
However I would consider adding the following:
1. GLSL registry entry
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\NVIDIA Corporation\Global\OpenGL]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\NVIDIA Corporation\Global\OpenGL\Debug]
"ShaderObjects"=dword:00000001
2. Coolbits registry entry (includes D3D performance graph)
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\NVIDIA Corporation\Global\NVTweak]
"coolbits"=dword:00000003
Also when you talked about full precision modes (and you mentioned FP24), you could add that NVIDIA does not support FP24, just to get rid of the confusion for other folks. Or maybe it's just me :D
Did not even notice NV included a pop-up blocker :o
fallguy
02-Mar-2004, 09:01
I didnt notice it either. The drivers are a big leap forward in many areas. But I feel like its mostly "fluff". The game profiles ARE very nice though, no doubt about that. Better quality would have been nice too.
However, their brilinear method sucks. Power users dont like their power taken from them. :(
StealthHawk
02-Mar-2004, 09:30
NVIDIA changes the filtering of their drivers too much. It's hard to keep up!
Are texture stage optimizations gone now?
NVIDIA changes the filtering of their drivers too much. It's hard to keep up!
Are texture stage optimizations gone now?
Will see to it Stealth :)
digitalwanderer
02-Mar-2004, 15:14
The link to the article in question is here at HardOCP (http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NTk3). ;)
Too bad they only tried the D3D AF-tester. I would've liked to see confirmation that OpenGL now uses brilinear also which I suggested in this thread (http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10306&start=30).
It's nice that D3D AF is slightly better but I'd say the more important news would be that (if) OpenGL is now much worse.
digitalwanderer
02-Mar-2004, 15:39
We were hoping to see NVIDIA back away from their bastardized brand of "Brilinear Filtering" and that did not happen.
I just wanted to make absolutely clear that us Bastards had NOTHING to do with nVidia's brand of "Brilinear Filtering"...they never even consulted us about it! :shock:
;) Great driver review Brent. :)
You are saying I didn't post a link? :lol:
Thanks Dig! :)
digitalwanderer
02-Mar-2004, 16:00
You are saying I didn't post a link? :lol:
Thanks Dig! :)
No prob Volt. For a second there I thought it might be one of those "I don't DO links to [H]!" moments like I get when I'm pouting, but I figure Brent is one of ours and links to his stuff are always cool. :)
You are saying I didn't post a link? :lol:
Thanks Dig! :)
No prob Volt. For a second there I thought it might be one of those "I don't DO links to [H]!" moments like I get when I'm pouting, but I figure Brent is one of ours and links to his stuff are always cool. :)
Dig, do you sit here all day? I thought I just posted. I didn't even view the reply and baam :D
digitalwanderer
02-Mar-2004, 16:09
Dig, do you sit here all day? I thought I just posted. I didn't even view the reply and baam :D
Actually I do just sit on the boards for a few hours every morning drinking coffee when I can get away with it, right now I'm avoiding painting my daughter's room pink for JUST a few more minutes... ;)
fallguy
02-Mar-2004, 18:01
Actually I do just sit on the boards for a few hours every morning drinking coffee when I can get away with it, right now I'm avoiding painting my daughter's room pink for JUST a few more minutes... ;)
Been there, done that.
http://home.comcast.net/~dfall/Emroom/1.JPG
http://home.comcast.net/~dfall/Emroom/2.JPG
http://home.comcast.net/~dfall/Emroom/3.JPG
http://home.comcast.net/~dfall/Emroom/4.JPG
Its even more cluttered now. :shock: That was months ago.
edit, took off the tag to not make the topic go OT...
fallguy
02-Mar-2004, 18:56
They seem to still have the lighting issue as well. Brent, you've seen these pics before :) Copy/pasted from another thread..
Some pics of what I am talking about. Taken with a 5900NU@5950 and 56.56 drivers. All quality set to the highest in game (cept AA) and in drivers also.
The rocks just in front of me are dark..
http://home.comcast.net/~dfall/Farcry/5900/Lighting/1.jpg
Walk one foot further, and BAM its like someone hit a light switch..
http://home.comcast.net/~dfall/Farcry/5900/Lighting/2.jpg
Look at the rock in the background to the right.. suddenly dark..
http://home.comcast.net/~dfall/Farcry/5900/Lighting/3.jpg
This time, just the opposite, lights on..
http://home.comcast.net/~dfall/Farcry/5900/Lighting/4.jpg
One foot further.. lights off..
http://home.comcast.net/~dfall/Farcry/5900/Lighting/5.jpg
Look to the right, towards the dock. That huge rock has the lights on..
http://home.comcast.net/~dfall/Farcry/5900/Lighting/6.jpg
Move a tad farther, and the lights are suddenly "off".. If someone is standing over there, its going to be hard to see them...
http://home.comcast.net/~dfall/Farcry/5900/Lighting/7.jpg
The trees in the distance look horrible, but that could be the game. It is a demo afterall, but on my 9800XT it doesnt look like that.
Very good overview IMO Brent :)
However I would consider adding the following:
1. GLSL registry entry
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\NVIDIA Corporation\Global\OpenGL]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\NVIDIA Corporation\Global\OpenGL\Debug]
"ShaderObjects"=dword:00000001
2. Coolbits registry entry (includes D3D performance graph)
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\NVIDIA Corporation\Global\NVTweak]
"coolbits"=dword:00000003
Also when you talked about full precision modes (and you mentioned FP24), you could add that NVIDIA does not support FP24, just to get rid of the confusion for other folks. Or maybe it's just me :D
Did not even notice NV included a pop-up blocker :o
Can I ask where you got the one concerning GLSL?
The default way the driver is does not have GLSL function enabled. From looking at the registry info above its for Debugging?
I wasn't aware of that.
I did mention the performance graph and coolbits though.
Tim Murray
02-Mar-2004, 21:07
GLSL support is (or was apparently) quite buggy. Maybe it's better in 56.55 than with earlier 55.xx drivers, dunno.
NVIDIA changes the filtering of their drivers too much. It's hard to keep up!
Are texture stage optimizations gone now?
Could you elaborate on this texture stage optimization?
GLSL support is (or was apparently) quite buggy. Maybe it's better in 56.55 than with earlier 55.xx drivers, dunno.
It's gotta be turned off by default for a reason apparently, heh.
As you said, GLSL support does not come out of the box -- though it is supported in debugging mode.
I don't know exactly where I got it from, but it does do the trick. I think Humus posted it somewhere, not sure. It creates the OpenGL key and enables the extensions via ShaderObjects :)
Too bad they only tried the D3D AF-tester. I would've liked to see confirmation that OpenGL now uses brilinear also which I suggested in this thread (http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10306&start=30).
It's nice that D3D AF is slightly better but I'd say the more important news would be that (if) OpenGL is now much worse.
Could you point me to an OpenGL Filtering tester, I don't have one, thanks.
I emphasize the worsened filtering with 8XAF enabled though. With these cards people are gonna use AF a lot, so its worth noting with 56.56 the filtering is worse than 53.03 as I showed.
As you said, GLSL support does not come out of the box -- though it is supported in debugging mode.
I don't know exactly where I got it from, but it does do the trick. I think Humus posted it somewhere, not sure. It creates the OpenGL key and enables the extensions via ShaderObjects :)
yeah, it doesn't come out of the box, and that is what really matters
the cat 4.2's do, no extra stuff needed, its there by default
We were hoping to see NVIDIA back away from their bastardized brand of "Brilinear Filtering" and that did not happen.
I just wanted to make absolutely clear that us Bastards had NOTHING to do with nVidia's brand of "Brilinear Filtering"...they never even consulted us about it! :shock:
;) Great driver review Brent. :)
thanks, just a little somethin somethin since this driver brought with it a lot of new desktop features
I just thought it would be cool to mention the hack so people could try out some GLSL demos 8)
They seem to still have the lighting issue as well. Brent, you've seen these pics before :) Copy/pasted from another thread..
Some pics of what I am talking about. Taken with a 5900NU@5950 and 56.56 drivers. All quality set to the highest in game (cept AA) and in drivers also.
The rocks just in front of me are dark..
http://home.comcast.net/~dfall/Farcry/5900/Lighting/1.jpg
Walk one foot further, and BAM its like someone hit a light switch..
http://home.comcast.net/~dfall/Farcry/5900/Lighting/2.jpg
Look at the rock in the background to the right.. suddenly dark..
http://home.comcast.net/~dfall/Farcry/5900/Lighting/3.jpg
This time, just the opposite, lights on..
http://home.comcast.net/~dfall/Farcry/5900/Lighting/4.jpg
One foot further.. lights off..
http://home.comcast.net/~dfall/Farcry/5900/Lighting/5.jpg
Look to the right, towards the dock. That huge rock has the lights on..
http://home.comcast.net/~dfall/Farcry/5900/Lighting/6.jpg
Move a tad farther, and the lights are suddenly "off".. If someone is standing over there, its going to be hard to see them...
http://home.comcast.net/~dfall/Farcry/5900/Lighting/7.jpg
The trees in the distance look horrible, but that could be the game. It is a demo afterall, but on my 9800XT it doesnt look like that.
I'm really really wondering whats going on with this lighting problem now, I'm starting to see that it is happening in more and more games, at first I thought it was just NFS:U, but now FarCry, and also I heard maybe in BF1942?
The fact that this is happening in multiple games has to mean something, right?
Joe DeFuria
02-Mar-2004, 21:25
The fact that this is happening in multiple games has to mean something, right?
This is pure theory from me, and I don't know if what I'm going to say could actually produce the artifact, but here's a guess:
What if nVidia cards / drivers are auto-generating mip-maps that are not texture stage 0? Could doing this with lightmaps, combined with not using trilinear filtering on these stages, result in this artifact?
Could you point me to an OpenGL Filtering tester, I don't have one, thanks.
You can download it right here (http://www.3dcenter.de/downloads/texture-filter-testapp.php) Brent, the site is german but the tester program is in english and almost identical to the D3D one, you'll feel right at home.
Could you point me to an OpenGL Filtering tester, I don't have one, thanks.
You can download it right here (http://www.3dcenter.de/downloads/texture-filter-testapp.php) Brent, the site is german but the tester program is in english and almost identical to the D3D one, you'll feel right at home.
k, ran it
brilinear seems to be a part of opengl as well
k, ran it
brilinear seems to be a part of opengl as well
I feared such. AFAIK this is new, I'm sure it wasn't like that in 52.x and pretty sure not 53.x either. A clear indication that Nvidia has no remorse and purposefully continues to move in an undesirable direction. Though really, it doesn't seem all that terrible a tradeoff and I wouldn't mind if this were an optional feature. But it just has no place in a 'quality' setting. :?
StealthHawk
02-Mar-2004, 23:15
It's nice that D3D AF is slightly better but I'd say the more important news would be that (if) OpenGL is now much worse.
IIRC(what the hell does this stand for again?), D3D AF quality is worse with this driver. When AF is off, it is better.
Dig, do you sit here all day? I thought I just posted. I didn't even view the reply and baam :D
We all know that Dig is just an AI experiment gone horribly wrong which escaped onto the internet. How else could he post at so many forums :)
NVIDIA changes the filtering of their drivers too much. It's hard to keep up!
Are texture stage optimizations gone now?
Could you elaborate on this texture stage optimization?
If you change the texture stage from 0 to something else(1-7), does the filtering change?
Lots of examples in the thread I posted at NVN here: http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=19604
Someone commented earlier(in another thread) that the Forceware2.0 beta drivers don't have texture stage optimizations anymore. Of course, that could just be NVIDIA doing something with the filter test program(is that possible?), since colored mipmaps don't show texture stage optimizations in UT2003, even though they are there! Colored mipmaps in UT2003 became unreliable with all the 5x.xx drivers I tested(up to 52.16).
k, ran it
brilinear seems to be a part of opengl as well
I feared such. AFAIK this is new, I'm sure it wasn't like that in 52.x and pretty sure not 53.x either. A clear indication that Nvidia has no remorse and purposefully continues to move in an undesirable direction. Though really, it doesn't seem all that terrible a tradeoff and I wouldn't mind if this were an optional feature. But it just has no place in a 'quality' setting. :?
No, OGL didn't have brilinear in 52.xx. And I believe 53.xx is the same as 52.xx, although I never tested it myself. See the link I posted for all filtering information :D
Tim Murray
03-Mar-2004, 00:53
1. IIRC = If I Recall Correctly
2. 53.xx did not have brilinear because 53.xx was 52.xx with more bugfixes. There were no feature changes or anything. 53.03 did offer somewhat higher IQ in UT2003 when you used control panel AF versus 52.16's control panel AF, but it made no changes to application AF.
3. It's possible that NV is screwing with the filter test--however, this would be an app specific cheat, not a global colored mipmap use cheat. The UT2003 firstcoloredmip command has been detected by NV drivers for some time now (if you want, I will dig up the video that proves it), and yes, it is quite unreliable.
4. Didn't I say Dig was an AI first?
StealthHawk
03-Mar-2004, 01:32
1. IIRC = If I Recall Correctly
Aha! Until the next time I forget what it stands for :P
2. 53.xx did not have brilinear because 53.xx was 52.xx with more bugfixes. There were no feature changes or anything. 53.03 did offer somewhat higher IQ in UT2003 when you used control panel AF versus 52.16's control panel AF, but it made no changes to application AF.
Not sure I follow you here. You say that 53.xx is basically 52.xx with bug fixes, and that 53.xx does not have brilinear. 52.xx does in fact have brilinear, but you seem to suggest 53.xx doesn't have brilinear because 52.xx doesn't.
The UT2003 firstcoloredmip command has been detected by NV drivers for some time now (if you want, I will dig up the video that proves it), and yes, it is quite unreliable.
Well, I still have the screenshots that prove it, I certainly don't need convincing :wink: IIRC, 51.75 might have been the first driver that screwed with UT2003 firstcoloredmip, either that or 52.xx.
4. Didn't I say Dig was an AI first?
Possibly, but I patented the idea first, so I win 8)
<conspiracy theory>
Any chance these additional lowering of image quality settings is any indication that the NV40 will need them to be competative?
</conspiracy theory>
Tim Murray
03-Mar-2004, 01:45
erm, I meant brilinear in OpenGL.
It's nice that D3D AF is slightly better but I'd say the more important news would be that (if) OpenGL is now much worse.
IIRC(what the hell does this stand for again?), D3D AF quality is worse with this driver. When AF is off, it is better.
Yeah you're correct
StealthHawk
03-Mar-2004, 04:11
erm, I meant brilinear in OpenGL.
Hmm, yeah. Duh. It's been a long week. And it will be still longer.
<conspiracy theory>
Any chance these additional lowering of image quality settings is any indication that the NV40 will need them to be competative?
</conspiracy theory>
That doesn't seem very likely, the small decrease in quality when AF is applied should hardly change performance much. Anyway, NVIDIA increased brilinear filtering quality slightly in 52.xx, and it looks like they just took it away again when AF is used. It hardly seems worth the trouble.
Tim Murray
03-Mar-2004, 04:19
I doubt NV40 will use brilinear unless NVIDIA is quite stupid. They know they'll be crucified for it at launch, especially if R420 uses full trilinear.
I doubt NV40 will use brilinear unless NVIDIA is quite stupid. They know they'll be crucified for it at launch, especially if R420 uses full trilinear.
If that's the case, then why bother spending any time and effort on changing/tweaking cheats for an old architecture when the new one won't need it?
bloodbob
03-Mar-2004, 07:39
I doubt NV40 will use brilinear unless NVIDIA is quite stupid. They know they'll be crucified for it at launch, especially if R420 uses full trilinear.
Their has been suggestions that the R420 supports brilinear so I dunno why the NV40 wouldn't though I recon you won't have brilinear forced upon you.
StealthHawk
04-Mar-2004, 02:07
Nothing is wrong with brilinear...the problem is when it's forced down your throat without giving you an option for trilinear.
I have to agree, why add brilinear to OGL this late in the game when NV40 is so close? Doesn't really make much sense. Also, I thought one reason that NVIDIA didn't force brilinear in OGL before was that OGL's specifications were much more clearly defined than D3D's with regards to trilinear filtering :?:
brilinear could have been present since the introduction of 52.16, i dont remember anyone testing for it.
brilinear could have been present since the introduction of 52.16, i dont remember anyone testing for it.
we tested for it, and found it to be a part of 52.16 as well, this was linked from the forcware 56.56 article: http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NTM3LDI=
scroll down to texture filtering, you'll see it
Deathlike2
04-Mar-2004, 18:37
I have a few ideas on why NVidia is breathing "brilinear" down our throats...
There are two possible scenarios to come when the NV40 comes out...
1) Brilinear will be NVidia's "standard" - You'll see NV PR explaining how these "optimizations" for trilinear will benefit gamers (they could just call it "programmable filtering")... although they won't let you have the "true trilinear" option..
2) Comparing IQ from the NV3x series to the NV40 on tried and true games - You'll see NV PR explaining how the NV40 is a "jump" in IQ and good performance (NV40 having true trilinear)... w/o explaining why quality is going down in each and every major driver revision for the NV3x series (45.23 in UT2003, 52.16 in all D3D apps, "56.56" in OpenGL)
In regards to the lighting issue... it could be a "bug" that NVidia missed... OR NVidia made an optimization to lighting that has some percievable effect on performance (I'm not sure if any of you agree with that)... of course this "optimization" is probably global...
Btw, props to Brent for a decent look on things... can't say the same for other sites *cough* Anandtech *cough*
StealthHawk
05-Mar-2004, 01:36
brilinear could have been present since the introduction of 52.16, i dont remember anyone testing for it.
I did(see earlier link) back in....November? All 50 series drivers have brilinear in D3D :(
w/o explaining why quality is going down in each and every major driver revision for the NV3x series (45.23 in UT2003, 52.16 in all D3D apps, "56.56" in OpenGL)
Quality didn't drop in 45.23 for UT2003. UT2003 has the same IQ in 45.23 as it does in 44.03.
Yes I know about the D3D, but I was referring to OGL.
StealthHawk
05-Mar-2004, 20:31
Yes I know about the D3D, but I was referring to OGL.
I tested that too in 52.16. It wasn't there in OGL.
It's pretty sad they did that for OGL.
It's pretty sad they did that for OGL.
Has anybody checked with a Quadro?
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