M17xR1 - NVIDIA v197.84 BETA (Dell) - Discuss HERE

Today Dell posted v197.84 for the M17xR1.

NV Graphics Driver Update for M17x-R1 (June 2010)

The following fixes are included on this driver:
1. Crysis and Crysis Warhead frame rate
2. Left 4 Dead 1 and 2 low performance
3. Includes DCP fixes from previous beta driver
4. Includes fixes in beta 197.31 driver

Known issue:
1. Just Cause 2 might encounter loss of FPS
2. Resident Evil 5 might encounter FPS drops

Direct Link to Driver @ support.dell.com

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As with previous Dell BETA NV releases, this driver includes the change implemented by NV to resolve the DPC issue which plagued previous versions of the NV driver.

Installed and running without issue.

For those of you who are encountering issues with the NV Verde 257 series, you might want to try this one.

 

Thanks for the heads-up. Downloading now.

2 new drivers in a week? I guess they haven't forgot about the R1 owners like I thought they would.
Just need a new BIOS with the CMOD fixed next and Ill be a happy camper.

 

Downloading now. Thank you

 

DPC is perfect now with this. No more music/video stuttering at all.

I wish Nvidia would fix the constant upclock - downclock issue when scrolling through a webpage on dedicated GPU's. It doesn't happen at all when using the integrated (9400m) so its definitely a bug with every driver I've tried so far.

 

Running this driver as well - no issues at all.

 

Running them since last night when I had time to install and no issue so far. Something very odd is that since 3 days ag0, whem I reverted to 196.86 from 257.21 I started to BSOD when running gpu-z or gpu caps viewer. Both bsods are because nvlddmkm.sys‎. I only wanted to run gpu-z to check if sli was enabled. Running everest to check gfx info gives me no errors, so it's pretty weird.

 

no issues here as well.
the bars in dpc latency checker have increased a bit.

by the way: can I trust dpc latency checker?

 

I had the same issue rolling back from .21.... I literally had to spend about 2 hours uninstalling, sweeping, forcing install (dell setup program wouldn't install drivers), then running the dell beta updater to get back to the last set of Dell beta drivers. I'm still noticing some odd stutters/freezes every now and then (got a fun blue screen yesterday; BAD_POOL_CALL.... uninstall, wipe, reinstall again).

I may have to do a system wipe because it seems not everything from the last nVidia set came out right.... or it seriously messed something up in the system. Rolling back to a previous restore didn't help and unfortunately I lost my Home Server backups from the last month so not much to be done there.

Will try wiping and install the new Dell beta tonight... would love to try the new nVidia betas but going to wait and see if other owners have the same random BSOD/freeze issue that we saw in .21.

 

Same here. Didn't want to try the latest beta nvidia drivers since these dell drivers are quite ok...so far at least. Performance in games i play (aoc, nfs world, bfbc2) is same as before - meaning I don't care for extra or minus 5 fps.

 

so how do you guys feel the performance of dell's beta compared to 257.21 ?

I think I'll just swap to dell's because 257.21 are quite unstable when using flashplayer (noticed that every single freeze is flash player related )

 

I tried the newest nVidia betas (258.69); they were awesome until the first freeze, then life was just a series of random skips and freezes.

Ripped those out by the short hairs, put the 197.84 in and I'm pretty happy. Getting great frame rates in WoW (lowest was 47 in Dal; usually sitting around 70+ in Northrend areas... want to test Ramparts as that's where I've classically gotten the worst fps, but I'm too high to queue now). Sam and Max running silky smooth still and Singularity is running pretty well too (just had to turn V-Sync on as there was some visible tearing).

No crashes or weirdness yet with these, will test on Fallout 3 when I get around to patching it up again.

 

These drivers are great, I experienced bluescreens and lockups with both 257.15 and 257.21 so kept reverting back to 196.86 which were great overall, but caused Heroes of Newerth to crash every 5 minutes or so, which is incredibly annoying in matches.. But with these I no longer have that issue either! Nice one Dell!

 

Two BSOD's until now , both while browsing , with 197.84. No freezes/lock-ups or DPC latency. (except for dvd eject button press creating DPC latency spike)

Edit : Most people say that BSOD's/Freezes are related to Flash Player , so updated Adobe Flash Player to 10.1 , and didn't get BSOD's since then... I will keep you updated. (don't know if anybody tried updating Flash until now)

Update : Got a BSOD while changing the settings in PES 2010 , so never mind , these drivers are just as unstable as the nVidia verde ones , it's just that these give no freezes/lockups but BSOD's...

 

They're working perfectly for me. Quite a few hours of gaming over the weekend with no issues.

Solved all the hard-locks that the 257.21 drives caused, especially in flash.

Gather you run Driver Sweeper over your machine after uninstalling the Verde drivers?

 

As most others I've tried both .15 and .21 drivers and I was getting only bsods and system freezes. Been using these latest dell drivers and except some stutter in Lineage2, all is fine so far.

 

Is it just me or these drivers don't have any SLI profiles included?

 

Well it misses some SLI profiles like Just Cause 2 , but most games have SLI profiles. Mass Effect 2 and PES2010 do.

Anyway , it seems like i'm the only one with BSOD's. The BSOD error shows "DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE" , i don't really understand what this means...

 

Well I performed a clean install of these beta drivers and no SLI profiles showed up.

 

This is the first driver I've successfully installed that didn't continually crash Starcraft 2 Beta. The latest NVidia drivers would cause constant freeze ups and force me to do a hard reboot.

After researching (on this website) I learned of the DPC issues plaging M17x users. I found that the latest drivers from NVidia were still spiking badly with DPC. These drivers also appear to resolve that issue.

However, I'm still running into two issues:

1) I don't think my 280M GPU's are actually working in SLI mode. I've run numerous tests with FurMark in both single-GPU and multi-GPU mode. In both modes, the results are nearly identical (i.e. I don't see any performance increase from using multiple GPUs). In addition, FurMark isn't showing a temperature increase on the second GPU - just the first. This leads me to believe that the second GPU isn't actually doing anything.

2) This issue stems from #1. In order to try and see if both GPUs were, in fact, working, I tried to run GPU-Z. Each time I start up GPU-Z, I get a BSOD in nvklddm.sys (probably not the exact module name, but I'm guessing from memory). I did not have this issue with the latest NVidia drivers.

All in all, this driver is better than the alternatives - huge DPC latency and freezeups. However, I feel like I've seriously wasted money on having a dual-GPU setup since it doesn't appear to actually be working.

Anybody else experiencing similar results?

 

Same as me. The multi gpu issue and no increase on the second GPU is because there are no sli profiles stored (i believe) for no program/game.
And yes i get the same bsod's when trying to run gpu caps or gpu-z with dell beta drivers. With nvidia beta drivers I dont get the bsods.

Running for 2 days now on latest nvidia drivers, but they tend to crash and freeze quite often.

 

I still show SLI profiles when I go to NVidia control panel and manage 3D applications. I think FurMark uses the Enemy Territory: Quake Wars SLI profile. I'm only guessing that since I don't have this game installed but it shows in my installed application list. Also, once I ran FurMark in fullscreen mode, any settings I had overridden were automatically reverted. Again, all a guess

Those drivers were completely unusable for me. I would last maybe 1-2 games (tops) in Starcraft 2 beta before a complete system freeze.

 

Than single gpu, and multi gpu crap in nvidia control panel does not work, the only way you can actually see the performance difference between sli and no sli is if you disable sli in nvidia control panel. To do this you have to disable the 9400m in BIOS, then you will be able to disable sli in nvidia control panel.

You can as well see if sli is working or not, with the sli indicator, you can enable it in nvidia control panel 3d settings as well.

 

this driver screws up the dirt and grass textures for me in trackmania when driving at night or sunset. All beta drivers from Dell have done this for me so far.
So... between this and the 25x.xx by nvidia that crashes killing floor.

There is just no good driver outhere lol

 

I'm referring to single-gpu and multi-gpu modes of Furmark benchmarking utility - nothing in Nvidia control panel. There isn't any difference in my FPS or total frames produced regardless of what mode I run Furmark in. Additionally, the temperature readout of the second GPU doesn't alter at all while the first GPU increases markedly. I turned on the SLI indicator and did not see anything.

Is anybody getting any indication that SLI is actually working with this driver?

 

I decided to run four different tests comparing the 197.84 driver to the 258.96 (latest Beta) driver. I took a snapshot of Furmark scores as well as the DPC latency. My conclusion from the tests is:

The 197.84 driver does not cause any DPC latency worth mentioning. However, the 197.84 driver also does not perform particularly well. There is absolutely no performance gain when running in multi-GPU versus single-GPU. Additionally, in single-GPU mode, the 258.96 driver outperforms the 197.84 driver by a significant amount (approximately 38% performance increase). Unfortunately, the 258.96 driver is completely unusable in SLI due to the DPC latency and other crashes I receive.

The tests were as follows:

197.84 + Furmark Single-GPU


197.84 + Furmark Multi-GPU


258.96 + Furmark Single-GPU


258.96 + Furmark Multi-GPU

 

Have been running v197.84 for about a week now. No issues. Can't say I've seen any difference one way or the other for our environment

 

Well, I have confirmed that SLI is indeed working with this driver - just not with Furmark. I ran two applications with the SLI indicator turned on - Starcraft 2 Beta and 3DMark06. Both showed the indicator and performance seems to be in line with SLI mode.

For whatever reason, Furmark simply will not stress both GPU's when running with this driver.

My current list of issues encountered with this driver:
1) Furmark will not utilize both GPUs in SLI configuration.
2) GPU-Z will cause immediate BSOD when running.
3) 3DMark Vantage will BSOD.

Driver isn't perfect, but still is much better than the massive DPC latency and freezeups with the Verde drivers.

 

Only issue I've noticed with these drivers is that every few days (3 times in 2 weeks) my laptop will just instantly shut down - not BSOD, it just turns off - which is kind of weird..

But I'm continuing to use these as the 257.15 & .21 make me BSOD regularly, and the 196.86 make the game I play the most crash every 3-5 minutes, which is immensely irritating.

 

I have had loads of trouble with all drivers and SLI - thankfully Dell have finally agreed to replace for R2.