How To: Get the most out of your Nvidia GFX card ( 700kb page )

CombatCow · 26-05-2004 10:05pm #1

Ok, well it seems that while using benchmarking tools,people wonder why they get lower then expected scores.
There are a few reasons for this,which i will attempt to explain in one handy guide,also a bit on overclocking
and changing refresh rates and image quality settings for seperate games.

I am by no means an all knowing supreme being of GFX hardware so please comment if you find somthing wrong.

** As i dont own an ATI card this guide is only for NVIDIA users only...Also overclocking is at your own risk **

First things first....get the latest detonator drivers from the nvidia website. ( http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp )

If you have prevsious versions of the drivers installed,make sure you remove them from the Add/Remove Programs page.Once your pc restarts you will be greeted by a lovely 640x480 256bit colour desktop.Ignore all windows messages to install video card drivers and run the detonator drivers .exe you downloaded.

To make sure you are running the latest Det's, right click on the desktop and go to properties-settings tab-advanced-(gfxcard name).The version number will be displayed in the bottom right like mine. ( 6.14.10.5672 ) note the last numbers are the driver version 56.72

you will need to change the resolution and refresh rate of your monitor to a more eyepleasing setting.

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Now all the simple crap is done its time to change the image quality settings which will give you better control over your game fps speeds and image quality in games.Some of these settings are turned on by default after the drivers are installed,so they will impact on games and benchmarking scores. The pictures now should be self explanitory enough to find the image setting tabs.

This Performance and Setting tab is important,in that the page settings will be applied to all games ( to a certain extent )

The Antialiasing setting will attempt to smooth out jagged lines in games,the further you push the slider the higher the level of AA.Be warned tho because AA uses up a lot of gfx card power and can slow your games down to a crawl if pushed to high.So you can set it to off or let the game decide what options to use by selecting application controlled.

The Anisotropic setting will try and make objects in the distance look clearer and sharper,i like this option because it does not use a huge ammount of gfx card power.I crank it up to the top.But experiment yourself to see if setting it too high affects your frames per second in games,causing lag.

The image setting option really only changes the display to Quality setting or Performance.You shouldent have to change this.

The vertical sync option = meh....off is fine.

Ok so if you want certain settings on or off for games thats fine, but you can specafie what settings you want in each game separately.Just click the application profiles to change the game and settings.As you can see i have seprate settings for COD multiplayer,very handy.

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Right, two things...firstly what is the use in having a 5hit quick gfx card when windows limits the monitor refresh rate in games to 60hz and ultimatly you only seeing 60 fps during games.There is a simple way to get round this.....

This is a really cool tab,it will let you specify what refresh rate you want at specific resolutions,so for example i know my monitor can hit 100hz at 1024x768 so i use this page to force windows to use that setting all the time...evan in games.And 75hz in 1600x1200.So now i can see the games i play at the full frames per second instead of the windows limited 60 fps ( 60hz )

Q: How do i know what refresh rate my monitor can support and how do you know if the force refresh rate is working ????

A: well it's simple.See 3rd picture -- that will show you what refresh rate that resolution can handle....then just apply the setting to the force refresh rate page.

As for actually seeing the differance in games..this handy piece of software ( Fraps ) will show you exactly what fps you are getting during gameplay
( http://www.fraps.com/downloads.htm )

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Overclocking --- Do this at your own risk !!!!!!!!!

Nvidia will not let you overclock your card by default so a nice little registery entery will fix this.It's called coolbits and is a massive 1kb download.
( http://www.softpedia.com/public/cat/12/1/12-1-31.shtml )

Double click on the registery file to apply it.Once thats done go back to your gfx card properties ( picture 2 ) and 2 new tabs will have been added called Clock Frequencies and temperature settings.

Now a nice option for lazy people like mehself is present - click Manual overclocking ( accept overclocking agreement ) and select Performance (3D) from the dropdown settings list.Now select Auto detect and the card will throttle itself to a save clock level.

Ok....so if your a big nerd you will know the default clock speed of a 5900 ultra...if not i will tell you that..
the core is =300 and the memory is =850 before overclocking.

You might think 200mhz core clock speed increase is great....but it is watercooled and in reality it only gets me 2k extra in Aquamark and a few hundred extra in 3DMK 01/03.So dont expect huge increases in fps.

Ok last one,keep an eye on the temps of your card if you overclocked it,i cant really say how much punishment these cards can take but according to the core threshold it's 140'C .I sure as hell would not like to see those kinda numbers with my card, so just be aware of the temps.

So that's it, good luck with your tweaking/overclocking.

CombatCow

TacT · 29-06-2004 2:53pm

nice one, hopefully this pre-emptively answers a few questions people might have!

LL Delboy · 30-06-2004 1:20pm

Yey im back

Hey TacT, sorry for any offence i caused to boards or yourself!!

Combatcow is like my brother, i was only ripping the piss.

P.s he did make a balls of my pc, he built and modded it from scratch and its s**t, LMAO.

And dont get me started on the rest, eg he ordered an adaptor for me so i can use ps2 controllers with the pc, they sent me 'driver 3' for the ps2. (OMG)

So u can understand why i rip the piss out of him, (joking with him of course)

I must show u the job he did on my pc sometime, not bad!!!

Later

Del:p

CombatCow · 30-06-2004 8:56pm

Ty, TacT

yeah whatever Del...why is it my fault if play.com funked up your order....must take some pics of ur case and see if it's good nuff for the case mod gallery

n00btard,
CombatCow

LL Delboy · 01-07-2004 8:57am

L M A O

Azza · 04-07-2004 1:32am

How to get the most out of Nvidia GFX card?

Sell your nvidia card and buy and an ATI one no!

The Real B-man · 16-07-2004 10:31pm

Thanks Combat Cow my card runs much smoother now.

Megatron · 11-01-2005 9:59am

Thanks D00d

.

Did the modding last night and well lagg is a think of the past now.

only thin=g i've spotted is that every 40 mins or so the game will freeze on me but will come back ... but i can happely handle that

TacT · 12-01-2005 4:32pm

Hey Megatron, does that happen in all games? Is it overclocked? Stable at stock?

Megatron · 21-01-2005 2:21pm

well i havne't really been playign any other games , but my brothers have .. and they havent' given out about it ....

it's now every hour - 1 hour 2 mins .... i've noticed that if i have winamp playing as well that will freeze too justbefore the game comes back.

and yes the card is overclocked now , jsut set to performance though

davie_b · 14-02-2005 2:32am

Azza wrote:

How to get the most out of Nvidia GFX card?

Sell your nvidia card and buy and an ATI one no!

unfortunatly azza we don't all have never ending pockets like you!!!!!!!
how much is the sli rig your gona build cost????
thanks for the advice!
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