Drivers for the wrong video card = 30% better performance

[PvtRyan]

I'm typing this on my Dell XPS 1330 laptop, with in it an Nvidia 8400M GS card (128 MB) and I've found something curious. I've had this laptop since Fall, and when I got it I tried playing TF2 on it. It was playable, but far from great. I was still using the drivers that came with it, dating from August, so I decided to update the drivers. At the time, I was unaware of something annoying with mobile graphic cards: you can't download drivers from the Nvidia site for it, they have no drivers for M models, you depend on the manufacturer to modify (presumably) the drivers for your card. Because I wasn't aware of that, I tried forcing the install of the standard Nvidia drivers for the 8400 GS (the non-mobile version), which surprising to me, worked.

I noticed a substantial performance boost in TF2, making it quite smooth to play. I never test how much, but I definitely noticed it. I thought it was because my previous drivers were old and perhaps still from the shitty-drivers-for-Vista era. A bit later I found out my laptop actually saw my card as a 8400 GS. The only, rather large, problem with these drivers was: about half the time my screen would go black after booting up and logging in. Yeah.

Today I was forced to uninstall the drivers for other reasons, but before I did it I tested the performance. I got 40 FPS in the video stress test of HL2: Lost Coast. Then I installed the proper Dell drivers. Ran the stress test a couple of times and I got 29-32 FPS.

Just now I reinstalled the newest 8400 GS drivers and tested it again and I again got 40 FPS. That's a 25-30% performance boost over the 'proper' drivers!

I don't know if the black screen problem still persists, but it probably does. Still, as annoying as it is, I can't bring myself to install the good drivers. I realize that because my card is now essentially a 8400 GS, it will probably consume more energy too.

I thought this was pretty weird.

 

[Gray Fox]

It may be the card is overheating.

Also I remember you asking for a good burning program.
You probably know about this but there is nero micro. it's nero without all the unnecessary shit.
http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/dvd-r_tools/nero_micro.cfm
and it's awesome, burns perfectly, you can bitset, basically all you need for burning.

You still need a proper serial to install it, but I can pm you that.

 

[Eejit]

Yep, the "official" video drivers for laptop graphics cards are usually far older than the drivers for the mainstream versions, because the laptop manufacturers don't often bother making sure that the normal forceware (or whatever) updates work with the laptop and certifying them.

Check out http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/ for information about compatibility etc.

 

[PvtRyan]

Thanks for that Gray Fox, I'll check it out

And yeah Eejit, but I didn't know that by installing drivers for the wrong videocard (8400M GS is sold as a different card than the 8400 GS) can give you a massive performance boost. It's like changing your hardware by just installing some software.

 

[Nabobalis]

Thanks for that Gray Fox, I'll check it out

And yeah Eejit, but I didn't know that by installing drivers for the wrong videocard (8400M GS is sold as a different card than the 8400 GS) can give you a massive performance boost. It's like changing your hardware by just installing some software.

But the driver is ethier much better than the laptop version or it has increased the clock on the gpu making it overheat. Not sure which. But hopefully you wont have any issues.

Edit: Could of it unlocked some 'pipes'? I wouldn't of guessed there was much difference in the mobile version of the gpu compared to the desktop version.

 

[Eejit]

And yeah Eejit, but I didn't know that by installing drivers for the wrong videocard (8400M GS is sold as a different card than the 8400 GS) can give you a massive performance boost. It's like changing your hardware by just installing some software.

It's almost the same card. Forceware drivers will usually work for all cards of a series, or multiple series iirc, the only thing preventing nvidia from releasing them for the mobile cards is that laptops sometimes have funky shit going on which means all drivers (for all devices) have to be verified to work with each model individually by the manufacturer.

 

[Asus]

A driver for a different model would be more likely to not run certain shader effects in-game (which would perform faster) than unlock 'pipes'.