266.58 WHQL Out

The default, 3.

Taken from TweakGuides NVIDIA driver article:

"Maximum Pre-Rendered Frames: If available, this option - previously known as 'Max Frames to Render Ahead' - controls the number of frames the CPU prepares in advanced of being rendered by the GPU. The default value is 3 - higher values tend to result in smoother but more laggy gameplay, while lower values can help reduce mouse and keyboard lag. However extremely low values such as 0 may hurt performance, so I recommend this option be kept at its default of 3 globally, and only adjusted downwards in specific game profiles. Remember, in most cases mouse lag is due to low framerates, so adjusting this option is not an automatic cure to lag issues, nor should it be the first thing you try. Finally, it only works in DirectX games, not OpenGL games."

Personally, I've never had any reason to alter this value as I don't believe lowering or raising it has any beneficial impact on games overall.

 

I remeber one case where i actually had benefits from it and so did many users.

Assasin's creed 1, you had to set prerendered frames to 1 to prevent stuttering when horse riding or using mouse look from those high tower vantage points.

 

Finally! someone else that is having this problem, anyone have a clue why this is happening to a select few?

 

Pre-rendered frames less than 3 (or 2) causes a lot of instability for me (since my 88GT) blue screens or in-game lockups.
CSS is one game that I can never remember crashing, BO or COD games on the other hand...
Be careful with this setting

 

Both my GTX460s are OC´d to 800/1600/2000mhz(Gigabyte GTX460 1GB OC Edition, so both have good coolers). CPU is OC´d to 4.0ghz. And RAM is at 1900mhz 9-9-9-27-1.

 

OK thank you, now i know you get higher Score because you have OC your
GPU's, Shaders and Memory.

You have a good score, what are your 3DMark11 score mine are about P6200.

 

I always use pre-rendered 0 where possible. Especially in racing games and shooters it gives you a much better, more direct feel and control.

 

These are great drivers I did notice a bit performance increase in BC2 with Custom Medium-High settings with my gtx 260.

 

i select 4 as default, it makes smoother image. :nerd:

well sometimes i select 2 for example in cod series, TF2, DeadSpace or maybe another game,.. but when im using vsync i select 1-2. 3-4 can make some mouse lags..

 

Looks like I'm dropping back to the Quadro 265.90s. These seem extra sensitive to a high OC when comapred to the Quadro drivers. Anyone else notice this?

 

No, not really. The overclock I used previously still works, no artifacts or anything else. I had some trouble with my card when the vregs got too hot but that's about it.

 

i tested with Ati tool and saw i can use higher gpu freq. (792mhz is now ok, before it was 783mhz anything higher made artifacts), but now i had to lower mem freq. a bit ~10-20mhz (usually 1188mhz, now last few 266 drivers 1173mhz).

 

Best driver for the GTX580 yet, very nice...

 

Oddly I went back & tried the Quadro 265.90's & had slightly better results, though nothing dramatic. My OCs seem to be finicky as of late. Just a couple days ago I had a massive OC & unprecedentedly low voltage w/ the 265.90s. The ambient temps are the same so I'll need to retrace my steps & see if I can remedy it.

 

Don't blame Nvidia drivers for your unstable overclocks folks...

 

No one's blaming drivers, though if you test enough of them you will see it makes a difference.

 

Maybe with the newer drivers your having the same problem as me. I too am currently using 258.96, but when I've tried to install 260.89 or 266.58 my clocks will not go to full power.

 

The drivers are good, but the quality of graphics is different than previous drivers. Black is like a gray, generally everything looks pale, lack of focus especially in games. I have not had anything like this when using the 263.09. nVidia have made some changes in 'gamma' or colors?

 

64bit Windows 7. Any adverse implications on this platform?

 

Still, even with the latest 1020 patch for NFS Hot Pursuit and these drivers, the game crashes after the autolog map, when you choose which car to use the game crashes into a black screen. Sometimes it recovers, and sometimes it gets stuck and only way to get out is to shutdown computer (not the nicest way either).

I have got the game working sometimes if I disable SLI.