Nvidia Drivers Pack massive improvements 180.48

www.nvidia.com

Go to Nvidia and grab the latest Final release. 180.48. It gives alot of performance increases!

This is a WHQL-certified driver for GeForce 200-series, 9-series, and 8800-series desktop GPUs.

Exciting New Features:

* Enables NVIDIA SLI technology on SLI-certified Intel X58-based motherboards with the following GPUs: GeForce GTX 280, GeForce GTX 260, GeForce 9800 GX2, GeForce 9800 GTX+, and GeForce 9800 GTX. Learn more here.
* Enables NVIDIA SLI Multi-monitor support, giving you the ability to use two monitors with your GeForce graphics cards in SLI mode. Now you can easily switch between multi-monitor desktop mode and full screen 3D gaming mode. Learn more here.
* Enables NVIDIA PhysX acceleration on a dedicated GeForce graphics card. Use one card for graphics and dedicate a different card for PhysX processing for game-changing physical effects. Learn more here. (Note: GPU PhysX is supported on all GeForce 8-series, 9-series and 200-series GPUs with a minimum of 256MB dedicated graphics memory. This driver package automatically installs PhysX System Software version 8.10.13).

Blazing Fast Performance:

* Boosts performance in numerous 3D applications. The following are some examples of improvements measured with Release 180 WHQL drivers vs. Release 178 WHQL drivers (results will vary depending on your GPU, system configuration, and game settings):
o Up to 10% performance increase in 3DMark Vantage (performance preset)
o Up to 13% performance increase in Assassin's Creed
o Up to 13% performance increase in BioShock
o Up to 15% performance increase in Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts
o Up to 10% performance increase in Crysis Warhead
o Up to 25% performance increase in Devil May Cry 4
o Up to 38% performance increase in Far Cry 2
o Up to 18% performance increase in Race Driver: GRID
o Up to 80% performance increase in Lost Planet: Colonies
o Up to 18% performance increase in World of Conflict

And More:

* Supports single GPU and NVIDIA SLI technology on DirectX 9, DirectX 10, and OpenGL, including 3-way and Quad SLI technology.
* Supports CUDA.
* Supports Folding@home distributing computing application. Download the high performance client for NVIDIA GPUs here and join the NVIDIA team: #131015.
* Supports GPU overclocking and temperature monitoring by installing NVIDIA System Tools software.
* Includes numerous 3D application compatibility fixes. Please read the release notes for more information on product support, features, driver fixes and known compatibility issues.
* Users without US English operating systems can select their language and download the International driver here.

GeForce GTX 280
GeForce GTX 260
GeForce 9800 GX2
GeForce 9800 GTX+
GeForce 9800 GTX
GeForce 9800 GT
GeForce 9600 GT
GeForce 9600 GSO
GeForce 9500 GT
GeForce 9500 GS
GeForce 9400 GT
GeForce 9400
GeForce 9300
GeForce 9200
GeForce 8800 Ultra
GeForce 8800 GTX
GeForce 8800 GTS 512
GeForce 8800 GTS
GeForce 8800 GT
GeForce 8800 GS

# Release Notes (v180.48)
# Control Panel User's Guide

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o Up to 80% performance increase in Lost Planet: Colonies

Lol. "Up to" is the key phrase there. :na:

So does it support sli/x2 cards while having a third gpu for Physx?

Reply to dagger

LOL

Yes but from articles I've seen, Nvidia has alot more gains from drivers than ATI does.

Don't flame me, I saw in THG articles a month or so ago.

When Nvidia says it gained a certain percentage, it is more accurate than when ATI does....well AMD does lol cuz ATI doesn't technically exist anymore, all it's engineers are gone, now its just AMD engineers

It is pretty cool that I live like 30 mins away from old ATI HQ

------------------------------ Folding@HOME Team: 163116

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Reply to L1qu1d

lol, it seems those AMD engineers that are making the ATI video cards as of late seem to be wining the GPU battle, thus making the GPU world a better place for consumers. HOORAY AMD Engineers!!!

Reply to jonpaul37

well either way both Nvidia and ATI around under investigation for price match their company sold cards lol.

It should be interesting.

------------------------------ Folding@HOME Team: 163116

Lapped CPU

Reply to L1qu1d

Either way i'm sticking to my 4870... I have yet to see the claims that drivers will enhance the 4000 series performance drastically... I want these claims to be true... but it just seems unlikely but w/e... as soon as I voltmod my 4870 drivers won't matter

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to thogrom

Nope, that investigation ended some time ago with the conclusion that it was complete BS. It was pretty obvious IMO, considering how 8800GTX almost killed ATI last year and how HD 4850 almost killed nVidia this year.

Besides, we engineers don't get to do price fixing even if we wanted to. If anybody does that, it's executive officers.

Reply to aevm

thogrom wrote :

Either way i'm sticking to my 4870... I have yet to see the claims that drivers will enhance the 4000 series performance drastically... I want these claims to be true... but it just seems unlikely but w/e... as soon as I voltmod my 4870 drivers won't matter

That ATI driver better come soon, otherwise it's getting unfair. :whistle:
http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] 73-28.html

Reply to dagger

No I mean for single cards... it was claimed before that drivers should drastically improve single card performance and that hasn't been seen.

Anyway, yes ATI is failing miserably in the driver area :na:

Actually the closer i look at the results... the 4870 X2 isn't doing extroardinarily well against the 9800 gx2 which is a downer... either way I want massive driver improvements every month... thats all a consumer can hope for

Reply to thogrom

I don't mean to knock the numbers, but certainly will be strong "Up To" numbers. Especially those pushing 80%.....

Numbers those high indicate that there was something amiss causing severe occassional slow downs in certain parts of the game.

I wager the lower double digit figures actually might be more general across the board figures.

------------------------------ If its good in theory but not in practice,
its not good theory.
Reply to zenmaster

I don't think these driver improvements are new at all. Considering this thread started today. I downloaded 180 drivers from nVidia quite a while ago that had the exact same claims as for performance improvements in those games. And I don't download BETA drivers either...

Looks like the 180.48 were released today, and hopefully have some more tweaks from the most recent ones before. But they claimed those same performance improvements in the last set of drivers they released.

EDIT: Okay I take part of that back. Just realized FarCry 2 and Crysis: Warhead were added. Nice, I hope my Far Cry 2 actually gets that 38% increase in FPS....

I'm guessing that 80% increase for Lost Planet has more to do with a major bug fix than anything else....

Message edited by jerreece on 11-19-2008 at 10:12:39 PM

------------------------------ Intel Q6600 G0 SLACR @ 3.2Ghz/ Xigmatek HDT-S1283 / XFX 680i LT SLI
2x MSI GTX 260 Core 216 (655Mhz) / 4GB Corsair XMS2 DDR2-6400 (800Mhz)
Antec TPQ-850 / Thermaltake Armor VA8003BWS
Win 7 Home Premium / 2 x WD Caviar Black 1TB / WD 400GB
Reply to jerreece

I know my cards getting old now, but I got a 1.2 FPS boost in FC2(benchmark) with these drivers compared to 180.43(of course its probably compared to the last WHQL drivers) Even then I only got a minor 2-3 FPS boost.(WHQL to 180.43)

Of course if I up the Resolution a bit I might have noticed more....@ 12x10 right now.

Message quoted 1 times
Message edited by cliffro on 11-19-2008 at 10:15:49 PM

------------------------------ Intel Xeon E3110@3.4ghz/GA-P35-DS3L/4gigs DDR2-800(@756)/EVGA GTX 260 Core 216 55nm
/2xSeagate 320 1x160/Corsair 850 TX/21" Dell P1130 & M781s/ Vista Ult. 64 SP1

Reply to cliffro

cliffro wrote :

I know my cards getting old now, but I got a 1.2 FPS boost in FC2(benchmark) with these drivers compared to 180.43(of course its probably compared to the last WHQL drivers) Even then I only got a minor 2-3 FPS boost.(WHQL to 180.43)

Of course if I up the Resolution a bit I might have noticed more....@ 12x10 right now.

I have a hard time calling the 8800GTS G92 an old video card. Considering nVidia just released it as a brand new video card recently, just calling it 9800GTX instead. :??:

Wish nVidia had done better with their 9 series cards than simply renaming their newer 8 series cards. Pretty bogus if you ask me.

Reply to jerreece

Welcome to nvidia

Reply to thogrom

So, any info on running sli/x2 with 3rd gpu for physx? Might put my "old" g92 8800gts back in if it works. It's Winter, my living room could use the extra heating. :whistle:

Reply to dagger

1-1.5fps increase i guess i should be happy?
ut3 physics map fps increased by 2-3fps which is pretty good.
overall a decent driver update.

Message edited by invisik on 11-19-2008 at 11:51:14 PM

------------------------------ intel core 2 quad q6600 @3.2ghz msi p6n diamond (X-FI Extreme sound) 6gig of OCZ+CoRSAIR oc 900mhz Nvidia gtx 260 sli @ 730/1465/1250
Lite-On Blue-ray Western Digital 7200rpm 500gb Antec 500 Earthwatt Window vista 64-bit
Reply to invisik

ati has small increases in speed every month, nvidia has bigger increases in speed every say six months, probably works out the same, but this i do know ati wont sacrifice image quality for speed unlike nvidia, i just cant seem to trust nvidia to play fair

Reply to rangers

What are you talking about? Go check Nvidia driver logs plz, don't post anywhere else and go check em....

My god u can talk out of ur ass alot.

And search around in the THG articles u'll find where they said Nvidia has more gains.

Wow see this is what pisses me off. Both ATI and Nvidia do increases LMAO dude u should edit that ppl are going to laugh at u ahahaha

every 6 months hahaa then wats the point of drivers lol game companies would release games ever 6 months LOL!!!!!!

Wow that almost made me tear up laughing lol!!!!!!

Either way i'm very shocked the 1 gig didn't do better, I personalyl would still take the 4870 1 gig over the 260 GTX sp216 and I would take an old 260 GTX over both.

------------------------------ Folding@HOME Team: 163116

Lapped CPU

Reply to L1qu1d

Read this entire thread http://www.xtremesystems.org/forum [...] p?t=208261
Read this snippet from a prior thread http://www.xtremesystems.org/forum [...] stcount=32

Id recommended HardWareCanucks before, and I guess Im not the only 1 to have found them a nice site.

Guess well have to see how all this turns out, and what ATI does in response with their drivers

------------------------------ I went drifting, thru the capitols of tin, where men cant walk and cant freely talk, and sons turn their fathers in
Reply to jaydeejohn

Im hoping its wrong, but it may be that sli wont be supported on a i7 setup using G80 cards

Message quoted 1 times
Message edited by jaydeejohn on 11-20-2008 at 02:24:04 AM

------------------------------ I went drifting, thru the capitols of tin, where men cant walk and cant freely talk, and sons turn their fathers in
Reply to jaydeejohn

jaydeejohn wrote :

Im hoping its wring, but it may be that sli wont be supported on a i7 setup using G80 cards

Who'd buy i7/x58 then run a pair of g80 on it? G80 cards are out of production, and out of stock almost everywhere by now.

Reply to dagger

If you own 2 8800GT's or even GTx's, guess youll have to throw em out and buy new

------------------------------ I went drifting, thru the capitols of tin, where men cant walk and cant freely talk, and sons turn their fathers in
Reply to jaydeejohn

there you go again, the ramblings of a retarded mind bringing the tone of toms down with name calling, the last time i had an nvidia card was the ti4600, so i cant remember how often nvidia release a driver that's why i said "say"
BTW how long has the 280 been out must be at least 5 months

Reply to rangers

all most forgot S-A-N-D-R-A

Reply to rangers

I had to use the old 169 WHQL's for over 5 months before nVidia fiiinally released new ones, as they were too busy making stickers for their "new" 9 series

------------------------------ I went drifting, thru the capitols of tin, where men cant walk and cant freely talk, and sons turn their fathers in
Reply to jaydeejohn

5 month jaydee, I was out by a month, darn

Reply to rangers

My whole problem with the thing is, they werent really making any new cards, as we eventually found out, there was no new driver releases, its as if nVidia just said, OK, we'll let TSMC make the chips, EVGA, XFX etc make the cards, and were going on vacation, and when we come back, we'll have the new stickers ready for EVGA etc

------------------------------ I went drifting, thru the capitols of tin, where men cant walk and cant freely talk, and sons turn their fathers in
Reply to jaydeejohn

Well, to me this is good news, despite the fact I have a ATI 4850. I used to have NVidia and there drivers were mediocre (as are ATI's currently) however now they are putting serious effort into drivers. Ah, the beauty of real competition. I hope they can keep trading blows like this for a long time (and beat Intel's stupid Larabee).

------------------------------ Phenom II X4 940 BE 3.0GHz - 1.25V > GA-MA790GP-DS4H > XFX ATI 4850 1GB > 4GB OCZ Platinum 1066MHz 5-5-5-15-2T > PCP&C 610W
Athlon II X2 250 3.0GHz > GA-MA770T-UD3P > Sapphire ATI 4650 512MB DDR3 > 4GB OCZ Platinum 1600MHz@1066MHz > XP/Win7 Enter 64
Reply to EXT64

I agree its good news. I posted these within minutes of L1qu1d, when they came out, didnt even have time to see his (he beat me by 2 minutes)

Like I said, Im hoping Im wrong in seeing the G80 series no longer being supported in sli on Intels new setup (i7,58 mobos). ATI needs to actually start putting some oomph in their drivers now also. You can bet thatll happen. Man was I happy when the 174.74's came out, the replacement for the 169's, but still hated having to wait so long.

Like DX10.1, its all about improving gfx, moving forwards.
OT I posted earlier about the coming die shrinks, and what it means in potentiaal performance. At 28nm, the next node past 40nm, a single G280 will have the potential of tri sli or better, on a single card, not THATS progress!

------------------------------ I went drifting, thru the capitols of tin, where men cant walk and cant freely talk, and sons turn their fathers in
Reply to jaydeejohn

Real FPS gains:

So I was wrong earlier. Apparently I was running the 170.24 nVidia drivers. I ran the Far Cry 2 "Small Ranch" benchmark with "Ultra High" settings, Dx10, AAx2, 1280x1024(75Hz).

Loop 1 = 33 FPS AVG (Min = 21.79 FPS / Max = 52.21 FPS)

Loop 2 = 30.22 FPS AVG (Min = 17.37 FPS / Max = 48.35 FPS)

I installed 180.24 and rebooted my system. This time I ran the benchmark exactly the same.

Loop 1 = 38.80 FPS AVG (Min = 30.06 FPS / Max = 54.51 FPS)

Loop 2 = 36.29 FPS AVG (Min = 22.89 FPS / Max = 53.06 FPS)

Overall, there was some gain there.

Message quoted 1 times
Message edited by jerreece on 11-20-2008 at 05:11:27 AM

------------------------------ Intel Q6600 G0 SLACR @ 3.2Ghz/ Xigmatek HDT-S1283 / XFX 680i LT SLI
2x MSI GTX 260 Core 216 (655Mhz) / 4GB Corsair XMS2 DDR2-6400 (800Mhz)
Antec TPQ-850 / Thermaltake Armor VA8003BWS
Win 7 Home Premium / 2 x WD Caviar Black 1TB / WD 400GB
Reply to jerreece

Nvidia releases official ever 1 month, u can check the dates, and betas are released every couple of weeks.

------------------------------ Folding@HOME Team: 163116

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Reply to L1qu1d

Hey, thanks for the heads up. DLing now. Can't wait to do a test of my own.

Reply to Wrecks

@L1qu1d

Thanks for the heads up man, it was released Nov 19 08, its nice to catch these updates when they're first released!

------------------------------ Badges? We don't need no stinkin' badges!
Reply to 4ryan6

jerreece wrote :

Real FPS gains:

So I was wrong earlier. Apparently I was running the 170.24 nVidia drivers. I ran the Far Cry 2 "Small Ranch" benchmark with "Ultra High" settings, Dx10, AAx2, 1280x1024(75Hz).

Loop 1 = 33 FPS AVG (Min = 21.79 FPS / Max = 52.21 FPS)

Loop 2 = 30.22 FPS AVG (Min = 17.37 FPS / Max = 48.35 FPS)

I installed 180.24 and rebooted my system. This time I ran the benchmark exactly the same.

Loop 1 = 38.80 FPS AVG (Min = 30.06 FPS / Max = 54.51 FPS)

Loop 2 = 36.29 FPS AVG (Min = 22.89 FPS / Max = 53.06 FPS)

Overall, there was some gain there.

Notice the jump in minimum frame rates though, thats almost as important as raising the total FPS.

Reply to gamerk316

Go back to Nov last year, and see how many WHQLd drivers theyve released. Its not monthly, especially when they waited 5 months just for 1 new driver. Ive got 3 roll back drivers from that time, and may have missed 1 or even 2, but that is only 6 in 1 year plus the benefit of the doubt.

Point is, ATI has been consistant in thier driver releases, while nVidia has at times been very sporatic. Good to see new drivers tho, always is

------------------------------ I went drifting, thru the capitols of tin, where men cant walk and cant freely talk, and sons turn their fathers in
Reply to jaydeejohn

Thing is, after 5 sites releases benches on 5 same games, that comes out all on the same day, using all the same drivers for BOTH cards, and NOT using the ATIs latest driver...was it very long ago we all agreed Toms did the pooch when they used all those old drivers? And didnt it skew the results? Its been said the reviewers got lazy, and did as nVidia requested, by using the settings, the games that they requested, and didnt try any other games, any other settings, any other drivers. Its almost like 1 guy did it all from them, and to me, Ill take variety for better findings

------------------------------ I went drifting, thru the capitols of tin, where men cant walk and cant freely talk, and sons turn their fathers in
Reply to jaydeejohn

This looks like it's been updated monthly to me...

I knew this would start a war of ATI vs Nvidia, but as it stands Nvidia has greater gains, meaning when they say its 30% increase, its 30%.

Thats all i'm saying. And if TGGA sees this thread he can close it. I got my point across which was the updated driver by Nvidia. I can finally play warhead with out hiccups.

Message edited by L1qu1d on 11-20-2008 at 03:31:48 PM

Reply to L1qu1d

Dont get me wrong, lately theyve come thru. I was trashed for doind a thread on waiting for nVidia drivers back in I think April, because we hadnt seen a driver update since Nov, and I kept seeing the monthlies coming in from ATI, and we all love new drivers. Like I said, in the past 12 months, real certified drivers, not betas which may be only for newly introed cards, theres only been like 6

------------------------------ I went drifting, thru the capitols of tin, where men cant walk and cant freely talk, and sons turn their fathers in
Reply to jaydeejohn

Hate to restart this thread... but half those driver releases are betas... which generally do the most... and then the whql drivers are just "certified" versions of the driver... i've seen nvidia release a beta... and then 2 weeks later release a whql driver which was a substantial step back from the beta...

PLUS looking at those releases... its clearly not every month ........... like what about Jan - May ?

and the thing with those 177 drivers... they are almost all the same... just some include physx support while others don't... nvidia sucks at making drivers tbh.... I'm not saying ATI is better... but at least they are consistent about getting crappy drivers out

Message edited by thogrom on 11-20-2008 at 04:16:31 PM

Reply to thogrom

Someone put it best in another thread, on another forum. It used to be, nVidia had very stable drivers, they come first after all, with TWIMTBP program, and theyre already salted and steady when a game releases.

ATI on the other hand, is constantly playing catchup, where often the glitches may be there, but performance increases will be quite noticeable. But lately thats all changed. ATI has been focusing on stability, while nVidia is now going for the gusto. Given time, ATI will as well, meaning that, in 3 months, things will most likely be where they were before all this.

I blame the reviewers on this, not nVidia, as they dont really espouse on the driver usage, or maybe its just mentioned, or in some cases, has been updated for corrections just BECAUSE of this. HardwareCanucks decided NOT to run these benches, as in their opinionitd only be controversial (which it is) and truly not show whats possibly available next week from ATI, if they so happen to release a new driver that does the same.

So, while the 3xxx series and the 2xxx series benefited possibly more than normal for driver increases, as per the way they did their shaders, and it mattered more PER GAME than it normally does on a more, and better balanced card, that was then , this is now. Yes, we will see improvements such as these coming from ATI as well, and is why HWCanucks decided not to publish their already run benches, because itll just have to be done all over again once ATI responds.

Theres no such thing as magic drivers, and both companies are trying to find the most stable and highest performing optimisations in every new driver release. This latest round here is only controversial, causes people to draw all the wrong conclusions, and one isnt better than the other because of a few site benchers and editors that couldnt help themselves for wanting the traffic these benches would bring, which were all using the same 2 cards, all using the same in game settings, all using the same games etc etc etc. To me, those sites have just declined in their overall integrity to me

------------------------------ I went drifting, thru the capitols of tin, where men cant walk and cant freely talk, and sons turn their fathers in
Reply to jaydeejohn

ati to fight back through Catalyst

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php? [...] 0&Itemid=1

Reply to rangers

Alright I(thru great pains*) went back to 178.13 from my 180.48's to get a more accurate benchmark using the official flythroughs as the one I was using has a glitch where the FPS is artificially high for the first 10-15 seconds of the recording due to it not showing me driving.

So here are my results with 178.13
Settings: Demo(Ranch Medium), 1280x1024 (85Hz), D3D10,
Fixed Time Step(No), Disable Artificial Intelligence(No), Full Screen, Anti-Aliasing(None), VSync(No), Overall Quality(Ultra High),
Vegetation(Very High), Shading(Ultra High), Terrain(Ultra High), Geometry(Ultra High), Post FX(High), Texture(Ultra High),
Shadow(Ultra High), Ambient(High), Hdr(Yes), Bloom(Yes), Fire(Very High), Physics(Very High), RealTrees(Very High)

# Average Framerate: 49.84
# Max. Framerate: 83.06 (Frame:967, 16.58s)
# Min. Framerate: 30.28 (Frame:6313, 123.83s)

Results from 180.48(same settings)

# Average Framerate: 51.62
# Max. Framerate: 81.54 (Frame:967, 16.60s)
# Min. Framerate: 33.16 (Frame:6488, 123.32s)

Message quoted 1 times
Message edited by cliffro on 11-20-2008 at 05:59:06 PM

Reply to cliffro

Now, as to a more respectible site http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3462&p=4
"Driver Performance Improvements
NVIDIA promised between some pretty significant performance gains with this driver, but the caveat is that the performance gains are only with certain hardware on certain games with certain settings. Obviously we didn't have the time or energy to test every permutation of everything. In fact, we just did a brief run down of a few games using the GTX 260 so that we could get a taste of what to expect in the general case.

The picture we see is a little bit dimmer than the best case scenario painted on the driver download page noting performance increases. Here's how performance looked at 1920x1200 under a handful of games we have been (or will be) testing with for a while.

Rel 178 Driver Rel 180 Driver Percent Increase
Crysis 29.7 29.6 -0.34
Far Cry 2 38.2 37.1 -2.88
Race Driver GRID 55.8 56.8 1.79
Oblivion 43.8 40.5 -7.53
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars 85.1 84.5 -0.71

For the most part, performance we are seeing stayed stable. Oblivion saw a decrease in performance which is certainly worth noting. We could spend our time looking for where the performance gains come from, but looking at our highest quality tests at a decent resolution with a card targeted at gamers across 5 games and seeing nothing really doesn't impress us.

Of course, the performance gains are there somewhere. They just might be with corner cases rather than average cases. These are still important, and driver performance consistency has likely improved because of this release. But it would be best not to expect a performance gain but to appreciate it if its there."

Reread that last line. Thats responsible, and realistic.

------------------------------ I went drifting, thru the capitols of tin, where men cant walk and cant freely talk, and sons turn their fathers in
Reply to jaydeejohn

cliffro wrote :

Alright I(thru great pains*) went back to 178.13 from my 180.48's to get a more accurate benchmark using the official flythroughs as the one I was using has a glitch where the FPS is artificially high for the first 10-15 seconds of the recording due to it not showing me driving.

So here are my results with 178.13
Settings: Demo(Ranch Medium), 1280x1024 (85Hz), D3D10,
Fixed Time Step(No), Disable Artificial Intelligence(No), Full Screen, Anti-Aliasing(None), VSync(No), Overall Quality(Ultra High),
Vegetation(Very High), Shading(Ultra High), Terrain(Ultra High), Geometry(Ultra High), Post FX(High), Texture(Ultra High),
Shadow(Ultra High), Ambient(High), Hdr(Yes), Bloom(Yes), Fire(Very High), Physics(Very High), RealTrees(Very High)

# Average Framerate: 49.84
# Max. Framerate: 83.06 (Frame:967, 16.58s)
# Min. Framerate: 30.28 (Frame:6313, 123.83s)

Results from 180.48(same settings)

# Average Framerate: 51.62
# Max. Framerate: 81.54 (Frame:967, 16.60s)
# Min. Framerate: 33.16 (Frame:6488, 123.32s)

*Long story short:
I picked up another monitor to replace my undependable 2nd monitor. And decided to swap them out when going back to 178.13 for the benchmark.

I had issues due to switching the connection of my primary monitor to make it Display #1. Windows/Nvidia CP decided to make the new monitor my primary display and use the settings I had for my 21" CRT monitor which didnt fly with the 17". I ended up having to swap the connection back to proceed.

Back to the results, my original guesstimate stands. I saw a 2-3 FPS difference between 178.13 and 180.48
While I am horrible at math I do know that 2-3 FPS is not 38% or even close to it.

They also give me glitches in game, I was at a safe house and was looking at the water, the reflection of the sunlight on the water was flickering off and on and it was very obvious too.

So while I do welcome any increase I get, even one as small as I did receive, I'd rather not have the glitches and lose 2-3 FPS. But alas I am lazy and will not be reverting back to the betas.

Oh and to the guy that quoted me about saying the 8800GTS 512 is old.
I said its "getting" old, I still see no need to replace mine but it really is "getting older"(mine is 7 months old).
sure the 9800GTX is almost exactly the same with faster memory, I see that when I benched my friends 9800GTX. but the 8800GT/S will be a year old the 10th of Dec.

Which is funny really, because there is only a small gap from release to me buying it and it dropped dramatically compared to release prices (Paid 230). Ok so maybe my statement about old was slightly exaggerated.

Message edited by cliffro on 11-20-2008 at 06:31:42 PM

Reply to cliffro

Quote :

o Up to 38% performance increase in Far Cry 2
o Up to 18% performance increase in Race Driver: GRID

Quote :

Rel 178 Driver Rel 180 Driver Percent Increase
Far Cry 2 38.2 37.1 -2.88
Race Driver GRID 55.8 56.8 1.79

with what?

Reply to Kari

L1qu1d wrote :

This looks like it's been updated monthly to me...

For 3 releases after a 3 month long gap with no July and August launches after a new product with 2 WHQL releases 9 days apart. Not a model of consistency.

Both have their good and bad, and there's benefits to each. Right now nVidia had their bump, next thing to see is what happens with any reply.

But this is not actually unforseen, I mentioned it when THG did the review you mentioned, nVidia got a boost for the G80 series with later drivers, the THG article was a little early to say the least.

For now people can just be happy with a nice free performance boost.

Message edited by TheGreatGrapeApe on 11-21-2008 at 06:47:22 AM

------------------------------ You need a license to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp (or internet account) - RED GREEN. GA to SK
HD Freedom: 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Reply to TheGreatGrapeApe

Closed as requested.

This topic has been closed by TheGreatGrapeApe

Message edited by TheGreatGrapeApe on 11-21-2008 at 06:47:14 AM

------------------------------ You need a license to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp (or internet account) - RED GREEN. GA to SK
HD Freedom: 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
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Forum Graphic & Displays : Graphics Cards - Nvidia Drivers Pack massive improvements 180.48

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Nvidia Drivers Pack massive improvements 180.48

Forum Graphic & Displays : Graphics Cards - Nvidia Drivers Pack massive improvements 180.48

Please mind