NVIDIA drivers...do they ever get updated?

[Type_R]

Recently switched from ATI to NVIDIA and in the time I have had my GTX570 there has not been even one revision of the 266.58 drivers. Is this normal?

Do I actually need new drivers, well not specifically, but some speed gains across the board would not go amiss. I am just baffled by the lack of updates by NVIDIA.

 

[PistolPete]

266.58 went WHQL on 18th Jan, 267.24 went beta on 1st March and 270.51 went beta on the 30th March so work is happening.

The whole ATI monthly updates thing - you wont get that from Nvidia.

 

[mattjd]

The beta 270.51 drivers are really good. Give them a go if you want to update.

Nvidia don't release their drivers until they are ready for release instead of a rushed monthly release.

 

[Hydrogoo]

In my years of using nvidia cards I had my first issue this weekend. Lots of artifacting and whatnot from it. Ran GPU-Z to check temps which were at a nice 30deg idle. Had to update to the latest beta drivers which improved my performance in quite a few of my games as well as fixing the artifacting and driver crashes that I had been getting before.

 

[The Asgard]

The ATI monthly update always seemed rushed to me and ended up with more things being broken than fixed. While its good to get monthly updates I would sooner have quartely updates that have been tested and work.

You only have to look at how many people stuck with the 10.4 cat release due to bugs in later versions.

 

[Cleeecooo]

The ATI monthly update always seemed rushed to me and ended up with more things being broken than fixed. While its good to get monthly updates I would sooner have quartely updates that have been tested and work.

You only have to look at how many people stuck with the 10.4 cat release due to bugs in later versions.

This.
It takes too l0ong trying to find an ATI driver that solves all the problems without creating new ones

 

[straxusii]

I didn't have a problem with the monthly ATI drivers when I had my 5870 but I must admit I thought it was a bit of a mad use of resources to do monthly given the amount of resource that goes into a full test and release software cycle for something that has to be tested extremely well like a driver.

 

[Neil79]

Remember though some people won't go anywhere near beta drivers, they feel that WHQL is always spot on and never has any bugs!. Hah, there has been a number of times when WHQL has been a bad driver. The only thing WHQL means is it's stamped by microsoft. 590GTX blowing up, yep WHQL drivers... Fan Failing cards roasting yep a WHQL driver set, need i go on?

The latest beta drivers 270.51 are bloody good

 

[Tomtom3989]

+1 to 270.51
you will also get the occasional new beta drivers for specific new games, i never want to go back to amd drivers

 

[TheRealDeal]

Monthly drivers are great imo. Its great because you are guaranteed a new driver and dont need to guess when the next driver is coming. People need to stop thinking because a new driver is out they need to use it. I only move to a new driver if i need to which gives me less chance of running into problems. Some people use all the monthly releases and the betas in between and wonder why they have problems.

The old saying if its not broke dont fix it springs to mind.

Nvidia on the other hand for me is just chaotic with beta after beta flying out. If they agreed to a new whql driver atleast every 3 months it would be better as then people would know when they can expect bug fixes or performance enhancements. In my experience people like order not chaos which is why i prefer amd's monthly driver even though i usually only install if i need them.

 

[The Asgard]

Nvidia on the other hand for me is just chaotic with beta after beta flying out. If they agreed to a new whql driver atleast every 3 months it would be better as then people would know when they can expect bug fixes or performance enhancements. In my experience people like order not chaos which is why i prefer amd's monthly driver even though i usually only install if i need them.

After moving my main rig over to Nvidia after using AMD for the last 2 years I have found the exact opposite. AMD drivers were chaotic release versions quickly followed by hot fixes. 266 and 270 have just worked and its been a refreshing change to just play games without any issues.

AMD IMHO have great hardware but suffer from poor drivers.

 

[TheRealDeal]

After moving my main rig over to Nvidia after using AMD for the last 2 years I have found the exact opposite. AMD drivers were chaotic release versions quickly followed by hot fixes. 266 and 270 have just worked and its been a refreshing change to just play games without any issues.

AMD IMHO have great hardware but suffer from poor drivers.

This last year using a 5770 and a 6870 i have used driver versions 10.4,10.10,10.12 and 11.2. They all worked fine with no hastles and as you see out of 12 monthly releases and all the hotfixes released i only needed 4 sets. No betas here as all they ever give me is hastle on amd and even when i was with nv although i do admit it was when nv drivers were terrible for 6 months or more the betas and the whql were just rubbish. Not sure which series it was but it was around gtx2xx series release. My 8800gtx that i was using also died around the same time that an nv driver release was killing them.

So driver wise i joined nv at there worst and i still dont know if it was there drivers that killed my card. They seem to have improved since then though and the 8800gtx was my last nv card so i cant comment on what they are like now.

 

[kagg8]

While 270.51 drivers are good for most games, it sucks for the game I play the most, PES 2011, in fact the latest driver that allows me to play without stutters in PES is 259.81

I wish NVIDIA could stop breaking things when upgrading

When I had a hd5850, I would just use the latest driver and be done with it

 

[HangTime]

Monthly drivers are great imo. Its great because you are guaranteed a new driver

I don't really follow this logic; if you only move to a new driver when you 'need to', why is having a guarenteed new driver every month great? Surely the optimal solution would be a new driver every day, then you'd always be guarenteed a bang up to date driver rather than one that is up to 30 days old. Or even a 'random' frequency like Nvidia use shouldn't be inherently worse than a monthly cycle, because by your own admission you are only looking to update your drivers on a 'random' schedule anyway.

 

[zYx]

I'm using 260.99 because on 266.58 the 3D in BluRay players didn't work properly on a 3DTV...

 

[TheRealDeal]

I don't really follow this logic; if you only move to a new driver when you 'need to', why is having a guarenteed new driver every month great? Surely the optimal solution would be a new driver every day, then you'd always be guarenteed a bang up to date driver rather than one that is up to 30 days old. Or even a 'random' frequency like Nvidia use shouldn't be inherently worse than a monthly cycle, because by your own admission you are only looking to update your drivers on a 'random' schedule anyway.

Its like waiting for a bus. Amd run a bus that comes around every hour. I know if i need to get a bus it will be there sometime each hour.

If nv were running the same bus i would have to go to the bus stop and could be there for hours because i don't have a clue when a bus is coming.

The point is i like knowing when new drivers will be released even if i don't need them much like i usually don't use buses. When i need a bus though they have a schedule just like amd have a driver release schedule.

 

[mmj_uk]

No point having a regular schedule though if the buses continually fail to deliver the intended service, you sometimes have to wait 4-5 or more releases for AMD to fix certain bugs so they aren't necessarily more efficient.

 

[Tute]

Am I the only person who never has problems with ATI drivers? All my problems over the years have come from nVidia driver packages.

Although admittedly my GTX460 ownership was a very smooth experience.

 

[TheRealDeal]

No point having a regular schedule though if the buses continually fail to deliver the intended service, you sometimes have to wait 4-5 or more releases for AMD to fix certain bugs so they aren't necessarily more efficient.

I can't remember any ati/amd drivers killing cards which is a real fail. Lets be honest drivers from both sides are not perfect and they never will be. I have used more ati cards over the years and i certainly would not have done this if i thought they had poor driver support. I just don't seem to get all these fail drivers that the minority seem to get. i have been using amd for 8 years now with a trip in between to a 8800gtx which was a good card but like i said above it died on me. The funny thing was it died around the time of the 8800 killing driver. Was probably just a coincidence but maybe it was the driver.

 

[Mr Krugga]

I don't really follow this logic; if you only move to a new driver when you 'need to', why is having a guarenteed new driver every month great? Surely the optimal solution would be a new driver every day, then you'd always be guarenteed a bang up to date driver rather than one that is up to 30 days old. Or even a 'random' frequency like Nvidia use shouldn't be inherently worse than a monthly cycle, because by your own admission you are only looking to update your drivers on a 'random' schedule anyway.

Well, I like the AMD's cycle of releasing new drivers.

For the enthusiasts there are at least two or three drivers a month to try out (a preview, a beta and an official release). We get hotfixes the very same or next day if anything goes wrong.

Crossfire users don't have to wait for driver updates to fix scaling issues in games - CAP can be installed over the top iirc and don't require a restart so you get them straight away - their really small too.

With every release there is a change log and Rage3d and Guru3d have quite comprehensive drivers subforums where new releases are being discussed and tested.

There are modded drivers for mobile GPU's users.

If you're looking for a stable system, you can install every second or third official release and should not encounter any problems. For those looking for even the slightest performance improvements or quick fixes, it is ideal to have them asap.

Look at the 5800 series cards, they gained so much performance with the drivers that 6900 series is barely an improvement.

I very rarely encounter drivers problems, don't really upgrade Nvidia drivers too often on the secondary PC and both my desktop and the laptop use ATI GPU's and haven't really had a single issue that would not be related to overclocking or third party software for ages now.

Sorry for hijacking the thread, Nvidia owners. Off I go.