FS vs. 29.42 drivers--Another YMMV observation

[John_Cillis 2,406]

I uploaded the 29.42 drivers to replace the 21.83's I've used since installing my GEF/2 back in Feb. While just as stable as the 21.83's, I noticed slower 2D (windows desktop) updates. Thought nothing of it, until I fired up FS2000 for the first time in several weeks, and noticed a 3-4 fps drop in performance (Don't know about FS2002--I always keep it locked at 25fps).Since I had nothing better to do, I pulled the 29.42 drivers and went back to the 21.83's. Immediate improvement in 2D performance, and the 3-4 fps were back in FS2000. These driver updates are odd creatures, aren't they? Kind of hit and miss as to where the performance benefits will be, and on which cards. No matter what, been living with my GEF/2 for five months now, and I am still very pleased I listened to the group and replaced my Voodoo with the new card.... Since applying the aniso settings and LOD settings, I've been having some beautiful flights... -John

[wsieffert 0]

John,I too noticed slower Windows page changes. I wondered about the drivers. I also used the NVRefreshtool to speed up the refresh rate at the same time on WinXP. I didn't notice any decay of FPS in fs2002 which I lock at 30.Otherwise, I like the new drivers.

[Guest]

Same Here. lower Frames and the aniso did not work.Went back to 28.32's and all is well. I dont get the driver programmers. If it's a later driver you would think there would be an improvement somewhere but I have yet to see it.BobG

[Guest]

It is definite YMMV.In my professional world, one of the many things my team and I do is manage and service approx 400 PC's. We use imaging. 10's of 10's of 10's of duplicate PC's. All Compaq, none less than 266, most 500's and 600's. Just getting in 1.7's now. Have about 10, but I digress.50 Compaq EN600's, 256Megs Ram. Corporate engineered image. Driver issues still remain, though it is a huge improvement with NT5 (2000) over the Win9x platform. But anyway, one PC, this works fine, but that fails. Next PC, no problem. Another PC, different yet again. This is not to say that there is no duplication of bugs, but you would be surprised at the amount of random issues that occur.YMMV!Cheers,bt

[John_Cillis 2,406]

After seeing your post Braun, I felt you'd find this interesting...My team services approx. 1500 workstations and approx. 75 servers (sorry Compaq--my workstations are Dell, but at least we have your servers in spades). We've been in the process of rolling out Windows 2000, and like your team, we are using images. In tandem with the rollout, we're swapping out the hard drives. The whole process of the upgrade only takes a moment or two per workstation--pull the old drive, install the new drive/image and move on. My region (AZ and NM) is done.But we saw an interesting stat...a bit more than random. Approx 3 out of every 100 of the new HD's are failing, only four weeks after deployment. In the two years I've been on the team, I had NO HD failures, and now I've seen 13, all within a few days of each other. Can't even reimage the drives.I find that an interesting stat...., and a fair example of very BAD mileage :( More of a nuisance than anything (all users are responsible for maintaining data in their assigned network mapping). We've been able to trace the issue to a defective batch the mfr. claims they released--meaning we'll likely have to replace the whole bunch. And of course the users think the I.T. staff is defective :) My wife thinks I'm nutty for dealing with this all day, then I come home and fly around in a sim half the evening. One of these days, I'll have her hooked too, and we'll fight for sim time....

[Guest]

Alright, I've been pretty good with figuring out all these Abbreviations so far since this whole internet thing started, but I cant for the life of me figure out YMMV is. Could you guys enlighten me?-------------Holding Short

[Guest jase439]

Your Mileage May Vary:)

[Guest]

That is interesting John. Well when you can pick up 100GB drives now from the majors at $150 a pop, ya gotta know stringent QC goes out the door with that kind of automated mfg. With those thin margins, volume is king. They are not concerned with your efforts, to the extent that if only 3 of 100 come back, they see a 3% defect rate in a decidedly chancy consumer product. HD's ARE fragile, don't ya' know. :) OTOH, your customers see something completely different. So, last week I went to get systems training on a new payroll system we support and are upgrading. The VAR comes out last Friday, one week ago, and goes to install the software. (This is a brand new build. The AC had to download it and burn it to install.) It won't install on one our (my) servers. Reports it does not see MDAC 2.6. Well, 2.6 is there. I get the DAC Checker from MS, IT reports 2.6. Vendor says, "Its your server". I say, "No its not." "My server is just fine and dandy thank you." Today we build a test server from scratch. P600. 512megs. Win2k Server. SP2 SQL 2000. MDAC 2.6. Built to exactly their specs. Virgin. Never been used. Run the software installer. Boom. It blows up. I take lots of screenies. Call their national support who has been dragging their feet, and with not so secret glee I tell them to go back to the drawing board, their installer is broke. They are scratching their heads, but they cannot deny the facts. YMMV!btPS...sorry for this off topic post. Should be in the hardware forum, but I get tired of hanging out there...the moderator is a jerk!

[Guest]

Thanx, never would've figured that one out.