While everyone's scrambling for an overclock, :P , avoid nVidia 93.71 drivers

[ScopE]

nVidia chipset owners...

Just thought I'd share.

If you like me have found ArmA a damn good reason to aggressively pursue an overclock on your video card for framerate (and CPU for the AI), avoid the use of nVidia's latest ForceWare drivers version 93.71.

I did a bit o' research yesterday and found out why my attempts to adjust the clock frequency sliders for my 7800GT under v93.71, were being answered by the system with "get stuffed I can't do it" (ok, so I paraphrase somewhat). Even if I notched them up by a mere 1 MHz.

It seems owners of 76xx, 78xx, and 79xx GPUs are all having the same problems; some worse (B.S.O.Ds).

So roll back to v92.91 betas,
or v91.47 official.
The 92.91 beta is touted as an extremely good, stable driver. (I don't often go for betas, but I installed this yesterday and all runs nicely.)

My XFX 7800GT factory o/c at 450MHz/1050MHz is now back at 480/1110. And only using the "Find Optimal..." button.

ForceWare 92.91:
http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=1485

Coolbits2 registry tweak (.reg file, 'self-installing'):
http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=815

[Stompya]

7800 cards actually have 3 clocks, when you advance the main clock, 2 of the clocks are only advancing every 27 mhz. The main clocks are, 419, 446, 473, 500. Bring your 480 back down to 473 to save on heat, the 7 mhz arent doing anything else.

At moment Im using ExtremeG 97.44 Driver You can find 32 bit one there as well, seems ok and clocks fine, my 7800 gt (default 400/1000) was optimal at 500/1260, Ive put at 446/1100 for now.

[ScopE]

Cheers Stomp!

Actually I forgot to mention in the first post that the ACTUAL problem with 93.71 is that the adjusted frequencies people apply simply aren't being retained past a re-boot, even if "Apply these settings on start-up" is checked.

[ScopE]

By the way Stomp (and anyone?), has anyone tried ArmA with a CPU overclock, then without?

Intuitively I'd guess that because of AI computation in single-player, a CPU overclock would help particularly in ArmA (of course only the host in co-op will be carrying the AI load ...)

But I don't know for sure as I haven't tried (gotta dig up some o/c links and guides for my mobo I got a while ago but haven't acted on).

How much does a (single) CPU overclock help for framerate normally? Like 10% or 20% of the gained fps?
Knowledge, estimates, guesstimates, guesses? Anyone?

[Clint]

Dunno, been oc'd since got the game. Might give it a go tho see what happens.

[Clint]

Well it made no noticeable difference in SP to fps, but like you said prolly help out with AI? dunno. amd4000+ 2.4GHz->2.55GHz.

[ScopE]

Cheers Clint.