The 178.15 Drivers, are the fastest yet released.

T

TalonMan

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Feb 16, 2007
Messages
1,351
http://downloads.guru3d.com/

My system is currently set to:

Processor: Q6600 @ 3.780GHz
OS: Vista Ultimate 64
GPU: (1) 280 @ C=734 SH=1512 M=1242
Driver: 178.15
PhysX: 8.09.04

I just installed 178.15. I am happy to report these are flat out the fastest drivers Nvidia has released. This is my new all time high Vantage score. (I don't even have my CPU set to 3.8GHz+, which I can do...)


I now can hit 15K if I want, for the first time...

Go Nvidia!!
 
Is the free version of Vantage still "run this once and then uninstall it"?
 
What does vantage numbers have to do with real world performance? How about some gaming benches before and after? :)
 
Gonna have to try those out with my gtx260. I thought the 178.13s were new. Sometimes my card idles at 620mhz. Hope this solves that issue.
 
I installed them yesterday with my 260. Seem to work good, i did notice a new problem in Crysis with the backround shadows flashing in and out. But all other games are running nice so far. Got a 13903 on 3dmark06. not to bad i guess.
 
I'm looking forward to giving them a try. I can just barely crack 15,000 with my current setup, so it would be nice to see if I can squeeze a few more 3dMark06 points out of it.
 
Well, with my system set to the exact same speed, and single 280...

Driver 177.83 produced this:


Driver 178.13 produced this:


And driver 178.15 produced this:


I have no doubt that yout score will jump, it really is just a question of how much... ;)

NOTE: These drivers do NOT include PhysX as part of their install. Do not delete PhysX off of your system.
 
Well, I did some benchmarking of my system using 177.92 here.

I'll install 178.15, and see what the difference will be in games.

Then I'll OC the hell out of my system to see what it will do.

Hopefully not a pile of smoke.
 
So they didnt include physX. Ok ill have to dload it from nvidia site i assume? Would that imporve my score some???
 
Ummm 3D Mark scores do NOT prove that these are the fastest drivers NVIDIA has released.
 
Dan_D said:
Ummm 3D Mark scores do NOT prove that these are the fastest drivers NVIDIA has released.
Click to expand...

That is why the link is posted with game reports coming in too.

It's not just Vantage...
It was a Vista Fix for OpenGL. I believe everything will probably see an increase in performance? I am not 100% sure, but haven't seen anybody reporting a loss in FPS of any game yet. Nvidia did a good job with these... :)

Hypnotics said:
So they didnt include physX. Ok ill have to dload it from nvidia site i assume? Would that imporve my score some???
Click to expand...

The reason PhysX is not included as part of the install is because these are BETA drivers. You may already have PhysX installed?

Just for fun, click start, and in the search box enter 'physx' and hit enter...

See if this pops up...

It's the Nvidia PhysX Properties program you are trying to start. ;)

If it does, you already have PhysX. There was an update to the PhysX program that the 178.13 driver installed for you. You can download the latest version of PhysX too as a stand alone install from Nvidia. The latest version is 8.09.04

You can just download the latest version of PhysX from here if you need it:
http://downloads.guru3d.com/NVIDIA-PhysX-System-driver-8.09.04_d2067.html
 
Installed these when I saw them on guru3d. So far, games are running smoothly and without issues. Although, I did have one Warhead crash but I doubt its due to these. I didn't really keep track of what my fps was in TF2, Warhead, etc before installing these so I have no idea how they perform versus 178.13. As long as games run fine, I'm happy.
 
Hypnotics said:
Ok relpace the word "Score" with perfomance in Games. Would the physX driver help in that respect?
Click to expand...

Only in games that use PhysX...

For a current list of games that use PhysX look here:
http://developer.nvidia.com/object/physx_good_company.html

To see the animal speed it can add to a game that it works well in, look here:
This is with more accurate in-game PhysX to boot...
http://www.hothardware.com/Articles/NVIDIA-GPU-PhysX-Pack-Preview/?page=3

Look's like Adobe is getting on board the PhysX train too.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/adobe.html
 
SpeedyVV said:
Well, I did some benchmarking of my system using 177.92 here.

I'll install 178.15, and see what the difference will be in games.

Then I'll OC the hell out of my system to see what it will do.

Hopefully not a pile of smoke.
Click to expand...

I look foward to your report!

Make sure you have the latest version of PhysX installed too... ;)
 
Ill have to see if these make my computer lock up as soon as it hits the desktop like the other drivers did. The 177.83's and 178.13's dont like my setup for some reason...I get a lock up and a nice array of colors about 2 seconds into windows with the last 2 drivers. maybe this one will work for me.
 
No problem, and we also know any future game that get's made using the Unreal Tournament 3 game engine, will be heavy into PhysX for sure!
 
Just a question regarding uninstalling drivers. When installing new driver I usually just goto add/remove and remove only nvidia graphics drivers. However, Should I also be removing the phy drivers too before a fresh driver iinstall? Or is it ok to leave the physcs driver alone and do they get updated if the new drivers your installing have any update?
I haven't seen anyone talk about the proper way to handle the physics portion of nvidia's drivers.
 
Seems to work great so far in cod4. Not sure if I see any kind of performance boost over the 175.13s. GPU-Z seems to still report incorrect clock speeds at times. Precision seems to note correct idle clocks at 300mhz so perhaps gpu-z is to blame. I must say that I really like EVGA's precision program. I wouldn't buy hardware from them but their program rocks. These drivers seem great but not sure what they were suppose to fix.
 
Was going to make a new post however I saw this one so I think i'll be posting it here.

Just installed the 178.15 drivers for vista 64bit (uninstalled and ran driver cleaner/sweeper through safe mode as always) once booting back up I was met with a blue screen. I tried going into safe mode to uninstall, however I get the same blue screen in safe mode as well.

Don't know if files became corrupt or what the deal is.

I tried windows recovery (not system restore, i'd rather just format if it comes to that).

How should I go about fixing this problem, the only thing I could think of is loading cmd prompt via cd and deleting the files which the drivers install, but which ones would I need to delete?

Your help is appreciated.

8800GT/Vista Ultimate 64 if you're wondering.
 
Savoy said:
Just a question regarding uninstalling drivers. When installing new driver I usually just goto add/remove and remove only nvidia graphics drivers. However, Should I also be removing the phy drivers too before a fresh driver iinstall? Or is it ok to leave the physcs driver alone and do they get updated if the new drivers your installing have any update?
I haven't seen anyone talk about the proper way to handle the physics portion of nvidia's drivers.
Click to expand...
Personally, I never uninstall the PhysX drivers unless there is a new version and all has been fine so far. I think the newer drivers included PhysX so if there is an update, it'll tell you.
 
Here's my benchies with an EVGA Core 216 and Forceware 177.92:





And here's with 178.15:




Not a bad improvement. I noticed that my min. framerate went up with Crysis and Crysis warhead. Good stuff. :cool:
 
Savoy said:
Just a question regarding uninstalling drivers. When installing new driver I usually just goto add/remove and remove only nvidia graphics drivers. However, Should I also be removing the phy drivers too before a fresh driver iinstall? Or is it ok to leave the physcs driver alone and do they get updated if the new drivers your installing have any update?
I haven't seen anyone talk about the proper way to handle the physics portion of nvidia's drivers.
Click to expand...

Do not remove PhysX. This is a BETA driver, and PhysX is not included in the download.
 
Cyper said:
Was going to make a new post however I saw this one so I think i'll be posting it here.

Just installed the 178.15 drivers for vista 64bit (uninstalled and ran driver cleaner/sweeper through safe mode as always) once booting back up I was met with a blue screen. I tried going into safe mode to uninstall, however I get the same blue screen in safe mode as well.

Don't know if files became corrupt or what the deal is.

I tried windows recovery (not system restore, i'd rather just format if it comes to that).

How should I go about fixing this problem, the only thing I could think of is loading cmd prompt via cd and deleting the files which the drivers install, but which ones would I need to delete?

Your help is appreciated.

8800GT/Vista Ultimate 64 if you're wondering.
Click to expand...

I would consider a fresh OS install... Not sure. Sorry to hear about your issue.
 
Ogilvy said:
Here's my benchies with an EVGA Core 216 and Forceware 177.92:



And here's with 178.15:

Not a bad improvement. I noticed that my min. framerate went up with Crysis and Crysis warhead. Good stuff. :cool:
Click to expand...

Looks good!! Both Vantage and Crysis are running faster for you.

Is that the highest Vantage score you have ever received, at the current speed your system is set?

Thanks for the post
 
TalonMan said:
If you have had issues installing the last 3 drivers, I would consider a fresh OS install...
Click to expand...

I've not had problems with any drivers before, infact this is a fresh OS install.

The problem seems to be more confusing than I thought.

I reset my BIOS settings to default, booted up fine. Then noticed because I reset bios settings, I had turned IDE emulation back on and AHCI off.

I restarted and enabled AHCI, disabled IDE emulation, blue screen on boot up.

The drivers seemed to have uninstall/did something to my sata drivers.

I don't know what's going on, the only thing i've done different with this vista install is didn't point directly to the sata drivers before the install, and just let it use the drivers that come with vista. It was 3am, didn't do it intentionally, just forgot. However some of my other friends have done it this way and mine seemed to be working fine in sata prior to these drivers.

I've been using it like that for at least a week now with no problems, and now after installing these drivers it has seem to break it, do I have to format again this time pointing to the sata drivers before installing or what?

not quite sure what to do here.
 
Man, I think that needs an entire thread just dedicated to your issue...

Not the norm for sure with people using this driver.
 
TalonMan said:
Looks good!! Both Vantage and Crysis are running faster for you.

Is that the highest Vantage score you have ever received, at the current speed your system set?

Thanks for the post
Click to expand...

Actually...I just bumped up the shaders and got P12,121. I got rid of a P6N-SLI because there was no Wolfdale support and limited Q6600 OC support. I wanted either an E8400 or a Q6600 or Q9450....something like that.


But the Q6600 runs too hot and i'm too cheap to buy a decent cooler for it. The E8400 runs about the same gaming benchies as an E6850 and the other quads are just too pricey for me to justify buying one.


I'm sure if I had a quad, i'd break P13,000 probably more...but how much will it increase my gaming benchmarks? I dunno....:confused:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top