Control panel
NVIDIA's unified driver package, a.k.a Detonator, has been a pretty robust software suite for some time now. Let's see how the FX5900 Ultra's drivers, the 44.03s, shape up.
Pretty familiar to those of you who have used NVIDIA cards. The 256MB of RAM, GPU name, driver name and platform always appear on the initial screen. A pull-out sub-menu gives you access to all the attributes.
NVIDIA's nView technology gives you dual display freedom. It's exactly the same as previous incarnations of this useful tech. Screen adjustment (both analogue and digital), Colour correction and display timing are some of the more useful options.
The shipping drivers were expected to be the FX-specific 50.xx range. Maybe they'll arrive a little late. The 44.03s have a setting for high performance, performance and quality. The quality setting's reckoned to be the best, naturally. NVIDIA state that with this setting anisotropic filtering is applied to the whole scene. Performance / high performance applies it to the portions of the screen that the GPU feels warrants it, and if they're multiple textures on-screen, it decides which textures need it most.
The truly savage 8xS antialiasing setting, a mixture of multi and supersampling, is dropped in the name of performance. The 8x maximum is should push even the 5900U's 27.2GB/s of potential, theoretical bandwidth. Anisotropic is still limited to 8x (8 Trilinear reads, 64 samples), it seems. More on this later.
First introduced in the FX5800 series of cards, NVIDIA bring back the dual clock settings approach. In standard 2D, the card sets its GPU and memory to 300MHz and 850MHz respectively. This helps it lower the cooling required on the GPU, resulting in quieter operation.
In performance mode (read 3D), the card defaults to 450MHz core speed. Memory speed, though, doesn't change. You're able to manipulate both 2D and 3D settings to whatever you feel your card can withstand. The card also goes through a lengthy testing phase before validating any new settings. Note that the 3D clocks are lower than the NV30's of 500/1000MHz.
The FX5900 Ultra is notable for not running at anywhere near the temperatures as its predecessor. The 5800U seemed to hover at 55c+ in 2D mode, and rising to 80c+ in 3D mode. If the temperature settings are to be believed, and touching the card seems to verify them, the card barely hits 35c in 2D mode and 60c in 3D mode. Less voltage to the GPU, perhaps?
Two words sum-up the 44.03 drivers, dependably solid.
