Mr. Fox's GeForce 345.20 Desktop Driver Mod for Alienware and Clevo Mobile GPUs

I think trying to get it right with a stock vBIOS is probably a waste of time.

 

You don't need to flash overclocked bios to prevent throttling. Use new stock vBIOS from my cards - http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/just-got-my-880m-twins.750830/page-112#post-9963620

It came from the GPU producer so no risk. 80.04.F5.00.07 P2053-0002

880M is known to have big throttling problems on old vBIOS so flash it and you won't have problems or don't flash it and buy other gpu.

 

I have been reading through the guide a bit since last night. It is not quite as clear to me as I would like. Do you know of any other step by step guides or videos to creating the backup and then flashing the vbios on sli cards? Other question I have is if I should update my main system bios to whatever is the most current. I'm not even sure what version I am on at the moment but was wondering if I should update that as well before attempting to flash my cards. Oh, and I am running windows 8.1, that means I need to disable UEFI as well right?

So sorry, I will try to leave you alone after this, just having a hard time wrapping my head around some of this and scared of bricking this thing as I'm not sure I would be able to get it back myself if that happened.

 

Hey, thx. I appreciate this as well. Once I figure out what I'm doing I may try this too. Gonna be a few days I think.

 

It's more straightforward for the Maxwell GPUs but in my experience, you need to have in your BIOS settings Load Legacy ROM option and disable secure boot... Basically see the following image: http://forum.notebookreview.com/attachments/optimized-dsc_0033-jpg.121466/

If you want to check your vBIOS version, download GPU-Z... when it opens, check what version your vBIOS is...

 

I prefer to use DOS nvflash. You can always backup current bios in nvflash before flashing, just read the guide carefully and all will be fine.

 

any one try this vbios yet? any confirmations?

 

@GodlikeRU is using it with good GPU behavior results. He is not overclocking. Being a stock vBIOS, it will have all of the overclocking limitations expected with a stock vBIOS.

 

@Mr. Fox , now that important games like Witcher 3, GTA, Wolfenstein have come out, will you do a new driver mod? My Witcher is crashing often, and I'm afraid it's due to the drivers.

 

I finished Wolfenstein: The New Blood running this very driver and it was absolutely flawless except for the silly nagging message to upgrade drivers every single time I launched the game. You can ignore that... it's absolutely poppycock as far as I am concerned. You can get the new profiles downloaded automatically through GeForce Experience without having to install newer drivers.

If you want a new driver mod, there's a good one from @j95 you can grab over here... [ LINK]

 

I've finished it too, I was more concerned with Witcher, which is, possibly, the most graphicly intensive game of the year. But thanks anyway.

 

Here are the GTA V, Witcher 3 and Wolfenstein: The New Blood profiles that you can import with NVIDIA Inspector if you wish. The new driver doesn't add any value other than game profiles.

 

Awesome, thanks!

 

They do not work right. SLI scaling won't go above 60% as I saw on geforce forums. Seems the only one choice is to install newest driver ATM. It seems that newest driver has problems with 780M while working fine with 980M/880M/670MX

 

I think it is more a situation of being one in a growing list of games that are a botched up mess rather than graphically intensive. And, to make matters worse, the driver intended to be the silver bullet, isn't.

Official NVIDIA 352.86 WHQL Game Ready Display Driver Feedback Thread (Released 5/18/15)

 

I had to re install this driver in order to prevent crashes with Witcher 3. I had the GTA V ready version and I got like 3 crashes and 4 computer freezes.

This one seems to be working fine so far.

 

I installed this modified driver and it seems to be working so far, no throttle on my dual GTX880M. But for some reason SLI won't do a thing in Witcher 3. I get 30 fps with or without second GPU enabled. I use a profile Mr. Fox uploaded earlier. What am I doing wrong?

 

Welcome to the community. Thank you for the feedback on the driver mod.

Don't blame yourself... maybe nothing you are doing wrong. You can try the new driver from NVIDIA. It may or may not help. It may cause problems. Perhaps you will be one of the fortunate people that it works well for.

See the quote in my post above about what "Spoonie" said. You are getting higher FPS that his dual 980 desktop, LOL. Witcher 3 appears to be a coding abortion... not necessarily as graphically demanding as simply a big mess.

 

The thing is whenever I try to use anything newer than 327.23 my cards throttle to hell. Core frequencies are dropping down to 200 MGz periodically. It's just like johnkss mentioned in his 880M test run review "What I found out was the new drivers break the card! If you crash one to many times your card will always down clock. ". Maybe even your driver will have the same issue eventually but so far it has been doing great, except for the witcher 3 that is. So as you can see new driver is just not the option for me.

 

I know. Not an option for me either. That thread is really blowing up at GeForce Community, LOL.

That extreme level of throttling has NEVER happened to me before on 780M with any driver, until 350.12 and 325.86, and now it does just like you 880M does, except core and memory drop to 400MHz instead of 200MHz. And, it does it swiftly and stays there. It doesn't go up and down, just drops like a rock. That really sucks. Going back to this driver everything is amazing. I don't have Witcher 3 yet, but I am observing and believe is it just a big mess. These AAA titles seem to be getting worse with developers selling more sloppy crap year over year.

Have you tried setting AFR1 and AFR2 for the Witcher Profile in NVCP already? That might help (or even fix) the issue of SLI not working if you haven't already tried it.

 

Yes I tried it and with AFR1 FPS drops a little while AFR2 does absolutly nothing. Still the second GPU is loaded and working judjing by the afterburner but no FPS gain at all. Maybe I screwed when imported the profile? Never actually used NVIDIA Inspector before. Did not seem so hard to me, just find witcher3. exe, click import profile then apply changes. Did I do it right?

 

Yes, you did it right. If you got a message that it was successful, then definite did it right. The fact that it appeared in NVCP also shows you did.

@GodlikeRU mentioned trying it this way with his 880M SLI set up and it did not work for him with Witcher 3. So, your only option might be to wait until NVIDIA actually gets their act together and releases a good driver before you can enjoy Witcher 3. The throttling with the "optimized" driver NVIDIA says is specifically for this game title makes it unplayable.

 

Actually I will have to wait for your version of that good driver is seems as unmodified driver is just a waste of time for my cards. Tank you for your hard work on these drivers and for answering my questions, I'll be monitoring thread now and just wait for NVIDIA to do something.

 

No no no. Just install the driver and DO NOT install Mr.Fox Sli profile. It's meant to be installed for older drivers not if you install 352.xx

I have dual 880M with no-throttle vBIOS and it works very good in Witcher 3. Sli Scaling is good too. Playing on Ultra details just disabled hairworks and bugged foliage distance.

You can see it here - http://imgur.com/a/rRJ3u

In forest locations there are 40-45 fps. Engine is very unoptimized atm but game is playable on uber details.

 

I knew I did something wrong. I'll try reinstalling Mr. Fox driver right away, thanks for the reply!

 

Well, I reinstalled it and I'm still stuck with 30 fps max. Witcher3.exe is not even in NVCP now.

 

Hi, i have a medion x7827 laptop with the 780m (no overclock or whatsoever)

specs are:
i7-4700QM processor @ 2.4ghz ,
17,3" Full HD LED,
16 GB DDR3-1600 RAM,
1 TB HDD,
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4 GB GDDR5

BIOS:
Bios version: E1763IM7.50B
Bios build: 06/27/2013 17:57:48
EC version: 1763EM72 Ver5.10
EC build: 10/29/2013

I want to try the mr fox drivers in the first post. I downloaded the desktop drivers and mod zip file. I removed all mobile drivers with the driver unisntaller in safe mode. I unpacked the mod zip file in the display.driver folder and the files. But now i dont know what the next step is. I know how to install the package with driver signature off and that stuff but mr fox said something about if you have a laptop from another manufacturer (medion) then you must do something with the INF file.

Where can i find this INF file and how to do this step by step? Does anybody know if i can overclock 780m safely and to what setting. I dont want to destroy the card.

Thank you

 

Hey, im talking about this driver - http://www.geforce.com/drivers/results/85053

This driver has special SLI profile for witcher 3. See for yourself:



You need to mod inf if you have aftermarket upgrades and install it, and, well that's all. Just play Witcher 3

+18 kids
http://i.imgur.com/YRqtjxH.jpg

EDIT::
Ah also forgot about something. Game has FPS cap 30/60/Unlimited in game options so check in game options!

 

As I said earlier any driver newer than 327.23 sends my cards in a throttle hell. Only Mr. Fox's driver seems to be working so far. And I checked ingame options of course, this is not the case.

 

Do you have newest stock vBIOS?

 

I tried installing modified vBIOS by svl7 but I was getting constant BSODs with it. What vBIOS do you think I should try?

 

Are running 880M? If so, are you trying to use the system running on battery? I ask because that is a known issue with the vBIOS mod for 880M. If not, I have no idea what the deal is.

 

Actually I don't remember if I was using power brick or battery, I think I will try this vBIOS with the newest NVIDIA driver one more time on saturday. But even if it works, does it mean I won't be able to use my laptop on battery without crashes? And why is the power such a big issue, does this vBIOS makes my card draw more power then the battery can afford?

 

You can use integrated graphics on battery. It doesn't draw more power. It manipulates NVIDIA P-states and voltage to stop erratic throttling and improve performance. Without knowing the intimate details of svl7's secrets, the voltage probably drops on battery and the clock speeds stay locked, which causes instability the same as trying to overclock with voltage set too low. It won't force the card to draw more that your system can deliver. The dual GPU Alienware machines have always not been game-able on battery. The GPUs will go to 2D clocks and will not ramp up to full 3D clocks under load. If the vBIOS forces clock to go up and the voltage does not go up at the same time *BOOM* crash is inevitable.

 

Ow I get it. I'll give this vBIOS another chance and post the results here on saturday or sunday. Thanks a lot for your help!

Btw where can I get the newest stock vBIOS?

 

@Mr.Fox.. Further testing of 352.86 driver has yielded something umgh frankly stunning.. Yesterday with a +200 core and +200 memory OC, and GPU @ 1.05V, the driver held these clocks in BF4... Throttles like nothing in benchmarks though...

 

Interesting. This kind of nonsense irks me to no end.

Must be load-triggered or power-draw based throttling. BF4 maybe doesn't load the GPU enough to cause it, but benchmarks do? Hopefully, not a secret benchmark blacklist buried in a dark nook or cranny in the drivers. This is not a good thing no matter how you slice or dice it. Not knowing you have a beast that can handle anything you want to throw at it, and assuming everyone owns a pile of trash, maybe they just love you to pieces and want to protect you from having your 5-ounce featherweight, wafer-thin gaming crapbook from catching on fire.

 

Mr. Fox I wanted to ask you something. When I just installed your driver and tested it with the 3DMark core clocks graphs in the afterburner looked like a strait lines. But now they look like this
http://postimg.org/image/adwuxrbt1/full/
do those spikes mean my driver is degrading and soon it will throttle back to the bottom?

 

Those dips are probably in between each test, when there is no load on them. If the GPUs are throttling during the tests you would likely notice a drop in performance. Is that happening, or are you only concerned by what you see on the graphs? Also, check your settings in NVIDIA Control Panel. Be sure you are manually controlling everything with "Use the advanced 3D image settings" option and change the Power management mode from Adaptive to Prefer maximum performance on the Global settings tab. Using Adaptive power management will cause erratic changes in clock speeds. The GPU wants you to believe it is "smart" by slowing down when load decreases, which is never a good thing. See screen shots in spoiler. You have to redo all of this every time you install the video drivers, or everything reverts to defaults, which really sucks.

Spoiler: NVIDIA Control Panel Setup

 

I do use advanced 3D image settings and once i changed power management mode to max performance those spikes are gone.
http://postimg.org/image/3sm2ege6l/full/
Maybe I'm just overreacting, the problem is since I bought those 880Ms they've been screwing with my mind constantly and the fact that the driver can work perfectly for a week or two and then go down to throttle just adds to the frustration. Btw is there a way to import witcher 3 SLI profile from the newest NVIDIA driver? Or was it the one you posted earlier?

 

This one - http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/just-got-my-880m-twins.750830/page-112#post-9963620

I've added this link to my signature as lot of users asks about this vBIOS

 

Do you think I should try this one instead of Johnksss version?

 

Glad your system is working well again.

Yes, I posted those profiles from the newest driver you can import with NVIDIA Inspector. It did not work well for @GodlikeRU when he tried it with Witcher 3, but you may as well try it since the driver itself basically ruins how your machine runs just as it does mine. Doing this usually does work fine for me, but I don't have Witcher 3 to test it. I may eventually get it when the price drops to about $20, and by then it will probably be patched and totally stable like it should have been on launch day. It is really weird how the last two NVIDIA drivers work fine for some and absolutely horrible for others using the same video cards. It is all over the board for both mobile and desktop.

 

Johnkss version gave me no-boot on startup (I may have last UEFI prepared batch, that's why) This is the vBIOS that came with my GPUs so no risk flashing.,

I have no throttling at all with i7-2920XM so worth trying.

@UP

I can borrow you a GOG account if you want to download @Mr. Fox Fox

 

Well, that I did, I imported this profile into my driver and SLI did not do a thing, same lame 30 fps like running on 1 GPU. Guess I'll try the newest stock vBIOS and Jonhksss version with the newest NVIDIA driver.

 

Then I'll start with your vBIOS version, hope it will help.

 

Hi There

I have a alienware m17x r4 and will be getting the Nvidia GTX 880m, its currently got a HD ATI 7970m in it currently but i'm limited with the graphics when i play GTA V and just received the 880m card

I'm a bit new to the laptop gaming scene as i usually do desktop gaming but wanted a change, i've got the thermal paste and thermal pads for the 880m and have also got the X Bracket for it.

Im not sure how to do the whole mod the driver thing so if someone could some one assist me in how to go through the whole process from the beginning that would be great

 

Why would you even want those 880M? Considering driver modification I only know how to force NVIDIA drivers to install on GPU with the different id, this is the only way to install drivers on my 880Ms don't know what else Mr. Fox does with the drivers.

 

Dual 780Ms are better than those garbage 880s which throttle like heck

 

Hi There

so is there anyway for me to get the 880m to work in my laptop?

I only got the 880m as a present, my dad got it for me but originally i wanted the 780m but he just thought he would get me the next one up, is there no way of getting the 880m to work in my R4?