Nvidia Graphics Drivers... Help Needed...

Windows XP and using a Geforce 4 Ti4400 128mb ram... i'm using older Geforce drivers 40.72 (maybe 1.5-2 years old) and i want to install the newest ones for optimal card peformance.... i've installed new drivers before but i don't think i do it in the right order... i need instructions on the proper way to install new graphics drivers... do i uninstall the old ones first via Add/Remove Programs, and then install the new ones after a reboot?

 

taken from Nvidia's website:

"The NVIDIA Detonator drivers are self-installing drivers. This makes it very easy for end-users to upgrade their drivers to the latest version. Simply download the appropriate drivers from the NVIDIA Web site at www.nvidia.com, and save the file to your hard drive. Make sure you are not running any download utilities in the background. This tends to corrupt the drivers if not disabled.

Once the file is on your hard drive, disable any anti-virus programs running in the background. Certain anti-virus programs will prevent you from making any changes to your system files and can corrupt your drivers. Once you have prepared your system for the driver installation, simply run the drivers you have downloaded by double-clicking on the file. The drivers will automatically update your current drivers and make the necessary changes to your system. If you are running Windows NT4, it will ask you which graphics card you are installing. This is because Windows NT4 cannot correctly detect your graphics card make and model. Once the drivers have been installed, Windows will ask you to restart your computer to complete the changes. Allow Windows to restart. Once you are back in Windows, you are done with the driver installation."


so i guess i don't need to uninstall anything???

 

thanks

 

newer drivers do not always mean superior performance, however.

if new drivers dont give you problems, then there is no harm in using them. However, I get conflicts when installing certain newer drivers on my Ti 4600.

I can say for certain in MOST situations that the optimal drivers as far as performance and stability for the Geforece4 Ti series were in the 4x.xx series.

I currently hope between the 44.03 and the 45.23 drivers, and in my case I notice significantly better performance and stability than with the newer drivers.... after giving them their fair shot.

just my $.02, after all, during the 4x.xx series, the Ti series was the main focus of nVidia.

 

thanks for your input... where can i download the older drivers from since nvidia only seems to host the newest ones...

 

It's true, the 4x.xx drivers gave better framerates for the GF4 Ti range of cards. I've found that performance is quite a bit less now with the newer Forceware drivers. I think this is probably because nVidia are optimising the drivers for the FX cards, rather than the Ti cards, and maybe dropping some "obsolete" optimisations for older cards along the way. Of course, its still a unified driver, so it works with all the cards. Conspiracy theorists would say they are degrading the performance of older cards so that people would by newer cards. I'm sure thats a load of crap.

That said, you are completley right, installing older drivers is a bad idea becuase you get back all the old bugs you updated to get rid of!

Oh yes and the only time you ever needed to remove all nVidia files was back in the 3x.xx days, when there was a conflict between them and the 4x.xx drivers. It was happening when people were updating from 32.xx to 41.xx drivers. AFAIK, that issue has now been fixed, but cleaning out old drivers is always a good idea for any device once in a while.

 

MT, you're forgetting about nVidia's integrated driver architecture.

2x.xx drivers contain optimizations for GeForce3+ cards. They don't do much at all for GeForce2 cards.
4x.xx drivers contain optimizations for GeForce4+ cards. They don't do much at all for GeForce3 cards.
5x.xx drivers contain optimizations for GeForce FX+ cards. They don't do much at all for GeForce4 cards.

Take a look at manufacturer sites for the individual cards, which are generall non-integrated/unified. The drivers for GF4 cards at Gainward for example, show that there's no need at all to use drivers above 42.30 for a Ti 4400 -- probably because there's no significant advantage for doing so.

Generally, you should use the drivers provided by your card's manufacturer unless you have some reason to suspect a problem with them that would be resolved by the reference drivers.

 

Thats as maybe...

However one of my personal hobbies is tweaking and playing with Nvidia graphic card drivers
First off not uninstalling all remnants of previous drivers can cause incompatibility issues and corruption of displayed graphics during gameplay, i can vouch for this on a personal level

Newer drivers are released to fix bugs and improve performance, and if you are suffering from one of those issues then its obviously sensible to upgrade
But if like me you want to push your card to its limits then framerates are the most important thing, all the Forceware drivers offer lower FPS on GF4 cards (admittedly the eye-candy is improved), as these drivers are geared towards the FX series of cards and not previous versions

Ive tried every set of drivers available including hacked and beta versions, and nothing works better on a GF4TI than the 4x.xx drivers, in my case the 44.03s score over a 1000 points more in 3D Mark 2001 than any of the forceware drivers

so this all depends on wether you want high FPS, to a hardcore gamer like myself FPS IS EVERYTHING so you can keep the newest drivers and ill keep my 44.03s and continue kicking butt

Mind you i know very little about computers as i also overclock my graphics card

 

LMAO man

Hey 5 extra frames is a godsend,
But seriously i can gain several more than that but like i say it depends what you want
Each too their own

Possibly the compatibility issues could be 3rd party apps, but i have suffered problems personally with old driver remnants, but then again i install/uninstall a lot of drivers

 

thanks General.. yes the only thing i use my graphics card for would be playing Counterstrike on Half-Life... where can i find these 44.03 drivers to download?

and also, i currently have the 55.XX ones installed, how would you recommend removing "all remnants" of these drivers before i install the 44.03 ones?


(i did notice a difference in performance when i downloaded the newest drivers so i'm happy to be switching back)

 

http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp-2k_44.03.html

 

ty... did you see the second question in my post? =]

 

bah.... confused you w/ GLS, Adrynalyne.... and of course i'm not able to edit my post due to the Spyware Forum settings

 

I'm no good at removing previous drivers, so I'll wait for GLS to answer that one

Try this:

Uninstall the card from Add/Remove programs.

You could also go to cmd prompt, and type:

driverquery -si and see what inf the video card is using, then remove that.

You could do a search for nv*.*

Make sure they are Nvidia files before delteting them.



That way when you uninstall the card, it shouldnt be able to reinstall the old drivers.

 

Note;

driverquery -si must be run prior to removing card.

It may be an XP Pro only command.

Stupid edit timer!!!!

 

Hmmmm.... i could respond to that but you know what instead I'm having a smoke chilling out with a big grin on my face

Must say i like your new improved signature, myself i usually assume the people who know nothing about computers are the ones who have to boast about their skills and proclaim themselves masters or some such garbage, whereas people who are confident in their own ability prefer to keep quiet about it Dont you Agree

Anywhoo thats just my 02

 

Congratulations for becoming the very first person on the board to make my ignore list.

 

Anyway back to the original post, Hi Midget you can use a nifty little app like this
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download3233.html
Best way to go is uninstall from add/remove programs ignore the prompt to reboot, then run the cleaner deleting everything found usually a few will refuse to delete
Reboot and cancel the found new hardware wizard, re-run the cleaner and delete any remnants, ignoring any warnings from windows
Once the scan comes up clean, run the set-up on the drivers youve previously downloaded
You can get nearly every version of Nvidia drivers here,
http://download.guru3d.com/detonator/

ive tried more or less every version there and the most stable with the highest FPS on my Geforce4 TI are the 44.03s, but hey theres plenty there if you like experimenting I know i do but then again i apparently know very little about computers

If you are trying to squeeze every ounce of juice you can i highly reccomend this little app, if your not comfortable tweaking your card yourself it includes a performance wizard
http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=362

Also if your into graphic card tweaking etc that site has a whole forum of people who know nothing about computers

 

damn and i wanted that honour

 

Do you think people are lying? The rest of the world is of the opinion that it is not always the case that the lastest drivers offer the best raw performance. I have personal experience that backs this up. So do people I know. I imagine so do people here. Just ask ATI people. There are thousands of documented experiences that contradict your opinion. Shoot, do a search on the Drivers forum for "catalyst".

Generally, yes, it is best practice to use the most recent drivers -- for stability and features. But if I've got a DX7 card and the most recent drivers only add performance enhacement for DX9... how exactly can that improve my performance? And stability and UI features? Tell me those don't slow down a program.

So it's entirely possible that a driver revision simply bulks up the drivers. More code and no usable performance enhacements = performance loss.

 

OK your right and everyone else is wrong, seriously man you need to chill out and accept that other people have different opinions from your own
Now you can either accept that or continue to live in your own fantasy world

You must be great fun on a night out

 

You're missing the point of the argument. These people aren't necessarily trying to solve a compatability or stability problem. They're dealing strictly with performance issues. You keep approaching this with the mindset that the newest driver will resolve known issues, but you're ignoring that the user might not experience any issues at all.

Let's say hypothetical video driver version 1.9 works just fine, and so does v1.8, v1.7, and v1.6. Let's also say that I experience none of the issues that these driver updates are intended to resolve. My system remains stable with all four versions of the driver. In my game of choice, I get an average of 60 fps with v1.9, 58 with v1.8, 64 with v1.7, and 60 with v1.6. Image quality is roughly equivalent.

Which driver is best for my system?

 

yea i've removed drivers via Add/Remove Programs before... never did that second step though... i'll wait for GLS's response as well =]

 

whoops i missed some of the replies and typed that last post without seeing your post... thanks for the info GLS

and on the subject of video cards, what would you recommend for my video settings for the Half Life engine (Counterstrike)... i normally play with V-Sync disabled but what should Antialiasing settings and Anisotropic filter values be?

 

well... there were 7 things that Nasty File Remover couldn't delete after reboot (scanned 2-3 times again).... and i got this warning after installing the drivers... what do u make of it? : ]

 

44.03 drivers

 

Mastertech... I've seen Adrynalyne and General Lee Stoned help a lot of people on these boards.... I trust their advice and I'm going to follow it... If you don't want to be helpful in this thread please discontinue posting in it... thanks

 

The screenshot you gave means that the driver is not digitally signed by Microsoft.

Now, to be honest, that doesn't mean a whole lot of anything, other than Nvidia didn't pay for the testing to get it MS approved.

Go ahead and continue. Its not an error, just an informational warning.

 

thanks again fellas... i finally got the drivers installed and i'm noticing more stable fps (no longer dropping much from 99)

just some quick settings questions... i only play CS so what should:

Buffer Flipping Mode
Default Color Depth
Antialiasing
and
Anisotropic Filtering

be set to...

 

Will have to wait for GLS, I've never played CC

 

CounterStrike... u dont know what you're missin =]

 

Doh, I meant, Counter Strike.

I'm getting tired, LOL.

Thats what everyone at work tells me too; I am missing out.

 

bah CS is old and outdated, UT2k4 > CS, better graphics, less cheaters, better maps etc

 

i know Fleppen but i'm picky about my video games... CS is the only game i've played for the last 4 or so years

 

And what a great living it is

Hey Mastertech as already posted you are missing the whole point of this thread, you critize anybody who likes to tweak and overclock thier machine rather than just play it safe, theres millions people out here who like to push the bar and get the most bang for the buck out of thier hardware/software hence the term Majorgeek
Yet you pimp a link in your sig to your optimize XP website, surely thats exactly the same thing taking a product and tweaking it to gain the best performance
If anyone doubts my word that the 44.03 drivers provide the best FPS and stability for my card, i will gladly install several sets of drivers and post the results here for perusal, unlike some i dont believe my word is gospel or anything, i just offered my advice on my own personal findings with the Geforce 4 Series of cards however what works for me may not work for others, and if you can offer some "factual evidence" to prove me wrong ill gladly accept that
So climb down off your self built pedastal, and open your mind to alternative points of view, and accept that we cant always be right about everything
You never know this might make you a better person, because arrogance is not a nice personality trait


@Midget
Sorry about the slight hijack of this thread, but the guy seems hell bent on winding up anyone and everyone
Glad the drivers seem to be working out ok for you, as for your questions posed unfortunately ive never played CS but seeing as its an old game i would assume you could crank the eye-candy up a fair bit without too much loss of performance,
Again though this all depends on your other hardware and what type of internet connection you have, if you want pure performance set your colour depth to 16 bit and turn off Anti Aliasing and Antrioscopic filtering, as for buffer flipping ive never seen much difference either way so personally i leave it set to auto
If you want some more eye candy etc and you get good pings then crank it up to 32 bit(i use this for every game myself) and turn on your AA and AF not knowing much about this game and how it plays with AA etc probably best set to application controlled
Its all about trial and error really change a few settings see how it goes and either stick with it or change it back
This is only my personal opinion based on my experiences, however seeing as i dont work in Wal-Mart and i like to play with drivers and overclocking I apparently know nothing about computers you may want to just completely ignore me

 

oops double posted, guess i really dont know nothing about computers

 

there is a frame lock on CS at 99/100 FPS, so go ahead and crank all your graphics settings up as high as you want.... its a old game with crappy graphics, so your card can handle it no problem.

@ GLS, careful about the 16bit colors.... in many games you get kicked for cheating on those settings... as in many cases it allows you to see through walls/boxes etc...

 

Hey man thanks for the heads up on the 16 bit, never knew that like i posted i always use 32bit myself
Thats good too know

 

@ In Years to Come, ive just been talking to my son about this and hes running a Geforce 4 MX440, Yes its a crap card but weve tweaked it out as much as we can and he can play more or less any game on the market with pretty reasonable frame rates (using omega hacked drivers version 45.23)
Anyway he plays all his games using 16bit, mostly First person shooters like MOHAA,RTCW and Global Ops etc... and he hasnt noticed any of the symptons you desribe, so we wondering which games these symptons occur in

 

I know for a fact it occurs in the original Unreal engine... so any games based of of that will get those problems.

I play Tactical Ops-- the counterstrike equivalent based on the unreal engine instead of halflife, and our latest anti-cheating tool kicks players in 16-bit.

I've heard of a few other games doing this as well... when i remember which i'll let you know

 

Hey thanks for the info man, i do have Tactical ops but i really suck at it,(maybe i need to try it in 16 bit LOL) but my bro-in-law and his son play this game exclusively, but i also know they play with all graphics tweaked up seeing as the game engine is fairly old and todays cards can handle it quite comfortably

Thats what i love about computers you are always learning

 

oh really? its rare to find fellow TacOp'ers its a fun game and I hope it doesnt die too soon... its lost about 40% of its players in the past year

 

Oh darn...

 

Here is where I will disagree with you. I have an FX5900 and a TI4200 before that. I play MMORPGs and games like UT2K4. I cannot even count the number of times a new NVIDIA driver caused problems with my games and I have to roll back the driver. My experience is very common judging by the tech support forums on the individual games. When you start playing around with things like pixel shaders, AA, and AF, it is not unusual to have crashes, lockups, etc with new drivers. Many MMORPGs have to work with the video companies to see if the new drivers cause problems with their games. Real world experience has taught many people to be a little cautious when considering upgrading drivers. I'm one of them.

So, in my case, an old driver does indeed "all of a sudden" make a game work that was not working before. Happens all the time.

BTW, over 10 years of experience as PC Support and Network Administration here - besides a side business of computer assembly/sales/support. That doesn't mean I know everything. Anyone in this business that see things in black and white is crazy. Every day I see things happening that should not be happening according to my current knowledge and experiences. It's called "Learning something new every day".

 

ROFLMFAO

You really do believe you are perfect dont you?

Even when people clearly disagree with you, you still refuse to accept it
I just looked up Arrogant in the dictionary and guess what your name was there in black and white

I offered to back up what i was saying with my results, yet apparently this aint good enough for you now, just google something like " problems with Nvidia drivers" and see what you get or even better visit the forums at
http://www.guru3d.com/ a whole website full of so called "know nothings"

Man it could take me hours to respond to all the BS you are spreading, how about you start backing up your side of the arguement with credible FACTS instead of just your uneducated guesses.
Why do you expect people to take your word as gospel, and yet ignore virtually the rest of the world
What makes you so special then, you are just some kid spamming on this forum who refuses to accept that theres always two sides to everything

Let me ask you something, have you ever in your life admitted to being wrong about anything?????????????????

Anyway do i really care about any of this....NO I DONT!
This is the internet of which plays a very small part of my life, i much prefer to chill out, drink some beer and spend time with real human beings like my family and friends
Im assuming the only personal relationship you have is with yourself, as no-one else could possibly meet your high standards

Im starting to think the best idea is to follow Adrynalynes lead and head for the ignore button i expect you are used to that

/GLS Kicks back in his chair,smiles to himself while firing up a smoke, cracking open a beer and heads for the ignore button, and normality is restored once again........

 

Oh yeah sorry man i kinda got sidetracked
Anyway yeah my nephew is a pretty crash hot player, hes got his own clan and everything, he goes by the name British Bulldog, ill try and catch him on msn and find out his clan website but were in the UK and most of his m8s come from Holland
BTW they use the actual stand alone game Assault on terror rather than the add on for UT, like i say ive tried it but i really suck cant get the hang of buying your ammo, body armour etc

 

Bah, CS is for da lame legacy gamers. UT2004 all the waay!

Never mind eh?

 

MT-- I agree.

the latest drivers should 100% be more stable and overall better... that IS their purpose afterall. However consider the following:

From your mouth, you said that you have had to workaround a lot of NEW bug/conflicts that might arise when installing new drivers. perfectly reasonable. however, for the average end user, or even the geek who could troubleshoot and fix the new bugs and continue using the latest drivers... is it worth his time and effort to fix them if he can use an older version in which he recieves NO errors AND gets better, although not amazingly, better performance??

in that aspect--recieving nothing but GAIN both stability wise and performance wise... there is no doubt that the older driver is a valid choice. Why do the extra legwork if there is no problem. thats like buying new tires for your bicycle simply because the new ones are "more durable" even though your old ones are in perfect shape in your eyes.

 

Gotta wonder why this thread is going on.

Whats right, whats wrong, it doesn't really matter when Midget's issue was resolved in this thread quite some time ago--with older drivers. He is satisfied, and that matters more than what someone read out of a book on what is "proper".

Regardless of who I have on my ignore list, I can tell just whats being said by the replies.

Argue amongst PMs, leave it out the threads.

 

This message is hidden because Mastertech is on your ignore list.