Incredible BOOST in Game Performance with old nvidia Drivers

System:

Q6700@3200mhz air cooled

GF 8800GTS 320MB

WinXP32

Nvidia 178.13

For me the game performance is now nearly perfect:

before changes (winXP64 nvidia 185.85) i played in 1280x1024 res with medium settings,

shadows high, filrate 100%

Frames: 20-35

Arma Mark score was avarage 3300

now with winXP 32 and the old nvidia drivers 178.13

i can play in 1680x1080 res with all normal, shadows high and 100% Fillrate

Frames: 24-40

the best is now that i can play with higher fill rate with out much performance lost

so if i change to 125% fillrate i get 20- 35 frames

Arma Mark score is now avarage 3800 with higher resolution

for my old rig and the tiny gf8800gts its an boost felt like 200%

:eek:

That is indeed interesting. I've been wondering about all the people who say they can practically max out the settings and still get playable fps all around. I think I may try this out later.

Would you mind checking how the game performs with higher model and terrain details with those drivers? Especially in large towns like Chernogorsk.

This is very interesting! This discovery and also the crysis.exe one show me that in fact the engine really can perform more!

I hope and expect that BIS works on that to unleash the performance and to set the engine free! I want all these performance boosts in a patch, not by using these "detours"!

Great news!

@MaddogX

i can not believe this:

i can play with nearly constant Frames with higher settings

object detail HIGH

shadows HIGH

VD is 3500

its like playing arma2.5 now

even if i set fillrate to 125% it feels smooth

I AM HAPPY NOW:bounce3:

System:

Q6700@3200mhz air cooled

GF 8800GTS 320MB

WinXP32

Nvidia 178.13

For me the game performance is now nearly perfect:

before changes (winXP64 nvidia 185.85) i played in 1280x1024 res with medium settings,

shadows high, filrate 100%

Frames: 20-35

Arma Mark score was avarage 3300

now with winXP 32 and the old nvidia drivers 178.13

i can play in 1680x1080 res with all normal, shadows high and 100% Fillrate

Frames: 24-40

the best is now that i can play with higher fill rate with out much performance lost

so if i change to 125% fillrate i get 20- 35 frames

Arma Mark score is now avarage 3800 with higher resolution

for my old rig and the tiny gf8800gts its an boost felt like 200%

This might be good for older cards as yours. For newer cards like the GTX series i don't think it will be that good and that old driver doesn't support the newer cards afaik.

Nice, lately my 8800 GTS have not been performing as it once did, now I think it might be the drivers so ill download those you are using. Won't be able to try it on arma 2 for a week though.

186.08 work delightful for me..

maybe beta though, get them at guru3d..

I expereinced the same thing on my last reinstall of Windows. Someone said that the newer 18X.XX drivers were bad and anything 17X.XXX or older was preferable. I discovered an amazing jump in FPS in left 4 dead and other games.

8800GT

huge performance drop with 178.13, settings high/veryhigh/fillrate: 100%.

With this older driver I have in the config under "nonlocalvram" 258998271;

with newest drivers: 527433727

186.08: 72 fps (saved scenery in editor)

173.13: 55 fps (same scenery)

hmm what about older ati drivers? i just got the new 9.6 catalyst leaked drivers for my card and experienced a bit of fps boost in most games but was wondering if this would work on ati cards?

Wait for a bit and I'm sure nVidia and ATI will properly support the game in their drivers by adding in their respective profiles.

did not notice any diffrence in ArmA 1 when I changed drivers.

Mc Sonar, you say it was changing your drivers that gave you the performance hit but bear in mind you also went from winxp64 to winxp32. how do you know it wasn't the change to winxp32 that made the difference?

@killerwatt

i used 185.85 with xp32 and it was playable like winXP64 with 185.85

arma2 on winXP64 for me is a lil bit slower then on xp32....in game loading times are much faster now and for me there is no need of real 4gb or 6gb of ram.....it runs superb now with 3,5gb ram and the old xp32homy:)

Hello all

I downgraded to the suggested drivers but it recognises my card as a 9500gt rather than a 9600gt.

I had a quick play in SP mode and didnt notice any fps changes other than it looked a little more blurry and did feel slightly sluggish, but Arma2 may have altered my cfg file accordingly (although Im sure i had it read only).

Ill test further when I gets home.

Fingers crossed.

rgds

LoK

i guess it´s better to use older drivers with older cards......

I tried with my 8800GTS 512Mb in ARMA II Mark.

1280x1024

All video options Normal except PP (low).

182.50 - 2623

178.13 - 2953

Around 10% gain.

Thanks

I think the problem is that Nvidia seem to focus on their latest cards when making drivers, and their older cards actually end up worse off in the process.

Makes me wonder if they want that to happen, to fool you into buying a newer card when it's really their shitty job at optimising drivers for the card.

It's pretty normal that older cards run better with older drivers that were made with them in mind. Problem is those older drivers might not support newer games.

I tried with my 8800GTS 512Mb in ARMA II Mark.

1280x1024

All video options Normal except PP (low).

182.50 - 2623

178.13 - 2953

Around 10% gain.

Thanks

ArmA Mark is inconsistant. Test results may vary depending on the wind speed/direction. You should try 3D Mark to see any real "actual" differences.

I feel that the older driver make the graphic more worst.

System:

Q6700@3200mhz air cooled

GF 8800GTS 320MB

WinXP32

Nvidia 178.13

For me the game performance is now nearly perfect:

before changes (winXP64 nvidia 185.85) i played in 1280x1024 res with medium settings,

shadows high, filrate 100%

Frames: 20-35

Arma Mark score was avarage 3300

now with winXP 32 and the old nvidia drivers 178.13

i can play in 1680x1080 res with all normal, shadows high and 100% Fillrate

Frames: 24-40

the best is now that i can play with higher fill rate with out much performance lost

so if i change to 125% fillrate i get 20- 35 frames

Arma Mark score is now avarage 3800 with higher resolution

for my old rig and the tiny gf8800gts its an boost felt like 200%

latest beta drivers are good for me.

Such small changes in frames I am afraid that I can not believe is a great driver change miracle grow working set of all goodness for ever and ever amen lol..

Seriously ur main 5fps change can be anything from the terrible randomness that is the game engines stability right now to corrupted config files.. What you should of done first is delete all your profiles and start again with arma2 self assessing.

I can go from locked 25-28 fps in mp game back to 35>60 fps by just doing that. Needs looking at the whole gfx selection and memory holding of arma2 for sure.

I also believe there is some sort of leak going on when models are being spawned in MP. Having 2 helis, and 5 humvees spawn within 100ft of me while about an avg of 10 players within 800ft of me should not drop my frame rate from 45 to 25 right?

Major issues... But I know they can fix them cause they do a rather good job most the time with theyre patches :D