NEW NVIDIA drivers. 169.28 v2

[Harmatia]

Before everyone comes in and flames me that these are old drivers... they're not. NVIDIA released another set of drivers... also called 169.28. These ones are apparantly to improve SLI performance in Crysis, but I am noticing a rather hefty increase in UT3 (staying at the FPS cap in areas where I previously dropped into the high 40s). Very limited testing, however, so I could be wrong. I'm also not sure if these fix the crashing problem that the previous 169.28 drivers did.

http://www.nvidia.com/Download/betad...spx?lang=en-us

Post your results if you try them out.

Update: Seems like they're causing crashing problems on 64 bit versions on Vista, and the old 169.28 (http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_ut3_downloads.html) would probably still be the best for UT3. Thanks Smook.

Pretty clear performance boost in Windows XP 32 bit, though.

[smook]

So, are you saying these are better or worse playing UT3 ??

I'll download them and give you my report.
FRAG ON.
-zBill.

[Harmatia]

So, are you saying these are better or worse playing UT3 ??

I'll download them and give you my report.
FRAG ON.
-zBill.

I've played some more, and I am DEFINITELY getting higher framerates across every map I've played. I'm not sure, however, if the crashing problems that were fixed with the first 169.28 are still there. So far, stable =P They still have the forced AA issue from everything after 169.17, sadly enough.

[leeerock]

these are definately better man they work a charm for ut3 and inprovements in cyrsis to. ut3 plays alot better with these drivers than 169.25 would highly recommend

[Harmatia]

these are definately better man they work a charm for ut3 and inprovements in cyrsis to. ut3 plays alot better with these drivers than 169.25 would highly recommend

Awesome! Haven't even tried Crysis yet.

[smook]

Just noticed, new drivers for ageia.

Be sure to update, needed for UT3.exe

http://www.ageia.com/drivers/drivers.html

This stuff should be linked together.

Still playing around.... comments coming...

[Harmatia]

Just noticed, new drivers for ageia.

Be sure to update, needed for UT3.exe

http://www.ageia.com/drivers/drivers.html

This stuff should be linked together.

Still playing around.... comments coming...

Those are dated November 20th? I think they came bundled with the demo/game itself. lol

[Mr Evil]

I just tested these using a botmatch on WAR-Floodgate and got averages of:

169.21: 47.70
169.28: 46.87

So no real difference on my system. This is with an 8600GTS, 1280*1024, everything on highest except post-processing turned off.

Don't forget that you must do objective measurements to be sure of the difference - subjective impressions are not reliable enough.

[smook]

Those are dated November 20th? I think they came bundled with the demo/game itself. lol

AH, I thought that too... check your version.

Should be, v7.11.13. I was running, AGEIA v7.09.13. Looking closely.

..more to come.

[Harmatia]

I just tested these using a botmatch on WAR-Floodgate and got averages of:

169.21: 47.70
169.28: 46.87

So no real difference on my system. This is with an 8600GTS, 1280*1024, everything on highest except post-processing turned off.

Don't forget that you must do objective measurements to be sure of the difference - subjective impressions are not reliable enough.

Hm, I'm testing after switching from 169.28, which was not recommended over 169.21 unless you were having problems. Perhaps these correct the UT3 crash problems and boost to 169.21 level performance?

And, while this is all a matter of opinion, objective measurements often work in ways that benchmarks can't. These just feel smoother; even my menus are running better. And generally, I always update to the latest drivers unless they reduce performance; for all we know, image quality has been upped. Perhaps I'm just idealistic =P

I usually run with stat fps on, so I know what maps suffer performance drops, and around what FPS I run at... and these definitely improve over the previous 169.28.

[Mr Evil]

Oops, those two figures in my last post are accidentally reversed.

...And, while this is all a matter of opinion, objective measurements often work in ways that benchmarks can't. These just feel smoother; even my menus are running better...

I'm not doubting you, but it's very easy to convince yourself that there is a difference when there is none. It's something you see audiophiles do all the time. I fall foul of this myself too, such as one time I was absolutely certain that my new graphics card gave noticably brighter colours than my old one, until I had the opportunity to test both side-by-side on two identical monitors and it was immediately obvious that they were actually both the same.

[smook]

Ok. The current version that you are downloading from nvidia, today, Jan.22.08 will NOT allow UT3 to work running VISTA-64bit w/8800GT.

But, I did download the same version from nzone.com (nvidia.com site for advanced users) the same driver and it runs correctly.

So, caution out-there if you are running VISTA-64.

I do have a copy of the drivers dated,Tuesday, January 01, 2008, 9:31:37 PM, which are working as v2 of drivers mentioned earlier in this thread. If needed, email me and I'll send them to you. Currently the drivers on nvidia v2 do NOT work for VISTA-64.

So, the result of my comments, I had these drivers earlier (v2) and yes they do work much better than the earlier v1.

FRAG ON.
-Bill.

Why does all this have to be so complicated.

Argh!

[Harmatia]

Oops, those two figures in my last post are accidentally reversed.



I'm not doubting you, but it's very easy to convince yourself that there is a difference when there is none. It's something you see audiophiles do all the time. I fall foul of this myself too, such as one time I was absolutely certain that my new graphics card gave noticably brighter colours than my old one, until I had the opportunity to test both side-by-side on two identical monitors and it was immediately obvious that they were actually both the same.

Oh man, I had a huge problem with audio a while back when 128 kbps started becoming standard. I was on a witch-hunt for low-quality audio at almost all times. Tinny, terrible cymbals haunted every waking moment I had headphones in. =P

With video I tend to do pretty well, and I'm always guarding myself from the placebo effect. =P

[Harmatia]

Ok. The current version that you are downloading from nvidia, today, Jan.22.08 will NOT allow UT3 to work running VISTA-64bit w/8800GT.

But, I did download the same version from nzone.com (nvidia.com site for advanced users) the same driver and it runs correctly.

So, caution out-there if you are running VISTA-64.

I do have a copy of the drivers dated,Tuesday, January 01, 2008, 9:31:37 PM, which are working as v2 of drivers mentioned earlier in this thread. If needed, email me and I'll send them to you. Currently the drivers on nvidia v2 do NOT work for VISTA-64.

So, the result of my comments, I had these drivers earlier (v2) and yes they do work much better than the earlier v1.

FRAG ON.
-Bill.

Why does all this have to be so complicated.

Argh!

You're running Vista 64? How's that working for you? I'm holding out on getting Vista until it's a bit better performance-wise (or I've upgraded enough not to care) and 64 bit is a little more widely supported.

[smook]

VISTA 64 is a dream. It's working fine.

Very impressive. SPEED, SPEED, SPEED.

ALL GOOD. No complaints.

With the nvidia 8800GT this baby rocks with Quad Core.

You must DO QUAD-CORE. Still tweaking, and having fun.

UT3 plays, feels, and looks GREAT.

It's,
Sizzling.
Smoking.
Blazing.
Blistering.

:-)