NVIDIA Detontor XP im Betriebssytem Vergleich

Nothing is harder to shake off than a bad reputation. This is especially true in the depths of the world wide web. For example, ELSA is still stuck with a reputation for lower image quality than that of competitors, based on an article about the Erazor II in an influential German computer magazine. The author of said article simply gave the Erazor II a "-" image quality rating without further comment. Of course, the current crop of ELSA boards has nothing at all to do with the Erazor II of old, yet the negative connotation, unfounded as it may be, has stuck. Reputations are like email-worms and virus hoaxes that way – hard to exterminate.

Leave it to the marketing departments of big companies to find a way to turn this phenomenon to their advantage. Their press releases and bold promises about new products can instantaneously be found on literally thousands of messageboards and news sites, starting a kind of psychological domino effect: If everyone is talking about it, there must be something to it – right? As if the number of repetitions lent more credence to the claims....

Detonator XP contains the new-patented Detonator XPress Link technology utilizing the patented Direct Memory Access (DMA) found on all NVIDIA hardware, Detonator Xpress Link provides a direct connection from the hardware to the operating system. As a result, Detonator XPress Link assists in accelerating the new optimizations made in the I/O Subsystem and Memory Management portions of Windows XP’s core. With Detonator XPress Link technology, NVIDIA is able to deliver the fastest 3D graphics performance on all Windows XP platforms. With the arrival of Windows XP we as consumers are being bombarded with marketing hype. XP is IN! Detonator XP, Athlon XP, XP wherever you turn. These two letters imply "new, fast, and optimized for Windows XP". ä

Here is a good example, straight from NVIDIA’s website:

NVIDIA: The Ultimate Windows XP Experience

Fastest Windows XP Solution for Every Platform - On every key industry 2D and 3D benchmark, NVIDIA solutions are the highest performing products on all platforms. World-class hardware features and special Windows XP optimizations to the Detonator XP unified driver enable incredible performance levels, delivering the best Windows XP experience on all platforms.

Many people may take this to mean that the Detonator XP driver will offer better performance under Windows XP than for instance in Windows 2000 or Windows 98/ME, since it is "optimized" for XP. This line of reasoning can also be found in many articles and tests. While I don’t doubt that the driver is optimized for Windows XP, the Windows 98 version is just as optimized for its "own" operating system. It’s just a matter of perspective, really.

Detonator XP and Windows XP = Dreamteam !?

Back when we tested the new NVIDIA Ti500 reference board we saw that some DirectX 7 games took a major performance hit in Windows XP while other benchmarks remained completely unaffected, showing very good performance. Intrigued, I set out to find an explanation.

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