"Tweaked" video drivers vs. baseline drivers

[BizSAR]

All,

What has been your experience with "tweaked" video drivers (i.e., Omega's, etc.) vs. baseline video drivers from the manufacturer? Specifically in the case of Ati's drivers. Has it been your experience that the "tweaked" drivers give an added edge over the baseline drivers? How about Omega's competition out there? Have you found any of them to be better than Omega's?
I'm assuming here that the "tweaked" drivers are based off of the baseline drivers of the same version. I know how sometimes the Omega drivers may not be based off of the latest Ati drivers, but in this case, let's say they are based off of the same version.

[johnypilgrim]

I always try Omega's versus the standard fare when a new Driver comes out.

With Omega I can hit a higher peak, but the FPS will fluxuate wildly.

With standard drivers I get excellent FPS that stays from big battle to small.

Some nights, however, I notice, for some reason, a certain cave or planet will EAT my fps - and that's without a big battle.

For example, the other night I was in Byblos with about 8 people total - both sides.

My FPS was 37.5. Normaly it be 175-180.

You never can tell...

JP

[MattxMosh]

All,

What has been your experience with "tweaked" video drivers (i.e., Omega's, etc.) vs. baseline video drivers from the manufacturer? Specifically in the case of Ati's drivers. Has it been your experience that the "tweaked" drivers give an added edge over the baseline drivers? How about Omega's competition out there? Have you found any of them to be better than Omega's?
I'm assuming here that the "tweaked" drivers are based off of the baseline drivers of the same version. I know how sometimes the Omega drivers may not be based off of the latest Ati drivers, but in this case, let's say they are based off of the same version.

Its best not to bother with those drivers, they tend to be "faster" because they lower quality, and are usually based off older drivers. Official is the way to go. Stability is better than weird software tweaks that may or may not help.

[BizSAR]

Well, I have been using Omega's drivers and slightly OC-ing my Power Color 9800 Pro 128Mb. I have the memory chips that are known to OC well (as is the card), and swapped out the stock cooling system for the Arctic cooler that uses the adjacent PCI slot. I know I could OC more, but err on the side of caution (no game running, no OC-ing). My framerates should be quite a bit better then they are.

The current Omega's are based off of the current Ati Cat.s, so I'll run with them a couple more play sessions to establish a framerate average, then switch to the Cat.s at the same level of oc-ing.

Anyone else have experiences with "tweaked" drivers?