Nvidia 257.15 driver released

Notebook link provided below.

http://cn.download.nvidia.com/Windo...ok_winvista_win7_64bit_international_beta.exe

Bring on the benchmarks!


StevenX

NOTE! Under physx it not longer shows an "off or on". Now a pulldown with 3 options.. .auto, cpu, gpu

 

Interesting, will download and give it a go.

 

Nice

 

Talk about overkill, AAx96, hell even 48xAA is overkill.

 

slightly confused.com
it says 256 beta but they are actually 257.15

 

Unlike all 196 and 197 drivers (including notebook ones) I am not getting BSOD starting windows anymore which is great.

 

i got so fed up with bsod with 197 that i reverted back to 186.81 so thats good news brownstonemr

 

Does not support downclocking in idle mode without the registry hack.
FurMark 1.8.2 in stability mode did not pass, stops after about 5 min running.
Seams the performance is slightly better with my GTX 260M at 525, 1300, 950.
I stay with the 197.45 notebook driver.

 

After having the laptop on for a couple of hours (after installing the gfx drivers) I get random system freezes (2 to be more exact). I had just yahoo messenger and utorrent 2.0.2 running at both the freezes. Once I had a complete system freeze with no hdd activity, couldnt move mouse, nothing was working. Second time I managed to move the mouse cursor for about 30 seconds before the screen went black - had hdd activity but nothing else was working (screen still black).

Both of the times I had to hard reboot.
Before the first system freeze, with about 40 minutes before, I played a bit BF BC2 but without any issues.

Anybody else seeing this with the new drivers?

 

I just installed these. I'm very pleased with the new SLi and PhysX panel.

I did the usual driver sweep before installing these. I didn't get any BSOD on booting into Windows 7 (x64) either. Yay!

 

Here are the direct download links from the US mirror for those of you who find it useful:

Windows Vista / Windows 7 x86 (32-bit): http://us.download.nvidia.com/Windo...ok_winvista_win7_32bit_international_beta.exe

Windows Vista / Windows 7 x64 (64-bit): http://us.download.nvidia.com/Windo...ok_winvista_win7_64bit_international_beta.exe

Please note that the drivers are in BETA, and are not WHQL certified at the moment.

NVIDIA has stated that Release 256 is the family of drivers with version numbers 256.xx to 259.xx.

 

I tested these out for a while but have gone back to 197.45 MS WHQL because I get smoother game performance.

Edit: After hearing that these Drivers worked on the GTX 285M without needing a modified .inf, I tried these direct from Nvidia and I am getting good performance now. It looks like the modified .inf had been causing a few issues in my last install.

There was a problem where a few GTX 285M users could not install official Drivers without a modified .inf. Even though this one is beta, it installs fine. I will test some more games now.

Edit: GTA IV is performing really well and seems to look better although I wonder if I am just imagining things lol. GTA IV EFLC performs better too.

 

guys, is this one better than 186.81????

 

if LaptopNut has reverted back i suspect not.

 

if anyone planning to test it let us know which one is better?? coz after 186.81 all drivers are not that good.

 

imo 186.81 have been the best nvidia have ever released and they will take some beating.

 

186.81 give me stuttering and slow downs in GTA IV as well as artifacts in the graphics in Battlefield Bad Company 2. With 197.45 MS WHQL, I get the same performance as 186.81, if not better and without any of those issues.

 

ive never had a single problem with them but im running the older m860tu

 

I'm running 257.15 on my U30Jc, and performance seems better across the board than 189.79 (the previous newest Optimus driver). I haven't run into any freezes or crashes as of yet. I have to echo LaptopNut's sentiment that IQ seems improved as well, so these certainly seem like winners, at least on nVidia's latest laptop GPUs.

 

those new drivers seem to be working in favor of the new cards not the old ones :S

 

which card onwards would you consider 'new cards'?

 

8600M GT is listed under supported cards, but when I go to "Automatically find drivers for my NVIDIA products" or search for drivers for the 8600, it shows 197.16 as the latest...

I think I'll never understand NVidia driver updates...

 

Because 257.15 is a beta dirver, and 197.16 is WHQL.

 

ive got 3 nvidia pages and 2 of them havnt got the beta's up yet.

a manual search from > NVIDIA Driver Downloads - Advanced Search supports the 8600GT

 

Check here (direct download for Windows 7 32bit):
NVIDIA DRIVERS 257.15 BETA

Or if you want to specify for other OS check here:
NVIDIA Driver Downloads - Advanced Search

Hope this will be fine...

 

tried it, this driver isn't that good 186.81 is much better for me.

 

give 197.45 WHQL a try.

 

Did you try this direct from Nvidia or from the laptopvidio link?

 

Has anyone tried these on a G51 with a 260m? Are they downclocking properly in 2d mode? I am currently running 197.45 WHQL and they are great, no errors, great performance in games, and they downclock, also temps are champ. So just looking for some feedback before I waste my time installing them, and then having to reinstall my old drivers if they don't pan out. Thanks for any feedback.

 

just installed this on my G60vx Wich are quite similar to g51.. and it didnt downclock on 2d Mode =(
Now im testing it to see if there a performance increase

 

Thanks, I figured that would be the case.. Keep me posted about the performance, I have been mainly playing Battlefield Bad Company 2, maybe you could give that a go if you play that as well. Thanks again.

 

@Talon -I play bfbc2 and I didnt like the performance. I went back to 197.57 which is best for me so far.

Thanks,

StevenX

 

This is by far the worst driver I ever tried, lost around 650 points in 3dmark 06 and 5 FPS in RE5 benchmark compared to Dox's 195.62. Heck, even the drivers out of the box could probably beat this crap. For 9800M gs/9800M gts users, don't even bother trying.

 

^^ Same results.

I have a 9800m GTS.

 

Installed late last night, played ME for awhile, had to hit the rack , but so far so good ,here ! 9800 GTS here.

So what are "The" issues then ?

 

Any update on this? Just wondering if its worth it to update from 186.82

 

anyone here felt these trump the 197.45?

 

No crashes yesterday and this morning (played some AoE, BC2, watched couple of HD movies). But in the last 15 minutes I had 2 system freezes and about 8 (in a row) driver stops and recoveries.

I ain't doing anything different from what I did this morning when watching videos.

Strange, very strange.

 

I'm confused are these for laptops or desktop graphics cards?

Btw I own a desktop 9800GTX+

 

These beta drivers are available for both laptop and desktop GPU's. Search them from the beta & archived drivers link in the Nvidia download page.

 

Yeah that's where I found them in the beta section but I had seen this thread first so when I saw them listed in the beta section I tried to figure out how are they different from the 197.xx drivers? Didn't really see much that really stood out.

OTOH it looks like they'll be out the early part of June, maybe next week?

 

What problems were you having with the 257.15 drivers?

I have a Gateway FX 7811 and I'm currently rocking the 197.16 notebook drivers and was thinking about trying them out

 

Another freeze, out of the blue again, small hdd activity after the screen went black but then nothing. I waited for couple of mins and it didnt come back to life. Hard reboot ftw

 

I think it is part of Nvidia's unified Drivers where they release Desktop and Notebook Drivers at the same time alongside eachother and with the same version. By the way, I have been running these Drivers for a few days now and I have not had even a single system freeze or any other issues and performance is fine.

Edit: After longer testing time I experiened a system freeze and suddenly my GPU no longer downclocks and is stuck at 3D clocks while idle. Once again, I am now back on 197.45 MS WHQL!

 

This driver works great with my 8400M GT.

 

Not so much for laptop users, but a relevant article. Keep the installer around: NVIDIA Forceware 257 & Heterogeneous GPU PhysX: It's a Bug, Not a Feature - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

 

so how's the performance of the driver? Great for games? I don't really care about downclocking issues as i got the riva tuner tweak..

 

For me it seems like frames are being skipped, when i play i can literally tell that the game is all buggy. Like in shift it would be like a slight pause then the game would continue(hope you can understand what i mean) .

 

I know exactly what you mean. I wouldn't be able to use these drivers then.

 

omg you dont know how much this sentace makes me happy thank you so much. ive havent been at home for 2 weeks but i knew there were new drivers and i cant test them till monday. but i know you had the same probs as i do with the m570tu.

is the audio stutter also fixed?

greetings flode