Nvidia GeForce 320.18 WHQL Download and Discussion

Getting the funky BF3 textures as well.

 

Avoid at all cost...

I thought it was only me after installation of these, since I love to hop on and try new drivers always, and then the apocalypse started, same bugs and texture flickering in Witcher II, and BF3 artifacts.

I dont get it, how the hell are these tested and made to WHQL if they have the same problems since 320.00, 320.14 and now with this.

I go back to 314.21, and not a single issue in any game!

This is just plain stupid...

 

Hi there forum, so these WHQL drivers are the beta drivers but with a digital signature... well in my experience the 320 series drivers are the worst Nvidia drivers in years, I've tested them with a variety of GPUs in different builds and always same problems/issues/bugs...

-these 320 drivers won't overclock correctly, very unstable
-GPU drops performance in the middle of games for no reason (adaptive power / boost issues even when "prefer maximum performance" selected)
-glitches and artifacts in lots of games
-crashing of Sony Vegas GPU-acceleration plug-ins, NewBlue FX specially
-stuttering and micro-stuttering in almost every game that is not very GPU demanding
-longer loading times, drivers initialization and compilation of shaders is changed
-memory management is aggressive, GTX 660, 660 Ti and 650 Ti cards need system RAM to be voltage adjusted in many cases or BSOD/CTD/freezes in games would be usual
-all in all they are trying to squeeze performance by bruteforcing the hardware instead of refining the software, for cards already factory-overclocked these drivers are terrible
-the TDP is incorrectly calculated in many applications / games, leading to GPU drops, specially voltage -> BSOD / CTD / freezings
-increased heat, increased voltage (glitch) for some cards

the thing is PhysX is 40-50% faster with these drivers compared to 314.22, also computing is faster through direct compute, CUDA is also faster (meh), but actual games and applications only show minor improvements while lacking stability, overclocking and exhibiting a lot of bugs

my opinion ? wait for 325 - 330 drivers, the direction 320 has taken is completely wrong.

 

Nuff said, and very well written.

I am really shocked they put such an amount of carelessness into this 320 build.

From about 30 people that posted a comment here 25 reported numerous issues, this is just unacceptable.

 

I was going to mention this, the game probably has a built in frame limiter and that's why the second card usage is null.

Try downsampling to 2160p.

 

with these installed my computer completely locks up when using firefox. Using a gtx 460. Downgraded to previous whql and all works as before.

 

hi, yes I forgot to mention, these drivers mess with so many applications... the Firefox glitch using 320 beta drivers was known, Nvidia claimed several times the issue would be solved for the WHQL drivers, go figure what they did instead, that these drivers got the Quality Lab certification is unbelievable to say the least.

 

Yep, I can confirm that with a 550ti rig which has started acting up all day today after installing the 320 driver. No issues with my 680 though.

 

Is there anyway to find out exactly what Nvidia uses for their test bench,
eg:

-What Windows updates are installed, if any.
-Do they use a clean install for every test and game benching.
-What settings do they use in the Nvidia control Panel.

 

i fn luv you fellow gurus and after reading your posts an 320.14 driver is running just fine for me ill stick with them for a lil while longer an wont be tryin these for the time being

 

This is quite concerning.

So many people reported issues with the beta drivers. I can't imagine that Nvidia SQA haven't replicated the lockup/bsod issues but they released the driver anyway!

Releasing with such a major bug shows a serious lack of compentency is their release process.

What's going on at Nvidia?

 

I'll be damned. I didn't know that. So that's why I found computer locked many times after my wife/daughter browse a little with Firefox. :bang:
And icing on the cake one week ago I was forced to do a complete system restore because OS was borked after so many hard resets.
GJ nVidia, thank you.

Many thanks man. We have similar systems so I guess it's time to go back to 314.22 and that's it.

 

Didn't have all lockups friezes bsods on friend PC gtx460 and q8600 both stock
Player maxpaine GTA I've Alice batman NFS also browse Firefox 21 like 3 hours maybe more and no single error
I will try those on my PC when I get home in 3 hours I will report

 

BF3 is ok here, I never experienced that colorfull bug even with higher gpu/vram OC., but i got those weird fps dops every 6sec again, I was at Metro 64 conquest map, 70 > 64> 70fps... It started after 15-20min or so.

I didnt try other maps though, could be server issue, since I already had this few times with certain older drivers and it went away on other maps. Will test some more later today.

 

These are interesting statements. Could you explain your sources please?

How do you know TDP is not being calculated correctly?

Have you tested and fixed the BSOD/CTD/freezes by raising system RAM voltage?

What do you mean by 'bruteforcing the hardware'?

 

Them BF3 screenies look like driver corruption to me, I and many others used to have them years n years ago when the older drivers werent removed first (im talking about the good old days of Call of Duty 2). I still uninstall, clean and install even now..sod the over the top install, utter tosh if ya ask me, not like any of ya will, most will perhaps berate me for saying such a thing but me being me, I will still sleep at night. As for trying em out, I wont. Ill stay with these 320.14's..or maybe give the 314.22's another whirl again

 

I review GPUs among other stuff, everyday I got to deal with different drivers and different builds at my workplace, I can only say to you 320's are messing with the hardware, specially Kepler GPUs and their boost feature. Bruteforcing means that 320s are tweaking the hardware features for something they were not intended to do instead of refining the software that drives the hardware.

And it's nothing remotely interesting, and by no means new, you can find same experiences from a lot of people around, sorry if I did sound rude or anything with my first post, just wanted to share my professional experience, it was negative, I can do nothing about it, when drivers are back to being acceptable I will post accordingly. Kind regards and good luck !

 

"Changes and Fixed Issues in Version 320.18
The following sections list the important ch
anges and the most common issues resolved
since version 320.14. This list is only a subset of the total number of changes made in this
driver version. The NVIDIA bug nu
mber is provided for reference.
Windows Vista/Windows 7 Fixed Issues

[Fermi-class GPUs]: The maximum GPU clock is limited to 999MHz when
overclocked. [1282233]"

 

"bruteforcing" ; )

 

No, not rude at all, genuinely interesting! Some of what you wrote is new info on the subject and I would like to know more.

I experienced lockups with the 320 drivers so was particularly interesting in how increasing RAM voltage may fix the issue. Of course I can test that myself but wondered if you have done?