GeForce 185.20 Released - Now With Ambient Occlusion

[wolf2009]

The Public Beta is supposedly going to be launched during CES2009 this January. All pre-betas and the leaked copies of the Public beta are either torrents or for MSDN/developers only.

yeah but which one is OP ?

 

[Black Panther]

Stop now.:shadedshu

The only thing I'm afraid of using these drivers is loosing my beloved textures in GTAIV.

GTAIV has textures?


Ugh my connection dropped when I was at 92%... gotta start again...

 

[Lillebror]

Wow those screens are bullshit, it looks like a DX9 vs DX10 comparison, the lighting is completely different (look at the rays for instance); Ambient occlusion only adds global, soft shadows, not crisp shadows depending on light source like there and not certainly rays of light like in the second shot..

Maybe its just me, but the rays are in both pictures - just more highlighted when AO is on That could also be made with some driver tweaking.

 

[yaji]

What about posting more screenshots ?

 

[OzzmanFloyd120]

I've started a Forceware insight and discussion thread here a few weeks ago, feel free to converse there if you'd like

 

[Binge]

This bought me 700+ points in vantage.

 

[LAN_deRf_HA]

what version of physx does this install?

 

[alexp999]

what version of physx does this install?

Installs:

8.11.18

The latest afaik

 

[erocker]

Fast Vista 64bit download: http://www.sendspace.com/file/38gjxu

 

[erocker]

I had to install PhysX separately. Here are my results

180.84

185.20

 

[alexp999]

I had to install PhysX separately. Here are my results

About the same increase I had, and I had to run Physx setup on its own too, lol. Got a PhysxLoader.dll error on vantage startup

Can you change Program-specific 3d settings in the NV control panel? Mine have empty drop downs so I cant change anything?

 

[erocker]

About the same increase I had, and I had to run Physx setup on its own too, lol. Got a PhysxLoader.dll error on vantage startup

Can you change Program-specific 3d settings in the NV control panel? Mine have empty drop downs so I cant change anything?

Fast Vista 64bit download: http://www.sendspace.com/file/38gjxu

Yeah, all mine are there. I downloaded from the link above.

 

[alexp999]

Yeah, all mine are there. I downloaded from the link above.

Hmm, maybe its something to do with me having nhancer installed then...

 

[Black Panther]

Driver downloaded & installed. I have to install Vantage and 3dmark (wiped my hdd off when I had installed Vista so it might be some time before I can bench). And benchies won't be accurate for me since the last one I did I had the E4300 @ 3Ghz not the E8400 @ 4Ghz.

 

[OzzmanFloyd120]

I didn't get any gains at all off of the new drivers

 

[D007]

of course it's only available in vista...
Gates is still trying to force everyone to upgrade..
weak..
it would be such a simple thing to implement dx10 to xp and update it..
instead they just let us hang...
pisses me off to no end..

Thanks for the new drivers though.. hopefully they'll be stable now..
I'll see if I crash on mass effect in 10 minutes now with it XD..

Edit: not official drivers..
Non official drivers scare me..
Like installing dx10 for xp..lol..
anyone confirm their safe and reliable for xp?
More so than 180.48 and .84?

 

[AuDioFreaK39]

*update*


added Hardware-Infos driver review to the original post.

 

[Lillebror]

of course it's only available in vista...
Gates is still trying to force everyone to upgrade..
weak..
it would be such a simple thing to implement dx10 to xp and update it..
instead they just let us hang...
pisses me off to no end..

Its not just that easy to implement dx10 in xp! Why does everyone think that?!

 

[erocker]

These drivers work great. 300 point bump in Vantage for me, as well as a few extra FPS in GTA IV.

 

[AuDioFreaK39]

*update*

Added AO level comparisons in Crysis: Warhead to original post.

 

[Millenia]

Seems to work pretty well, have you tried it with any older games yet? I'd like to see how classics like HL1 or Q3 look with AO ;D

 

[Black Panther]

Ambient Occlusion - Screenshot comparison - 40fps drop...

I put this driver to test as I think it should be: in a game.

Here is what I got by testing in Fallout3. Apologies for not testing a beautiful screenshot of scenery but I wanted to do the testing in the area where I had my fps maxed out ie indoors in a darkish room.

The driver worked fine 'out of the box' so to speak. OK I know this isn't very scientific but I hadn't taken any screenshots with the game using the previous driver. However this one is either better or the same - during normal gameplay I wouldn't have realised that I had changed driver at all.

Now we come to what is really new in this driver, and the very reason why I wanted to try it out: Ambient Occlusion.

My graphics card is getting oldish now, it's a BFG OC2 8800GT running at it's 'stock' factory overclocked speeds, so I don't expect miracles. Rest of rig specs are in system specs (desktop).

I had fraps running during the game, (but forgot the fraps screenshot command and took the photos by PrtScn so the fps isn't showing.) If anyone wishes I'll do the test all over again and take the screenshots by fraps so the fps shows.

Both screenshots are of inside Jericho's house.

Here is the first one with Ambient Occlusion turned off, as it had been by default. Fraps was reading 60 fps (monitor's vsync maximum):

Now here's the screenshot with Ambient Occlusion turned on. All other settings the same. There is a difference. Lighting is better and shadows are crisper. BUT my fps was a meagre 22!! That's a drop of nearly 40 fps which for me is certainly not reasonable and not worth the increase in IQ.

Keep in mind I did the testing on an indoor screenshot where my fps are normally maxed out. Outside in more taxing areas I get fps of 45... which would mean that if I maxed out Ambient Occlusion I'd be getting a slideshow of ~5 fps in that case.

My conclusion on these drivers, as far as gameplay in Fallout3 is concerned, is that while it is certain that there is a marked improvement on image quality:

1) Either they are aimed for cards which are much better than the BFG OC2 version of the 8800GT 512MB RAM, at the current high-end cards like the 260, 280 and the 4870 and 4870x2 or perhaps cards in SLI;

2) Or that perhaps being newly released they have not yet been perfectioned enough in order to give the best IQ at the least possible fps hit.

What's for certain is that the minimal IQ increase is hard enough to notice even when comparing screenshots, let alone during gameplay, and certainly does not warrant a hefty 40 fps drop ... unless one's already getting 200 fps and having that drop to 160!

 

[Black Panther]

Here's a better comparison which shows the ingame fps.
For both pictures I am playing with the desktop in system specs @ 1680x1050 4xAA and 8xAF ingame, enhancing application setting 2xAA and 16xAF in nvidia control panel (just realised I had that setting after taking the screenshots).
The first picture is without Ambient Occlusion.
The second picture is with Ambient Occlusion.

Check framerate at bottom left of both screenshots.

 

[3xploit]

holy crap 40fps hit... one question bp was this with ambient occlusion set to low, med, or high?

 

[Black Panther]

holy crap 40fps hit... one question bp was this with ambient occlusion set to low, med, or high?

The first picture is with ambient occlusion off. The second picture is with ambient occlusion on high.
Honestly ingame I could barely see the difference between 'off' and 'high' so I didn't think it was worth to test also 'low' and 'medium'

I don't exclude that it might be just this game. Or that it might be the 8800GT.... obviously better cards like the 260, 280 and 4780x2 might not be feeling such an fps hit (I hope...)

_____________________________________________

Redone the same tests but removed vsync this time in both cases:

Without ambient occlusion:

With ambient occlusion:

The grass does look better in the second shot, but for me it's not worth dropping from 82 fps to 26 fps....