News
Unreal Tournament 3 Performance Benchmarking
19/08/2008 Forceware 177.89 is out at Guru3d for download and easy install (no .inf modding necessary.) Consider this a more official version of last week's 177.83 driver.
15/08/2008 Forceware 177.83, now that's what I'm talking about! Performance is up again after a lull of mediocre leaks. This one has the fewest hiccups among the entire 177.xx family of drivers!
12/08/2008 Forceware 177.79 was released and is apparently a candidate for WHQL certification. I wish nVidia would let me test these first: they aren't stellar!
30/07/2008 Forceware 177.73 has come out and tests reveal a slight increase in fps above 30.
27/07/2008 Forceware 177.70 has been run through my testing process and showed slightly better performance than 177.66 and fewer dips in fps.
13/07/2008 Forceware 177.66 is out! The leak came from XFastest and these are the latest drivers currently available. Read my analysis here.
06/07/2008 Forceware 177.41 was released amid eager expectations after the .35 sibling performed so well. Not so for this release: after my 9 runs, this driver gets a thumbs down for the Unreal Engine 3.
28/06/2008 Tournament Preparation Tips Team Dignitas players Gareth Marshall, AKA "GaRpy," and David Treacy, AKA "Zaccubus" of Razer's Team Dignitas, offer some inside training tips and preparation tactics for tournaments. Take a moment and check out this YouTube clip!
28/06/2008 Forceware 177.39 are a dreadful disappointment. Let's write this one off as a lesson learned and move on...
20/06/2008 Forceware 177.35 are finally here There are a few more out there, but a PSU failure and some additional nv4_disp.inf modding were stumbling blocks for me last week. Read More
30/05/2008 Forceware 175.80 get the nod from me! These are good quality drivers and should not be passed up. Read More
28/05/2008 I have improved the readability of my performance chart. Rather than all that data crammed into the page, I created a new Thickbox popup version of the Forceware Graph. Enjoy!
26/05/2008 Forceware 174.90 totally flew under my radar, but I spotted it and tested what might prove to be the last of the great 174.xx series drivers. I also came upon some interesting results along the way... Read about my findings here
24/05/2008 Forceware 175.75 is out with decent performance. Test results show these are among the best of the 175.xx series!
15/05/2008 Forceware 175.16 is now WHQL certified! I wish I could tell you this made it perform better than the last one, but my logs show it's on par with the last beta. What's more, I can't enable SLI for 175.70, so I'm skipping yet another recent beta.
11/05/2008 Forceware 175.16 is out and don't let the version number scare you: it is every bit as good as 175.63 and is an excellent alternative if the other fails you elsewhere.
07/05/2008 Forceware 175.63 has come out with what I initially interpreted as a disappointing showing. Boy, I was wrong! Read my analysis here. What's more, I've made an interesting discovery into the mystery of SLI modes and the "nVidia Recommended (SLI)" option. Read more.
05/05/2008 Forceware 175.51 are out. It feels like it's been a long time. Well, it has been: few drivers came out and the ones that did either wouldn't install, didn't support SLI or just plain sucked performance-wise.
13/04/2008 Forceware 174.82 are out. Yay. I've been having some issues with load times and driver sweeping, requiring some time debugging before I released my latest set of results.
29/03/2008 Forceware 174.74 was released by nVidia and set a new record on my charts!
22/03/2008 Forceware 174.60 and 174.70 was leaked on Xfastest and is the new chart-topper in my data log! Image quality is amazing to boot and as usual, I have no crash or SLI problems to report. Check it out!
19/03/2008 Forceware 174.40 and 174.53 beta drivers were released, the latter from nVidia itself. The 174.53 drivers are a WHQL candidate and both have proven their dominance in the Unreal Tournament 3 framerate race. I have updated both my dynamic table and the fusion chart: I hope you find my data useful!
12/03/2008 A new way to view results! I've published my data in an easy-to-read graphical chart format!
06/03/2008 Forceware 169.44 beta drivers released for the latest Crysis patch by EVGA!
04/03/2008 Forceware 174.31 and 174.20 beta drivers for XP 32 and Vista 32 leaked via Guru3d! The 174.xx drivers continue to improve!
17/02/2008 Forceware 174.16 beta drivers for XP 32/64 and Vista 32/64 leaked via Guru3d!
17/02/2008 Forceware 174.12 beta XP and Vista drivers leaked via ElectronicPunk! I also tweaked the summary table for readability so you can dynamically order the column data!
15/02/2008 Forceware 171.17 WHQL and 171.23 beta were leaked on station-drivers.com and have been added to the list!
13/02/2008 Forceware 169.39 WHQL appeared on ElectronicPunk.com via Guru3d Forums. Forceware 169.61, 169.38 and 171.16 beta (XP 32) drivers leaked!
Unreal Tournament 3 needs a monster computer to run in its full glory. I love it. To call me a die hard fan is a major understatement. It is my great pleasure to make sure you get the best possible frame rate from your system! I've been testing different drivers, configuration settings and SLI modes to take the guesswork out of tweaking. read more
Troubleshooting Tips
The Unreal community is up in arms over the touchiness of the Unreal Engine 3. People with computers once thought of as stable are now baffled by the cryptic message "ut3.exe has encountered an error". For those with UT3 crash issues, lag and stuttering, I have compiled a list of fixes: read more
Unreal Tournament 3 resources for the true fan. Check out the UT3 demo and patch download links, the official UT3 system requirements and troubleshoot your crash issues. Once you're in the game, get the most of if by tweaking your graphics performance by reading the results of real-world benchmarks.
Firewire Recording with Beyond TV 4
My HTPC project has enjoyed some stability recently. My HD and SD recordings over firewire have been a nice conclusion to an uncertain and rocky start with the ADS Tech Instant HDTV PCI tuner and Snapstream's Beyond TV4. If you'd like a little help with Fonceur's community BTV mod, "BTV Externinator" then read more
Alcom's Place 2.1
Alcom's Place has had a minor reskin in honor of the widescreen gaming and media that we enjoy. Props to eMark Consulting and Design for the new CSS style sheet and XHTML 1.0 Strict update. Nice!
