Latest Forceware: 178.24 WHQL / 179.13 Betas [Updated]

[TC91]

question, do these new drivers reset properly? the latest one i have used is the 175.16 WHQL, and they dont reset properly for me either (get a bsod when they try to reset). The last driver that reset properly for me was the 169.09 beta.

 

[BFG10K]

BTW do you have a link to that review?

http://benchmarkreviews.com/in...k=view&id=194&Itemid=1

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
My experience with 175.19 has been mostly positive for older games that had problems like UT2004 and Call of Duty United offensive. Also game load times for certain older titles is faster.

But apparently nVidia pulled the drivers after a review demonstrated performance tanking in Crysis.

I just found [l=this article] which suggests that the 175.16 drivers are much faster than the 175.19 variety.

I've found the new 177.41s slow on my g80-based card, however the visual quality seems considerably improved. I'm going to give the 175.16s a try to see if the new 177's are indeed borked for g80 owners.

 

[SickBeast]

Hmm...ok scratch that. The 175.16 drivers are no faster than the 177.41s.

My system seems bottlenecked lately, it's very strange.

 

[Blazer7]

Originally posted by: BFG10K

BTW do you have a link to that review?

http://benchmarkreviews.com/in...k=view&id=194&Itemid=1

Thanks BFG, this is indeed good info. Makes you wonder though. It is more than clear that the 175.16 is by far the better driver. What were they thinking when they decided to release the 175.19? Didn?t they check it against the 175.16 first? On top of that they?ve paid good money to M$ to get the WHQL certification only to withdraw the driver in the end. nVidia?s driver dpt sucks.

 

[Extelleron]

Has anyone tried the 177.41 drivers on a GTX 260/280 system? I'm wondering if I should go with them or 177.39 when I'm building my new PC.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: TC91
question, do these new drivers reset properly? the latest one i have used is the 175.16 WHQL, and they dont reset properly for me either (get a bsod when they try to reset). The last driver that reset properly for me was the 169.09 beta.

that explains it... I got used to the drivers resetting, and then I was running 177.39 and forced 8x AA on mass effect (in the driver, the game does not officially support it) WITH hacked physX at the same time and it gave me a BSOD. I attributed it to the combination of hacked physX + forced AA, but I now remember that back in the day the drivers will reset properly.

 

[Blazer7]

While sufring I stumbled on this http://www.pctuner.net/articol...stro-di-potenza/6.html

I don't speak Italian but there's a clear reference on nVidia Forceware 177.44.

There's also a mention about the 177.44 WHQL over @ TechPowerUp.

Any news on this ?

 

[TC91]

so i was bored and tried the 175.19 WHQL on my g80 gts, very good driver, in GRID performance was a notable amount faster

 

[Tempered81]

added some ATI for now...

ATi owners enjoy!

 

[taltamir]

that ati beta is causing crashes on city of heroes... and i tried to reinstall 8.6 and it wouldn't let me... says I already have the latest version installed and that there is nothing to install... shame.

EDIT: Yes, downgrading to 8.6 immidiatly stopped the crashes. With 8.7 beta COH was completely unplayable, usually crashing during the character selection, and if not, crashing within a minute of in game play.

 

[Blazer7]

I don?t know if anyone has noticed that but the 175.19 is back up in nV?s site.

I wonder if they?ve fixed that bug with Crysis.

 

[taltamir]

since now this thread contains both AMD and nVidia drivers... how about changing its name from "latest forceware"?

Anyways... I wanted to follow up on the AMD drivers...
with a 4850:
8.6 = screen flickers during 2d use (desktop), especially when I scroll a website like anandtech, where it can happen over 10 times a minute.
8.7 beta = City of Heroes crashes all the time, usually in under a minute.
8.6 hotfix = no crashes in COH, no screen flickering at all!
only way I could find the hotfix version was to go to amds website and search for "4850 hotfix", because it is not listed in their driver's page.

please add a link to the 8.6 hotfix:
http://support.ati.com/ics/sup...ledge&questionID=35298

You only link the 8.6 and 8.7 beta versions and both are really bad for the 48xx series right now.

 

[Tempered81]

177.66 betas out

hotfix added for 8.6 cats.

 

[SSChevy2001]

Thanks for the update, but these new drivers suck. There's no performace gains at least not that I can tell. Cloaking causes arifacts in crysis, like earlier 177.39. Scaling seems to have problems. Back to 177.41 for me.

 

[rgallant]

Originally posted by: SSChevy2001
Thanks for the update, but these new drivers suck. There's no performace gains at least not that I can tell. Cloaking causes arifacts in crysis, like earlier 177.39. Scaling seems to have problems. Back to 177.41 for me.

Ten foot pole comes to mind.

 

[Tempered81]

agreed, 177.66 does seem to suck for a lot of people judging from comments on various forums. I'll just take everyone's word for it and stay on the WHQL 177.41's.

 

[Blazer7]

Hey guys, What do you think of this?

The INQ : Nvidia's Big Bang II is more of a whimper

INQ fud or real deal?

 

[OCGuy]

Originally posted by: Blazer7
Hey guys, What do you think of this?

The INQ : Nvidia's Big Bang II is more of a whimper

INQ fud or real deal?

An INQ article with a negative tone towards NV? Now i've seen it all! What's next, a LA Times article thats favorable to the Dodgers?

 

[taltamir]

openGL3? awesomeness!

 

[Tempered81]

Found this comparison:
Crysis 1024 High settings:
174.74: Average FPS: 53.02, Min FPS: 24.50 at frame 139, Max FPS: 68.19
175.19: Average FPS: 51.44, Min FPS: 31.88 at frame 1949, Max FPS: 64.72
175.75: Average FPS: 53.62, Min FPS: 30.53 at frame 144, Max FPS: 69.23
175.80: Average FPS: 52.29, Min FPS: 31.04 at frame 144, Max FPS: 66.87
177.35: Average FPS: 52.49, Min FPS: 35.96 at frame 1967, Max FPS: 66.66
177.39: Average FPS: 52.74, Min FPS: 25.40 at frame 141, Max FPS: 66.92
177.66: Average FPS: 53.09, Min FPS: 35.92 at frame 1956, Max FPS: 67.95
177.70: Average FPS: 53.84, Min FPS: 31.17 at frame 1948, Max FPS: 68.49
177.72: Average FPS: 54.69, Min FPS: 24.71 at frame 140, Max FPS: 70.21

 

[chizow]

177.79 Beta from Nvidia

Linked to the EVGA forums where the OP linked directly to NV's download. No inf modding needed for older cards, looks like this driver supports everything down through the 8-series. This driver is also supposed to fix the downclocking/throttling in 2D and older 3D games experienced on some GTX 200 series parts.

Also keep an eye out for official WHQL versions of these that add official PhysX support for 8-series G80 and G92 parts on Aug. 5th.

 

[Tempered81]

Newest:

177.79 Whql candidiates, submitted from 177.79 betas (thx chizow for the link).

Ati catalyst 8.8 leaked betas.

 

[Blazer7]

2 x 8800GTS512 + 177.79 (WinXP) = High DPC latencies

According to this we should be expecting some new drivers from nV on Aug 12 that will enable PhysX support for all GeForce 8 series cards and later.

 

[Blazer7]

nVidia GeForce Power Pack

Includes Forceware ver 177.83 (WHQL). No modified inf needed.

The new driver looks much better that the 177.79 and although I still get the occasional spike DPC latencies are much more closer to normal.