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Dell's default drivers vs. Nvidia Omega drivers (for i9300 with 256MB go6800)

post #1 of 25
4/19/05 at 10:52pm
Thread Starter 
Hi guys, Im eagerly anticipating the arrival of my new notebook (see sig), its my first notebook ever, and my first dell ever
Anyway, I am not that great at computers, but I just try and be a sponge and absorb knowledge from all different sources, so I'm getting better with time. I was wondering which drivers I should use for my notebook, if i want to play games like HL2, Doom 3, Far Cry, etc... at high end settings. If it is worth it, could someone explain in detail how to get and install and use the omega drivers. thanks alot.
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post #2 of 25
4/19/05 at 11:43pm
3rd party modded drivers are almost always bad news. Unless you have a really compelling reason to not use the officially released/leaked drivers (and by compelling reason I mean for some reason the real drivers don't work and miraculously the modded ones do for a certain game), don't mess around with modded drivers. You'll thank me later.
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post #3 of 25
4/20/05 at 1:32am
http://www.omegadrivers.net/
Most gamers use the Omegas for better game play and reliability.
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post #4 of 25
4/20/05 at 1:57am
No, they really don't. Most gamers who have been gaming a long time have tried the Omega drivers or other modded drivers, found they broke something somewhere or messed something up, and never used them again.

Honestly, do you really think the actual driver teams in the actual companies that make the actual cards are so incompetent that they need some hobbyist who fiddles with registry settings to improve their drivers?
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post #5 of 25
4/20/05 at 2:35am
Actually YES we really do .. Most people here do perfer 3rd party drivers over the ones Dell provides. The Dell drivers are out of date most of the time while drivers from places like http://www.laptopvideo2go.com has drivers that actually fix a lot of problems in games and actually provide a performace boost. The drivers from that site are normal nVidia drivers. All thats been done is the INF file has been changed so the drivers actually recognise that your mobile video card. Other than that there are no changes over the desktop drivers.
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post #6 of 25
4/20/05 at 2:57am
Actually, no you really don't. Because it turns INF-replaced drivers are completely different from what the Omega drivers do. Drivers which only change the INF to allow more videocards are commonplace. Even Guru3D.com regularly replaces INFs to allow leaked Nvidia betas which may only support a few cards to support all of them. These mods don't actually attempt to alter how the drivers behave after they are installed the way Omega drivers do. Omega drivers change a lot of registry settings and sometimes replace DLLs with other DLLs.
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post #7 of 25
4/20/05 at 3:26am
I agree they are completely different but its still 3rd party. nVidia does not provide drivers for laptop/notebooks. Its the responsibility of the laptop/notebook manufactures to provide drivers for their products. If it does not come from Dell then its 3rd party. Yes you might have only had to change one file but its still a change/hack by someone other than who it was originally supposed to come from.
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post #8 of 25
4/20/05 at 4:51am
Give the omegas a try and see what you think, mostly driver choice is personal preferance your not going to do any damage to your system by installing a driver so if you dont like the way it affects your system its easy to remove and go back to stock drivers.
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post #9 of 25
4/20/05 at 8:20am
Thread Starter 
Alright, thanks for the opinions...since it doesnt seem like there is a clear answer, and since Faceless Rebel is so strong in his convictions, I think im going to stick with the original Dell drivers. I dont want to mess up my expensive new toy. Plus, i think i have enough power elswhere in my laptop to run the games i want them to. thanks for the opinions though.
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post #10 of 25
4/20/05 at 11:55am
You don't need to stick with the original Dell drivers. The drivers at http://laptopvideo2go.com are real Nvidia desktop drivers with modified INF to support GF Go chipsets. The INF is literally just a text file that specifies to the driver installer exe what chipsets to allow installation on when detected. They ought to work just fine, although I noticed some of the drivers have problems with PowerMizer support on older chipsets. Shouldn't apply to you, since you have GF Go 6800.

But I stand behind my statement that Omega drivers are rarely anything but trouble. Modified INF and true 'modded' drivers like Omega drivers are 2 completely different things, yes they are both '3rd party' but completely different in terms of what has been done to them. Trying to say they are almost the same is doing the readers of this forum a disservice.
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post #11 of 25
4/23/05 at 1:45pm
I used stock drivers for like a week, then switched to Omega. I mostly only play CS:Source on my laptop, and i got 5-6fps better using the omega with no overclocking.

I can always switch back if i want.

Whats the harm?

jon!
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post #12 of 25
4/23/05 at 4:47pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Faceless Rebel
But I stand behind my statement that Omega drivers are rarely anything but trouble. Modified INF and true 'modded' drivers like Omega drivers are 2 completely different things, yes they are both '3rd party' but completely different in terms of what has been done to them. Trying to say they are almost the same is doing the readers of this forum a disservice.
Omega's ATI drivers at least work with an employee of ATI and go through thorough testing to make sure they work well. I always use Omega's ATI drivers and notice a definate improvement in game performance as well as image quality. Omega doesn't "mod" the drivers. If you look at the dlls that are installed with omega you will see that they are the same drivers that you get from ATI.

Quote:
Alright, thanks for the opinions...since it doesnt seem like there is a clear answer, and since Faceless Rebel is so strong in his convictions, I think im going to stick with the original Dell drivers. I dont want to mess up my expensive new toy. Plus, i think i have enough power elswhere in my laptop to run the games i want them to. thanks for the opinions though.
Anyone can be strong in their convictions and still be completely wrong (ie. Faceless Rebel). Even if Omega's didn't work right (and let me assure you, they do) no permenant damage could occur.
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post #13 of 25
4/23/05 at 5:24pm
So that non-omega driver site linked twice. Which driver exactly is the good one for Dell 9300 with nvidia 6800 256 GO?
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post #14 of 25
4/24/05 at 3:32am
what about nvidia's site? wouldn't going there and downloading the latest driver for the Go 6800 from there?
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post #15 of 25
4/24/05 at 3:37am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Faceless Rebel
3rd party modded drivers are almost always bad news. Unless you have a really compelling reason to not use the officially released/leaked drivers (and by compelling reason I mean for some reason the real drivers don't work and miraculously the modded ones do for a certain game), don't mess around with modded drivers. You'll thank me later.
Actually, in this case the Dell drivers are bad news. Performance is much degraded for both gaming and DVD playback with the Dell drivers. I'd use Xtreme G modded drives from guru3d. There's no features that don't work or malfunctions and performance is way better.
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post #16 of 25
4/24/05 at 4:03am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Planet-Ed
I agree they are completely different but its still 3rd party. nVidia does not provide drivers for laptop/notebooks. Its the responsibility of the laptop/notebook manufactures to provide drivers for their products. If it does not come from Dell then its 3rd party. Yes you might have only had to change one file but its still a change/hack by someone other than who it was originally supposed to come from.
Actually that is an incorrect statement, a correct statement would be Nvidia does not provide drivers for laptops/notebooks for the windows platform, I am using nvidia's official linux drivers just fine on my xps gen 2
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post #17 of 25
4/24/05 at 8:05am

which driver now?

ok i went to http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/

however, which driver shall i use? the newest one is the 76.71 64bit one. is that one stable?

what driver you guys using from http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/ ?

thanks for any input
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post #18 of 25
4/24/05 at 8:39am
I am using the 76.50 for about a week now, and they work absolutely perfectly in every game (Doom 3, Half-Life 2, UT 2004, Act of War, Swat 4, Sims 2, Rollercoaster Tycoon 3) and I haven't had a single problem. They also helped me across the 5000 point hurdle in 3D Mark 2005. Strongly recommended!
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post #19 of 25
4/24/05 at 8:52am
Quote:
Originally Posted by vicious77
what about nvidia's site? wouldn't going there and downloading the latest driver for the Go 6800 from there?

No, official nvidia drivers do not work with laptop video cards. Nvidia leaves it up to the manufacturer to release them.
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post #20 of 25
4/24/05 at 10:38am
Xtreme G drivers work great. Guru3d.com
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