NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4600 upgrade

S

SirDeity

Big Geek
I've just recently upgraded a computer with an NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4600 video card. Everything seemed to go smoothly, but I have three questions:

1) It says that the card is not digitally signed. When I go to the Device Manager>Display adapters>NVIDIA Geforce4 Ti 4600>Properties>Driver> Digital Signer, it says "Not digitally signed."

Could this be a problem? It should be signed. It's a PNY Verto NVIDIA card. Should I leave it alone or do something to get its digital signature? (The card was a free upgrade that came in a Geforce4 Ti 4400 box. Could that be the reason why it isn't signed?)

2) After installing the original drivers from the driver CD that came with the graphics card, I did a search at microsoft and didn't find any newer driver updates. This card isn't exactly new (it's never been used, but there are much better cards out there). Shouldn't there be newer updates out there? I tried going to Device Manager>Display adapters>NVIDIA Geforce4 Ti 4600>Properties>Driver>Update Driver..., to do an automatica search for updates over the web, but it just searched and searched for a couple hours. I stopped the search and figured that there must not be any updates, otherwise it would have found one already.

Anyway, the driver version is shown as "2.8.3.2" Can anyone confirm whether that is in fact the latest driver for this video card?

3) After installing the drivers from the driver CD that came with the video card, a program called nView Wizard was supposed to automatically start after rebooting. nView did not start. I did a search for it and came up with a few small files that I can't open. Is it possible that this computer doesn't have nView? It's a Dell computer with WinXP. I'm thinking that someone may have deleted the nView program. In any case, what actions should I take? Should I do whatever is necessary to get nView and go through the process of tweaking/optimizing the video cards performance with it?

The video cards settings appear to be very low. I'd appreciate some step-by-step instructions on how to optimize its performance. This computer is mainly used for watching DVDs and high-end gaming. (Also, is DirectX 8.1 the latest DirectX version? Or should I have a later version?)



Thanks for the help everyone!
 
1.)Basically, the driver your using isn't Microsoft WHQL signed on, but if you're not having problems, there's no reason to change them. I have the same card.
2.)Don't go to Microsoft for video card drivers. Get them from PNY or nVidia. The MS drivers do work, but they're just to have the card working, not for gaming.

nView is a program that's coupled with the nVidia drivers for their graphics chips. This just relates to controlling the dual-monitor capabilities. To get it, get a recent driver from nVidia. PNY doesn't do anything special to change the nVidia drivers.

The latest version of DX is 9.0b. You should get it as it will be needed to run upcoming titles, including one out right now like FarCry. Most will have DX9 on the CD(s) for people that don't have it. It should appear on Windows update by default tho.

You will need to make sure to snag the v.330 patch for 3Dmark 2001SE if you haven't already (if you run that benchmark at all) since it adds support for DX9.
 
"Get them from PNY or nVidia" - Wich of the two are better? Are they exactly the same (IOW, are the updates any different)?

"You will need to make sure to snag the v.330 patch for 3Dmark 2001SE if you haven't already" - Is that only for benchmarking?

Could you please give me update URLs (I'm on 26.4K, so searching the web takes a really long time) for the following:

- "Get them from PNY or nVidia"

- "You will need to make sure to snag the v.330 patch for 3Dmark 2001SE if you haven't already"
 
I'm at the nVidia web site. I am not very used to it. Could you perhaps point out the driver/downloads that I should choose?

Anyway, I'll be surfing the site...
 
Another Question (sorry for piling them up):

1) What is Anisotropic Filtering? Should I have it turned on in my OpenGL settings, since this computer is used for heavy gaming? It seems to be disabled by default. If I should have it on, then which speed should I set it on (2x,4x or 8x)?
 
Another quickie: Should I use more than the default (up to) 5MB of system memory for textures in PCI mode? 5MB seems a little low, so I doubled it to 10MB. What can you tell me about the use of system memory for textures in PCI mode?

Sorry for all the sudden posts... please address them all. Big_B, you're my hero! =P
 
Up until recently, they were called Detonator drivers, but nVidia's been calling them ForceWare drivers for awhile. Those are pretty new, and those will work fine. You might find the 4x.xx drivers to be alittle more optimal for the GeForce 4 line, however since these are mostly optimized for the GeForceFX cards.

Sometimes video card companies add things to the generic nVidia drivers, such as an overclocking tool, for example. I don't think PNY is one of those however. If you want the newest drivers for your card, you'll want to hit up nVidia. This isn't necessary, especially if the drivers work fine.

1.)Anistropic filtering is one way to help make the images in gaming look better. I don't have a specific definition, but just know that it's helping to make a crisper image. You'll take a small performance hit by enabling it, and this increases by the level you use at, i.e. 4x AF is going to have a bigger hit than 2x.

I've played with that 5MB of system memory for PCI texture mode, and to be honest, I can't see any difference adjusting it at all. There is some function to it, but it's nothing to be concerned about. I know there's an explaination out there, I just don't have it for you.
 
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