Detonator 40 is released!

Question

Hi,
nVidia has released new Detonator 40.41 drivers...
They promise 25% boost in performance....
http://www.nvidia.com/drivers

Answer 1

More surgery applied to nVIDIA files!!
This time, I have looked into nvcpl.dll of Detonators 40.41, anf this is what I have found:
- "Powermizer" is only available for GeForce4 Go.
- There is a diagnosis tab for GeForce4 Go too, enabling temp monitorning and automatic underclocking for GPU saving.
- There are two different Hardware tabs, wonder what's for each... they both look the same.
- Still some settings hidden at hardware tab: aperture size (info), depth of request queue (automatic, manual), enable fastwrites (on/off), enable write combining (on/off) and enable 2D command buffering (on/off).
- nForce integrated GF2MX tab, some settings for tweaking frame buffer. (Those of you who use integrated VGA, are supposed to have this tab showed).
- If your VGA's advanced settings crash as soon as you open it, rename NVRSxx.dll to NVRSxx.back (xx are the two first letters of your language name). You don't need to set your local settings to US English to fix it!!
- If you are not using US English as your local setting, rename NVWRSxx.dll to NVWRSxx.back (xx are the two first letters of your language name). This way you will get the whole nView dialog, full of tabs and settings, not an ugly dialog with only two tabs and a few settings.
- There are lots of bitmaps not shown, wonder what the h*ll are they for.
- Stereo drivers are included!!, but I find no way to enable them.
- Some tabs and dialogs for GF3 with HomeCinema, but they seem to be almost useless.
- Registry keys for Detonator has changed, some of the previous tweaks will need a rework. NvRefresh and other tools like that wont work (until they release new versions). Anyway, Coolbits still works, at least.
- and that's all, folks. More news soon.
And some personal opinions:
- nVDVD seems to work better (if possible!!) with this release, can't explain the way it's better, but I feel the force in it  
- Collapse feature of nView is great, nVidia should thought of it sooner!!!
- Mmmm... OGL1.4 support, DX9 support, sounds GREAT...
- "Inmediate mode optimizations for Solid Edge", that's cool!!! I really like SE, and use it a lot, so this is a five stars enhancement for me!!
- Cool control panel UI, but I still miss a lot of settings, hope that Unwinder surprise us soon with a new release of RivaTuner.
- No problem installing them over 30.00. People with control panel crash, read above the way to fix it.
- Sideband still disabled, nVidia states that GF4 and GF4MX support sideband, but maybe MSI has disabled it at BIOS or somewhere else.
- Looking lots of forums, hardware news sites, overclockers sites, nVidia fanatics sites... ALL PEOPLE IS REPORTING A HUGE IMPROVEMENT IN PERFORMANCE!! So, nVidia is telling us the truth.
- nVDVD 1.71 released...
- Hidden tabs available (http://www.nvnews.net):
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\NVIDIA Corporation\Global\NVTweak]
"Coolbits"=dword:ffffffff
"NvCplEnableHardwarePage"=dword:00000001
"NvCplEnableAGPSettingsPage"=dword:00000001
"NvCplAllowForceTVDetection"=dword:00000001
(new D3D refresh rate over-ride at D3D xtra settings, new AGP tab (don't work for me), extra setting for TV out and extended coolbits)
And all of these in a official-beta release (It still sounds strange to me: "official-beta"). I think that the "absolutly official" release will be exactly this drivers but WHQL, just a CAT file included in the pack...
I think that nVidia cuts the performance of their GPUs by software, this way, when any other GPU maker (any other GPU maker? I mean ATI, of course) releases a new chip that could play with nVidia GPUs at the same level, nVidia releases new Detonators that make our VGAs jump to a higher level. Doing this from time to time, nVidia will allways be a step beyond. Like a cat playing with a mouse.