The performance leak ... 
Reference Detonator 6.16 drivers -  Hilbert Hagedoorn

According to our mates over at 3D Chipset on Monday 14th of August NVIDIA will release release new GeForce/TNT Detonator drivers with revision 6.16, the last known reference drivers where at 5.22.  One day before the release the drivers leaked on the web, I decided to download and install them and quite frankly I was impressed ! There is a serious increase of performance to be found in the new update, let me show you:

I'll start of with some OpenGL benchmarks made with Quake III timedemo's. 

Test System
7ZX KT133 Mainboard (Gigabyte)
AMD 700 MHz Athlon Thunderbird
128 MB CAS2 SDRAM (Corsair memory)
Creative SB Live! Platinum
3COM 3C900B-TPO Ethernet Card
Windows 98 Second Edition
DirectX 7.0a
NVIDIA GeForce2 GTS - Driver: Detonator 5.22/6.16

The results show above are really impressive, on several occasions the 6.16 Detonator drivers have an increase of more than 10 FPS (Frames per Second) in the 1024 and 1280 resolutions. The timedemo's are made in High Quality mode with 32 Bits color.

The Quaver timedemo is somewhat more CPU dependant than for example the Demo001 from ID. Still watch the numbers closely, once again in all resolutions the results have increased significant. Also in this table we can see that the maximum performance hit is in the 1024 and 1280 section. 

Next up is of course 3D mark 2000, once again we notice a huge increase of performance. Check these stats out:

In almost all modes/resolutions  the results have increased with almost 300 3D marks, pretty impressive ! 

I really wonder where that performance is coming from. Have the drivers simply been optimized ? Where is this increase coming from, I'm puzzled. I'm sure that in the next few days a lot of other sites will publish their results too. So, I'm very curious if this increase in performance will be the same on other systems. On this Thunderbird 700 MHz system I was absolutely stunned. An increase of 10 Frames per second in Quake is simply huge :)

Also, the drivers have been altered in a few ways and they seem to be valid NVIDIA drivers. Properties are setup easier and FSAA can bo chosen way better in OpenGL.

That's it for now, If I have something new to report then I'll update this page when needed.

Update 1 - I just received word from Vorpal over at g256.com he also tested the new drivers and was absolutely impressed with them. 

System: PIIIcu650@804Mhz, 256M RAM, Elsa Gladic GeForce2GTS
I ran everything at 1280x1024 with all graphics options enabled and at their highest settings... Quake3 was Demo001, and UT was the Wicked 400 Demo from The Reverend

QUAKE3
Detonator 5.33 - Score: 39.2 fps
Detonator 6.11 - Score: 45.8 fps
Detonator 6.16 - Score: 49.0 fps

Unreal Tournament
Detonator 5.33 - Score: 16.99 fps
Detonator 6.11 - Score: 17.36 fps
Detonator 6.11 - Score: 17.14 fps

3dMark2000 v1.1
Detonator 5.33 - Score: 2709
Detonator 6.11 - Score: 2741
Detonator 6.11 - Score: 3114 (wow... 10% better)

Village Mark
Detonator 5.33 - Score: 33 fps
Detonator 6.11 - Score: 40fps
Detonator 6.16 - Score: 39fps (a loss of 1fps)

Update - Hmm, okay the 1st incompatibility problems have been found. I just checked some games and Need For Speed Porsche Challenge will not display properly, furthermore the Dagoth Moor benchmark displays has the same issue that NFS has. It's displaying a pink screen. I have no clue on how to solve this!

* Solved -> To fix the pink screen simply flag 'Fog table emulation' in the drivers Direct3D properties (Thank BLL!)

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Update - Check this out, found at Sharky Extreme) Detonator 3

In addition to the supercharged hardware, the GeForce2 Ultra arrives with NVIDIA's new Detonator 3 driver. Detonator 3 packs a host of optimizations for NVIDIA's architecture in general and for the GeForce architecture specifically, optimizations that boost performance across both old and new cards. These optimizations include:

i815 and Pentium 4 Optimizations - NVIDIA says their optimizations for Intel's i815 chipset and the Pentium 4 and its SSE2 will help boost the speed on those systems. In our testing, the driver is indeed faster than before on i815 based motherboards, but then it's also faster on every motherboard.

DVD and HDTV Optimizations - NVIDIA says they are continuing to improve their HDTV and DVD playback quality. At this stage, whatever improvements there are, they are subtle enough that we didn't notice them.

New TwinView and Digital Vibrance Controls - TwinView controls will allow owners of the GeForce2 MX to easily control their multiple monitor setups, while Digital Vibrance controls will allow users to adjust color on their GeForce2 MX and Quadro2 MXR.

Asynchronous Command Processing - NVIDIA tells us that the Detonator 3 driver is more efficient in handling asynchronous commands in OpenGL. This is one of several reasons for performance improving dramatically.

Advanced Vertex Buffering - Possibly the most exciting new feature of the Detonator 3 driver is how it can now intelligently determine whether to store vertex buffer information within the AGP card's memory or within system memory via AGP. When memory bandwidth gets tight such as when running at 1600x1200x32bpp, the Detonator 3 driver can use system memory for storing vertex data, thereby using system memory bandwidth instead of onboard video card memory bandwidth. And since the driver is "advanced," it can also determine when system memory bandwidth is tight and instead use the video card memory for storing vertex data.

Remember, Detonator 3 boosts performance across the entire range of NVIDIA cards that work with it. TNT2 cards should see less of a boost than GeForce 256 and faster cards. Detonator 3 is like a free speed boost to your old NVIDIA card. We love it and wish that other companies would provide similar driver speed boosts across their entire product line.

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Mystery cleared and solved ! 

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Have fun - Hilbert,

Copyright 1999 - All rights reserved Hilbert Hagedoorn