nVIDIA vs Alienware Driver

Just out of curiousity I just did a test with the latest Alienware GPU Driver 332.70 (which is a year old unfortunately) vs the latest 344.75 driver from nVIDIA.

I know OEMs cannot keep up with the pace that nVIDIA updates their drivers but having no updates since one year for a gaming laptop is pretty sad. As much as I hate ASUS, they at least have a dedicated drivers page for mobile GPUs drivers update which have the ASUS enhancements (if any)

I really hope DELL can give more attention to GPU drivers this is a gaming laptop and it is crucial to update the GPU drivers otherwise some games will give errors or not run altogether.


just FYI, here are the results, the new drivers seem much better:

Alienware Graphics Driver 332.70:

Link: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4900MQ,Alienware 01W2J2




nVIDIA GeForce Driver 344.75 (installed without using any driver mods whatsoever):



Link: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4900MQ,Alienware 01W2J2

 

Dell rarely update video drivers, unfortunately - or many others, for that matter. Once they have 'validated' a set of drivers for use with a particular GPU etc, they just forget about it as they have proven that the machine they sold actually works as it should when it left the factory...it's a bit like changing the oil in your car - might not be recommended by the manufacturer, but people still do it.....it's the old case of "well, these are the drivers WE tested and the drivers WE recommend" - chances are, if you EVER have to call tech support, they will have you revert to DELL drivers because they are the only ones they actually tested and validated that work. I wouldn't burn too many calories on it - try reference drivers from Nvidia if you like, if they are worse than anything installed previously, bin 'em off and go back........

 

Simply install the OEM drivers if doing a re-install and put the latest from nvidia on top.

 

+1.

If you do a clean install, take everything from Dell's resource page. After you're done, backup your system using AlienRespawn and proceed to update to the latest and greatest from NVIDIA. The video drivers on Dell's page have been tested "in-house" and are verified by Dell Technical Support. They are behind because of this process.

 

So there aren't any Dell optimization a in their drivers as I was thinking since the performance is a bit lower with the Dell drivers

 

Performance is lower because they are older. It's as simple as that. As I mentioned above, there's a process the Technical Support team goes through to "verify" a driver.

 

i always go straight for the nvidia drivers.

 

You can ask Dell about what you should do when Dell's old graphics drivers do not work as well with new games. Then Dell technicians say that their drivers are the best because they are validated for this laptop .. HaHa

 

When battlefield 4 first came out my laptop wouldn't even run it proper at all until I updated to latest nvidia driver at that time . I don't understand how dell can say it's the best driver for the the system when it simply won't work for some games.
I have been using latest nvidia drivers ever since and haven't had any problems at all yet. Knock on wood.

 

What a coincidence, I just bought Battlefield 4 since it's on sale

 

I do believe my laptop shipped with driver 327 something can't remember exactly. I tried to play bf4 and it was running at like 5 frames per second and was a mess. I came to these forums for help because I could not play the game what so ever. I think mr fox or jdre said to update to latest nvidia driver and it worked perfectly no problem. I'm not sure how the latest driver from dell is working now since I abandoned their driver support almost a year ago and never looked back.

 

What baffles me is, a so called gaming laptop, the latest VGA driver support should be on the top priority list, not just something that works then leave us in the dust.

 

They left us in the dust with the latest 900m series gpus also. Seems were starting to get less than stellar support from dell in more than one area now a days. Don't know what they are thinking lately.

 

Nvidia driver 331.65 was good when it was launched, but it's a year since this driver was released from Nvidia. Since that time, Dell technicians preached to use exactly this driver, no matter if people have problems with graphics on their Alienware laptops..

 

it's like "i'm getting glitches in far cry 4!!!" and they say "use the 331.65 driver!"

 

Dell does not care about and verify newer drivers as it surely cost them extra money. It is not just customer service and do it this way. Dell expect that their customer group fixes this themselves. Remember you buy an Alienware, then calculates Dell that you can fix most problems yourself ..

 

provided we have access to parts!

 

None of the OEMs offer ongoing graphics driver support. This would be a huge waste of personnel and financial resources for them. They have a "recommended" driver that can be used for troubleshooting, which they know doesn't cause malfunction or conflicts. It would be foolish for them to do more than that. NVIDIA and AMD release updates in reference drivers that work. There is no point in re-hosting the drivers... that's a waste of server space. All of the ODMs (AMD, NVIDIA, Broadcom, Qualcom, RealTek, Intel, etc.) provide ample driver support.

They do need to get their act together on sorting out BIOS and EC issues. If they're going to burn calories on supporting something, that's where it needs to be focused. Fix the fan tables, remove the Secure Flash crap and give us firmware that makes the hardware something truly special instead of crippling it.

 

HaHa It will never happen

 

I have a smile on my face when i see a dual 780m pull the same firestrike score as a single 980m (at stock).

 

I'm eager to see what I will accomplish with 980M SLI in my M18xR2. When an unlocked vBIOS becomes available it should get even more interesting.

If it works well in the Alienware 18 it should also be a real game changer with the lower power draw since the 18 was seriously challenged by 780M SLI power demands. The 980M could give that machine the lease on life it always deserved to have, but could not have being crippled with an inadequate 330W power-handling limit on the motherboard.

 

need the money!! want a 980m so badly!

 

I wonder if the mobile Maxwell cards will be the same as the desktop cards, in regards to power consumption.

The desktop cards (Maxwell) seem to consume more power than Kepler cards when overclocked, but consume much less running at stock clocks. It's strange, I know. But a few videos I saw on YouTube regarding power consumption showed that the GTX 980 (when overclocked exactly the same as a 780Ti) actually consumed more power than the 780Ti - not a lot more, but it was interesting, to say the least. Not sure why.

I doubt it will be the same. Desktop and mobile different quite a lot in that area. But I am curious. Please do a lot of testing to confirm.

 

Interesting.. that's exactly what Haswell does...

 

Here's a NVIDIA desktop GPU driver mod I am tinkering with for my Alienware laptops. I recommend using DDU in Safe Mode before installation. Windows 8 needs to have DSE disable. Temporarily rename the HWiNFO64 folder if you have it set to autorun at logon to avoid lockups until the driver installation is finished. This is working great on my M18xR2 and 18 with 780M SLI, but I did the mod especially for 980M. Should work for the 17 with 780M or 980M as well.

GeForce 344.75 Fox Mod