NVIDIA has obviously optimized the Detonator3 drivers for the Quake 3 engine. I was blown away with these results and I double checked them to make sure they were accurate. Damn straight. If Quake 3, or games based on the Quake 3 engine, are your reason for living, you should give Nick Triantos and his crew over at NVIDIA at big fat wet one.

The most significant increases in performance are in 32-bit color. At a resolution of 800x600 using high quality settings, performance on the GeForce2 MX increased a whopping 29%, from 67.1 fps with the Detonator 2 drivers to 87.9 fps with the Detonator 3.

When I checked the results from the GeForce2 GTS at a resolution of 1024x768 in 32-bit color I was floored. Performance increased 19% from 78.4 fps to 93.1 fps. That's an increase of almost 15 fps. Holy cow, batman!

These results are based on Quake 3 high quality settings using demo001. When 32-bit color was used, 32-bit textures were used. When 16-bit color was used, 16-bit textures were used.

I also included results from maximum quality which consists of upping the geometry to high and the texture detail slider to its maximum setting. These results are in 32-bit color only.

Quake 3 - 640x480 - High Quality

Quake 3 - 640x480 - Maximum Quality

Quake 3 - 800x600 - High Quality

Quake 3 - 800x600 - Maximum Quality

Quake 3 - 1024x768 - High Quality

Quake 3 - 1024x768 - Maximum Quality

Quake 3 - 1280x1024 - High Quality

Quake 3 - 1280x1024 - Maximum Quality

Quake 3 - 1600x1200 - High Quality

Quake 3 - 1600x1200 - Maximum Quality

Whoops, I almost forgot. We still need to check out the performance of the GeForce2 Ultra.

Next Page: GeForce2 Ultra Performance