Best Drivers for 8600 GT

Anyone know what driver version you have to go back to in orer to allow overclocking again (in Vista)?

 

Hm, there doesn't seem to be a single good driver. The last driver I tried gave me a BSOD. The only driver I've been using is the 162.18's, but I really don't like them. In fear, it crashes sometimes so I would really like to change.

 

well after spending a couple of hours researching I found that there is no go to driver,from what i have read (and remember, lol) 163.14 caused the least reported problems, i will download the 2 new vista patches that will come out tuesday but already available in microsofts website(these are posted in the windows forum) and will try the...

BTW I have a compal ifl, 2.2 ghz, 160 ram, vista 32

 

I am using the 163.16 on my 8510w with the quadro fx 570m. Big difference from the workstation driver, games run noticebly better. Sleep and hibernation work perfectly and I dont have the problem of the card staying downclocked when on battery power.

 

does the 163.16 allow you to keep your nvidia control panel, I tried uninstalling my previous nvidia driver and as expected my nvidia control was gone, ill try to update now and uninstall until a driver installs back the nvidia control panel...

 

Yes it does.

 

Well....something weird happened today. I updated my drivers to 163.14 and it somehow installed 101.43. At least...that's what RivaTuner shows my Drivers as.

The funny thing is I noticed some welcome changes with it. No more spiking/lag during FEAR and CnC3. Also, I don't know if you guys are familiar with the shader problems with the 8xxx cards in Command and Conquer 3....but the tiberium "spikes" or rather tiberium "mounds"....didn't have the shaders applied onto them.

However, 163.14/101.43...seems to have fixed that as well.

 

Wait, my FEAR lag spikes could be caused by my nvidia drivers!?!?!?! Sometimes fear jumps to like 1000ms ping then it settles back down to ~30ms. I am using the 162.18.

 

none of the drivers are working for me. I just got the Dell Laptop 1520 with the 8600 GT graphics card. None of the drivers worked that I got from laptop2go that is compatible with Vista 32 bit. Any ideas? I tried 165.01, 163.16, and 163.11.

 

So as of now your reccomending 163.14 drivers as the best out there? I haven't ordered my Inspirion 1520 yet but I'm researching the best drivers ahead of time...although that will probably change by the time i get it..

 

I'm using 163.11, and far cry, as well as any souce game sometimes crash, and windows gives me an error message saying that my drivers stoped respoding, but recovered. has anyone elso had this happen? it causes CS:S to sieze up for 20 seconds.

 

if u have vista ultimate installed will any drivers work with video card?

 

Hell yes man. Definitely caused by the drivers. It happened to me when I used certain drivers....I forget which ones. Try 163.14. They work great for me.

Make sure you are downloading them for Vista 32-Bit. I know it's kind of stupid but it's a common mistake. I've done it a couple of times myself. Make sure you are in the Vista 32-Bit section and not the XP 32-Bit. When you click Download Drivers, it takes you to the XP 32-Bit section first.

Yes, they are the best ones I have tried so far. 158.45 being the second best and I THINK allow overclocking. As far as I know, 163.14 does not allow overclocking.

Yes, if it is 32-Bit, just use Vista 32-Bit. If you have the 64-bit, then go for the Vista 64-bit drivers.

 

Alright sounds good. I'll be sure to to continue checking for the latest and best working drivers.

 

Yeah.....have been using 163.14 longer now and NO/ZERO crashes. No slow down in my games either. I highly recommend every 1520 user try the 163.14 drivers if you don't overclock.

Check out my topic for a discussion of 1520/8600M GT centered drivers.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=155566

 

Hows performance compared to 158.45?

 

For me, it is definitely better. More stable too. I think the only reason people prefer 158.45 more is because they want to overclock? I don't want to attempt overclocking so..I'm fine with it.

 

what do you guys think of the 165.01 drivers? they make my dell run just as well as the sager 2090 or whatever its called.vthey gave me a 4 fps increase over the 163.11 drivers. would the 163.14 drivers work better from a non overclocking standpoint?

 

I tried the 165.01 drivers first as well. They were pretty stable imo, just older.

You should give the 163.14 a shot. See if it boosts your performance. If not, roll back to 165.01.

 

yeah that happens on almost every game i play... so in the meanwhile can grab a bite to eat or something to drink ...!!!! LOL... but the game doesn't crash.. just a 10-15 sec break or something..and back in action... GIVE US STABLE DRIVERS..!!!!

also there was this hotfix update that was to happen... for vista which reduces the amount of RAM Vista uses while playing games... don't know when that is coming out.....

 

I suggest you try 163.14.

I got those same, irritating driver crashes and it was driving me crazy. If I was playing single player....I woulda been fine with it...somewhat. However, if you're playing 1on1 in Tiberium Wars....and you're about to crush your opponent and your game just crashes.....what the hell...

 

wow. These drivers are still rather junky aren't they?

I was under the impression nvidia was fnally getting their **** together for vista drivers, but apparently not.

 

why is it that the 165.01 drivers are older than the 163.14 drivers? how do tell which ones are newer?

 

Yeah, I used to think the higher numbered ones were newer as well, but it's very simple to find out which ones are newest.

You go the the page of drivers for your OS and click Date.

http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/drivers/vista&sort=2

If you take a look at that link, the newest drivers are 163.16. The 163.14 drivers are pretty new as well and give me better performance/stability...so I am happy with them.

 

Do the same drivers affect people differently (even if they have the same laptop)?

 

Man, illmatic you're a great help. Im gonna try out 163.14.
One question: how do u rep ppl like him?

 

Click on the scale next to the green indicator of whether they online or not. Its under posts the middle icon of the scale.

 

Ok.....done. That's something new I've learned today. Thankx

 

How are you running the game smoothly at maxed settings? I'm running at medium and the framerate goes around 22-ish sometimes, which is a problem because the framerate in this game is tied to the actual gamespeed .

 

Weird.....In motion with enemies on screen I get sometimes 30/40. Also, our two visions of what "smooth" is may be different. Coming from a 64MB GeForce MX 420, the 8600M GT was definitely a few big steps up and I had grown to be happy to RUN games...with that old card.

 

Sorry, I think I quoted the wrong post, but I was asking regarding CnC3, which caps at 30 fps.

 

I believe they do, but I could be wrong as I'm not an EXPERT when dealing with drivers. However, I have noticed that some 1520 users suggested drivers like 163.16 and 162.22, but my comp either crashes or gives me a BSOD when I use either of them.

Thanks a lot for that man. Just tryin to help the community. It's actually all thanks to this great man below; Forerunner

You help everyone that well huh?

Ah. CNC3. Well, it's not smooth on all maps actually. It goes down to 15 on certain maps like Tiberium Gardens because of the redzone sky effects mainly.

However, on the majority of maps, it seems very fine to me. I've tested it with fraps and I get 20-25 most of the time. The game is capped at 30, so I'm pretty fine with having only 20 FPS on it.

Also, lowering shadows or other settings not TOO much lower....but maybe to High from Ultra High might make a difference for you.

 

Can you give ur general specs for standard games such as BF2, FEAR and others, settings, performance test, and such. Thanks.

 

I was planning on doing that once I got my drivers updated...and found ones that I will keep. Unfortunately, I don't think I will be able to post all of the settings and do many tests since I won't be able to use this laptop much in a few days. Sorry.

 

Ill, thanks for the props bro. Well its like a chain I learned from somone else and I passed it on to you and now you passed it on to someone else so that makes you ALMOST p) as great as me. Yeah I made sure I taught him how to give rep points especially since they were for you and you deserved them.

Well on my c90 which has the 512mb ddr2 8600 gt I could play fear on max settings no problems (1280 x 1024). Though the c90 has a more powerful cpu it only helps in gameplay rather than visuals such as calculating physics and stuff. But I must say I was impressed with the 8600 because I was able to play fear on 1680 x 1050 on medium-highish settings which is pretty impressive with a little stutter, and was able to play it with near max settings on that resolution only by putting 2 x AF but the high resolution made it so you didnt really need AF/AA but the game was somewhat stuttery but still playable.

 

@ the above comment

I was also very impressed by the 8600M GT. After hearing so many negatives about it....I decided to bite anyway and it paid off. Even though mine is GDDR2, it still runs games basically at the settings I would like them to run at.

I've noticed that quite a lot in life, though. It applies to movies, music, games, and a lot of other things. You HEAR from other people that stuff is either bad or good and it influences what you think about it even if you don't realize it. The majority of the time, I ignore such comments, and I have made great decisions that way. Advice can only help you so much....It's your life.

 

Yeah speculation is speculation. The only way I trust someone elses opinion is if its someone that I trust and agree with on the particular stuff like the same taste in movies and such. Yeah while im not jumping for joy at the 8600 is still a good card, still can't wait to upgrade it.

 

ahhahaha....you have that option...

 

Well I run fear right now at 1280x800(wxga?) resolution with everything on max (except soft shadows, if ur running soft shadows in addition to all things on max let me know) also 2xaa, and 16xaf. I get around an average fps of 25, min of 17 and max of 32. See the confusing thing is when u say max, that isnt really saying much as i doubt u mean max resolution, ALL settings turned on, and all features turned to highest (including aa and af). Thats why I want to know if what I'm getting as far as performance is the norm.

 

Yeah buddy I mean max max resolutions, everything turned up to their highest values. Max resolution in the laptop gaming mode is really non-existant term because whats max for someone is nowhere near the max for others. Some laptops highest screen res only goes to 1440x900 or 1280x 1024 and some go to 1680x 1050 (I am talking about 15 inches) but even then some 17 inches don't go to 1680 x 1050. But max settings literally I mean max everything on and to their highest values. I don't have my c90 now otherwise I could have given you better info since I play the game all the time.

Yeah main reason I bought the c90.

 

Yeah, I turn everything to Maximum. 2x AA, 8x AF, no Soft Shadows.

 

And what are ur framerates?

 

After further testing I am able to run at ur setings, illmatic, assuming ur max resolution is 1440x900 not 1680x1050. Also I found that 16 AF and Soft Shadows seem to not effect performance that much. My framerates stay around 25 average I'd say.

 

hmmm...

It doesn't give me the option to go above....I think it was 1024x768 or something.

My framerates stay around 25 mainly. Sometimes I reach high 30s/40. My max was 59.

 

Hey guys i have the 8600gt but when i play bf2 i can barely run it on med setting? is this to do with the 512mb ram or is there something else involved?

 

Dude, 512 ram. lol. Minimum for Vista is 1 gb and Xp 512mg, so yeah u need to upgrade if u want to play games.

 

Maybe he means the 512MB 8600MGT? not system RAM.

If you means system RAM, hell yes, get 512MB more ram.

 

lol ye that figures vista runs like **** rite now! when i first got my lappy i thought the slowness was to do with the core 2 duo and i was well disappointed! but i guess ill hav to get that 2gb =)

 

Look at his sig:
Ram = 512MB DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz (2gb ^ soon)
NO, now get it tomorrow!!

BTW:
I have posted this on illmatic2609's thread, but I guess I can do it here too.
Driver 3d Mark 06 Score
stock 3264
162.18 3328
163.14 2383(Yeah, not gonna happen)
Downloading more as I type this

 

hmm interesting, i score around 2900-3000 in dkmark with default settings with 158.45 right now. dburache what about actuall game tests?