I think there is no point in choosing a non-default driver ... this saves you alot of trouble and just works
and this from me ... the one who is always installing any shit he finds :P

lol yea thats wht i do...just use reg ones, but i wanted to broden my horizens

but drivers ain't the right field for that
its just the as with emule e.g. ...
the original code got that good that there is really no point in using mods anymore ...
and if all those tweaks would be soooooooo powerfull .... why wouldn't nv / ati add them ?

I never cared about those driver mods that bring you some additional 0.2 FPS. And so far I've never had any issues since Catalyst 3.4. :)

ok ok lol you guys made your point....my drivers have been rock solid too

I must admit that I use the Omega Drivers. You can find them at http://www.omegadrivers.net/ (Radeon Omega Drivers 2.6.42 = New version based on Cat 5.6). But sometimes I also "only" use the ATI Drivers. But all I can say, try them both. Try to see which one you thinks works best on your system. I have heard that ATI drivers is optimized for benchmarking and the Omega Drivers is optimized for normal gameplay. I must admit that I have found that the Omega Drivers were better then ATI drivers in some circumstances. But as I said try them for yourself.... :D

If ya have the itch of being experimental, Give ati tray tools a go. Lots of tweaks and settings to play with. I imagine that most of the tweaks in the modded drivers are available at your control with ATT. Highly recommend it. :wink:

I think we've all gone the experimental route with ATI drivers at one time or another. It's a phase, like running nothing but benchmarks when your time would be better spent actually USING your system for something constructive.

That said, I've personally tried the Omegas, DNA, NGO, ForSage, Spirit and UniAN drivers, none of which are any better (or any worse) than the Catalyst drivers. Each one is optimized somewhat differently from the other but the end result is generally the same --- they all look pretty good but the differences are so subtle that you'd end up spending all your time capturing and analyzing images to really see those differences.

Some of the tools/utilities out there are pretty good, as BlkJello mentioned (ATI Tray Tool). AtiTool is very good and has a built-in artifact tester for when you start cranking on your GPU and video memory. There's also RadLinker, RivaTuner, PowerStrip and RedLine, to name a few and I think you'll discover that some of those tweakers will make a bigger (meaning more noticeable) difference than trying the various makes and model of ATI drivers.

I guess the point is to decide what's more important to you --- image quality or benchmark scores (fps). Using the standard Catalyst drivers you'll get a happy medium, a balance of what ATI considers to be the most important aspects of image quality and speed. They make the hardware so they probably know better than anyone else out there how to make it work.

It WOULD be nice if they could provide us with a "knob" (like the Griffin PowerMate). Rotate the knob fully clockwise and you get the fastest frames per second on the planet. Image quality suffers, sure, but you'll get bragging rights and astronomically high benchmark scores. Crank the knob all the way counterclockwise and you get smooth frame rates AND the best image quality the hardware is capable of. Put it somewhere in the middle and you get the best of both worlds.

I guess maybe that's what we ALL want? A simple method of switching between all those capabilities and characteristics the hardware provides. ATI does a pretty good job of giving us an interface to all those things (the Catalyst Control Center). I just wish it wasn't such a memory hog.

Later.

I use ATI tray tools already...Frikkin love it!!!

I think we've all gone the experimental route with ATI drivers at one time or another. It's a phase, like running nothing but benchmarks when your time would be better spent actually USING your system for something constructive.

That said, I've personally tried the Omegas, DNA, NGO, ForSage, Spirit and UniAN drivers, none of which are any better (or any worse) than the Catalyst drivers. Each one is optimized somewhat differently from the other but the end result is generally the same --- they all look pretty good but the differences are so subtle that you'd end up spending all your time capturing and analyzing images to really see those differences.

Some of the tools/utilities out there are pretty good, as BlkJello mentioned (ATI Tray Tool). AtiTool is very good and has a built-in artifact tester for when you start cranking on your GPU and video memory. There's also RadLinker, RivaTuner, PowerStrip and RedLine, to name a few and I think you'll discover that some of those tweakers will make a bigger (meaning more noticeable) difference than trying the various makes and model of ATI drivers.

I guess the point is to decide what's more important to you --- image quality or benchmark scores (fps). Using the standard Catalyst drivers you'll get a happy medium, a balance of what ATI considers to be the most important aspects of image quality and speed. They make the hardware so they probably know better than anyone else out there how to make it work.

It WOULD be nice if they could provide us with a "knob" (like the Griffin PowerMate). Rotate the knob fully clockwise and you get the fastest frames per second on the planet. Image quality suffers, sure, but you'll get bragging rights and astronomically high benchmark scores. Crank the knob all the way counterclockwise and you get smooth frame rates AND the best image quality the hardware is capable of. Put it somewhere in the middle and you get the best of both worlds.

I guess maybe that's what we ALL want? A simple method of switching between all those capabilities and characteristics the hardware provides. ATI does a pretty good job of giving us an interface to all those things (the Catalyst Control Center). I just wish it wasn't such a memory hog.

Later.

that "knob" actually exists... you can chose between image quality and performance.

If you want to have a newer driver for your mobility radeon, you may give the moded driver a try, but it really improve nothing.