No Trip Without The Driver: An Excursion Into The Software Behind Today’s Hardware – THG.RU

Introduction

Today, while our site is well-known for its comprehensive technology and product reviews, the “performance” aspects have taken the back seat. This article pushes this theme back into the forefront – after all, even a perfect hardware setup isn’t worth anything without the right software to support it.

Many of us tend to think about an hardware upgrade as soon as we get the impression that the system could be too slow. Usually, the computer is fast enough for almost every task, but it might need some extra support. What I am talking about is no overclocking or performance fine tuning, but merely a quick driver check and eventually an update.

Buying a pre-assembled computer in some computer shop is usually a safe affair, as all neccessary drivers should be already installed. The scenario I am mainly referring to here is either a home-made computer that needs to have the operating system installed, or a computer which OS needs to be re-installed (some people believe that regular re-installing could be a hidden feature of Windows 98…) What both situations have in common is that the system won’t perform optimally until all necessary drivers are installed. Let’s find out why by first looking at the basics.

What is a Driver?

A driver is nothing more than software that links your operating system with your hardware. Modern operating systems like Windows 2000 come with a huge set of drivers that support common hardware components. Unfortunately, this set is as old as the operating system itself, typically dating back to its first release. An incredible amount of new hardware is continuously being released, so the operating system cannot possibly detect all hardware components that exist (like motherboard chipsets, controllers, network adapters, sound chips, graphics chips, USB or FireWire controllers etc).

That’s why alost all components that you can buy include drivers on a CD or floppy disk. The drivers usually support Windows 95/98/ME and Windows 2000; for Linux or BeOS support, you have to do some extra checking.

Windows Driver Support

Hardware drivers have different functions, depending on the hardware. Some components need a driver in order to run, while others rely on drivers to unfold their full performance or features.

Motherboard/chipset

Works without drivers, but you can only get full performance out of it with driver support. A we will see later, the AGP driver plays an important role in terms of 3D performance.

Mass storage adapters

Windows comes with a wide spectrum of host adapters and controllers that are supported by default. Typically, this includes the IDE interface which is part of the motherboard chipset. Many interfaces will be recognized (Intel and VIA), most others usually work with the standard Windows IDE driver (SiS). However, there are many others that are not supported by Windows and thus won’t work without special drivers, for example most IDE RAID chips (Promise, AMI, HighPoint) and SCSI host adapters that have a newer release date than the operating system. Even the detected IDE-interfaces from Intel, VIA, ALi and others need to be switched to DMA-mode within the device manager to make them work at full performance.

Graphics cards

All graphics adapters (AGP and PCI) will work properly in text mode and at least at 640×480 at 16 colors – which is just enough to install Windows. Afterwards, you normally cannot exceed 256 colors. A dedicated graphics driver is necessary to enable higher resolutions, color depths and refresh modes as well as 3D support.

Sound and network cards, printers

If Windows knows your sound or network chip, the card will work. Otherwise you will need the drivers. The same for printers.

Scanners

Scanners require a special software interface called Twain. Afterwards, your scanning software is able to access your scanner.

Microsoft DirectX

Talking about drivers there is one suite that has become the most important interface in the game and multimedia sector: Microsoft DirectX. It provides a collection of APIs for Windows operating systems and consists of the following modules: DirectDraw, Direct3D, DirectInput, DirectSound, DirectPlay, DirectShow, and DirectMusic. DirectX allows developers to adapt their software to these interfaces rather than supporting dozends of different graphics chips, sound chips, joysticks or other proprietary standards. This way has proven to be very successful, as you can run any DirectX program with any type of hardware that supports DirectX.

In this respect, it makes sense to use the latest drivers for both your hardware and DirectX. Though there is hardly any performance difference between DirectX 6 (included in Windows 98), DirectX 7 (included in Windows 2000) and the latest DirectX 8, Microsoft regularly implements new features. More and more games also require DirectX 8.

Windows 2000 Service Packs

Microsoft releases a huge set of file updates for Windows NT and Windows 2000 every once a while. Windows NT 4.0 has had six service packs. For Windows 2000, the second service pack was released three months ago. Those Service Packs include bugs fixes as well as performance and feature improvement. Of course an OS like Windows 2000 is much more complex and updates a larger number of files (SP2 is 102 MB, including 1259 files).

Though SP2 is “not considered a reqired update”, I recommend to get it, since it does not only eliminate bugs, but also fixes known security issues. A very important feature for all non-US citizens who like to do online banking or brokerage is the introduction of 128 Bit encryption. All kinds of content sharing via the Internet will definitely be safer than with the standatd 56 Bit encryption.

How To Install Drivers

There are two common ways of installing drivers. You can either start the installation program or go through the Device Manager and install the drivers manually. Unfortunately, not all drivers come with a setup program, so you are left with no choice but to do it manually. Right-click “My Computer”, open “Properties” and select the Device Manager. In Windows 98, you can directly access the device manager tab. In Windows 2000, you have to select the “hardware” tab first and open the device manager located in the middle of the window.

All devices are sorted by type. If you open the desired branch, the device will be displayed (uninstalled components are typically located at the very top, marked by a yellow exclamation mark and a rough classification). Right-click the device and open “Properties”. Here, you can switch to the “Driver” tab and then click “Update Driver”. Next you only have to specify the path where Windows should look for the driver files.

Test Setup

Benchmark Results

NVIDIA Driver Version Comparison

The NVIDIA driver comparison was done using the GeForce2 GTS on the Pentium III system described on the test setup page.

NVIDIA Driver Version Comparison: Quake III Arena

At 640×480, there is hardly any difference. At the popular resolution of 1024×768 pixels, the Detonator-3 is 14 fps faster than the predecessor – that is quite a lot. The pre-release version of DetonatorXP rev. 2080 is six frames per second faster. The biggest surprise comes at the overkill resolution. At 1600×1200, the first driver set was not able to exceed 30 fps, which is considered the minimum frame rate for smooth gameplay. The Detonator-3 reaches 36 fps – which still today is a good result. If you have a GeForce2 or GeForce 3 card, you should be looking into the new DetonatorXP driver, as it squeezes out almost 40 fps with our GeForce2 GTS! That’s particularly surprising as the amount of data at this resolution is tremendous; the only way to increase frame rate is to optimize data transfers – which is quite a piece of work.

NVIDIA Driver Version Comparison: Mercedes Benz Truck Racing

You can clearly see a huge performance increase between the Detonator 513 and the two Detonator-3 drivers (667 and 1241). The latest DetonatorXP which has just been released ny NVIDIA (rev. 2181, we tested with 2080) again enables more performance.

NVIDIA Driver Version Comparison: Advanced Visualizer

In case of the Advanced Visualizer, the new revisions do not enable more performance. It is the other way round: The pre-release DetonatorXP (2080) runs slower with the GeForce 2 GTS.

IDE Driver Analysis: Data Transfer Performance

As you can see, the Windows 98 default IDE driver is an incredible bottleneck after installation, because DMA-mode is not enabled. Although the Seagate hard drive that I used does not belong to the elite any more, it is slowed down considerably by Windows’ IDE driver. After upgrading the 815-based motherboard with Intel’s latest UltraATA Storage Driver 6.10.011 and the AMD760 board with VIA’s 4in1 pack 4.32v (VIA’s 686B South Bridge is used), the Seagate hard drive is able to put 27 MB/s on the IDE bus.

Overall Analysis: SYSmark 2000, Pentium III

The installation of Intel’s chipset driver suite (Intel INF Utility) does not enable better office performance. On the other hand, the ATA storage driver does. The difference is comparable to replacing the Pentium III 866 with a 933 MHz model.

Overall Analysis: SYSmark 2000, Athlon

Though the SYSmark hardly benefits from the AGP driver, the IDE Busmaster driver will boost up the overall result quite a bit!

Overall Analysis: Quake III Arena, Pentium III

Quake III will be happy as soon as you install the AGP driver (INF Utility) and a fast graphics driver. Neither the storage driver nor DirectX8 make any difference, as Quake III is based on OpenGL.

Overall Analysis: Quake III Arena, Athlon

Fans of Quake Arena should not forget to install their AGP driver with AMD760 systems. If you forget this one, it will clearly cost you on performance!

Overall Analysis: Mercedes Benz Truck Racing, Pentium III

Mercedes Benz Truck Racing benefits from all drivers. The AGP driver (included in Intel’s INF Utility) is a close second to the graphics driver with regard to performance impact. The game will also run slightly faster if you use the IDE storage drivers.

Overall Analysis: Mercedes Benz Truck Racing, Athlon

MBTR experiences a boost of approximately 40% after the AGP driver has been installed.

Overall Analysis: Advanced Visualizer, Pentium III

If you only install the graphics driver, the Visualizer will work at < 20 fps. Adding the AGP driver boosts up this result by 60% to 33 fps! The IDE driver and DirectX8 do not have any impact on this benchmark.

Overall Analysis: Advanced Visualizer, Athlon

Wow! The Athlon system is three times faster in Advanced Visualizer after the AGP Miniport driver has been installed. The main reason is the high bandwidth of AMD CPUs at 133 MHz FSB with DDR: Without the right driver, the CPU is not able to show its potential. AMD’s current CPUs are very popular for their high floating point performance, which is very useful for OpenGL software like this one.

Conclusion

I think it is pretty obvious that a thorough installation of graphics, chipset and storage drivers is very important. In fact, it is even more important than spending days trying to optimize BIOS settings or considering an upgrade to a faster CPU. Equipped with a decent amount of main memory, every computer at 700 MHz (or of course more) will do it for the next months. Just make sure that performance doesn’t get wasted because you forgot to install or update important drivers.

Note:

A nice parallel to this article is emerging right now by NVIDIA’s pre-release of the DetonatorXP driver just in time for the presentation of the new ATI R200 family. One year ago, the battle between nVIDIA’s GeForce2 and ATI’s Radeon was not directly won by nVIDIA’s introduction of the accelerated GeForce2 (the Ultra), but by the former release of the Detonator 3 driver set! If you’ve already read Tom’s preview of the new ATI 7500 and 8500, you will know that nVIDIA has repeated this scenario.

Links to Driver Downloads

Graphics Drivers

ATI Drivers

You can find the latest drivers at:
support.ati.com/products/pc/graphics/index.html

Intel (drivers for integrated chipsets)

You can find the latest drivers at support.intel.com/support/graphics.

Matrox Drivers

The latest drivers can be found on a table that includes all operating systems and graphics boards: matrox.com/mga/support/drivers/latest/home.cfm

nVIDIA Reference Drivers

for Riva128, TNT, TNT2, GeForce, GeForce2, GeForce 3

Windows 95/98/ME

Windows 2000

S3 Drivers

It’s a bit more difficult with S3. You have to go to ranger.s3graphics.com and first agree to the license agreement at the bottom of the page. Next you will be asked to enter username and password. Both can be found at the S3 website. It’s both “archive”.

VIA Drivers

You can find download links for integrated chipset drivers here:
via.com.tw/jsp/en/dr/driver.jsp

Chipset, AGP and Storage Drivers

ALi

You can download the latest driver from Acer Laboratories here:
ali.com.tw/eng/support/contact/tech_support.htm

AMD

Unfortunately, AMD does not provide the AGP drivers on their website. That’s why the following links will open the download links on MSI’s website. Nevertheless, the drivers will work with all AMD760 motherboards – independent from the manufacturer.

AMD AGP Miniport Driver 5.22 (Windows 2000)

AMD AGP Miniport Driver 4.80 (Windows 9x)

AMD AGP Miniport Driver 4.80 (Windows ME)

Intel

Chipset Software Installation (including AGP Driver)

Busmaster IDE Drivers (440FX, LX, BX, ZX)

UltraATA Storage Drivers (i8xx)

SiS

Chipset Software and Drivers: sis.com/support/driver/utility.htm

VIA

Chipset Driver Guide: via.com.tw/jsp/en/dr/driver.jsp

This page mostly links to the latest 4in1 driver set. It includes all components: Chipset software, AGP VxD driver, IDE storage driver, USB filter driver and Ethernet driver.

Microsoft DirectX

You can download the latest version here:

microsoft.com/directx/homeuser/downloads/default.asp

DirectX 8.0a (W9x/ME)

DirectX 8.0a (Windows 2000)

Windows 2000 Service Pack 2

You can download Service Pack 2 in your language version here:

Windows 2000 Service Pack 2