Forceware 158.18

Just a note on ATITool (beta 0.27). Personally, it's a total annoyance to have to boot and hit F8 to defeat the driver signing check in Vista x64 (especially since it's just a DRM thing by MS anyway and adds very little to security). But I digress. With 158.18, ATITool can be used to control your GPU clocks (no surprise), but every time I did so, after getting out of any 3D software, in approximately 10 minutes and while at the Vista Desktop, Vista would BSOD with a really crazy error about the "Memory Management System". GPU temps were fine. I've never seen this variety of BSOD, either in XP, XP x64 or Vista.

I'm going to wait until the nVidia drivers support OCing.

 

Installed, everything went ok until i went to click on the enable sli button then screen went black but computer was still running display never came back so i did a hard restart, when it booted back up sli was enabled and everything seems ok.

Can't see any performance differences between these drivers and the 101.41 i was using before which i had no issues with at all
using vista 32bit

 

im using these... have been for a few days now and so far all is good... fps in css is 80-120 stalker also plays fine and so dose quake 4 and guild wars and flight sim and csi lol

 

Using since they were released... no problems at all!

MC

 

Basically real simple guys

I know we wish for performance drivers but the fact is my brothers in drivers, we aren't going to get it. Myself I can count on the 81.97 XP drivers for Vista and it makes my card run great. Granted I can't have aero but that doesn't bother me, I run a 6800 gt agp from back when.

In all honesty, if you wanted a card that ran great in vista you need something 7800 series and below, otherwise you are on the test out bandwagon. It makes me happy that I haven't upgraded yet but in the same sense it pisses me off that I can't upgrade.

Basically the ball is in your court, do you wanna run a card of those series or do you wanna bitch and complain for the next 6 months. It's bull**** I know but that is the reality.

 

Firstly I run Vista x64 Ultimate & the 158.18 drivers. Stock speeds, no OC'ing.

I don't really see any performance increase with these drivers, when I ran 3DMark06 the first time, after NTune told me that the driver not loaded or something like that, I got a score of 4858. With the 101.41 driver I got 4872, which mean I had a drop in performance, but I thought the error NTune gave me might have had an influence on that score. I ran it again after a restart and got 4882, 10 points more then 101.41. So not really any performance increase.

Mentioning NTune I have to say that this has never worked for me with any driver I used so far. Kept telling me that some driver did not load or was not found. Ntune, with this current driver, also caused me not to see the normal NV Control Panel options. I could only see the NTune ones. I uninstalled NTune and I could access the standard options again.

These drivers also brought back the flickering of my screen at startup & lots of flickering when accessing the NV control panel. I had this problem with older drivers, but got sorted with 10*.* driver range. Irritating the flickering.

Games seem to play fine though, maybe even more stable then before. BF2142 plays fine, but that is most likely due to me using CFF Explorer to use 2 Gig only. Stalker works fine & without any problems, bit laggy maybe. COD 2 works good too, but haven't yet played too much with these new drivers. C&C 3 works with all GFX settings set to the MAX and the GFX looks smooth and beautiful. I did have one BSOD in game, ran CFF Explorer again and did the 2 Gig trick and played for a few hours last without any problems.

So overall I would say the driver performs similar to the 101.41 one, but possible with some more stability.

 

i dont feel like reading all 9 pages but i tried to install ntune and now the control panel doesnt respond after execution every damn time. cant have fan control Oc or anyting really without ntune so **** it i may try the 165.01's even though they have the green HD video bug, ****....

 

I have never had a reason to change from my faithful 97.92, but the 158.16 I have run STALKER soooo much smoother with dynamic lighting, Just played for 3 hours with these drivers. No BSODs graphic card was 55degrees celsius when I exited (rivatuner)


Love em keepin em

IS this 158.18 an improvement on the 158.16 and in what way????

 

Even with 158.18 and Vista 32bit with an EVGA 7900gt CO SC, I continue to get driver failures every few minutes in the Pripyat level of Stalker. But to get to the point...

What kind of complete amateur hour BS is it to have a secret special procedure for installing/uninstalling/re-installing the 158.18 drivers for x86 Vista? The end-user should be able to double-click setup.exe and have that be the end of it. Do you honestly think Nvidia should be able to foist drivers on the buying public when they can't even figure out how to program an install routine? Rubbish!

As customers, does this not completely piss you off? If not ... WAKE UP!

Nvidia is, has always been, and will always be, BRAND X ... for the schmucks out there ready to buy anything!

I used ATI for years wihtout a hitch then decided to get an Nvidia "performance" card cuz that's what the high-profile gamers all clammored for.

I've had an EVGA 7800gt and a 7900gt, and now--- I'll buy the next available ATI card I can afford. Nvidia is a bunch of amateur-night clowns!

 

installed smooth as silk and RT2.0 works with these drivers without having to manually tell it to work. Ran 3dmark05 and got 13320 (up from 13193 with 97.xx drivers) good drivers so far will update more when I game with them a little bit.

here is the link to 3dmark score http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=2952545

also a jump on 3dmark06 from 8582 to 8825 here in the link http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=1770620

 

WHQL version in road.....

 

Is anyone else getting semi-random crashes in "STALKER" with these drivers and Vista 32-bit?

I say "semi-random" because it seems to happen when I "Esc" to the menu, or I try to save... otherwise, the game runs like greased lightning even at 1680x1050 with effects enabled.... but crashes on switches to the menu or saving... randomly.

 

Unfortunately with Vista X86 and Vista X64 its a problem. Stalker is not officially supported on Vista and it shows. I have the same problem - or when loading a new area. My buddy with X1900XTX has the same thing. It's a stalker / vista issue and it's not new. Some have had luck forcing the 2GB+ fix on the .exe others user the -noprefetch on the shortcut. Limited success with each. Game plays fine in XP - for now stick with XP for Stalker. There is not a release for the next patch which will attempt to address this.

 

Instead of pressing F8 on every boot...

How do I permanently disable the enforced driver signing in Vista x64?
Open up an elevated command shell (Start -> Run -> type cmd.exe and press Ctrl+Shift+Enter -
cmd.exe needs to "Run as Administrator") and type in following:
bcdedit.exe -set loadoptions DDISABLE_INTEGRITY_CHECKS

 

Similar to what you have, but ran Bcdedit.exe /set nointegritychecks ON