Copyright: Copyright (c) 1999 Creative Technology Ltd.
Citation: Copyright (c) 1999 Creative Technology Ltd.  3D Blaster GeForce version 1.0


Introduction

Congratulations on your decision to purchase this graphics card.

The 3D Blaster GeForce is a quality 2D/3D/video accelerator that uses NVIDIA’s latest GeForce 256 chipset.  GeForce 256 is the ultimate 3D processor.  Its innovative architecture combines Transform and Lighting (T&L) technology with a rendering engine that delivers four pixels per clock.

NVIDIA’s GeForce 256 graphics controller delivers stunning visual quality and performance with its 256 bit true-color engine.  Its four rendering pipelines are capable of delivering four pixels per clock.  With GeForce 256, developers can create special effects such as multi-texture, bump mapping to simulate rough surfaces, and environmental mapping that gives objects reflective properties.  Developers can take advantage of advanced filtering modes (including 8-tap anisotropic filtering) with full scene anti-aliasing to create realistic images that rival more expensive graphics workstations.

The 3D Blaster GeForce provides outstanding 2D and video acceleration as well.  It supports motion compensation for MPEG-2 decoding.  It guarantees a high level of 2D performance, while programmable gamma tables optimize image quality for both text and image-based applications.

To help you get the most out of your graphics card, your computer and your monitor, we have included a user-friendly utility, Creative BlasterControl.

Notes

For instructions on how to customize your graphics card's settings, read this online Help.

For more information on the graphics features and software support, see the Related Topics below.

For more information on how to use Creative BlasterControl and Creative SoftMPEG, read the topics under their respective Help files.

Creative SoftMPEG is available only for Windows 95 and Windows 98.

  Related Topics


To specify performance settings for your graphics card

1	Right-click your desktop, and then click Properties on the shortcut menu.

2	In the Display Properties dialog box, click the BlasterControl tab.

3	On the BlasterControl tabbed page, click the Tweak icon.

4	In the Tweak module, select the desired settings.

5	To specify additional settings for your graphics card, click the Advanced Settings button.

6	To reset all the options to their default settings, click the Restore Defaults button.
Otherwise, click the OK button.

Tip

To display a brief description of an option or a check box in the BlasterControl Tweak module, right-click the item, and then click What's This.


Software Support

Your graphics card supports the following:

DirectDraw and Direct3D drivers
With these drivers, you can enjoy the new wave of 3D and 2D games designed for Windows in high-quality display and speed.


3D Features

Your graphics card has a rich list of three-dimensional features including:

Texture mapping
Adds realistic textures to the 3D objects and environments in your games and renderings.

Anisotropic filtering
Smoothens out the "blockiness" of textures.

Perspective correction
Reduces any distortion on the textured objects and environment.

Fogging
Creates more natural atmosphere by blending objects into environment.

Anti-aliasing
Smoothens out jagged edges of diagonal and curved lines.


2D Graphics and Windows Support

Your graphics card accelerates your 2D graphics in Windows and also supports the following:

Assist software for MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 decoding
MPEG-1 is the standard for Video CD playback.

Color space conversion and filtered image scaling
Smoothens out full-screen video display and any jitters in high-frame video playback.

Note

Refer to the graphics card's Installation Guide for a list of display resolutions and refresh rates.


Glossary

Anti-aliasing

Direct3D

DirectDraw

DirectX

Texel

Texture Anti-Aliasing

Texture Mapping


Anti-aliasing

Removes the appearance of jagged edges on diagonal and curved lines by cleaning and smoothing out abrupt and jagged changes in a picture. There are other forms of anti-aliasing such as texture anti-aliasing.


Direct3D

An Application Programming Interface (API) for manipulating and displaying three-dimensional (3D) objects developed by Microsoft. Direct3D allows 3D applications and games to use whatever graphics acceleration card is installed in the system. Most 3D accelerator cards for computers in the market support Direct3D.


DirectDraw

A software interface standard for transferring video processing from a computer's central processing unit (CPU) to the video adapter. The standard was first developed by Intel and was called the Display Control Interface (DCI). DCI is now supported by Microsoft with the name DirectDraw as a registered trademark. DirectDraw can also provide applications, such as games, with direct access to the features of a particular display adapter.


DirectX

A set of Application Programming Interface (API) developed by Microsoft that enables programmers to write programs that provide access to the hardware features of a computer without knowing exactly what hardware will be installed on the computer.

DirectX achieves this by creating an intermediate layer that translates generic hardware commands into specific commands for particular pieces of hardware. In particular, DirectX lets the multimedia applications take advantage of hardware acceleration features supported by graphics accelerators. Some of DirectX components include DirectDraw and Direct3D.


Texel

A colored dot in a texture map. Texture mapping operates by assigning texels to the corresponding pixels of an object.


Texture Anti-Aliasing

If a pixel is in between texels, the texture anti-aliasing colors the pixel with an average of the texels' colors instead of assigning it the exact color of one single texel. Without this form of anti-aliasing, the texture appears very "blocky" when viewed close up. Texture anti-aliasing is also known as bilinear filtering or sub-pixel positioning.


Texture Mapping

Takes a bitmapped image, for example, like a brick surface or the wood grain surface, and maps them into a 3-dimensional surface. This makes the object look more realistic.


Restores all settings to their default values.

Tip: Clicking the OK or Apply button immediately after clicking this button clears all changes to settings made by BlasterControl Tweak, thereby forcing the display drivers to use their default settings.


This option is used to turn fog table emulation on or off.  Direct3D (D3D) specifies that a display adapter capable of D3D hardware acceleration should be able to implement either vertex fog or table fog.  Some games do not correctly query the D3D hardware capabilities and expect table fog support.  Choosing this option will ensure that such games can be run with your graphics card.

Fog table emulation is enabled by default.


This option allows you to disable the DirectX 6 features of the drivers.

Some games written for earlier versions of DirectX may not run properly when you have DirectX 6 installed and the DirectX 6 support enabled in the drivers.  Selecting this option forces the drivers to run in DirectX 5 compatibility mode so that older games will run correctly.

If you wish to run certain older games that do not start or do not run as they should, select this checkbox.


Your graphics card automatically generates mipmaps to increase the efficiency of texture transfers across the bus and provide higher application performance.  However, some applications may not display correctly when automatically generated mipmaps are enabled.  To correct any problems, reduce the number of automatically generated mipmap levels until the images are properly displayed.  Reducing the number of mipmap levels can often eliminate texture misalignment or "seaming" (at the expense of some performance).


This allows you to select the auto-mipmapping method used by the graphics card.

You can select either the bilinear or 8-tap anisotropic mipmapping method, whereby the bilinear method generally provides better performance, while the 8-tap anisotropic method generally produces a higher quality image.


This allows you to adjust the LOD (Level of Detail) bias for mipmaps.

A lower bias will provide better image quality, while a higher bias will increase application performance.  You can choose from five preset bias values, varying from "Best Image Quality" to "Best Performance".


This option allows for dithering of 8-tap anisotropic mipmaps.

Allowing mipmap dithering will provide increased application performance at the expense of some image quality.  In some cases, a loss of image quality may not be noticeable, so you may wish to take advantage of the extra performance gained by enabling this feature.


A list of the custom Direct3D settings (or "tweaks") you have saved.  Selecting an item from the list will activate the setting.  To apply the setting, click the OK or Apply button.


Lets you save the current Direct3D (D3D) settings, including those set in the Advanced Settings dialog box, as a custom "tweak".  Saved settings will then be added to the adjacent list.

Once you have found the optimal settings for a particular D3D game, saving the settings as a custom tweak allows you to quickly configure D3D before starting the game and eliminates the need to set each of the options individually.


Deletes the custom setting currently selected in the list.


Displays a dialog which allows you to customize advanced settings for the graphics card.


These options allow you to control the anti-aliasing features of the drivers.  Anti-aliasing is a method used to smooth edges of 3D objects to eliminate jagged appearance.  Note that enabling anti-aliasing will not automatically cause all Direct3D programs to render anti-aliased images.  Anti-aliasing must be supported by the application in order for it to work properly.

You can select from the following options:

Enabled: Enables Direct3D support for anti-aliasing in the drivers.  This is the default setting.

Disabled: Disables all anti-aliasing support.


Allows you to select the anti-aliasing sampling method.

You can adjust the settings to values which range from providing the fastest application performance to rendering the highest quality image.


If you select this check box, the graphics card will wait for the screen to refresh before drawing the next frame.


This option allows you to limit the number of frames the CPU can prepare before they are processed by the graphics card when VSYNC is disabled.

In some cases, the higher the number of pre-rendered frames allowed, the greater the "input lag" may be in response to devices such as joysticks, gamepads or keyboards. Reduce this value if you experience a noticeable delay in response to the input devices connected to your computer while playing games.


This option changes the hardware texture addressing scheme for texels (texture elements).

Changing these values will change where texel origin is defined. The default values conform to the Direct3D specifications. Some software may expect the texel origin to be defined elsewhere. The image quality of such applications will improve if the texel origin is redefined. Use the slider to adjust the texel origin anywhere between the upper left corner and the center of the texel.


This allows your graphics card to utilize up to the specified amount of system memory for texture storage (in addition to the memory installed on the display adapter itself).

Note: For performance reasons, this utility will not allow you to set the value to more than one half of the available system memory as reported by Windows.


Allows you to adjust the image quality of textures displayed in OpenGL applications.

If you want textures to be rendered with the highest image quality available for the best appearance, select Optimize For Best Image Quality.

If you want textures to be rendered with reduced image quality to improve application performance, select Optimize For Best Performance.

If you want to use a combination of the above two features, select Blend.  This is the default setting.


Allows you to specify the maximum size of the PCI texture map.

Increasing this value on PCI systems with sufficient memory may significantly improve the performance of some OpenGL applications.

Notes

{bullet.bmp}	For performance reasons, this utility will not allow you to set the value to more than one half of the available system memory as reported by Windows.

{bullet.bmp}	This setting has no effect on systems equipped with an AGP display adapter.


Select this check box if you want the OpenGL driver to recognize and use the OpenGL extension GL_KTX_buffer_region. This will improve the performance of 3D applications that support this extension.


Select this check box if you want to allow the use of local video memory when the GL_KTX_buffer_region extension is enabled. However, if the amount of local video memory available is less than 8 MB, this option will not be available.


If you want OpenGL games or applications to wait for the vertical sync (or, VSYNC) before updating the screen, select this check box. Normally, a game will wait for the monitor's VSYNC before it updates the image on the screen.  However, this may result in a lower frame rate.

To improve the frame rate, clear this check box so that OpenGL games or applications will not wait for VSYNC.  If this results in "tearing" or other screen distortions, select this check box again.


The memory wait state is the delay between two consecutive memory fetches.  If you select this checkbox, the wait state will be shortened to accelerate the performance speed of the graphics card.


Move this slider to adjust the speed of the SDRAM memory chips on the graphics card.


This option prevents pixel interpolation of stretched bitmap images.

Select this check box if you do not want the driver to "smoothen" bitmaps when they are enlarged.
If you change this setting, restart Windows for the new setting to take effect.


This turns off GDI hardware acceleration for curve drawing.

If you select this check box, hardware acceleration will be bypassed and force the display driver to use Windows internal mechanism for rendering circles, ellipses, arcs etc.
If you change this setting, restart Windows for the new setting to take effect.


Select this check box if you want to disable AGP support for certain applications on your system. Note that doing this may affect the performance of your graphics card.

Disable AGP support only if you are having problems during video playback or while running 3D applications.


Select this check box if you want to disable driver support for enhanced instructions used by certain CPUs.

Some CPUs support additional 3D instructions that complement your graphics card 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.


Allows you to select between two monitor timing modes:

General Timing Formula or GTF is a standard used by most newer hardware.  This is the default setting.

Discreet Monitor Timings or DMT is an older standard still in use on some hardware.  Select this option if your hardware requires DMT.


Select this check box if you want to increase speed and performance with OpenGL applications by sacrificing a little image quality.

As the image quality degradation is minimal and not noticeable in most cases, you may want to enable this function to take advantage of the extra performance gained by enabling this feature.


Select this check box to use anisotropic filtering with OpenGL applications for increased image quality.


Allows you to specify the default color depth for textures with OpenGL applications.

Select Use Desktop Color Depth to always use textures of the color depth at which your Windows desktop currently runs.
Select Always Use 16 bpp to force the use of textures of 16-bit color regardless of current Windows desktop settings.

Select Always Use 32 bpp to force the use of textures of 32-bit color regardless of current Windows desktop settings.


Allows you to specify the buffer flipping mode for full screen OpenGL applications.

Select the Block Transfer or Page Flip option for the respective buffer flipping mode.
Select the Auto-Select option to allow the driver to determine the optimal buffer flipping mode for your hardware configuration and to automatically apply the selection.


Select this check box to let the hardware use an alternative mechanism for depth buffering in 16-bit applications.  With this option enabled, you can expect higher-quality 3-D image rendering.


Select this check box to forces the hardware to automatically adjust the Z-buffer depth to that required by the application. This feature is enabled by default.
We recommend you keep this feature enabled unless the nature of your task requires you to maintain a specific Z-buffer depth.
If this feature is disabled, applications with working Z-buffer depths that do not match the current hardware configuration will not run.


Select this check box to let the hardware use an alternative mechanism for depth buffering in 16-bit applications.  With this option enabled, you can expect higher-quality 3-D image rendering.


Increases or decrease the brightness level of the video or DVD playback images on your monitor screen.


Increases or decrease the contrast level of the video or DVD playback images on your monitor screen.


Increases or decrease the color hue of the video or DVD playback images on your monitor screen.


Increases or decrease the color saturation (intensity and richness) of the video or DVD playback images on your monitor screen.