recommend a Vista driver for non-Gamer

[davexnet]

What would be the driver of choice for this older system,
(dual core AMD 64 x2)
running an 8600GT in Vista? Somebody recommended 197.x to
me as the driver of choice, but this driver has a bug playing videos
using the EVR renderer (MPC-HC for example)

My son does play FIFA 2, online soccer game; except for that, mainly
Flash content, (Youtube, etc) and SD and HD video using MPC-HC.

At the moment have 186.18 installed, but that has an occasional
message from the monitor "out of range", which I've seen documented
somewhere.

I'm working from the assumption that the older drivers are better for a
card of this vintage, but not sure if that's even true.

[EpicLoss]

give 301.24 a shot mate,

this older driver for older system hasnt really applied since XP days

make sure to uninstall the old driver fully before installing new 1

[davexnet]

I installed the 301 beta driver. Except for an approx. 15 second black screen
delay before the desktop appeared (the system was doing something, the HDD
light was solid) the only thing of note so far, is that the picture looks a little softer.

I played back a youtube video I'm quite familiar with; an SD 480p video blown up to fullscreen - somehow it looks cleaner, as if it had was being played
back through some kind of video noise reduction.

Anybody else noticed this "softer" look?

[EpicLoss]

actually i have noticed more of a screen delay during startup but nothing major maybe 2-5 seconds

i have not had any issue with youtube playback or noticed differences in playback quality

games work without issue for me

[Anarion]

If it looks softer I bet you are uising analogue d-sub connector for display. Syncing the picture might help (from display osd, usually the auto button). Noise reduction or sharpening is not on by default in drivers. I personally do not have any delay when booting and the sharpness is the same as always.

[davexnet]

Actually no, I'm using the digital (DVI) connection to my LCD display.
I'm using an almost plain grey wallpaper, so it's easy to see the icons and the
small writing under them. You can clearly see the over-smoothed look
of the icon/text with 301.24.

I looked in system properties/advanced/performance
and it was set to "let Windows decide what's best for my computer"
everything had a check mark.

The screen delay only occurred on the very first boot after updating the
drivers. I get some dropped frames in youtube video, even SD,
but I suspect it's not driver-related (since none of the drivers affect it).
Something else in the system is causing it.

I reverted back to an earlier driver for now and the over-smooth look has gone. (I have installed 275.33 - a driver I have not tried before)

[Rapyer]

i got exactly the same thing on 301.24, fuzzier text. it's esepcially noticable on steampowered website and reddit

i rolled back to 301.10, looks a bit sharper

300.83 has clearest text but a little slower too

im running dvi


p,.s im runnig 150dpi, so i can see the fuzziness better than on default res

[Sajittarius]

are you at the monitors native resolution? (stupid question i know but ive done that before)

also in win7 after installing new drivers sometimes it helps to tune Cleartype (under Control panel->Display, searching cleartype in control panel or start menu works also)