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Posted
on September 11, 2001 by Toby Crundwell
Check for videocard
prices here.
 With
so many new leaked & beta detonator drivers, it is easy
to get confused getting the right one. It’s not always the
case that the latest version will be the fastest. Sometimes
new drivers lead to a performance and/or quality decrease.
I will be testing all
the newer 1x.xx series of detonators, from the last official
Detonator 3 drivers (version 5.13.01.1231) to the latest
Detonator XP drivers (version 5.13.01.2181).
Most board
manufacturers (e.g. ASUS, Hercules, Leadtek) will have
customised drivers for their specific cards based on at
least one of the benchmarked detonators. Seeing as the OEM
manufacturers always base their drivers on nVidia’s
detonators, this guide can be used as a comparison for
drivers any card based on a GeForce. Here is a list of
features for the newer detonator 3 drivers.
-
Full
DirectX 8 support
-
Supports
GeForce3's nfiniteFX engine
-
Pixel
and Vertex Shader support (D3D & OpenGL)
-
Windows®
XP compatible
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AMD
Athlon & Intel Pentium 4 optimisations
-
Improved
TwinView interface.
-
Stereo3D
support (D3D & OpenGL) for 3D glasses such as Elsa’s
3D revelator.
-
Professional
quad-buffered stereo for Quadro products
Detonator details
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Detonator
Version
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OS Support
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Date
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12.41 (last
official detonators)
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9x, Me, NT4,
2000
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05/16/2001
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12.60
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9x, Me, 2000
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05/17/2001
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12.90
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9x, Me, NT4,
2000
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06/07/2001
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14.20
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NT4, 2000
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06/29/2001
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14.40
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9x,
Me, 2000
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07/16/2001
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14.60
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2000
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08/03/2001
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14.70
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9x,
Me, 2000
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08/17/2001
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21.81 (XP)
(official)
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9x, Me, 2000,
XP
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09/10/2001
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Although
1x.xx drivers are mainly designed for the GeForce 2/3, there
are reports of performance increases on GeForce 256 cards.
Riva 128 and TNT/TNT2 based cards should be used with
earlier detonators. All 1x.xx drivers are Direct X 8 and
GeForce 3 optimised. 12.41 drivers are available for
download from nVidia’s site; all other drivers are taken
from 3D
Chipset. Guru3D
should also has them available. XP drivers (formerly
Detonator 4) exposes new hardware acceleration for Windows
XP, enabling new features such as 3D textures & shadow
buffers.
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