I assume you do not have a Radeon 9700 as that is the only DirectX 9 card currently on the market (wait for the 9500).
The Detonator 41.09s support DirectX 9 so you could try them with your nVIDIA card :)

3dmark is a dx 8.1 benchmark, and as ryda said, only r300 cards (radeon 9700 and 9500) are dx9 hardware. So you won't see any difference until dx9 optimized drivers, or 3dmark updates for full dx9 support.

Thanks for these fine hints people I assumed that it was the problem but just wanted to make sure. If anyone else have something to say on this please say. Thanks again

Since I game primarily in OpenGL games I don't bench w/ 3dmark.

here are fps counts from playing Urban Terror / Q3 TC mod
(a very system intensive mod btw.)

specs:
p3 1g / 784 pc2100/ not o/c'd
abit siluro ti4200 300/600 (o/c in the bios)
WinXP pro (bought and paid for) / sp1

Urban Terror
settings high/ 32bit / 1024x768x100hz / bilinear / vsync off

dx8.1 / 40.72 / 76fps
dx8.1 / 41.80 / 84fps
dx9 / 41.80 / 120fps !!!!

Looks like DX9 made a big difference in my box. Also, these are Creative drivers and I modded the .inf file to only use my max refreshrates for my card / monitor setup.

self made timedemo looped 3x. (map: Rommel / Team Deathmatch)

IMO - bench in the games you use and you'll get a better sense of what improvements if any have occurred.


gr33d

That really doesn't make sense...

1. The game isn't based on the DirectX 9 engine
2. Your card isn't a DX9 card.