Bit of an ATi contribution, for the Radeon HD 4000 cards:
Anything from the 9.x and 10.x family are worthless if you run CrossFire; one of the middle 11.x (I think either 11.2 or 11.3) was reasonable, and the second-to-last "Legacy Driver" (13.1 I believe) was/is the best choice - any issues that remain are game-dependent (like the Skyrim menu flicker bug). The latest "Legacy Driver" (13.9) is the best choice for non-CrossFire (single GPU) systems. 13.9 caused A LOT of instability/crashes with CrossFire in my experience. I'm not sure if this would translate to the HD 2000 and 3000 cards (they all use the same driver package) as well.

I honestly do not remember enough of the details about my GeForce FX, 6, or 7 as to which version was my personal favorite. FWIW, I have 94.24 backed-up on my server (and it's been there since 2007) - but I don't know if that's the "best choice" - I know it supports all three generations though (which may be the sole reason I have it).

Another oddity: I have a Quadro FX 1700 that came with a system I bought used, it works just fine for running the Windows desktop; it's quiet, stable, and doesn't seem to use too much power (it has no auxiliary power connectors). I have whatever driver the nVidia website suggested for it ("Quadro ODE" I think is what it's called). I figured I'd test it out with some synthetic benchmarks before installing a game, but the experience was kind of hit and miss - some claimed there was no Direct3D adapter (Uningine), some ran buggy/quirky (Aquamark - it actually ran, but it was very inconsistent (e.g. on run A the first part had great performance, run it a second time and it lagged), and it always seemed to crash when attempting to exit, versus just closing down gracefully), while others ran seemingly fine, but with wildly variable performance (3Dmark01 - some tests it cleared 400 FPS, others it was barely above being a slideshow). Didn't bother installing any games after that. I'm not sure if it's driver or hardware related - but figured it was worth pointing out (especially given that some of the higher-spec Quadro FX cards, like the 3700, 4600, etc are coming down pretty seriously in price, and at least on paper would make very competent gaming cards for a newer DirectX 9/10 machine - I assume they use a common driver package as well).

For my Radeon X850 XT PE, I've discovered through trial and error that Catalyst 8.2 is generally the best for both new and old games. I used 10.2 for a while (last available version), but it had some performance issues with a few games (Doom 3 and Quake 4 especially). Catalyst 8.2 has its share of problems as well, but it generally works very well. I had to go all the way back to 6.8 to eliminate some of 8.2's problems, but I decided I liked 8.2's performance better (more optimized for F.E.A.R. and such).

For older Nvidia cards, 45.23 and 93.71 seem to be crowd favorites. I've had good luck with both so far.

For the record, I'm interested in hearing which drivers people prefer for GeForce FX and GeForce 6 series cards.

maximus wrote:

For my Radeon X850 XT PE, I've discovered through trial and error that Catalyst 8.2 is generally the best for both new and old games. I used 10.2 for a while (last available version), but it had some performance issues with a few games (Doom 3 and Quake 4 especially). Catalyst 8.2 has its share of problems as well, but it generally works very well. I had to go all the way back to 6.8 to eliminate some of 8.2's problems, but I decided I liked 8.2's performance better (more optimized for F.E.A.R. and such).

For older Nvidia cards, 45.23 and 93.71 seem to be crowd favorites. I've had good luck with both so far.

For the record, I'm interested in hearing which drivers people prefer for GeForce FX and GeForce 6 series cards.

I "think" I simply used the latest driver for my GF6 6800 which is in one of my builds and I had no issues with it. It was in one of my older LAN rigs and it was used quite extensively playing games like BF2, UT3 and FEAR. At least that's what I remember. The thing is, I can't remember which driver I used on that rig, but that rig is still in existence (unlike the rig I used my FX 5900 in).

If you want, I could fire her up and check which driver I used butteh...how do I check which driver version I used in the first place? I suppose it can be found in control center? Ftr, it's a Windows XP rig.

Tetrium wrote:

If you want, I could fire her up and check which driver I used butteh...how do I check which driver version I used in the first place? I suppose it can be found in control center? Ftr, it's a Windows XP rig.

Put GPU-Z on an USB flash-drive 😀

http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/2340/tec … -v0-7-7/mirrors

Skyscraper wrote:

Tetrium wrote:

If you want, I could fire her up and check which driver I used butteh...how do I check which driver version I used in the first place? I suppose it can be found in control center? Ftr, it's a Windows XP rig.

Put GPU-Z on an USB flash-drive 😀

http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/2340/tec … -v0-7-7/mirrors

Downloaded! I'll see if I have time to fire her up tomorrow 😀

On topic!

For Nvidia GF2, GF3 and GF4 in Windows 9x I use 43.45 and 45.23 .
I do also use 56.55 for Asus V9950 FX 5900 ultra so I can adjust the TV out and stuff.
In Windows XP I use 92.91 or 94.24 for Nvidia AGP cards and 190.62 for Geforce 7900 GTX.
In Windows 7 I use 311.06 for my Geforce GTX 580.

For older Radeon AGP cards in Windows XP I use 7.10 and for newer AGP cards 9.3 Legacy (I never seem to need the AGP hotfix).
For Radeon HD 5770 (Crossfire) I use 11.11.

I wish I could use the old Detonator control panels from 99/2000 with the newer Forceware drivers. I stopped having favorite drivers for both ATI and Nvidia when they started getting huge bloat in the panel department...

For Nvidia GF2 and GF3 in Win98SE and Win2k I've always used 30.82 (very stable and compatible, good image quality).
GeForce FX 5500, modified 82.69; GeForce 6600, 77.72 (best overall compatibility in Win98SE). WinXP, 169.28 for both (great image quality).
GeForce GT640, 310.90 (Win7-64, good overall compatibility and decent image quality - newer versions crush reds way too much for my taste).
ATI Radeon 7000 series, Catalyst 6.2 (only version available for Win98SE and Win2k).