Driver Performance Difference
Part of the way through the testing of this board S3 released a new set of drivers, so whilst the review displays the performances from the latest set (6.14.10.1960-15.15.08c) available to us we did take some performances with the earlier set (6.14.10.1904-15.14.10e). We'll compare the performance of the old and new drivers to see if any performance gains have been made.
| Half Life 2 (FPS) | 640x480 | 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1280x960 | 1600x1200 |
| 6.14.10.1960-15.15.08c | 36.6 | 23.3 | 14.0 | 10.7 | 6.4 |
| 6.14.10.1904-15.14.10e | 34.3 | 22.1 | 13.4 | 10.6 | 6.1 |
| % Increase | 6.7% | 5.4% | 4.7% | 0.9% | 4.6% |
| Half Life 2, 2x FSAA & 4x AF (FPS) | 640x480 | 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1280x960 | 1600x1200 |
| 6.14.10.1960-15.15.08c | 23.4 | 14.8 | 8.8 | 6.3 | 3.9 |
| 6.14.10.1904-15.14.10e | 13.8 | 8.9 | 5.4 | 5.7 | 3.6 |
| % Increase | 69.4% | 67.1% | 63.8% | 9.8% | 8.1% |
| Doom3 (FPS) | 640x480 | 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1280x1024 | 1600x1200 |
| 6.14.10.1960-15.15.08c | 54.2 | 41.0 | 28.0 | 18.1 | 13.1 |
| 6.14.10.1904-15.14.10e | 52.1 | 40.8 | 28.1 | 18.1 | 13.2 |
| % Increase | 4.0% | 0.5% | -0.4% | 0.0% | -0.8% |
| Doom3, 4x AF (FPS) | 640x480 | 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1280x1024 | 1600x1200 |
| 6.14.10.1960-15.15.08c | 49.0 | 36.9 | 25.6 | 16.9 | 12.4 |
| 6.14.10.1904-15.14.10e | 47.9 | 36.9 | 25.8 | 17.1 | 12.5 |
| % Increase | 2.3% | 0.0% | -0.8% | -1.2% | -0.8% |
Looking at the results it looks as there there has been a small increase in performance in Half Life 2 in general, however there is a much larger performance increase for the new drivers for 2x FSAA, certianly at the lower resolutions - this could be because the switch to the ordered grid FSAA sampling pattern in the new drivers has less of a performance overhead.
Doom 3's performance has increased a little at the low resolutions, which would tend to indicate that the S3 have concentrated on lowering the drivers CPU overhead a little.
