Tried Nvidia once, formatted, everything is good now

[ricleo2]

I must concur that these latest drivers are not the best. I had the hardest time trying to install them. Once they did install, my machine had all kinds of problems. My first real disappointment with Nvidia.

Edit: I had to reinstall the latest 182 drivers with success. So I'm sure my card is fine.

 

[AmdInside]

I'm guessing you had a bad/defective graphics card. I own all three major companies (NVIDIA QuadroFX 5800 for photography, Geforce 8200, ATI Radeon 4550 and Intel G45) and all have problems here and there. The only graphics controller I really hate is the Intel.

 

[pcslookout]

Originally posted by: Keysplayr
I kept getting BSOD's playing CoD W@W yesterday. I immediately suspected the 185.05's. Looking deeper, and considering I just upgraded my memory to DDR21066 yesterday morning, I checked voltages to my new ram. Voltage for my old memory was 1.8 in BIOS. New memory states 2.0 to 2.1. I upped the voltage to 2.0 for memory. BSOD gone. So while I thought it was the Nvidia driver immediately, it wasn't. It was user error. My error. Most common problem for people who constantly screw around with their computers as I do. Live and learn, everyday.

The behavior was so weird though, just before the BSOD's, my game would behave as if I Alt-Tabbed to desktop, but my taskbar was completely missing. I was about to dub the new drivers crap, when I decided to check my own stupidity. And yes, I was stupid.

I will note though that many are finding the new 185's not so great. Which is probably what made me suspect them so quickly.

Not the 185's the 185.85 are the drivers causes so many problems. I dare anyone on here to try them and play Left 4 Dead. Heck anyone here can do this. You don't even need to have Left 4 Dead. Just download the demo.

 

[pcslookout]

Originally posted by: yh125d

Originally posted by: pcslookout

Originally posted by: yh125d
I've never had problems with nvidia at all til the current drivers, which admittedly are pretty crappy. Other than that nothing but stability. Definitely don't judge nvidia too much by this round

Which drivers would those be please?

185.85, I got BSOD whenever I loaded a game, wouldn't playback video properly in any format I tried, so I rolled back to 182.50 and everything's working now.

As I expected. The 185.85 drivers are horrible.

 

[pcslookout]

Originally posted by: Dkcode
TF2 crashed soon as i installed 185.85.

Reverted to 182.50 and all is good.

Thank you.

 

[pcslookout]

Originally posted by: apoppin
there do seem to be issues with 185.85 and Source
- my 8800GTX and GTS 250 refused to run Hl2 .. although my 9800GT did
- go figure

I never had any problems running source with 185.85 but I did have a strange screen problem where ever few minutes I saw some kind of flash on my screen while playing. It was really strange and annoying. Doesn't happen with any other drivers. Plenty of people have reported it too.

 

[pcslookout]

Originally posted by: ricleo2
I must concur that these latest drivers are not the best. I had the hardest time trying to install them. Once they did install, my machine had all kinds of problems. My first real disappointment with Nvidia.

Edit: I had to reinstall the latest 182 drivers with success. So I'm sure my card is fine.

Yeah some people can't even install the 185.85 those that can find there right click on desktop a lot slower, graphic abnormalities, and plenty of other problems.

 

[looper]

I have had nVidia video cards since 1995 with virtually no problems EVER. And I pretty much always get the latest drivers for whatever card I have at that time. My son and I are 'gamers', and COD-MW and -WaW run super-quick!! The drivers we're using now are from January.

I now have the EVGA GTX-280.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: pcslookout

Originally posted by: Keysplayr
I kept getting BSOD's playing CoD W@W yesterday. I immediately suspected the 185.05's. Looking deeper, and considering I just upgraded my memory to DDR21066 yesterday morning, I checked voltages to my new ram. Voltage for my old memory was 1.8 in BIOS. New memory states 2.0 to 2.1. I upped the voltage to 2.0 for memory. BSOD gone. So while I thought it was the Nvidia driver immediately, it wasn't. It was user error. My error. Most common problem for people who constantly screw around with their computers as I do. Live and learn, everyday.

The behavior was so weird though, just before the BSOD's, my game would behave as if I Alt-Tabbed to desktop, but my taskbar was completely missing. I was about to dub the new drivers crap, when I decided to check my own stupidity. And yes, I was stupid.

I will note though that many are finding the new 185's not so great. Which is probably what made me suspect them so quickly.

Not the 185's the 185.85 are the drivers causes so many problems. I dare anyone on here to try them and play Left 4 Dead. Heck anyone here can do this. You don't even need to have Left 4 Dead. Just download the demo.

I don't have L4D, but I'll take your word for it. A lot of folks say that they have probs with these drivers and this game. New 186.16's are out now.

 

[coreyb]

Never had a problem with either companies drivers.

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: coreyb
Never had a problem with either companies drivers.

I had uninstall issues with Nvidia drivers even after uninstall via Control Panel,Programs/Features and going into safe mode and using driver sweeper (after reboot)I still had 3 or 4 Nvidia video dll files trying to load for my 4870 card,funny thing is never had it happen when I uninstall ATI driver and card and stick in a Nvidia card.

Anybody remember the very old days with XP when Nvidia had driver issues with VIA boards and famous BSOD ?..I do.

To be fair I'm not trying to pick on Nvidia just driver issues I remember that stick in my memory over the years,very few to be honest and as I've already stated no worries of using either nowadays.

 

[Obsoleet]

Originally posted by: geneSW

Originally posted by: Dribble
Never had any problems playing L4D or any other game except mass effect with my 8800GT. Had plenty of problems with my gigabyte motherboard however - which never worked quite right and slowly died. Replaced it (with an asus P45) which solved all my problems.

See, this is interesting as i've never had luck with ASUS but my gigabyte board has been wonderful. Guess this just goes to drive my earlier point home even further. lol.

FWIW, maybe not much to some, maybe good information for others... I had the same experience as Dribble with the rig in my signature. Had a Gigabyte X38, seemed to be the source of a lot of problems that took a while for me to pinpoint... replaced it with the Asus P45 and no problems since.

No repeated issues with my 8800GT, but I've had a few, will also be going ATI with my next card and for the foreseeable future.

Outside of just drivers, I prefer ATI's ambition with their cards (DX10.1, HDMI audio, DX11) and on top of having a superior card they have amazing price/performance due to their intelligent small-chip design decisions. NV downplays DX10.1 (as if it hurts anyone to have it on their card) and will be interesting in the DX11 era.
My guess is that I don't need DX11 until Nvidia tells me I do. But instead I'll be buying the 5800 series on launch with or without their permission and their fan club that tow the company line. If you're gonna spend the money, there's no reason to not have a more advanced standard anytime a card is bought.

 

[pcslookout]

Originally posted by: Mem

Originally posted by: coreyb
Never had a problem with either companies drivers.

I had uninstall issues with Nvidia drivers even after uninstall via Control Panel,Programs/Features and going into safe mode and using driver sweeper (after reboot)I still had 3 or 4 Nvidia video dll files trying to load for my 4870 card,funny thing is never had it happen when I uninstall ATI driver and card and stick in a Nvidia card.

Anybody remember the very old days with XP when Nvidia had driver issues with VIA boards and famous BSOD ?..I do.

To be fair I'm not trying to pick on Nvidia just driver issues I remember that stick in my memory over the years,very few to be honest and as I've already stated no worries of using either nowadays.

Oh my god Mem I remember the old days with XP as well when Nvidia had driver issues with VIA boards. That drove me crazy!

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: pcslookout

Originally posted by: Mem

Originally posted by: coreyb
Never had a problem with either companies drivers.

I had uninstall issues with Nvidia drivers even after uninstall via Control Panel,Programs/Features and going into safe mode and using driver sweeper (after reboot)I still had 3 or 4 Nvidia video dll files trying to load for my 4870 card,funny thing is never had it happen when I uninstall ATI driver and card and stick in a Nvidia card.

Anybody remember the very old days with XP when Nvidia had driver issues with VIA boards and famous BSOD ?..I do.

To be fair I'm not trying to pick on Nvidia just driver issues I remember that stick in my memory over the years,very few to be honest and as I've already stated no worries of using either nowadays.

Oh my god Mem I remember the old days with XP as well when Nvidia had driver issues with VIA boards. That drove me crazy!

Hehe I remember all the threads in AT on those,showing my age now .

 

[pcslookout]

Originally posted by: Mem

Originally posted by: pcslookout

Originally posted by: Mem

Originally posted by: coreyb
Never had a problem with either companies drivers.

I had uninstall issues with Nvidia drivers even after uninstall via Control Panel,Programs/Features and going into safe mode and using driver sweeper (after reboot)I still had 3 or 4 Nvidia video dll files trying to load for my 4870 card,funny thing is never had it happen when I uninstall ATI driver and card and stick in a Nvidia card.

Anybody remember the very old days with XP when Nvidia had driver issues with VIA boards and famous BSOD ?..I do.

To be fair I'm not trying to pick on Nvidia just driver issues I remember that stick in my memory over the years,very few to be honest and as I've already stated no worries of using either nowadays.

Oh my god Mem I remember the old days with XP as well when Nvidia had driver issues with VIA boards. That drove me crazy!

Hehe I remember all the threads in AT on those,showing my age now .

No not really. I still hate VIA over that.

 

[Modelworks]

Never had a problem with nvidia drivers since the old TNT days when you had to go to the card maker to get the drivers. Usually that was the problem.

 

[McRhea]

Originally posted by: n7
nV drivers have had issues with L4D since the game came out.
I have tried countless versions; they are all broken in some way for L4D.

Trust me, you'll develop a serious hatred for nV's drivers if you play a lot of L4D.

I've been fighting with L4D crashing, audio looping, freezing, & other issues with my GTX 280 since i got the game.
Over half a year of bullshit.

I finally got fed up & i just installed my new solution today.

There is an option in the L4D graphics menu that fixes a LOT of the issues listed above. It's MultiCore Rendering, set that to Disabled, and the game will run a lot better without the crashing, audio looping, 10 second freezes, etc, etc.

When I upgraded to an E8400 Dual Core from an AMD 3700+ single core back in December, L4D immediately started giving me the exact issues listed above. I disabled Multicore rendering from the L4D options screen and all my issues went away. And that was back in December with an 8800GT (so not a 185 driver issue, since it didn't exist yet).

I'm now running an ATI 4890, and after I installed it in April, I tried to enable the Multicore rending option, but got the exact same crashing, audio looping, and freezes that I had with the 8800GT. Disabling the option made L4D run without a hitch again.

I know it's supposedly "fixed" but enabling it still messes up L4D for me.

If L4D is giving you trouble, disable the Multicore Rendering option and see if that clears up the issues, I bet it will. There is no hit to performance by disabling multicore rendering, my frames stay maxed at 60 FPS (haven't removed the FPS limit in L4D) with the 4890 at 1920x1200 and max settings with max AA and AF.

 

[n7]

McRhea, while that helps, it does not fix the issue for me entirely, nor some others.

It seemed that with multicore rendering disabled most of the audio looping stopped & was replaced with random total lockups.

I tried that, i tried with threaded optimization off, with a zillion different drivers, a bunch of other L4D settings changed (tried every "fix" i've seen on the steam forums & more), & nothing completely eliminated the issues.

The most annoying thing was that it'd be fine a week, then i'd get a couple lockups in one night...

Fortunately, none of this matters anymore, as my HD 4890 is working flawlessly, unlike my GTX 280 with L4D.

 

[Candymancan21]

This is my stance on nvidia and ati. I use whatever is the best performance/price ratio. I have had equal problems with both company's drivers so either or doesnt matter.

Iv owned a equal amount of both company's.

Ati 7200
Ati 9700pro x2
Geforce 3 ti200
Geforce 4 ti4200
Geforce 6800GT
Geforce 8800GTS
Ati 4850
Ati 4890

I own ATI because they are cheaper, im done paying $400+ for top of the line video cards. As long as ATI keeps the prices $250 and under for there top models i will keep buying from them. Nvidia on the other hand is way to expensive, there cards may be fast but $350+ for a video card that 10% faster then a $185 4890 is rediculous. Granted Nvidia's GTX260 and GTX275 are good prices right now, but im talking about the GTX280 and 285 and 295 ect. Those are pretty expensive

 

[WaitingForNehalem]

This whole driver mess is getting annoying. I shouldn't have to fear updating and the update should always be better than the last. I can't believe I'm saying this but with the lack of games I see myself grabbing a PS3 in the future when it drops to $300. I get the Microsoft exclusives like Alan Wake on my pc, the PC exclusives, and I get to enjoy the Sony games.

 

[BFG10K]

When I had the 8800 GTS (640 MB), the drivers were utter shit. When I used the 8800 Ultra, the drivers were a bit better, but still sorely lacking.

OTOH, my GTX260+ and GTX285 driver experiences have been awesome, and gaming now is like it was when I had my 7900 GTX.

Out of the 90+ games I have installed right now, I think I have about three issues and one of those might be a game limitation, while the other has an easy workaround.

 

[Schmide]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
When I had the 8800 GTS (640 MB), the drivers were utter shit.

I remember the xp lag in ut2004, the thing had like the slowest dynamic light creation.

 

[n7]

Originally posted by: Schmide

Originally posted by: BFG10K
When I had the 8800 GTS (640 MB), the drivers were utter shit.

I remember the xp lag in ut2004, the thing had like the slowest dynamic light creation.

The best thing is it took them over a year to fix that :roll:...luckily i was using Vista at that time, or it would have been another n7 has to get rid of another nVidia card with craptacular drivers situation.

 

[Schmide]

Originally posted by: n7

Originally posted by: Schmide

Originally posted by: BFG10K
When I had the 8800 GTS (640 MB), the drivers were utter shit.

I remember the xp lag in ut2004, the thing had like the slowest dynamic light creation.

The best thing is it took them over a year to fix that :roll:...luckily i was using Vista at that time, or it would have been another n7 has to get rid of another nVidia card with craptacular drivers situation.

I switched to vista just for that reason. Ha

 

[pcslookout]

Originally posted by: n7

Originally posted by: Schmide

Originally posted by: BFG10K
When I had the 8800 GTS (640 MB), the drivers were utter shit.

I remember the xp lag in ut2004, the thing had like the slowest dynamic light creation.

The best thing is it took them over a year to fix that :roll:...luckily i was using Vista at that time, or it would have been another n7 has to get rid of another nVidia card with craptacular drivers situation.

Wow first time hearing of this but that still sucks. Thankfully I didn't play ut2004 much.