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Nvidia's Drivers...

S

Soyo13

Gawd
Joined
Mar 18, 2006
Messages
643
For the first time since my TNT2 M64 I've bought another Nvidia's card.. :eek:

TNT2 M64>Radeon 9500>Radeon 9800 AIW PRO> Radeon x1600 PRO> Radeon x850 XT PE> XFX 8800GT 512.

I bought an XFX 8800GT 512mb today but I'm a bit confused with Nvidia's drivers..

With ATI theres only one Driver for the past several generation Radeon video card. But with Nvidia.. When I select Geforce 8 8800GT It gave me Forceware 169.21 released on Dec 19 2007. But seems that the lastest one is 174.74 released on April 1st 2008.

What should I really be using?
 
you can use the beta 74.74 but the WHQL is 9 series only at this time. the last WHQL driver for the 8 series in the one you have.
 
174.74 randomly bluescreens very occasionally for me outside of a game (hasn't happened during one, though), but seems to give better performance than 169.21, so I've been using those drivers for now. Guru3D has even more recent drivers, but I've had bad experiences with both 174.82 and 174.93.
 
Nvidia seems to release new (official, supported and stable) drivers less frequently than ATI. It was one of the things I had to get used to after switching from the X800XT to the Geforce 8800GT.

The "official" drivers from dec. 07 seem to be working fine, though. If the latest beta is potentially unstable, I'll just stick with the old official driver and update when/if they put up a new one on their own website.
 
I've been using 174.74(beta, I suppose) for the past 4+ weeks and have had no problems related to Nv's drivers.
 
JimmiG said:
Nvidia seems to release new (official, supported and stable) drivers less frequently than ATI. It was one of the things I had to get used to after switching from the X800XT to the Geforce 8800GT.

The "official" drivers from dec. 07 seem to be working fine, though. If the latest beta is potentially unstable, I'll just stick with the old official driver and update when/if they put up a new one on their own website.
Click to expand...

QFT. I thought Nvidia was supposed to "be all that". With ATI, we got new stable drivers every month. With Nvidia, I'm working on December drivers.

That's 5 months since WHQL. Sad...
 
The betas are almost weekly. If you're not willing to run them... you're shooting yourself in the foot. Not Nvidia's fault.
 
silent-circuit said:
The betas are almost weekly. If you're not willing to run them... you're shooting yourself in the foot. Not Nvidia's fault.
Click to expand...


I wouldn't say that. Most people just navigate to Nvidia's site and pull down what's offered for their given card. It is kind of crazy that its been 4 months since an "official" update from Nvidia on the 8x series and below cards.

Me personally, I'm running with 174.74 Beta's for three weeks now. Fixed some of the instability issues I had with a game I am beta testing with.
 
silent-circuit said:
The betas are almost weekly. If you're not willing to run them... you're shooting yourself in the foot. Not Nvidia's fault.
Click to expand...

Yeah, my fault for not running beta's from god knows where.... key word: beta

If you want to be their test bunny, be my guest. ATI delivers WHQL (key word = non beta) every single month without fail.

Bottom line: December is the last time Nvidia released WHQL drivers for my card, and I don't care what planet you are on, when the competition can do you 5 games to 1, you kinda suck ass in that area.

So yes, it is Nvidia's fault. Weekly test bunny... wtf kind of mentality is that? I have owned both 3870 and 8800GTS, and I can say without doubt that Nvidia makes better hardware, but ATI has the software down pat.
 
toddw said:
QFT. I thought Nvidia was supposed to "be all that". With ATI, we got new stable drivers every month. With Nvidia, I'm working on December drivers.

That's 5 months since WHQL. Sad...
Click to expand...


Want new drivers? upgrade to 98xx series :D
 
The betas are almost weekly. If you're not willing to run them... you're shooting yourself in the foot. Not Nvidia's fault.
Click to expand...

I prefer ATI's strategy of one stable WHQL driver per month over Nvidia's weekly unstable betas and stable WHQL drivers every six months... :p

Want new drivers? upgrade to 98xx series :D
Click to expand...

Well, if the 9x00 series offered any real architectural improvements over the 8x00 series, I would. Also if the 9 and 8 series were completely different architectures, that would justify releasing new drivers for one but not the other. However, they're almost identical! They didn't even add in DX 10.1. Heck - the difference between the G80 and G92 is almost bigger than any difference between an 8-series and 9-series GPU.

Also ATI's current catalyst works with older cards too, and while most performance benefits probably only apply to their latest cards (their older ones are already optimized), specific game improvements and fixes benefit everyone. With such infrequent driver releases from Nvidia, many new games are released between the driver updates, that may need tweaks or small fixes applied in the drivers. I'm ranting but the bottom line is that Nvidia needs to wake up.
 
toddw said:
QFT. I thought Nvidia was supposed to "be all that". With ATI, we got new stable drivers every month. With Nvidia, I'm working on December drivers.

That's 5 months since WHQL. Sad...
Click to expand...

Main reason I switched back to ATI cards despite being slower. I just couldn't stand how each daily/weekly beta broke more than it fixed.
 
I don't understand how so many people are having graphical issues that it would force you to have to update your drivers every single time a new one is out. Or are you all not really having issues and just see a new beta and think "I have to install it, its new!"? I hardly, if ever, have graphical problems and I play all sorts of games. I usually do the weekly driver "update". Maybe I'm lucky?
 
skizzled said:
I don't understand how so many people are having graphical issues that it would force you to have to update your drivers every single time a new one is out. Or are you all not really having issues and just see a new beta and think "I have to install it, its new!"? I hardly, if ever, have graphical problems and I play all sorts of games. I usually do the weekly driver "update". Maybe I'm lucky?
Click to expand...

I get them solely in hopes of performance improvements. I've yet to have driver-related graphical issues of any kind.
 
TKD said:
174.74 randomly bluescreens very occasionally for me outside of a game (hasn't happened during one, though), but seems to give better performance than 169.21, so I've been using those drivers for now. Guru3D has even more recent drivers, but I've had bad experiences with both 174.82 and 174.93.
Click to expand...

Yes I had the 174.74.
I also had randomly bluescreen and changed to 169.21 and so far no blue screen.
 
I usually update the driver if I know that there is an issue with a game that I am trying to play so I can get every bit of performance off the card. But since there hasn't been any good games that I prefer, I usually wait a while until my next update.
 
I'm running 174.74 and I haven't had a problem but I much prefer the monthly updates for my ATI rig.
 
i do miss ATI drivers because of they system tray controls in vista... however, i really haven't found a need to upgrade my drivers for a while anyhow, so who cares
 
Timberwarp said:
I usually update the driver if I know that there is an issue with a game that I am trying to play so I can get every bit of performance off the card. But since there hasn't been any good games that I prefer, I usually wait a while until my next update.
Click to expand...

Yeah, exactly, keep it simple.

Just because nvidia slips out beta drivers almost daily it doesn't mean you have to download and install them right away.

I tend to just wait between WHQL drivers unless a new game comes out and there's a recommended beta driver to accompany it.
 
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