Dropped back to 182 drivers

[Lee Downham]

Not sure about sticking all this lot into one humongous thread but anyways ... my card issues are not fixed, they are improved though.
Dropped from 185 drivers back to 182's after trying the 186 betas which were worse ... fewer less dramatic stutters now, not experienced graphics driver crashes during some recent testing so am hopeful I might be able to race again soon. Still want a proper fix to get things back to how they were
Defo software related ... have tested single cards and stuff on their own with no issues (thanks for the idea Bob)

 

[Damian Henderson]

Not sure about sticking all this lot into one humongous thread but anyways ...

Me neither, this kind of support is just going downhill on RD as seen since member support thread got messed up but oh well.


BTW Lee you still getting stuttering in other games or just Evo?

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

As i said in the feedback thread: patience my friend patience

 

[Lee Downham]

@Damian ... yeah mate :sad:
... should have done last weeks' STC race but had to pull out cos of this.

Not had enough time to look into it as much as I would have hoped lately ... but it all went seriously downhill with Vista SP2.
Support package "advances" should not be thwarted unless desperate, so I am still hoping that some driver update somewhere soon gets released to help solve it ... just landed a new Silicon Image Storage driver but have not checked since installing that ... fingers crossed.

As stated, fairly sure that the graphics cards are perfectly fine and with the framerates I am getting I am not even pushing their limits (2x8800gt 512MB's) ... the cpu is not maxxed out in any way when this happends either. HDD performance? Could be ... not really investigated that as yet though, but like I said, new storage drivers just gone in today.

IF the new storage drivers do anything for me here, I will update this thread, and if you have any other ideas Damian (or anyone), be happy to hear them. :wink2:

PS Bram ... spill the beans on the "new and improved" then, or put up with us grumbling 'till you do eh mate

 

[Keith Barrick]

Where Can I download these drivers. Im going through hell myself.

Any help appreciated.

 

[Alex Guehennec]

I tried the 185 too and for Gtr it was very very very bad and ugly
puted back 182 too, which are clean

Keith : http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

 

[Lee Downham]

Still getting these issues ... summary of things I can remember:

182.5 nvidia drivers work better than the 185, or 186's, don't wanna go back below that cos I lose dual view in SLi mode ... CPU not hitting 100% utilisation when stuttering happens, neither are graphics cards, mem not full, no untoward paging occurring as far as I can tell, disabling Kaspersky or many other running processing seems to be of no help, got updated storage controller drivers which helped but not fixed - frustrating really as I don't have much time to race ATM and am having to pull out of races cos this is not really drivable and I don't wanna ruin anyone else's races cos of this.

The storage driver updates did help somewhat, so I am gonna try checking what is happening on disk I/O whilst I drive ... could well be that something is amiss there.

 

[Bob Luneski]

My money would be on SLI issues. Could be a cooling problem also. 2 gpus kick of a lot of heat. Also try pulling the cards and switching the slots they are in.

 

[Lee Downham]

^^ been there done that :wink2:
Got good aftermarket coolers (1x Zalman and 1x DuoOrb) on each card and lots of good airflow in the case so heat is not an issue ... their core temp is maxxing out at 65ºC and 60ºC respectively (DuoOrb is a better cooler) ... but both are well below anything critical for this card.
Ben just PM'd me some stuff from another thread ... earlier drivers - gonna try that and see what happens ... seems the later Nvidia drivers are causing a number of issues :moneymouth:

 

[Keith Barrick]

Lee I actually tried the 182 drivers and had issues just like the 185 drivers. I went back to the 181 and 100% perfect with alot of testing.

They are in the Nvidia Archives.

 

[Bob Miley]

have tested single cards and stuff on their own with no issues (thanks for the idea Bob)

If single cards work ok then it is the SLi, maybe chipset drivers or a faulty SLi bridge. Gotta get it sorted Lee, not raced with you for ages matey.

 

[Adam Vaughan]

I tried the 185 and I keep getting that stupid driver has fully recovered thing. Lost me a win on the Mini friday race while i was pulling away from Mr Lennon. That dnt happen to often either.

 

[Sam Moss]

I'm on 179's and never had a problem. Any time i've tried to go up it will always lock up at soe point.. Nvidia really have gone down in quality lately! ati seems to be the way forward now.

 

[Sam J Simpson]

New WHQL driver released v186.18, I'm running a 1024 BFG GTX 285 OCX and from short tests I've done I've had no freeze in Evo yet so, touch wood, they seem to be better, they also seem to have fixed the broken AF and they install 3d drivers too.

Sam

 

[Lee Downham]

^^ thought my issues were fixed with the 182.08's but it was sadly not the case - not had chance to look at this for pretty much the whole of this week, but maybe today or tomorrow I will try the new WHQL drivers and if they work, I will report back.

PS @Bob - indeed mate - it is getting frustrating and I am missing some good honest racing with the likes of your good self ...
Without SLi and the bridge enabled I still get the stuttering on both my cards 8800GT's. I have also removed and reseated both cards, all connectors, memory modules and all other cards and connectors in my system - I even took the front off the case and hoovered out all the dust and cleaned all the fans and grills to help improve airflow and cooling (since summer is well and truly here now and we are in th region of 32°C air temps) - all to no avail tho.

My guess is that Nvidia have a deep rooted issue that SP2 seems to have amplified for me ... but I am not likely to spend €400 buying a new graphics card soon, so just have to keep pluggin away till this is either fixed by me or new drivers :sad:

 

[Warren Dawes]

I'm afraid I cant find any drivers that solve my chronic freezing problems. I've tried about 8 different ones ranging from 160's to 180's, and still no joy.
I could almost write a book covering all of the tips, hints, hardware & software changes I have tried, but still the same. Things run fine for a few days and then poof, usually at the worst time, the PC freezes and your race is ruined.

About the only major thing I haven't tried is to dump the NV9800GT and go for an ATI card.

 

[Lee Downham]

... which is not the cheapest option eh?

Errmmm ... can I ask Warren - is this only Simbin titles or have you got the same issues with other titles?
I tried rF and get the same stuttering there ... not testes GTL, but can't imagine it will differ.
The only other thing I am wondering is whether its something to do with disk access, or if it is related to the logging and stuff going on in the background in your user folders??
Again ... not tested just something I might investigate if I get time to do so.

 

[Warren Dawes]

... which is not the cheapest option eh?

Errmmm ... can I ask Warren - is this only Simbin titles or have you got the same issues with other titles?

Yes, Simbin titles only, but TBH I haven't been doing much gaming in anything else lately.
Most of the problems have been GTRE (chronic freezing, not stuttering) but have also had a couple of freezes with GTL also.
Basically the PC freezes for anywhere from 15 secs to 3 minutes, then usually comes alive but with scrambled graphics. Sometimes, it stays frozen and must be rebooted again to recover. They are totally random, off-line as well as on-line, and usually after recovering from the freeze, I can run the session continuously for hours afterwards and never get another freeze.

My old clunker of a PC was faultless, the new whizz bang PC has been a nightmare.

 

[Lee Downham]

Sad times for us both eh Warren ... when I get chance, I will look into this a little more myself, but I am fairly certain that unless there is a driver fix, then we are at the mercy of MS and Nvidia on this :sad:

 

[Kristofer Larsson]

I'm afraid I cant find any drivers that solve my chronic freezing problems. I've tried about 8 different ones ranging from 160's to 180's, and still no joy.
I could almost write a book covering all of the tips, hints, hardware & software changes I have tried, but still the same. Things run fine for a few days and then poof, usually at the worst time, the PC freezes and your race is ruined.

About the only major thing I haven't tried is to dump the NV9800GT and go for an ATI card.

I had the same problem with my previous NV9800GTX, freezes, hang and crashes, After a few months of troubleshooting without success, I bought a new GTX 285 and now runs the computer perfect :victory:
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