User Guide

NVIDIA Corporation
133
Detonator XP User’s Guide
• Disable support for enhanced CPU instruction sets disables driver support
for enhanced instructions used by certain CPUs. Some CPUs support
additional 3D instructions that complement your NVIDIA graphics processor
and improve performance in 3D games or applications. This option allows
you to disable support for these additional 3D instructions in the drivers. This
can be useful for performance comparisons or for troubleshooting.
• Force 16-bit depth buffer is only supported by GeForce3 and the GeForce2
family of NVIDIA GPUs.
Note: This feature is not available with the Quadro or Quadro2 family of
NVIDIA GPUs.
Windows XP/2000/NT 4.0: This option forces the OpenGL driver to use a
16-bit depth buffer regardless of the pixel format chosen by the application.
Enabling this option improves the performance of depth buffer clears and
operations but at the expense of less precision in the depth buffer.
• Enable alternate depth buffering technique enables an alternate technique
for depth buffering. This lets the hardware use a different mechanism for
depth buffering in 16-bit applications. Enabling this setting can produce
higher quality rendering of 3D images.
• Use unified back/depth buffer (UBB), Enable quadbuffered stereo API,
and Enable Overlays are only supported by:
• Workstation graphics cards such as those based on the NVIDIA Quadro
and Quadro2 family of GPUs
•
Windows XP/2000/NT 4.0
When the UBB option is enabled, all OpenGL applications share memory for
their depth and back buffers. When this option is disabled, each OpenGL
window allocates its own depth and back buffer resources. Generally, the
option should be enabled when you frequently have multiple large OpenGL
windows open simultaneously.
On cards using the Quadro series of graphics processors, UBB must be
enabled to take advantage of such features as OpenGL overlay planes and
quadbuffered stereo. These features can be enabled through this control
panel page on NVIDIA workstation graphics cards.
• Enable Advanced Multiple Monitors is an option that is currently
supported under Windows/NT/XP and appears on systems installed with any
two NVIDIA GPU-based graphics cards; i.e., TNT family and later versions.
For example, one TNT2 and one GeForce2 MX is an acceptable
combination. However, RIVA 128/128ZX are excluded from this
combination.
When this option is enabled, an OpenGL application started on one monitor
can continue rendering when moved to the other monitor or when spanning
DetXP_Features.book Page 133 Thursday, October 11, 2001 3:53 PM