NVIDIA GeForce/Quadro v197.16 WHQL Notebook Drivers Released

197.25 Best Drivers Ever!
Bc2+ 10 Fps maxed out
Crysis +5

Powermizer is ok!
Downclock Properly to 200-275 Mhz on 2d (Web Browser etc)

And Now my Max temp is 88-90°C on full Load (Crysis) while with the 186.82 it scores 93-95°C

Amazing!

 

That sounds almost too good to be true. Your previous drivers must have been crappy.

 

197.25 hasn't crippled my computer, so they must be okay. I should benchmark drivers more often.

 

I noticed at least a 5+ Fps at Bc2.
NFS shift was getting better Fps and games seems to be a lot smoother.
Good drivers overall.

AS for downclock its working but one thing that i hate is that somtiems the clocks go higher when is a small need for that. HDMI is working as before, just plugged to my samsung SyncMaster 2333HD, it worked right away.
Overal good drivers. still my 2nd day.

 

Using desktop drivers, I can't get 3dmark06 to recognize the 1280X800 resolution my computer should be running. It will run in some wacky 1280X875 res.

 

Dox's installs sometimes change settings in the Nvidia Control Panel to high performance as opposed to normal quality. When you install new Drivers, especially official ones, those settings go back to default. Did you check your Nvidia Control Panel settings?

 

guys, can i ask what "Dox" mean??

 

A person on the Laptopvideo2go forums who used to modify the stock drivers to run better and take up less space on the HDD. Some swear by his driver versions while many others don't bother too much with his releases now that Nvidia actually bothered to release notebook drivers on their own.

 

I adjusted the settings to high performance in control panel before I run the benmark, that's usually the first thing I do when I change drivers.

 

I always check all settings of the NCP after and before install new Driver.
So, my benchmarking won't go wrong and I won't get fooled too.

 

I have a strange issue with many newer drivers, these included- When I hook my laptop up to my 1680x1050 monitor on my desk, it works perfectly. However, when I hook it up to my 1920x1080 TV, the desktop and all images displayed are slightly too large for the screen (both connections via HDMI). Even when I change the resolution to 1680x1050 or whatever it still stretches past the edges of the TV. I've corrected it by using the Nvidia control panel's "desktop adjustment" thing, which creates a custom resolution that fits the screen, but why do the newer drivers all seem to have this problem while the 174.74 drivers that I used for ages never had that issue?
BTW, I've got an M1530 with 8600MGT

 

Now i ran 3mark 06, and Got 300 Points Plus over the 197.16 !

 

I think newer drivers/forcewares give more performance on newer GPU(GT200Series/300Series). Older GPU have a little gain only and sometime even no performance gain at all or downgrade the performance.

That's why there's 3rd Party(Modded, Dox) Forcewares and some people use older Driver(like 186.81 and 186.82) which they find it's the best.

 

"Thought is would get rid of the BSOD issues on startup but it hasn't. Basically every 196 and 197 series desktop driver has caused a nvlddmkm.sys bsod error on restart. After the Win7 64 'Welcome' screen the screen goes black for a few secs then I get the error.

So even with official notebook drivers it is still a problem. Only way to stop this issue is to boot into windows on battery first.

Anyone having the issues with Win7 64bit? Also I have a Clevo and 9800m gtx."

Hey mate i do have the exact same problem but guess what i figured something out.

i use a login screen. when i boot my laptop and than login in immedetly i get the blue screen.

but if i wait 20 seconds in the login window and wait till my harddrive stops working i can login with no problems and the system is stable....

sucking error if you ask me... im back to 195

greetings flode

ps i also have an clevo (m570tu) and an 9800m gtx

 

Guys, stop benchmarking with 3dmark06, gaining or losing 50 or 100 points in 3dmark06 is hardly telling you anything.

Use in game benchmarks like Crisis/world in confilct/resident evil 5/street fighter 4.... etc please, these benchmarks will tell the difference of various drivers regarding the performance in REAL WORLD GAMING, they are much more convincing than a bunch of 3dmark06 numbers.

 

i'm using these, no issues at all. they perform well.

also, the power mode in nvidia control panel isn't there? anyone knows why?

 

thanks man

 

ill put it bluntly.

old drivers.

Statistics
Average FPS: 33.69
Duration: 37.22 sec
CPU Usage: 96%
System memory usage: 43%
Video memory usage: 83%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1440 x 900 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: High
Texture Filter Quality: High
View Distance: 25
Detail Distance: 25

Hardware
Microsoft® Windows Vista" Home Premium
Service Pack 2
Video Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M
Video Driver version: 195.62
Audio Adapter: Speakers (Realtek High Definition Audio)
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU P8700 @ 2.53GHz

File ID: Benchmark.cli



new drivers

Statistics
Average FPS: 38.65
Duration: 37.28 sec
CPU Usage: 95%
System memory usage: 46%
Video memory usage: 83%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1440 x 900 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: High
Texture Filter Quality: High
View Distance: 25
Detail Distance: 25

Hardware
Microsoft® Windows Vista" Home Premium
Service Pack 2
Video Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M
Video Driver version: 197.16
Audio Adapter: Speakers (Realtek High Definition Audio)
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU P8700 @ 2.53GHz

File ID: Benchmark.cli

 

Thanks for the info. Yeah wonder what the problem could be. I tried disabling some things in device manager that could be conflicting but nothing.

Also when the screen goes black right before it blue screens..if I pull the power out in time it will also then continue to load properly.

Think I am going to stick with these drivers since I don't turn my laptop on and off all day. Also they seem to run bad company 2 a lot better other drivers which don't have this issue.

 

well if you ask me and i talked to my reseller support line, the driver is just buggy.

greetings flode

 

what is that?

 

I’ve finally decided to update my video driver to v.196.17. I have WIN7 Dell M1730 with X9000 OC-ed to 3.4 and not OC-ed 8800M GTX in SLI. Everything went nice and smoothly – no re-boot to my surprise. I’ve re-enabled SLI in NV control panel and my Dell went to reboot. And…. it rebooted with the generic VGA driver with dreadful Code-43 error next to one GPU. I’ve almost had a hart attack as I thought that one GPU was dead – common problem with this GPU on Dell M1730. I still have more that 12 month Dell NBD warranty left so I was prepared for long telephone negotiations with Dell. However I’ve decided to use driver sweeper and reinstall the driver first. Everything went OK and I re-enabled SLI, rebooted and everything was working fine! I’ve lost my dedicated PhysX card support but I’ve disabled PhysX in NV control panel, reinstalled Ageia software, run tests and then run 3d Mark 2006. I’ve lost about 500-600 from my previous 3d Mark 2006 score and can now reach 14100 max. In Proxicon test the fps dropped to 25 in some places which never happened before (31 fps min). However I could notice slight increase in Crysis which runs about 3 fps better, so I have about 33.8 average fps in GPU benchmark at 1900x1200 and settings on High which is not bad. World in Conflict is also running with about 3-4 fps more with all settings on high. Interesting that the min fps rate is almost the same but max and average have both improved. So I’ve decided to stick to the driver for now. I am still worried about this Code-43 error – was it caused by the driver installation over the old driver or one of my GPUs is on the way out? Anybody with 8800m GTX SLI experienced the same problem?

 

So i tried 197.16 and 197.25.

197.16 - is not good for me, the G51 260m is very picky card, and it doesnt downclock on its own with 2d/idle, Furmark temp increase by 5C over 186.82, and 3dmark06 went down 400points, i game some didnt seem i got anything out of it.

197.25 - First drivers that downclock on their own after 186.82 on the asus g51 gtx260m, this might be keepers, scores very similar to 186.82, temps on furmark were a little higher than 186.82 but 2/3 for me might be enough, ill test them some more in games this week to see if they are keepers, certainly look like a good candidate.

 

I may be hallucinating but I didn't notice this before the driver change... maybe you guys can help....

When I'm in file explorer and I expand a directory and then close it.. I see a "blur" as the fonts are not properly rendered while they are moving at the blazing speed they move at... I never noticed the blur before.

I"m running these drivers..
Video NVIDIA GeForce GT 230M v197.16 64 bit 29 Mar 2010

any suggestions?

 

197.16 - running fine in my Vaio with 8400M GT.

 

Installed the 197.16 on my Sager last night and so far so good.

I gamed for about 1.5 hours on my 8800m GTX and noticed an improvement in performance; didn't try to official bench anything, but since the performance seems noticeably better they are keeper for me.

 

I'm still on 186.81 using 9600M GT. Should I switch to 197.16?

 

well i am having the almost same performance as with 186.81

3dmark 06
186.81=5650
197.16=5630

crysis benchmark tool
186.81=30.65 fps
197.16=30.50 fps

but guys i am having a strange problem after installing win 7.i am getting 4 to 5 fps less in every game as compared with vista which is very weird.such as using the same driver 186.81 in both win 7 and vista.

crysis benchmark tool
vista=34 fps
win 7=30.65 fps

dirt 2
vista=26 fps
win 7=22 fps

can anybody tell me what is wrong here?

 

Unigine is a very good benchmark program, I would say the best IMO. Also has some of the best visuals in a Benchmark tool that I have ever seen. I use the Tropics benchmark, but their are 2 others as well.

http://unigine.com/

Try it out to see which drivers work the best for your system.

 

I made a comparison between 186.82, 197.16 and 197.25 with a simple FurMark benchmark.

The best result was with 197.16...same fps of 197.25, but with lower temps.

 

i would get 195.62... they work well on my Dv5t and downclock when i use the riva tuner tweak.. i did use 186.81 but GPU didn't downclock... the 195.62 is more stable IMO and has more features and work well in Dv5 with the tweak.. have a look..

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=456313

 

I"m gonna have to do some experiementing.... I don't like the 197.16 so far because I still see a "blur" when I open a large folder and then close it... as it closes or "Unexpands" it blurs.

Also if I take a window and move it all over the screen, It will freeze and or change and temporarily lose its colors... something is not right somewhere.

 

Humm... I don't know whats up but I"m not going back to test.. but I got a big difference between the two.

I got these results:
5031 with Video NVIDIA GeForce GT 230M v188.17 bit 04 Mar 2010 drivers.

5650 with Video NVIDIA GeForce GT 230M v197.16 64 bit 29 Mar 2010

 

@ Abula so.. finally what drivers did u considered to keep?

 

Power Management Mode missing in Nvidia control panel even though i am using the latest 197.16 anyone knows why?

 

Please correct me if im wrong but i believe laptop drivers do not use the power management only desktop drivers. So if you have been using some drivers from laptop2go some are desktop where u get that feature.

 

Kinda early to say for sure, but 197.25 seem great drivers, no problems yet with any games that i tried, they downclock correctly on the G51 (only other driver i found do it on their own is 186.82), but i been also mostly on my desktop this past week, so im not sure yet, but im runing on both 197.25 and neither have had any problems yet.

 

One thing I notice with 197.25 on G51 is that brightness control seems to stop working after waking up from standby.

Abula can you confirm if it happens to you too?

 

Stamp of approval for 197.16.

I seem to get slightly better frames compared to 197.25, and it downclocked correctly when watching movies. With 197.25, I would fire up VLC and my GPU would ramp up to max clocks. With 197.16, I go only to higher 2D mode.

 

Sounds promising, seems its gearing slowly towards the 200 mark - by then the performance is probably even better!

 

Just finished trying 197.16 on my G51
Confirmed that it *does not* downclock while idle on desktop

Went back to 197.25 (which seems to downclock fine, only problem is the brightness control after standy)

 

using 197.16 on my M11x. I approve!

 

I'm using this driver and in mine it does downclock properly while idling. So far no problems and the games feel snappier...probable placebo effect

 

Tested and i still could move the brightness, but im on vista.

Just wondering while gaming is the clocks suppose to stay at the 500/800/1250 clocks or they also downclock depending load of the gpu inside the game, since appearently inside the game it switches (check pic)

 

I installed the drivers v197.25_win7x32 and are much better than v197.16.
Playing crysis I have 3 to 4 frames more. I recommend you try them.

 

197.16 is the better driver for BC2.

 

Odd. Clocks should stay at 3D the moment you open a game, unless it's a lightweight game like CS 1.6.

 

Maybe WOW is too light, but i would guessed it should still stay on the extra clocks, but the 3d are lower, if thats what you mean.

Still im not sure, maybe thats the way video cards work on laptops, but i do deep down to 20fps or lower inside in wow while 25man raids... so i would guessed the video card is at its maximum clocks working its to deliver frames... now im not so sure, and even considering drivers like 197.16 that dont downclock ever so it doesnt slack, at the price of higher idle clocks .

I kinda blamed the 197.25 for the behavior, but went back to 186.82 and same behavior with the clocks inside the game, i do think the video card does go to EXTRA clocks (500/800/1250) but for brief periods of time, as the temp it reaches is almost even with drivers that dont downclock like 197.16.

One app that did mantain it at full is furmark, i remember from with (paralel with IBT) to see if we had the throttling problem that the m15x had, and the clocks were really steady at full blast, so im guessing maybe wow isnt that demanding on it so it downclocks inside the game.

 

EDIT: Ignore below. Found out it was my UAC.

I have this driver in Windows 7 and downloaded Rivatuner to try to OC it. I'm running Rivatuner as Admin.

I've done 20MHz incriments and tested it in Dragon Age in windowed mode while checking HWMonitor but I've yet to see any temperature change. My peak is around 82degrees. Even after I managed to OC it all the way from 450MHz to 715MHz, the temperature doesn't change. This is in performance 3D mode.

I'm beginning to wonder if Rivatuner isn't actually making any changes? Does this driver allow OCing? Or is it the Windows 7 UAC issue?

 

Been using these drivers since the heads up.
Great performing drivers; 35C on idle (38C when using TV via HDMI), Gaming temperatures are surprisingly low - quitting Just Cause 2 after playing for 2 hours showed me a temperature of 61C!