The Defininitive nVidia Driver Upgrade Guide

nVidia GeForce for Notebooks updated to v179.48.

 

INSTALLING RIGHT NOW!

 

181.22 is garbage for games, the new 185 is pretty good, im gonna try the 179 now.

 

I was at 185.20 leaked, then decided to try Dox's 185.20 optimised. Used balanced install and got much lower framerates in Fallout 3 including constant mouse lag, though I think the details and graphics were better, which would explain it. I uninstalled and went back to 179.48 and the performance/graphics feel the same as 185.20 leaked which was what I had initially.

Also, 185.20 cuts off the edges of my screen if I go to lcd through HDMI. It has nothing to do with the resolution, and I messed with the other settings. The only solution was to move the edges of the screen through Nvidia control panel, I never used to have to do that.

 

Im using dox opt 185.20 its okay i guess, im getting like 150-100 spikes for counter-strike source.. does any1 get a good constant steady fps with a different driver? I would think i'd be getting like a steady 125-150.. because I got a steady 100 when I had a 7600gs in my desktop... So something has to be wrong..?

 

Anyone get PhysX to work with 179.49? It says it was added in the release notes, but I think it said the same in the last release.

 

179.48 you mean right? Anyway, those drivers will install it but default it to "disabled", so you have to go into nvidia control panel and enable it.

 

I have the newest from the nvidia website, but I guess the mobile one requires the version included. I had some version already, so it wasn't installed when I updated.

Edit: So is physx implemented differently in mobile drivers? There's a category for it in my desktop nvidia control panel, but I was only able to use the physx control panel with these. At least knowing it's actually there will ease my mind.

 

@Jakamo5: I guess you can try Dox's driver with the Performance option too if you want to see if the 'slowness' stopped then. But I guess 179.48 is the current winner now.

Also is it me or is the trayarea icon for 179.48 not there anymore?

 

any differences with 179.48

 

it seems they just added support for a few more cards... other benifits if any would have to be very minimal

 

Under Windows 7 Beta, the performance is horrible, both games and benchmarks. I'll try under Vista.

 

If you don't already have Physx installed, the Nvidia mobile driver program will install it automatically. 179.48 installs a newer version of Physx than was included in 179.28. There is no way to access the Physx driver through the Nvidia control panel, but you can disable it by opening up the Physx panel and changing "Geforce Physx" to "No Accelleration".

 

Dox updated to 182.05 and betas updated to 182.06 as they are both newer than 185.20.

 

i hate nvidia why do they suddenly decide to release newer drivers with older version numbers

 

Can I download and install both the latest NVIDIA drivers and DOX's forceware, or do I have to have one or the other?

 

I just ran 3 tests:

(3DMark06)

-Original Factory Drivers: 8660
-182.06 Drivers: 8516
-180.70 Drivers: 8398

-DOX's Optimized 182.05 Drivers: 5100

 

AllHailShake, one or the other.

KawaFord, Dox strives for the highest minimum fps in games whilst keeping great image quality.

 

Yeah, I actually read that lastnight.

I tend to post before reading when I'm tired lol, Sorry.

I overclocked the GPU A little bit, grabbed a score of 9000.

I tested in GTA IV and it LOOKS great, and runs real smooth. Didn't check on the FPS, but gameplay is nice.

 

Dox does weird things to drivers

 

Kawa any chance you'll try 182.50 vs 185.20 vs 179.48?? Those seem to be the contenders right now.

I would def be using Dox drivers if I could, but I'm playing pretty high end games and my fps just takes too big of a hit.

 

182.50 before overclock, was around the same as the 185.20 but didn't seem to run as smooth.

179.48 I did not like at all, I believe it was a 7800 Score w/o overclock, and ran slow.

I'm also using the "Balanced" Setting DOX offers.

So far these 182.05's are running nice.. temp also stays in real nice areas.

 

Why isn't PhysX Functioning on my 7805u? It has a compatible graphics card, but there are no demos and there's no PhysX Processor recognized. I have GeForce PhysX selected, so that can't be it. I have the latest drivers from NVIDIA for both the card and PhysX. Any help would be great.

 

too much too look through.

can anyone PLEASE tell me best available drivers for my P-3831FX?

 

Best?

Highest average FPS?

Highest minimum FPS?

Highest synthetic 3DMark?

Best image quality?

Any combination of the above?

Read the first post, try the latest sets and make up your own mind.

AllHailShake: what are you using to test PhysX?

 

It also depends on what games you play. Each revision includes optimizations that are designed to increase performance in various games. It might be that the latest versions actually reduce performance in the games that you play.

 

So which version would you recommend for FPS games like CS:S and Left 4 Dead?

 

Anything will run L4D

 

which drivers for call of duty world at war?

 

and if you insstall dox drivers, which should u use?? balanced performance or quality??

 

iaTa: I don't have any game that uses PhysX, but the control panel doesn't do anything or register a PhysX processor. Will it not do anything without a program to use it?

 

yes, only a few games right now even use physx. the best way to test if it's working is to download the free physx games like warmonger

for games and programs that don't use physx, it makes no difference whether its disabled or enabled

 

okay, so this got weird. I downloaded warmonger, and I think the PhysX is working properly, as I see a bunch of banners waving in the wind. However, the control panel still doesn't register a PhysX processor and there are no demos present. Any other ideas?

 

You don't have a PhysX processor. The driver uses your GPU for PhysX processing.

 

I need some drivers that handle DX10 well. I've been using 179.32 for a while, and 179.28 was ok for me. In Far Cry 2, 179.32 is the only one that gives me a visible fps boost under DX10, but it also gives me mouse lag that I can't get rid of. I just tried out 179.48, and they are ok, but still worse than 179.32. Really, all of these get me 88xx in 3dmark06, and I can all my other games at pretty much any settings, but I really want some drivers that give me that DX10 boost with Far Cry 2. I'm at around 27 fps in dense jungle in the middle of the day (that's when there are the most shadows), but to me, a 5fps boost would help a lot. Any suggestions?

 

So far i have had best result with Dox 185.20 (performance) in Vantage benchmark, which is based on DX10. So try those. And the framerate with COD4 maxed out was also avg 35+ at level "All Ghillied Up". Which shows that those drivers have good performace with DX9 also.

 

I'm not a big fan of Dox drivers, but I'll give 185.20 a try. If they don't work, I guess I'll head over to the gateway page and see how the factory drivers fair.

 

Dox 185.20 gave me almost a 100 point boost in 3dmark06, which was great, but for some reason they run FC2 worse than my old drivers. This is really frustrating. I guess the next step is to move back to factory drivers, since I didn't have FC2 when I was running on those.

 

Hmm, too bad. Nvidias official betas 179.48 were good under Vista also, but in windows 7, they performed awfully

 

Um, should I be worried about my Physx drivers since I keep updating my video drivers? Will that mess them up?

 

lol, FC2 says my drivers are out of date when I use factory drivers, but whatever. They are performing better than any other drivers I've tried. Although it still has mouse lag in DX10 mode.

 

Updated latest display drivers to v182.08 and included brand new Windows 7 WDDM v1.1 drivers v181.71.

 

I'm having trouble installing the Windows 7 64Bit 181.71 drivers. I've tried to use Windows Update and to install it manually and I cannot get it to install. Every time I get an error saying "The directory name is invalid."

I am now stuck with no driver installed and I cannot get anything to install including my previous drivers.

 

Have you tried removing your current drivers with Driver Sweeper yet? Sometimes old registery entries will mess up a new install. Here's the link to the proggy: http://www.guru3d.com/category/driversweeper/.

IIRC, you should uninstall the normal way, and then reboot into safe mode to run Driver Sweeper. If the new drivers still wont install, you should at least be able to re-install your old drivers after doing this.

 

What is the best drivers out right now to play a game like Vanguard on the P7811 FX?

 

Under Vista i find Dox's 185.20 quite good.

 

Just installing 182.08.

Gonna see how it is. Upgrading from 182.05.

 

Just installed the 182 drivers with the modded .inf. Ran 3dmark06 once and my gpu temps went to peak at 89c!!!

Is this normal???

 

DOX is back earlier than planned.

*NEW* Optimised 182.46 driver here:
http://laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=23485

 

Sweet, thats good news