Modified Drivers for Graphics & Soundcards

[MessiaaH]

Ok guys, i've recently enlightened Berzerk to some drivers i use for my soundcard, and he suggested i make a thread on gatt, so im doing just that. This thread will be about the various modified drivers out there for both Graphics & Soundcards.

Ill start the ball rolling with the drivers i use, but i know there are others, but the ones i use seem to be the best performing from my experience and testing.

What are modified Drivers? Modified drivers are exactly what it sounds like, an Official driver is taken, and tweaked/modified to increase performance and quality.

Graphics:-----------

Modified graphics drivers mainly do 1 major thing, significantly boasts performance, using the XtremeG drivers, ive gained substantial results, they can be found at www.tweakforce.com for appropriate cards. Becuase they are modified version of Nvidia's / Ati drivers, there woudl be a delay in the release of the XG version of the latest drivers.
TweakForce is easy to navigate, just check the homepage or download section for the drivers for your card.

Sound:----------

Modified sound drivers mainly does 2 things, 1) Stability changes, Youppax drivers had my XFI working on vista beta stable, whiles creative struggled to even get a beta driver out. 2) Significantly improves audio quality, adding detail, clarity and bass. Makes you music sound clean and nice and powerful, compared to creative's stock drivers. Youppax drivers can be found here: http://www.hardwareheaven.com/pax-drivers/ . There are just Drivers and there are full OS suits including all the software etc, i highly recommend installing full suits and avoid individual drivers so READ CAREFULLY what you are downloading. Fall/Winter suits can be found here http://www.hardwareheaven.com/pax-drivers/191629-fall-winter-pax-edtion-sets-more-set-added-later-one-thread.html.

I currently use:

PCIe XFI Creative Titanium Treiber Winter Suite 2009 for PCIe Xfi cards

and

Pax XFI Software Suite Winter 09 Edtion. for Regular PCI Xfi cards.

Note: After installation, DO NOT autoupdate, and do not register.

Cleaners:-----------

When installing a new driver, its always best for max performance, to uninstall exisitng, run a driver sweeping program to clean up all old files, then install the new ones. I basically only do this, if performing a major driver upgrade. Moving from Standard cretive drivers to Youppax for isntance.

http://downloads.guru3d.com/Guru3D---Driver-Sweeper-(Setup)-download-1655.html



ENJOY!

[Arcmanov]

Driver sweeper is the shiznit.  I use it EVERYTIME I change drivers.

[Spazosaurus]

I havent run any driver cleaner for years. No detectable performance hit. The tweakforce driver is interesting, though i'll wait for the 10.3 version to surface.

[MessiaaH]

Lata ill post the settings i use in the creative control panel fuh best sound quality and bliss.

[mailman166]

What about kxmixer...

http://kxproject.lugosoft.com/

Do you guys think that driver suite is better than kx>

[MessiaaH]

never tried that suit before, ive used Omega Drivers and XG Mainly. Omega was boss back in the day.

I've tested the 10.3 drivers, and seem to be expereincing problems with it, i dont know if its becuase i did not to a driver clean or what, but other ppl on gatt with 10.3 seem to be expereincing the same thing. Games taking longer to start, etc etc.

My sf4 taken rel long to start, and if i switch from fullscreen to window mode, it takes ah while. Alt/tabbing UT3 results in game lockup. and gears takes forever to start, and if i try to use my pc whiles it starting, gears eventualy ends up crashing on start.

With the 9.12 driver, everything was buttery smooth, alt/tabing of gears no problems atal, could have been watching a movie on one monitor, and playing gears on the next, no problems.

So i think im uninstall this 10.3, and reverting to XG 9.12, which worked wonderfully.