July 26th - ForceWare 162.22 WHQL Vista 32/64-bit

Nice drivers, gave me a performance boost of approx. 4-5 FPS in Oblivion (measuring using same settings and from same savegame ofc.) Tried a few different saves that i have named "35_FPS" "52_FPS" etc. I have better performance in Vista than i had in XP now 4-5 FPS is an incredible boost in such a demanding game, i even dare to say i have never seen such a FPS boost with any driver before.

Lostfaith: i havent noticed any slowdowns, but for me they stopped when i changed motherboard, at least the ones i had in oblivion (FPS would dip from 50 FPS to 9 FPS sometimes and i had to use alt+tab to restore the FPS, that kind of slowdown stopped)

 

try the injection mod.

 

Crap:
http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=41330


Crappier:
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=41351

Tnx for the tip Vort

 

That first link is interesting. I have been experiencing some very irregular stuttering in Battlefield 2142 despite having a rock solid frame rate of 60. This is something I'd ordinarily only associate with a lack of memory, but with a GTX and 2GB of system RAM I assumed it was just a game bug.

I'll try the alt+tab thing later tonight (since it's basically guaranteed to happen and wears off after a few minutes) to try and confirm whether or not it is related to my problem.

 

As for the second link, perhaps we'll see a beta release early (in the drivers). After all, to officially release it to the masses it has to go through quality assurance and certification, while the beta release could be much earlier.

Hopefully it will be.

Anyone have any idea what this "special button" in Battlefield that's mentioned in the second article is? I can't recall any buttons that might open a web browser or anything like that on the main menu, but I haven't got my home machine here to see.

 

Interesting, kinda funny how (almost) everyone at the nvidia forums (including a nvidia employee) where saying it was my own error or that the 320MB version just werent up the task or some other stupid excuse for the slowdowns i was having.. This is the first time i've seen an official statement of the problem and that it in fact exists.

Strange though that i havent experienced these slowdowns yet (in Oblivion) after i changed my motherboard..

 

And what exactly is the injection mod ? Any information ? Any links ?

 

OMG, you can't force Vsync in DX10 from the control panel anymore with Vista. Unless the game has the option (call of juarez does not) you are out of luck...

Why are the simple things so hard to get right in Vista...

 

Can you please show me how to do that because I can't get it to work, I have a Sony FW900 that is going to waste right now running games at 60hz in vista ffs. I have tried everything from RefreshForce, RefreshLock, PowerStrip, DirectRefresh, you name it nothing works. I have posted in many forums and nobody has been able to come up with a solution. This is the ONLY thing holding me back from wiping my XP partition.

 

Forcing Vsync on in games that do not support triple buffering (most directx games don't) is bad news for the framerate. In XP you can use Directx Tweaker to force triple buffering on but only for single player, Steam and Punkbuster will think it's a hack (I haven't tried it in vista). Rivatuner apparently has a plugin that lets you force triple buffering without getting in trouble with anti-cheat measures but it's still a bad idea for multiplayer imo since triple buffering and vsync add input lag.

 

From what I understand the way Vista and DX10 work you can't control Vsync from a driver level and or 3rd party software. I really think game developers should include Vsync in all coming DX10 games. In fact it should be mandatory:cops:

Either that or Nvidia should come up with a work around As it stands right now I am forced to play Call of Juarez in DX9 even though I can run it in DX10. Playing without vsync gives me a headach, not to mention the games seem to studder, not play smooth and just look like crap.

 

vsync off doesnt look bad at all on a CRT. At 100hz the tearing is barely visible unless you are intentionally looking for it. It definitely looks like **** on a 60hz lcd though, so I bought a FW900. Now if I could only create my resolutions and override refresh rates in Vista I would be set.

 

Yeah, playing without vsync is horrid.

Rivatuner does indeed come with a separate utility called D3DOverride or something like that, which lets you force triple buffering across all Direct3D games. It works very well in combination with vsync, allowing you to enjoy vsync without the large fps drops associated with vsync if you go below your refresh rate.

It does cause input lag by default, but if you go into Rivatuner itself and set the frame pre-render limit to 2 (any less and you risk instability or blue screens) it's fine. And no, doing this doesn't negate the effects of triple buffering.

 

Sorry, bit of a noob here on the board...but are 162.22 official now? I just popped over to nvidia.com and they are offering these up as the normal driver now.

Just curious since it still says "beta" here.

Next question...I've seen a lot of back and forth in this thread, but what is the overall feeling on these? Good? Bad? I'm running 158.24 at the moment.

Thanks all!

 

Better than most drivers except 163.11 is pretty much what I've gathered. Benchmark results tend to tip in 163.11's favour for the most part, they were released at roughly the same time, and 163.11 has very good image quality. It also has a new toggle for disabling HDR in most games, but that's probably not something most people will use.

 

So, can anyone tell me what is the "injection mod" that lambi42 was referring to in post #62 ? Which was in response to me saying that so far I haven't been able to set any Refresh Rates in Vista (both 32-Bit & 64-Bit) for gaming above 60 Hz, it just simply refuses to stay at 100 Hz, at 95 Hz or at 85 Hz during gaming. It SOMETIMES work for the DESKTOP Refresh Rate, but as soon as a game is being launched then BOOM, back to 60 Hz.

Clearly Microsoft didn't built Vista with CRT's in mind, I can already imagine all those engineers working on their huge ass LCD's all over the office during the making of the OS ...

 

LOL, the funny thing is I notice flicker on any refresh rate over 60 not so much in games but anything else. I also don't find running higher refresh rates makes gaming any better as the screen still tears and what not.

So why are you people trying to run such high refresh rates? Is it the flicker or something else? In Call of Juarez you can select higher (I can select up to 100) refresh rates in the option menu and Vista will hold them.

I know, I know we are getting waaaay off topic:approval:

 

I have tried everything I can think of to create refresh rate overrides in vista and I cant do it. It is the only thing holding me back from getting rid of XP.

 

Your refresh rate is tied to your fps, so although the difference isn't overwhelmingly significant you will get a smoother game on 100Hz than 60Hz as long as your machine can actually power it.

Just to elaborate slightly, Hz is Hertz, which is a measurement of seconds. 60Hz is 60 times per second; in the context of a refresh rate, this means your monitor can refresh to a new frame 60 times per second.

With that in mind, it should now be clear that if your monitor can only display as many frames per second that matches how many times it can refresh per second. So if you use 60Hz, your monitor can only physically show you 60 new frames per second regardless of what fps your computer is actually capable of outputting.

60 fps is what most people would consider butter smooth though, so it's a nice target to aim for. And to be honest, I find it kind of comforting knowing that anything above 60 fps is largely worthless -- it stops me worrying about 10 fps when I pump up the AA or something if I'm always running 90+ like in Battlefield.

 

Dude I know the difference between refresh rate and framerate. My monitor can do 1280x800@140hz, 1440x900@120hz, 1680x1050@100hz and 1920x1200@95, why the would I want to use less than that? 60fps might be butter smooth on a LCD but on my CRT I can easy tell when the framerate goes below 100. CS:S with 100hz, cl_updaterate 100, cl_cmdrate 100, fps_max 101, on 100tick server = orgazmz