ran across this by the way, haven't really looked into if the info was totally correct on driver versions for GTX 285.

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/6806 … r-for-gtx-285-/

squareguy wrote:

ran across this by the way, haven't really looked into if the info was totally correct on driver versions for GTX 285.

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/6806 … r-for-gtx-285-/

Im using driver 186.18, I do not really remember why. Im the "if it isnt broken dont fix it" kind of guy when it comes to old video drivers. 😀

That driver is from Jul 2, 2009, so quite suitable for a XP gaming machine 😀

I wasnt thinking. Some things were fast and things like unzipping a file with windows explorer were strangely slow. The drive has 4k sectors so I guess I have to align it and reinstall.

Anyways, here is a screenshot of Far Cry showing environment reflecting in water.

What drive do you have?

WD has a free alignment tool. Never used, so if you have a WD, here's your chance 😀

Paragon, or some other mob, sells an alignment tool.

If you re-install, all you need to do is take the drive to another machine and partition and format it there. Then put it back in the XP machine.

Seagate drives have some built-in anti alignment slow down feature. At least that's what they claim 🤣

Phil it is a Seagate drive. I will try to find something to align it instead of using its builtin slowdown-on-the-fly translation

I am going to create a new XP install CD with these 3 driver packs

DP_Chipset_wnt5_x86-32_1209
DP_MassStorage_wnt5_x86-32_1209
DP_LAN_wnt5_x86-32_1205

http://driverpacks.net/docs/beginners-guide-windows-xp

I think I am gonna go find a large 512k sector hard drive to test with

the cd with driver packs for chipset, lan and sata worked very well

I also think I will use an audigy 2 sound card instead of the x-fi

Make sure it's an actual SB0350, if you decide to get an Audigy 2 ZS. There are a few variants that don't play well with the Creative Labs driver/software disc.

If anybody likes, I am happy to post my methods for getting both the SB0350 and SB0358 working.

squareguy wrote:

I think I am gonna go find a large 512k sector hard drive to test with

the cd with driver packs for chipset, lan and sata worked very well

I also think I will use an audigy 2 sound card instead of the x-fi

http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/whitepaper/mb … hnology_faq.pdf

Check if your drives supports this. But yea, easiest to partition and format in Vista+.

Putting in a WD Black 1TB drive and will align it and see how that goes.

Everything looks good so far, need some time to play with it.

Took out X-Fi, installed SB0350 Audigy 2.

What Audigy 2 card is recommended to use with the 5-1/4" Bay addon SB0250?

I think I am going to upgrade CPU to an i5-3570k to push this thing and give more options in case I decide to do something different with machine.

Liking it so far, more to come.

I will compare my new DirectX 9.0 Box to the following article.

Tom's Hardware 3DMark06 article 'Best Of The Best: High-End Graphics Card Roundup' May, 2009
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-ge … up,2297-16.html

Tom's stock Nvidia GTX 285

I did not see which driver version they were using.

1280x1024, Default Quality

3DMark06 v1.1.0 SM2.0 Score 8397
3DMark06 v1.1.0 HDR/SM3.0 Score 8964
3DMark06 v1.1.0 3DMark Score 20638

CPU Score between 6317 and 6680, they were using an i7-920 overclocked to 3.8-GHz.

My System stock Nvidia GTX 285

GeForce 196.21 drivers.

1280x1024, Default Quality

3DMark06 v1.2.0 SM2.0 Score 7068
3DMark06 v1.2.0 HDR/SM3.0 Score 7988
3DMark06 v1.2.0 3DMark Score 15014

CPU Score 2799 Celeron G1610 @ 2.6-GHz (stock speed)

Thoughts

Tom used 3DMark06 1.1.0 and I used 1.2.0 from 3DMark's website, hopefully they produce almost identical scores.

You can clearly see all I am missing is some CPU power to push this thing to the max.

Going from a Celeron G1610 @ 2.6-GHz to an i5-3570k @ 3.4-GHz will give me an instant ~30% increase in CPU power. That doesn't even take into account the extra cache, 3.8-GHz Turbo, or the extra 2 cores. The i5-3570k CPU seems like the one to get if I am going to spend any money on a different CPU as it smokes the other 1155 CPU's and it doesn't cost much more on the used market. It seems there are some games that can make use of a quad core and if I ever decide to do something else with this box I will not be looking to upgrade the CPU yet again.

I am going to install Nvidia GeForce 296.10 drivers, reboot, run another test and post those scores as well just to see if there is a difference.

296.10 Drivers

A slight difference, all within the margin of error.

GeForce 296.10 drivers.

1280x1024, Default Quality

3DMark06 v1.2.0 SM2.0 Score 7122
3DMark06 v1.2.0 HDR/SM3.0 Score 8131
3DMark06 v1.2.0 3DMark Score 15189

CPU Score 2823 Celeron G1610 @ 2.6-GHz (stock speed)

With a i5-3570k (at stock speed) I believe I will easily blow right past a 3DMark Score of 20000.