GeForce 337.50 Beta AKA "The Mantle Killer"

Oh and forgot to add that I didn't experience a crash with the new driver after playing for maybe 2 hours this evening which, for those who don't know, is a long amount of time as you can typically expect a crash playing PS2 at least every hour or so.

You like Far Cry 3? I am making my way through Far Cry 3 right now, its a pretty good game but should really only be played with Ziggy's Mod:

http://www.nexusmods.com/farcry3/mods/63/?

I actually have quite a few games vying for my attention at the moment. I moved recently and in the process I found a physical copy of Mass Effect 2 which I promptly installed and well, curious about the extensive DLC (most of which was originally included then removed to be sold to us as "DLC", i.e. the Promethean character/storyline in 3) f I found a rather unscrupulous way to get all of it (PM me if youre interested) Im actually kinda stoked as I feel a bit burned with the PC release of Titanfall, with no SLI support and 35 GB of uncompressed audio files and nothing but silence from Respawn. To me, fair is fair, you wanna take my $50 for what still is an unfinished Beta? Fine, but don't expect me to pay you a premium for content that you originally included in both Mass Effect 2 and 3 and then sold to us as DLC after release.

So I'm trying to balance time spent with PS2, Far Cry 3 (including the yet to be played Blood Dragon) and now Mass Effect 2 with all of the new side-missions. Oh and I still have SC2's Heart of the Swarm that I have yet to even start, I still haven't beaten Skyrim (I have a bad habit with the Elder Scrolls games of not actually completing them and spending 100+ hours venturing into random caves and ruins, I did the exact same thing with both Oblivion and Morrowind) and now part 2 of Bioshock: Infinite's "Burial at Sea" has been downloaded and is awaiting my attention.

Now might actually be the time to take a break from PS2, at least until they get PhysX restored and the game optimized on a 64 bit client. I think a lot of others feel the same way as supposedly server wide the population is down 15% from the previous month. I think we're all getting burned out with SOE's nonsense with the Liberator update and the recent in your face "Upgrade Now" promotional tactic not to mention the annoying and pointless voice commands "we have secured a control panel!", with variations of this repeating literally every 30 seconds, it is truly mind-numbing and off-putting

 

Apparently there's a workaround for sli for Titanfall, I don't know if it works or not as I don't have sli, but here's the link to it (in case you weren't aware of this already):
Titanfall Has Multi-GPU Issues

 

I tried every workaround known to man and nothing works. The Bioshock: Infinite SLI compatibility bits result in pronounced artifacts for me with others reporting the same thing. I've tried AFR2, EVERYTHING:

Respawn Entertainment forum • View topic - FINALLY A PERFORMANCE WORK-AROUND THAT WORKS!

Concerning any potential performance gains with benchmarking, I wanted to note that I am able to run a slightly higher OC with this driver. With the previous driver I was only able to get away with +225 core/+450 memory @ 1.025 V in 3DMark Vantage which yielded 47k GPU. Anything higher would result in either CTD or display driver failure and recovery.

But having heard that others are reporting the ability to OC a little higher I ran a +250 core/+500 memory Vantage @ 1.025 V (factory desktop GTX 680 core clock I believe) with a corresponding 700 point increase GPU, nearly 48k GPU:

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3920XM Processor Extreme Edition,Alienware M18xR2

View attachment 110683

And no real gain to speak of except in 3DMark '11 except that now I am at a clean 14k overall (13,900 or so previous driver, GPU scores nearly identical), but it has to be pointed out that although Vantage couldn't sustain the higher clocks on the previous driver, '11 could, so the OC is identical here with only the driver being the variable (+250 core/+500 memory @ 1.025V).

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3920XM Processor Extreme Edition,Alienware M18xR2

View attachment 110684

Oh and that's 4.3 Ghz at 70-75 C with no special cooling, simply using manual fan-control (Hwinfo64) with laptop elevated and of course, Coolaboratory Liquid Ultra. This stuff is amazing. With IC Diamond, the former TIM, CPU temps would be at 90 C with the same benches, and that was considered to be the best TIM at the time, far better than factory TIM.

 

I've heard it can be very hard to remove if you need to repaste. But those temp drops are extremely impressive and just what I need. Would you recommend it for a GPU?

 

I can also add that DOTA 2 is running at a far more consistent pace than before. I don't drop below 70FPS now whereas before I'd yo-yo between 70 and the low 50s.

Everything is just smoother across the board for me (laptop in sig with Windows 8.1). Very happy with this driver. Almost every driver I install seems to make performance worse in my key games (i.e. DOTA) but this is the first time I've actually seen huge gains.

Between that and the less frequent drops below 50FPS in TitanFall, I couldn't be happier.

 

Another forum member in another thread just posted this profile as a fix for sli in Titanfall when I asked them about it:
http://go.redirectingat.com/?id=525...otebookreview.com/member.php?u=579424&xtz=-60

Who knows, might work for you, but then again as you say you might have already have tried this one.

 

Like I said in the Mantle thread,

Reduced CPU overhead > Better CPU utilization and performance > Better FPS in CPU bound games or scenarios where CPU can`t keep up with the GPU

Your 670MX is no match for the 2630QM. Mobile CPU`s are ridiculously overpowered for mobile GPUs which is capped at 100W. We might see bigger gains in:
GTX 780M/880M gaming
Online play with many players (you should try to test that out with BF4 or something like that, You may even get a big boost here you too)
SLI configurations. I`m not even sure my 770M SLI will benefit much from it, but I will test when I have the time. But I think GTX 680M/780M/880M SLI might get a decent boost here

Thanks for testing btw

 

Yep, no problem Cloudfire, I agree with your CPU statements, 770M sli is pretty powerful, especially if you overclock them, so I reckon you'll see better gains than me.

 

Just make sure it hasn't dried out when you want to remove it, otherwise you'll have to sand it off. Heatsink could probably take it, but not the bare die.

 

Idk if its the patches they done to Titanfall or the new "Mantle killer" drivers but the game now microstutters quite a lot. Going to turn off that Shader Cache option and see if it fixes it.

 

I'm on the same driver as you, and not experiencing any microstutter, and I didn't notice any decrease in performance with the new driver vs the previous whql. (Maxed out settings, incl Insane Textures, x4 MSAA, incl added Ambient Occlusion set to Performance through NVidia Control Panel). Might be worth reporting your experience on the Geforce Driver Feedback forums (NVidia's own forums), they might be able to sort a solution for the next driver release - that's if it is the driver causing the stutter. Your specs certainly don't indicate that you should have problems with the game, especially with 4GB VRAM.

 

I have it on my GPU's and noticed a 7 C drop in temps. So yes, GPU's as well, here is some more info including best application method (Mr. Fox)

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...ory-liquid-ultra-any-tips-before-i-start.html

 

Actually, looking at your benches, over 6k GPU single 670M in 3dMark 11 is actually very impressive (that is a hell of an OC). I think that might even be better than a single 680M on factory clocks.

 

Many in the Respawn forum are reporting significant improvements in performance with this driver in Titanfall. I am going to try playing in a bit, I will report my own findings. Still no SLI.

 

Lol, from the hobbyist programmer? I've tried two versions of that and it didn't do anything for me except introduce artifacts. Thanks though. Sorry for not multi-quoting.

 

Driver's been out for three days and so far nobody in this thread has reported any earth-shattering performance gains. Nvidia definitely under-delivered for the amount of hype it generated.

Nvidia’s questionable GeForce 337.50 driver, or why you shouldn’t trust manufacturer-provided numbers | ExtremeTech

 

Time to upgrade from 320.49, been running that for a while right now, i consider it as the LTS of Nvidia drivers for me

The SLI profiles look nice but i don't have SLI (or intend to).

 

I had gains over R331. But on Windows 8.1 I had 335.XX driver and I had few fps (10%) drop in Metro LL, at least on Swamp levels. So... I am waiting for a next WHQL driver from Nvidia.

P.S. What means LTS?

 

I hate to say this, but I TOLD YOU SO.

Over-hyping and under-delivering seems to be the norm for nVidia these days.

 

While I agree, who is delivering anything even remotely better ha?

Installed without issue, no problems so far but nothing great either.

 

Nah didn't even bother to install these. I don't fall for this slick stuff ha.

AMD's 12.11 Never Settle driver not only kicked off its awesome Never Settle game bundles but also raised performance 15-20% across the board, stealing the price-to-performance crown at every price point away from Nvidia overnight and forcing Nvidia to respond with GPU price cuts and game bundles of its own (which sucked in comparison). I was hoping this would be the Nvidia equivalent of that, but nope, it's just another average driver in the release cycle with the usual 0-10% increase. Over-promising and under-delivering. That's what Nvidia did here.

 

Improvement needed across the board for sure.

 

Yep, thanks, I was very impressed with this card's potential, it was insanely good value! It's 10% faster than a stock 680M with my overclock, and gaming at the native res of 900p of my panel means that it's 780M at 1080p equivalent performance.

 

A quick off-topic tangent on the topic of NVidia Kicking, here's a card that certainly will do that (definitely from a price performance point of view in comparison to Titan Z's $3000):
AMD Radeon R9-295x2 Review - Introduction
And it performs better than a simulated Titan Z too (but didn't really bother to read this article in detail):
Radeon R9 295X2 Review : VS TITAN-Z - Guru3D.com Forums

 

Curious, anybody else getting an Action Center error with these drivers? I'm getting this:

"Solve a problem with NVIDIA Graphics Driver - NVIDIA Graphics Driver has stopped working properly."

Just started on my GS60 after I updated to these Beta drivers. Looks like it is time to roll on back and wait for the WHQL's

 

Sounds like TDR (driver crash and recovery) caused by unstable driver or overclock.

 

Did it happen when playing Titanfall? I've found I've had to dial back my overclock 2 notches on the core (26Mhz) in order to prevent that game crashing in contrast to all my other games - this happened with the previous driver too though. (I think it's something to do with the wildly fluctuating GPU load as it maintains 60fps, because with all my other games GPU load is pretty much pegged at the 97-100% usage mark due to no vsync)

 

Getting some good fps stability in BF4. Before, the FPS wasn't so consistent and fps would drop in taxing areas. Now I'm actually getting 70-100 FPS across most with the occasional 45 when things become a bit too crazy. Also, overclocks are now actually making significant improvement due to this beta update instead of just making fps more unstable or just crash the game.

 

The good news is that there's more optimisations to come in the WHQL.

 

And some important bug fixes.

 

What are the new optimisations Cakefish?

 

Bad news: nobody knows when and how small this time.

 

Up to 100% increase in all games!*

*at 3840x2160 with 3x Titan-Z

 

Its like the old west again. So many snakeoil salesmen.

 

Worst drivers ever!

Cant even play a lowly game of Ghost Recon Phantoms without it dropping down to 4fps at random times. Fanboys keep drinking that kool-aid cause this wont even put a dent on Mantle. (or even OpenGL)

 

exactly, this igp/apu race is just stupid as hell. who needs this crap when the easiest and most effective solution is to just have a dedicated gpu? if people want to game then get a dedicated gpu.

 

HDMI seems slow as heck now. So choppy. But everything else is okay I guess.

 

If your game randomly drops to 4fps while playing, you could have network stutter. I don't have my laptop right now, but in Black Ops 1 and 2 etc, when my net would drop a chunk of packets, my game'd drop to 0fps for about a second or so, then spike back up to normal operating procedure. Just something to check, if it doesn't happen in any single player games.

 

For whatever reason, whenever I install this driver, I'm unable to open nvidia control panel! I tried a clean install as well.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

 

Maybe try a totally clean install by uninstalling NVidia drivers, and then running a program called Display Driver Uninstaller (replaced Driver Sweeper), here's the download link:
Display Driver Uninstaller Download version 12.7.1.0

(Unless that's what you already meant by a 'clean install')

 

Yeah, that's the utility I used already. Could it be Hyper-V that's causing conflicts?

EDIT: Confirmed! Hyper-V was the issue.. uninstalled it and all is well now.

 

And here we were in the middle of an nVidia bashing spree XD

 

This driver works perfectly fine for me