Nvidia driver 174.74 is awesome!

Just putting my 2 cents here for all the people that are overclocking their 8600m GT.

With these drivers i can get an extra 20 MHz out of my memory, (from 480 to 500) totally stable without artifacts of any kind. I read these drivers where really stable but i didn't believe they where these good.

I'd really recommend them. I've used both 169.04 and 171.16 and couldn't get more than 600 core 480 mem.

 

Yep these rock. Specially for my OC'd 8600 GDDR3

 

Yeah, 174.74 driver’s pretty good. I recently tried 174.82 drivers and it was very unstable while overclocked.

 

Hey guys, using the same drivers here but need some simple advice. How are you guys finding your safe clocks? I've had weird problems trying to OC' my 8600 M GT with Rivatuner when Oc'ing to like 550/700 I get a perfectly fine screen, until 15minutes, and then the artifacts go absolutely nuts.

Also tried ATITool, and when I try to find my max core it goes up to like 1400 mhz, with no artifacts so I thought it was unreliable....

Any Advice?

 

174.74 is the best driver atm.

 

Would I be able to use it for Geforce 9500m GS, Vista 32bit? Or should I say is it okay? I see it's supported, but I'm not sure if it would have the same effect as you guys, also if there is any problems. AND If it's worth updating to it if I'm not going to overclock it. Thanks to whoever can give some insight.

 

The 9500M GS is the same card as the 8600M GT

 

I don't understand.

 

The physical specifications of both cards are completely identical, the only difference is that the 9 series card is manufactured using a smaller die process meaning better energy efficiency and less heat emitted.

 

They both use the exact same chip, it's just renamed to sound newer.

 

Oh ok, don't know specifically what a die process is but its sure to be a small component xD

Well thanks you two, I LEARNED SOMETHING!

 

'Die process' is how large the transistors in the chip are. General increments these days are 90 nanometers (Older Nvidia 8000 series GPUs), 65 nanometers (Core 2 Duos, new 8 and 9 series Nvidia), 55 nanometers (I think ATIs 3000 line), 45 nanometers (New Core 2 Duo Penryns), 32 nanometers (nothing yet).

In other words, the smaller the transistors get, the more efficient and powerful components become. In the case of the two versions of the 8600GT (also the 9500GS?), the differences in die process mean that the 9500GS will generate a little less heat and use a little less power.

 

I understand how it would become more energy efficient, but how so more powerful?

Thanks for the write up!

 

In the case of 9500GS vs 8600GT or whatever you don't get anything more powerful because the design is identical.

The idea is that when you go to a smaller die process, you can put millions of extra transistors in the extra area left over from the die shrink. More transistors = more performance.

Think of it this way, the original Pentium 1 processors were manufactuered using an 800 nanometer process that packed 3.1 million transistors onto a single core in a chip at 66Mhz.

A modern Core 2 Duo from Intel (Penryn line) is manufactured using a 45 nanometer process that packs around 410 million transistors at anything from 2.5 to 3.2 GHz on 2 cores.

So, in other words, all those extra transistors made smaller are why we are playing Crysis instead of Quake 1.

 

I get it now Thanks heaps man.

EDIT: I've run out of rep >.<

 

I just installed version 174.31 on my Vostro 1700 with a 256MB 8600M GT card installed. Any other benefits to these drivers if you don't plan on overclocking the card, which I won't do?

 

Yeah, I went from 174.31 to 174.74 then back to 174.31 just because it's digitally signed and I don't notice any advantage with the 174.74 over the 174.31. They both seem to give same performance, but my understanding is that the 174.31 is specifically for notebooks. I have a Toshiba x205 sli1 and my 3dmark06 scores seem to be better with 174.31 (7255 stock clocks) as opposed to (7129 stock clocks) for 174.74. Haven't tested overclocking though.

If .74 is better than .31 please explain to me how and I'll go back to those. Thanks

 

Hi there. Where did you get your drivers from?

 

LaptopVideo2Go. There is some instructions on the website on how to install the driver since it is not made for Laptop Cards.

http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/ - Check out the community Forum.

 

Thought so, cant get them to install on my pc (even with the modded infs)

 

About die shrinks:

A common trend I have noticed for years thru personal experience in why 2 identical components in specs besides the die shrink perform differently.

As stated above the newer model with the shrink will be more energy efficient thus less power used and less heat generated.

So stock they are or should be the same, however I have noticed that almost always the new model with the shrink can overclock higher/better. This means more performance for an enthusiast who is willing to overclock and thus why I could say it has higher performance if you were to ask me.

 

So far all i get is stuttering >.<

 

i cant oc it with my 8600m gs ddr2

 

Ah my mistake, misread the instructions Still can't OC my 8800 with rivatuner though lol.

 

what driver are u using

 

Has anyone used this driver with a 8400M GS? the best so far for me is the 158.45 , but i want to try this new ones..

 

same here... i have a 8600mGT ddr2...

can any1 confirm if these are stable drivers.. no overclocking for me... just if they are stable and increase a bit of a performance..

thanks people!

 

They are stable but so far with newer games I am getting stuttering with newer games on my 8600m GT DDR2 ( more testing later today buying assasins creed and gears of war)

 

fyi, 174.74 drivers come with manufacturer INFs.
It is worth your time to find the right INF.
Even as good as the LV2G INF is, it is no match for the manufacturer one.

x205 users should be using the nvco.inf

Those of you who do not have x205s, look at your original driver set and find the inf... then find the one that matches!

 

should i try to overclock my 8600 gt ? its not ddr2. Also ill be getting the new drivers today when i get home from college .

 

Is powermizer still enabled for the 174.74?

 

It sounds good but my T61p has had no problems with the 174.31 drivers. Have had them for about 4 weeks now.

Seems to play everything so far and even improved my 3Dmark06 score.

 

Same problem here, I had to revert to 174.16 because my fps kept permanently dying everytime I went into a cutscene in FEAR. I had to restart the game to recover the fps. The 174.16 drivers didn't have this problem but framerate died for 10 seconds or so during a save. These 174.74 have reduced that to 3 seconds or so.

 

How do I find the inf? and what steps do I take to install it with the 174.74 drivers? I'm still learning and I'd try and go back to those drivers if I new how to use the manufacturer inf. Please explain step by step, I'm not very technically inclined as far as computer jargon goes, although the laptopvideo2go explanation of how to do the havedisk method was clear enough to follow especially with the screen shots. thanks

 

Btw, what of those new series are laptop-specific? Mine 8400 always gets too hot with desktop drivers, but runs cool with the lapt-spec..

 

thought Id post again saying downgrading to 174.31 got rid of stuttering with 8600m GT DDR2 and DDR3 card ( tested with 2 computers mine and a MBP)

 

These are packaged a little differently than they normally are. After you extract the drivers to a folder, look inside that folder and you should find a zipped folder (forgot whether it was .zip or .7z) that is labeled "manufacturers INFs" or something like that. Find the .inf that corresponds to your manufacturer and extract it to the same folder as the drivers. Then use the havedisk method/

 

I uninstalled the newest drivers then tried these, talk about a big difference in Assasins Creed! Very nice

 

I can't seem to find the driver on the alptopvideo2go site. can someone point me in the right direction. thanks

 

Is this 174.74 driver better than the newer 174.82 driver ?

 

I tried .74 and they are worse than .31 , the ones I`m using right now. Might be just my 7950GTX getting old on me...

 

I installed the 174.74 driver for my 8600gt w/ddr3 and it actually lowered my windows experience index from a 4.8 to a rock bottom 1. I went from a 169.25 to the 174.74 and I know I installed it correctly. I didn't overclock my 8600.

Anyone know why I get such horrible performance ratings with the 174.74?

edit: nevermind, I installed the XP version by accident

 

Will the modded inf for the 174.31 support my IFL90's 8600mGT ddr2?

 

Modded infs support just about every OEM model equipped with the 8600, I see no reason why your laptop is an exception.

 

This driver is definitely top notch. I was able to push my memory clocks another five points, with stability.

I've finally found a replacement for 171.16, which I never thought I'd upgrade from. 174.31 caused too many graphical glitches for my liking.

 

This driver is odd, I decided to use the original inf for Dell laptops (nvdm.inf) instead of the modded inf and the installation went fine but this driver shows up as non-WHQL certified! I thought this being an Nvidia WHQL release with 40+ modded infs that using an original inf meant for my laptop was not going to be a problem?

 

That is because you changed the inf. This removes the WHQL "seal" and no matter what you do it will always require you to "install modified driver" dialog if you use a modded/replacement inf.

 

Thanks for that, I guess the WHQL is only for desktop nvidia owners. At least the driver works fine so far.

 

Hello,

I have just installed this driver from laptopvideo2go and updated my windows experience index. It bumped the graphics section up by 0.2 points from 4.4 to 4.6.

Now I know the WEI is somewhat poor as a performance indicator to see that improvement by just changing a driver... I’m impressed.

 

Couple questions if I may...

First off, I am NOT a graphics and OC guy so I'm relatively lost here (please keep that between us).

I have the 174.74 in my M1330 with a 8400GS. Can I OC it? If so, will it give me alot of improvement in my graphics scoring?

next, and i know someones gonna yell at me but, is it hard? Can it be done by a common person such as I?