Q: What graphics driver version is recommended?

Hi, I keep reading that people download the version 177.xx or 180.84 for the nvidia graphics card.

I have a question, what does the driver do to improve the graphics/gameplay? Does it mess with the fan setting?

I don't wanna overclock my graphics card. I recently received my NP8660, runs very good, like games: lost planet and GOW. I have version 176.20 for the driver. Should I upgrade the drivers? and is it safe? I think i read some people who tried to upgrade drivers and it ran slower than it did or something went wrong.

 

Well looking at 180.84 it was optimized for GTA IV. Basically if you don't have any issues with your current graphics drivers in combination with the games you play you don't need to upgrade unless you want to see whether the newer version gives you a better performance.

At this point I am not sure about the 180.84 drivers because I get strange behaviour on my M570A (Geforce Go 7950 GTX) like windows that aren't being redrawn correctly and so on.

If you have a GPU that supports PhysX then you need 177.39 or higher but then again you could download the PhysX drivers seperately from the NVidia website and it also depends on which GPU you have.

 

I have a P9500 2.53, 4gb ram and Nvidia 9800M GTS. Anyone know a good driver update that has a better overall performance or that can increase in performance?

 

You could follow the trial and error approach where you start with 177.xx drivers and test the FPS in a specific game and then try higher version numbers.

 

180.70 eh? Where can I download these drivers?

 

The 180.84 is just as stable for Geforce 8 / 9 cards as it is for 180.70. You can get it from laptopvideo2go.com