ForceWare 181.20

Wreckage

Banned
Jul 1, 2005
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http://www.techreport.com/discussions.x/16180

The drivers also add support for the GeForce GTX 285?a new top-of-the-line single-GPU card based on the same 55nm GT200 "B" chip as the GTX 295. Aside from that, Nvidia has made some bug fixes pertaining to Age of Empires, Company of Heroes, Grand Theft Auto IV, Prince of Persia 4, Serious Sam 2, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., and World of Warcraft: Wrath of Lich King, alongside other, non-game apps. Oh, and the new drivers apparently tweak power management for GeForce GTX 260 and 280 cards, too.
 

zerocool84

Lifer
Nov 11, 2004
36,041
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New drivers are almost always a good thing. I tried the Beta 181.00 but it crashed a couple of my games so went back to 180.84 and downloading this new one now.
 

darkrisen2003

Senior member
Sep 13, 2004
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do these apply to 8600 gts 256 meg for vista 64 bit? Been needing a new driver for a while now that is not beta.
 

zerocool84

Lifer
Nov 11, 2004
36,041
472
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Originally posted by: darkrisen2003
do these apply to 8600 gts 256 meg for vista 64 bit? Been needing a new driver for a while now that is not beta.

It's for series 6, 7, 8, 9, and 200 cards so basically everything under the sun. Get um. You'll be fine. Your last official drivers were back in Oct. 15
 

Darkstar757

Diamond Member
Feb 1, 2003
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Do you guys always uninstall the old drivers before installing the new ones on vista?
 

zerocool84

Lifer
Nov 11, 2004
36,041
472
126
Originally posted by: Darkstar757
Do you guys always uninstall the old drivers before installing the new ones on vista?

Yes, XP/Vista same way. Go into uninstall programs and uninstall it through there. Download driversweeper and run it in safe mode after you uninstall it. Choose Nvidia display drivers to clean. Restart and go into regular mode then install new drivers. Clean install every time.
 

geokilla

Platinum Member
Oct 14, 2006
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So if these are the official drivers, then what's up with the leaked 185 drivers?
 

chizow

Diamond Member
Jun 26, 2001
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Originally posted by: Darkstar757
Do you guys always uninstall the old drivers before installing the new ones on vista?
Haven't needed to do this in XP or Vista in years for NV parts. Just install over the latest ones with no need to mess with driver cleaner.

Just installed these, will give em a run with GTA IV in a bit.
 

pcslookout

Lifer
Mar 18, 2007
11,926
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Originally posted by: chizow
Originally posted by: Darkstar757
Do you guys always uninstall the old drivers before installing the new ones on vista?
Haven't needed to do this in XP or Vista in years for NV parts. Just install over the latest ones with no need to mess with driver cleaner.

Just installed these, will give em a run with GTA IV in a bit.

Have you ever had any problems when installing different nvidia drivers over another ? If you do it this way is it more risky or is the likelihood of having a problem just as slim as uninstalling your current nvidia drivers, running driversweeper and installing the new drivers?
 

chizow

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Jun 26, 2001
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Originally posted by: pcslookout
Originally posted by: chizow
Originally posted by: Darkstar757
Do you guys always uninstall the old drivers before installing the new ones on vista?
Haven't needed to do this in XP or Vista in years for NV parts. Just install over the latest ones with no need to mess with driver cleaner.

Just installed these, will give em a run with GTA IV in a bit.

Have you ever had any problems when installing different nvidia drivers over another ? If you do it this way is it more risky or is the likelihood of having a problem just as slim as uninstalling your current nvidia drivers, running driversweeper and installing the new drivers?
Haven't had any issues doing it this way for years since G80 GTS. The only strangeness was having to reset settings to "Default" with 180.84, however I think that was an issue with nHancer retaining values rather than the driver/CP itself.

 

MyLeftNut

Senior member
Jul 22, 2007
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What if I had Rivatuner installed. Think they'd be any issues if I left Rivatuner installed while reinstalling with new forceware drivers?
 

zerocool84

Lifer
Nov 11, 2004
36,041
472
126
Originally posted by: MyLeftNut
What if I had Rivatuner installed. Think they'd be any issues if I left Rivatuner installed while reinstalling with new forceware drivers?

I always reinstalled rivatuner. Don't know if it did anything but it takes like less than one min.
 

Schadenfroh

Elite Member
Mar 8, 2003
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I formatted and reinstalled this morning, before these were posted :(

Thanks OP, now running this version. Seems to have helped the FSAA in STALKER: SHOC for me (setting it from the in-game menu now works).
 

chizow

Diamond Member
Jun 26, 2001
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Originally posted by: MyLeftNut
What if I had Rivatuner installed. Think they'd be any issues if I left Rivatuner installed while reinstalling with new forceware drivers?
I didn't have any problems just installing over old drivers when I used Rivatuner, if you're really worried just close RT first, then install. After reboot RT loads up after the new driver and should reflect the updated drivers.

Also for those with multi-GPU, PCGH mentioned something about these drivers reducing microstutter in some of their early testing. They plan a full write-up to investigate further, but it sounds promising.
 

Painman

Diamond Member
Feb 27, 2000
3,805
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86
I just gutted these new drivers from my box; they made Fallout 3 unstable as hell -- constant CTDs upon scene transitions like fast traveling, going inside/outside, VATS animations, hacking terminals... you name it.

Back to 180.84 for me.

@chizow - I recently ran into an issue where 2 different sets of nV drivers kept the nVidia Control Panel desktop context entries under different headings in the Registry, and because I was just overwriting rather than uninstalling I ended up with duplicate NVCP selections in my desktop menu. It was a minor thing, it certainly didn't hose my system, but it annoyed me because I'm OCD that way.

Just sayin'... nV's drivers are usually well behaved, but it's still a good idea to can the old ones properly before installing new ones. :)
 

BFG10K

Lifer
Aug 14, 2000
22,672
2,817
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It's nice to see fixes for older games like Serious Sam 2, even if I don't use that resolution myself. :thumbsup:
 

AzN

Banned
Nov 26, 2001
4,112
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So what was that 185 drivers all about and Nvidia just releasing 181 whql drivers?

Are the 185 drivers alpha from Nvidia or is it 3rd party?
 

ViRGE

Elite Member, Moderator Emeritus
Oct 9, 1999
31,516
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Originally posted by: Azn
So what was that 185 drivers all about and Nvidia just releasing 181 whql drivers?

Are the 185 drivers alpha from Nvidia or is it 3rd party?
Beta-quality drivers from a development branch that hasn't been finished.
 

brencat

Platinum Member
Feb 26, 2007
2,170
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Not sure if anyone else here has had any probs, but I'm running an older G80 8800GTS and have suddenly been getting the dreaded "iw3mp.exe" error when playing COD4 way too frequently with the 180 series drivers. Every other game I own is fine. Historically, the way many of us got around this iw3mp error was to 'plug in a mic'. Yes, believe it or not, that works.

Anyway, after it happened twice last night in the span of 10 mins playing COD4, I uninstalled it and went back to 174.74 beta -- the best driver nvidia ever made, IMO. Version 175.19 WHQL also works fine. I happen to believe that nvidia buggered something with the 180s. Now I know COD4 has issues but it is also the game I spend 70% of my time with.

Anyone with Vista tested these 181s with COD4 yet?
 

chizow

Diamond Member
Jun 26, 2001
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Originally posted by: brencat
Not sure if anyone else here has had any probs, but I'm running an older G80 8800GTS and have suddenly been getting the dreaded "iw3mp.exe" error when playing COD4 way too frequently with the 180 series drivers. Every other game I own is fine. Historically, the way many of us got around this iw3mp error was to 'plug in a mic'. Yes, believe it or not, that works.

Anyway, after it happened twice last night in the span of 10 mins playing COD4, I uninstalled it and went back to 174.74 beta -- the best driver nvidia ever made, IMO. Version 175.19 WHQL also works fine. I happen to believe that nvidia buggered something with the 180s. Now I know COD4 has issues but it is also the game I spend 70% of my time with.

Anyone with Vista tested these 181s with COD4 yet?
Yep COD4/5 has an issue if the devices in the startup config are different than the current windows config. If I have my BT headphone active instead of my X-Fi, the game will give some error and crash. Switching back to the X-Fi fixes the issue. I haven't looked into it but you can try messing with whatever startup or .ini to see if that helps.

As for drivers being unstable, its possible the newer drivers are pushing your chip harder and causing the instability. Have you monitored temps and performance to see if anything has changed? I remember this was pretty common when COD4 first released and made previous overclocks unstable as it pushed the GPU harder than any game released before it. The recent driver enhancements are showing similar from my experiences, as the driver improvements are pushing the GPU harder, resulting in overall hotter GPU temps.

Its certainly a temporary workaround/troubleshooting measure, but I'd try downclocking your GPU/shader clock and/or increasing fan speed to see if heat is the problem. If that does solve the issue, set clocks to factory overclocked speeds, but you'll probably have to manually adjust your fan speed to keep up with the additional heat generated with new drivers.
 

brencat

Platinum Member
Feb 26, 2007
2,170
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@ Chizow -- I use a USB headset w/mic so the 'plug in a mic' trick hasn't applied to me lately, although I did have to do it prior to me getting the headset, hence why I know about it.

As far as the new drivers working the GPU harder...if so, it's not reflected in the temps. I have background monitoring enabled in Rivatuner and temps are inline with typical COD4 sessions. Fan speed is also a non-issue as I have 4 fan profiles set up based on GPU core temp. When I play, it's usually for 2+ hr stretches of time, so in summary there doesn't appear to be anything different about these 180 series drivers other than the only logical conclusion that they are not the most stable with COD4. Every other game I own -- mostly shooters, are totally fine.

I had one fellow I play with regularly who runs SLI'd 8800 GTS 320s running into the exact same problem as me. Went back to 174.74 and now all is well again. And just like me, every other game he plays including Dead Space (which also had issues) works fine on the 180s, except for COD4. Frustrating.