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Win2k VIA AGP GART Comparison


Date
: 10/25/00 – 01:54:14 AM

Author
:

Category
: Drivers

Most of the articles I write come about because I have an experience with the topic, and wish to delve deeper into the thing.For instance, on my old site/homepage, I wrote an article on the Video RAM Cache BIOS Option(UC/UCSW for the P3V4X).This had come about because in an earlier review playing with CAS latencies, I accidentally disabled this option, and saw a dip in frames per second when I next did a benchmark.So, I did up a few Quake3 benchmarks, and ‘let’er rip’.

This VIA AGP driver comparison piece came about when I was doing the recent BX vs. 133A article.I was using the latest 4in1 4.25a drivers, which used the 4.04 AGP drivers, and starting to think what the earlier drivers might be like, performance-wise.With this in mind, I set about finding the drivers somehow, and benchmarking.

If you have no idea what these drivers are, here is a little explanation.Since, if you are reading this article, chances are you know what I’m talking about when I say VIA, as well as also knowing what a driver is(no, it has nothing to do with golf).Basically, VIA is doing what most software developers do, as well as all companies, and that is sending out a small patch which updates their software to run better.Oftentimes, the patch will fix bugs, but in many cases, performance will be enhanced.This is the case in the example of NVIDIA’s Detonator drivers.While most of the bugs have been worked out, people continue to download every new leaked release, in hopes of a few more frames per second.In a way, this article is a result of these ideas.I often do loads of benchmarks for new drivers, and as result often find no performance increase or benefit from switching, whatsoever.

The 4in1 drivers I spoke of earlier is the package in question.You just download the installation program, and it installs the 4 drivers automatically.These four drivers are 1) IDE Busmaster, 2) AGP Driver, 3) IRQ Routing Driver, and 4) VIA INF Driver.You can get the drivers here, if you are so inclined.You can also download the specific drivers if you’d like, but sometimes they don’t have the latest drivers isolated.For example, you can pick up the solo 4.03d drivers, but not the 4.04′s.One other thing to note is that VIA deletes from their server all traces of earlier drivers.I can’t find mention of any pre-4.03d drivers anywhere.In fact, before starting the benchmarking, I had a bitch of a time finding some of the earlier drivers on the web.And that leads up to the next issue.

Since I’m using Windows 2000(Service Pack 1), driver compatibility issues abounded.Due to all pre-4.03 drivers being written for the Win9x kernel, and not 2000/NT4, I was unable to get the <= 4.02 drivers installed.The drivers I was able to install were the 4.03d and 4.04.My original goal was to test out all 3.56 -> 4.04 drivers, but since the majority of them don’t work with Win2k, the article has been cut down dramatically.As a result, you can see the title of this piece has Windows 2000 specified.I don’t believe I’ve seen any specifically Win2k VIA GART articles around, so maybe this isn’t going to be so bad after all.In any case, let’s get started.Here is the information you need to know.

• CPU
  = Pentium 3 550E @ 733mhz
  
  
• Motherboard
  = ASUS P3V4X BIOS 1006T (Winbond version)
  
  
• Video Card
  = Innovision Geforce 2 MX @ 220mhz/200mhz (6.18 det3 drivers)
  
  
• Memory
  = 128MB PC133 SDRAM @ 133mhz 3-3-3-5
  
  
• Participants
  = BX(Soyo 6BA+IV), Default AGP Drivers, 4.03d, 4.04
  
  
• Benchmarks
  = Quake3: Arena 1.17 demo001.dm3
  
  

  Quake 3 is running at the highest quality settings possible.The resolution goes from 640×480 – 1280×1024, and the color-depth varies from 16bit to 32bit.Everything else is at highest quality.Vertical Sync is off of course.Here is the benchmark graph.

  

  We can see immediately from the BX benchmarks that ithe two year old chipset leads in almost all of the benchmarks.Curiously, at 1280x1024x16, the P3V4X pulls ahead barely a smidgen, but just enough to show the world it’s there.Isolating the the VIA system, we see the configuration using no VIA GART driver is doing pretty horribly.If you think using the Microsoft default drivers is the safest bet, you may not like what you are seeing here.The 4.03d and 4.04 scores are close enough together that it makes absolutely no difference which you use.Normally, I prefer using the newer driver set if they have the same performance, as there could be some sort of bug in an older version that I won’t get with the newer drivers.I’d have to check a change log to make sure what’s going on exactly in this case, but I’d say it’s safe to assume something was done about bugs, if not performance as well.

  If you’ve gotten different scores than what you’ve seen in this article, such as better relative performance of the Microsoft default drivers, or a performance increase in using the 4.04′s, then I’d love to .There isn’t really much else I can add to the article, other than my hope to see a whopper of a driver set come out of VIA.When my 133A Quake 3 scores are better, clock for clock, than the competing BX scores, that’ll be the day I’m satisfied.Until then, I continue to look for ways to get my system running faster and better.I can’t believe it, but it’s been over a month since I ruined some piece of computer hardware.I better start cracking!