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nView 3.5 |
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An improved desktop
manager |
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NVIDIA's
nView Desktop Management software has come a long way -
it'd even be safe to say that it is significantly better
than ATI's Hydravision multi-monitor manager. The
suite is useful for organizing information on a single
display, or multiple monitors, if applicable.
The
following images illustrate the integrated pop-up blocker
for Microsoft's Internet Explorer. There are a
number of options for handling pop-up advertisements when
they are encountered, but generally, the default options
set forth by NVIDIA work well. nView 3.5 even offers
the ability to see which pop-ups have been blocked, and
selectively allow them in the future or continue blocking
the ads.
The principle benefit to using
a multi-monitor setup is the extra desktop real estate
afforded by a pair of displays. With the proper
organization, however, a single monitor can be nearly as
effective. NVIDIA's Gridlines feature, from nView
3.0, enables definable regions for maximizing windows,
moving dialog boxes, and re-positioning windows. For
example, a windows maximized in the first area (upper
left-hand corner of the screen) will maximize to fit that
particular area. Though no substitute for a true
multi-display environment, NVIDIA's Gridlines certainly
help organize information on a single screen.
Of course, the other nView
features are all intact, including mouse kinematics
(evidenced in the picture below), NVRotate, NVKeystone
display correction and up to 32 desktop
spaces. Overall, nView does a commendable job
complementing NVIDIA's hardware lineup with a multitude of
features that are actually useful. It's also fairly
resource-friendly - after running comparative tests with
nView enabled and disabled, it became clear that the
feature has a nearly negligible effect on gaming
performance.
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HotHardware Test System |
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Some surprising
results |
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NVIDIA
GeForce FX 5950 Ultra 256MB
ForceWare 55 (56.56)
ForceWare 50 (53.03)
Common Hardware:
Intel Pentium 4 3.2GHz
(130nm)
Intel D875PBZ 875P
Motherboard
1GB Corsair Pro Series
PC4000
Western Digital Raptor
10k RPM 37GB HDD
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A Few
Words About The Benchmarks:
In setting up our test machines, we install Windows XP
on a formatted, NTFS hard drive. After installing
the relevant drivers we disable system restore, all of
the graphical enhancements in Windows XP, and the
Automatic Update feature. The desktop on each test
bed is set to 1024x768, 16-bit color and a 75Hz refresh
rate. |
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Unreal Tournament 2003 Demo |
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Real-world
Direct3D benchmarking |
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There's a relatively minor
change in performance for Unreal Tournament 2003. It
comes as little surprise, though, as NVIDIA is clearly
focusing on features for ForceWare 55.
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Unreal Tournament 2004 Demo |
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More real-world
D3D |
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The results here are
actually interesting. NVIDIA is claiming that it
isn't releasing the 56.56 driver on its web site because
of a bug that is negatively impacting performance in the
Unreal Tournament 2004 Demo. There must be specific
circumstances in which that bug manifests itself, because
we aren't seeing it here. Both ForceWare 55 and and
ForceWare 50 come out almost dead even.
More Benchmarks and
Conclusion...
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