8800GTS FPS drop, Driver issue i think, PLEASE help.

[Tropicocity]

Right so here's the story

I wanted to see what effect having newer drivers would have on my gaming - I was originally running forceware 158.22 WHQL drivers.

I ran a crysis demo bench and got a healthy 31.5fps average at 1280x1024 with custom medium/high settings. (Was up at 50fps on 1024x768!)

So I decided to try and see if newer drivers would improve upon that, so i installed th 174.20 beta drivers, rebooted and ran the demo bench again.
To my surprise (more like disgust :\) My average frame rate on the demo dropped to just under 20fps, using the _EXACT_ same settings that I'd used previously on the 158.22 drivers.

I double-checked this with WoW and the game couldn't even keep up with my 60fps v-sync limit, let alone push into the 100s like it had been doing thus far.

So as anyone would do, i uninstalled the new drivers and reinstalled the older 158.22s. My problem now is, even with running my original drivers that delivered smooth WoW gameplay and 31.5fps average on my crysis bench, I'm STILL getting the same performance as when i installed the 174.20 drivers.

I've even tried a third option and i'm writing this thread now with 169.21 drivers, still showing the same lame performance drop of the 174s.

Any idea at all what I can do >_<? I really want my old performance back, year-old drivers ftw.

Please help!

 

[MarcVenice]

Hmmm, only suggestion I have is this: http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=745

Use it, then try reinstalling whatever drivers you prefer ? I suggest trying the latest drivers again, not 174.20, but 174.31, that's what I'm running on my 8800gts 320mb, and performance has been top notch so far.

 

[geokilla]

Did you run Driver Cleaner when you uninstalled the old drivers? If not, run it. Running Driver Cleaner can make a HUGE difference in performance.

 

[Tropicocity]

Originally posted by: geokilla
Did you run Driver Cleaner when you uninstalled the old drivers? If not, run it. Running Driver Cleaner can make a HUGE difference in performance.

Tried that. I've tried going from 174.20 back to 158.22, tried 169.21, im currently sitting on forceware 171.17 WHQL and im STILL having the damn issue. Crysis benchmark down ~10-15 fps, World of Warcraft won't even hit the 60fps v-sync anymore when previously it'd be topping 100fps constantly, and the ONLY thing i did was install a new set of drivers to replace my year-old ones.

Now my year-old ones don't even work as good, i'm extremely confused >_< Need major assistance here guys, i'm getting close to calling it quits and buying a new card :\

 

[BassBomb]

You should play the game rather than use in game benchmarks in case of "cheats"

 

[Tropicocity]

Originally posted by: BassBomb
You should play the game rather than use in game benchmarks in case of "cheats"

I have the game, I just use the benchmark for apples to apples comparisons of drivers. That's beside the point though, my point is that all my games have taken a hefty fps drop all from this one-time install of the 174.20 drivers which, no matter how many times i uninstall/run driver sweeper/driver cleaner, still seems to have dented my framerate dramatically.

 

[johnno]

Reinstall windows. Then you'll know for sure.

 

[MarcVenice]

That's a little drastic. How about a restore point ?

 

[Tropicocity]

Originally posted by: MarcVenice
That's a little drastic. How about a restore point ?

As drastic as it sounds, it also sounds pretty much like my only option before buying a new card :|

Tried using system restore but for whatever reason the only restore point i can go back to is the one where i rolled back the driver from 174.20 to 158.22 :S Also i dont think that would help anyway, as i've repeatedly uninstalled every driver and ran drivercleaner before installing a fresh set of drivers, each and every time i get the same performance hit. My World of Warcraft game is now an abysmal 25-30fps where once i'd be pissed if it dropped below 90 >_<

Any last-ditch efforts :\?

 

[BFG10K]

I think I know what the issue might be. Newer nVidia drivers have a bug where profile AA is not applied but instead the global AA value is used.

What is your global value compared to your profile value? If your global is higher (e.g. 8xQ instead of profile 4xAA) then you?ll be running your games at 8xQ so it looks like the driver has a performance hit.

To fix it set your global value to match the profile AA setting for the particular game you are playing.

 

[Tropicocity]

Believe me when I say I've tried everything short of a re-installation of windows I set nVidia control panel to as non-intrusive as it can be, making every setting "let the application decide" and turning off anything that the control panel would override (and besides, Crysis's benchmarking tool ignore nvidia control panel and forces it's own AA/AF/Res settings) I really am at a loss here, I can't think of anything that could have caused such a dramatic loss in my FPS.
I do appreciate everyone's responses though, they may not lead to the solution but input from the community here shows it's a nice place and people do take some of their own time to assist strangers in need
If there's any top-secret tool that someone's hiding that can do this or that, now's the time to show me xD!

 

[manimal]

Did you update DX runtimes?