New nVidia nForce drivers V1.12

[Gstanfor]

There are new nVidia nForce drivers available - V1.12. I've just finished downloading and installing them. For those of you with nForce based machines these are well worth installing. The audio control panel has received a major update.
http://download1.nvidia.com/Windows/nForce/1.12/nforce_udp_win2kxp_1.12.exe

or

ftp://nvidia:nforce@frenchy2001.d2g.com/

This nForce Win2K/WinXP driver package contains the following components:

GPU driver 31.00 (WHQL'd)
Audio driver 2.72 (WHQL'd)
Audio utilities 2.74
Network driver 2.61 (WHQL'd)
GART driver 2.29 (WHQL'd)
SMBus driver 2.17 (WHQL'd)
Memory controller driver 2.26 (WHQL'd)
Installer 2.74

It features the new SoundStorm drives and most interestingly the 31.00 dets as well

The SoundStorm has

- Equalizers (9 bands)
- simulated center and LFE channels on stereo sources.
- premix equalizers.
- help and tutorial to choose right config (a bit light)
- cool graph/viewbars
- effects and environments (on midi AND wave)
- configurable application panel

Greg

 

[Gstanfor]

BTW: Wingznut Pez, if you are reading this, you may recall that several months ago there was a discussion on why Intel was refusing nVidia a license to make the nForce available for the P4.

If memory serves me correctly you said words to the effect of "why should intel worry about nForce when we have our own superior chipset about to come out?" Assuming that you were referring to the 845 chipset with integrated graphics (which is the closest thing to nForce intel has brought out since the discussion occured) I'd like to ask if you still stand by that view given the performance and compatability issues the 845's graphics controller has encountered since introduction?

Greg

 

[foofoo]

thanks...
downloading now.
have you seen and performance differences?

 

[Gstanfor]

The audio is a lot better than before (and easier to setup) - which suprised me, I thought nforce audio was excellent to begin with.

Also several games are noticeably faster with these drivers. The interesting thing is that the driver didn't update my detonators (29.42) to 31.00 (included in the driver), so I assume nVidia is finally starting to optimize the memory crossbar on the nforce.

If this is true a few people may have to eat their words regarding the effect of the crossbar controller on system performance.

Greg

 

[XMan]

The audio does sound better.

It lowered my PCMark scores, though. CPU by about 200 points, memory by about 500, and HD by about 200. Weird. I'll have to try 3D Mark and some games to see if it makes any difference.

 

[BD2003]

Finally! A few questions since I'm at work and I cant test it out. Do you NEED the soundstorm addon board to take advantage of all of that?

Is there better 4 speaker support now? Can I choose to put mirrored stereo on or not? Is the bass still nonexistent messed up in 4.1 and 5.1?

What are the viewbars and application panel?

 

[RanDum72]

This has got to be the COOLEST drivers ever, especially for the sound! Whats amazing is you can actually get rid of direct 5.1 analog outputs and just use the coax digital out to get 5.1 sound ( even for stereo sources!) and everything is Dolby Digital! Before, if you set the driver to output Dolby Digital, it only comes out as two channels (stereo). The new drivers default output for Dolby Digital is four (obviously for the common 4 speakers setups in computers) but you can add seperate center and subwoofer channels! LFE crossover is also settable from 50-500hz.

 

[BD2003]

Very nice! Finally 6 channel is useable. My only wish now is to have it automatically use uncompressed PCM for stereo sources instead of dolby dig.

 

[XMan]

Very awesome driver set, the speaker set up wizard is solid, too.

Not much of a performance increase for me overall, but the stabliity is still there and the sound is even better.

War NForce!

 

[TimeKeeper]

I am very impressed w/ my refurb NV7m and it has been extremely stable.
Any of you encounter stability problem w/ the new driver?
Also...is there another site I can download it? (both link seems to be out at this moment)

 

[RanDum72]

My only wish now is to have it automatically use uncompressed PCM for stereo sources instead of dolby dig.

Its very easy to do that. Under speaker setup, just unclick Dolby Digital encoding.

 

[Smashter]

ack! neither link works for me. THe frenchy ftp needs a username and password (which I dont know)

Ok, Im new to nforce boards. I just put together a new system for a neighbor (with the a7n266-vm) and I purchased the Logitech z540s which is a 5.1 speaker system. The sub and front speakers work great But I have no where to plug the rear speaker jack into. The audio utility that comes on the mobo support cd has an area that says (I am using the line in as rear speaker jack) and something also about Mic in as front speakers but they are grayed out and I cant choose them. I need to know if this driver (when and if I can download it ) will open up those options for me.

also, If i download the 1.05 nforce UDP from nvidia will this allow me to have 5.1 speaker support. I just want to get the rear speakers working. Otherwise I would be content with the current drivers (1.03)

thanks for any help

 

[Gstanfor]

here is another mirror for the file. Apparently nVidia isn't keen on these drivers circulating yet (must be launch drivers for nforce2).

www.free-pete.com/nforce_udp_win2kxp_1.12.exe

http://66.24.244.111/mywebsite/nforce_udp_win2kxp_1.12.exe

http://66.24.244.111/mywebsite/AudioDrv.zip

http://66.24.244.111/mywebsite/AudioUtl.zip

I found Summoner to be a lot faster under these drivers (I think 3rd person rpg/strategy games like Summoner, Ultima Ascension etc will show the benefits first because they have a complex game engine underneath and really stress the PC out unlike FPS like Quake3 which basically just chuck data at the AGP card).

Greg

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: RanDum72
My only wish now is to have it automatically use uncompressed PCM for stereo sources instead of dolby dig. Its very easy to do that. Under speaker setup, just unclick Dolby Digital encoding.

Bah. Too lazy, and I forget half the time.