Great Performance Increase for Nvidia Users! This fix is indispensable!

[SkunkDoctor]

wow nice I'll try it oblivion is really sucking for me too. How can I subscribe to this thread?

 

[Black Waltz]

Hmmm... I will try this. Would it work for other games too? I am kind of wanting to get Morrowind running nicely...

 

[auldian]

How can I subscribe to this thread?

Under [Thread Tools] atop the 1st post on any page.

 

[Reignking]

Any more success with this?

 

[Philips]

Does this do anything with late-game crashes? I'm getting them on the Standard map too now.

I am going to try it. Personally, I think the late game slowdowns and the crashes that tend to become frequent later in the game are the same bug, but manifesting differently on different hardware.

I have seen so many "I don't have problems except for slowdowns late in the game" but don't have slowdowns at all. Just crashing to the desktop, mostly late in the game.

 

[Philips]

How do you get into the NVIDIA control panel?

Right click on the desktop. You will see "NVIDIA Display" in the menu. Move the mouse over this and click on the menu entry for your display. In the menu on the left under "Performance & quality settings" you will see the new entry.

 

[Black Waltz]

Well for me it did not work in late game. In fact it got even jerkier. Meh, never mind. I don't really get too many problems late game. Except my music getting quite distorted.

 

[Nials]

Sadly, I saw no performance increase either.

Oh well, did not have too many issues to begin with other than the usual slow opening of advisor screens in the late game.

 

[Philips]

Oh well. So much for that idea. It did nothing for the CTD problem.

 

[DarkFyre99]

Thanks. This seemed to help with the wonder movies in the late game a bit. Still not as smooth as the early game wonders, but they're no longer as painful to sit through...

 

[Elhoim]

Too bad it didn´t work for many of you... Guess i´m just lucky...

 

[Soil]

hmmm.. on the page it calls it a hack.

I won't be installing this since I play other FPS games online.

Punkbuster doesn't like people with 'Video Driver Hacks', and may end up in a ban or global ban.

 

[Jimbo30]

Coolbits is Nvidia's own overclocking 'hack' for the Nvidia drivers. It isn't part of the initial code release simply because they don't *really* want anyone overclocking their graphics cards. However, they realise people overclock graphics cards anyway so they might as well release something that is relatively safe to use.

 

[vbraun]

Be aware that this driver has specific performance improvments for Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion not Civ4.

 

[Jimbo30]

Coolbits is Nvidia's own overclocking 'hack' for the Nvidia drivers. It isn't part of the initial code release simply because they don't *really* want anyone overclocking their graphics cards. However, they realise people overclock graphics cards anyway so they might as well release something that is relatively safe to use.

Actually I self-owned myself here. Coolbits is part of the Nvidia driver software, it just isn't useable unless you enable it through the windows registry (which is why you might get a windows hack message).

 

[Monker]

However, they realise people overclock graphics cards anyway so they might as well release something that is relatively safe to use.

Why is it only "relatively safe"? What can go wrong?

 

[ShadowDagger]

Why is it only "relatively safe"? What can go wrong?

I haven't downloaded it yet or researched it, but if it overclocks the graphics card then the only risk is of it over heating. If you have a cool temperature you have nothing to worry about at all.

 

[Jimbo30]

Why is it only "relatively safe"? What can go wrong?

The only thing slowing down the chips in your pc is heat, or more accurately overheating.

If you can cool your graphics chip (or cpu) enough, you can speed it up to make it perform well above what the manufacturer intended.

Most of them go for the safe option and find a clock speed (check that out, it's an industry term) that gives longevity at a reasonable performance. It also lets them use cheaper fans

You can normally overclock any graphics card on the market and it will perform better than intended over it's usefull lifespan. Fact is, most graphics cards have a useful life of 2-3 years (getting a bit obsolete at the 2 year mark). The manufacturers might clock them for a 10-year lifespan, at which point the card will be so obsolete that nobody really cares anyway when it breaks.

 

[Perfect_Blue]

So, I see core clock frequency and memory clock frequency; roughly what % can one 'safely' overclock one's card? Are there some rough guidelines?

 

[SPQR300]

I used this tweak to increase the performance of the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, but it also works great with Civ IV. I´ll asure you that you will see a GREAT difference. On to the tweak:

1- Install the Nvidia 84.25 Beta Drivers. I had some problems with 84.21 and Civ. Perhaps it would work with 81.98 also. Here is the link to the 84.25 drivers.

http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_downloads_rel70betadriver.html

2- Now to the most important step. Download Coolbits from here, if you want to have more info:

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=815

Or directly download it from here:

View attachment 120852

This little registry entry adds a tab in the nvidia control panel called Additional Direct3D Settings. Go there and change Max frames to render ahead to "0" ... Before it was set to "3".

And that´s it! Great, and I really mean GREAT performance increase. I was playing a choppy 18 civs huge map medieval age and with this is reeaally smoth...

Hope it helps!

Lol I did exactly the same with Oblivion. And in that game this method really did increase performance! Don't know about civ tough..