Do you really need to download drivers for old cards?

[Moe Zart]

It's an Nvidia 580, and from experience and from reading the changelogs, I've found that driver updates don't improve performance for any line of cards except the most recent one, and more importantly is they sometimes cause problems and I have to revert to old versions since these drivers are only aimed at the recent line of cards with a lack of regard for their stability with older cards.

 

[tviceman]

There may not be performance enhancements anymore, but the answer is still yes for bug fixes and proper game support.

 

[Moe Zart]

They fix bugs for the newest line of cards but cause bugs for the older ones.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Sometimes. Sometimes they don't.

You should always check the release notes to see if an update is relevant for your situation, and be prepared to roll back if you encounter weirdness.

I have a 660Ti and haven't had any bugs introduced by driver updates. Maybe there's something wrong with your rig that new drivers are exposing?

 

[NTMBK]

Sometimes. Sometimes they don't.

You should always check the release notes to see if an update is relevant for your situation, and be prepared to roll back if you encounter weirdness.

I have a 660Ti and haven't had any bugs introduced by driver updates. Maybe there's something wrong with your rig that new drivers are exposing?

660Ti is Kepler, which is still the latest and greatest design (Maxwell is only just starting to creep in). The 580 is Fermi, a different architecture, and conceivably a bit neglected.

 

[Moe Zart]

660Ti is Kepler, which is still the latest and greatest design (Maxwell is only just starting to creep in). The 580 is Fermi, a different architecture, and conceivably a bit neglected.

Indeed.

I think I will redownload the last driver for the 580 before Kepler completely took over. What driver version would that be?

 

[CakeMonster]

Indeed.

I think I will redownload the last driver for the 580 before Kepler completely took over. What driver version would that be?

What is your logic? I don't follow you at all.

 

[f1sherman]

You are too smart for your own good.

Fermi still receives much love, from arch specific, DX wide, and game specific optimizations.

Just download latest WHQL (or Beta).

What is your logic? I don't follow you at all.

Troubleshooting before there is anything to troubleshoot?

I see that alot

 

[Moe Zart]

Fermi still receives much love, from arch specific, DX wide, and game specific optimizations.

Just download latest WHQL (or Beta).

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Pretty sure he's being serious.

 

[SAAA]

So can I spare me the time to download 200MB of files or not? Btw I'm using an old card and don't have many new games, guess the answer is don't bother with updates?

 

[CakeMonster]

Meme pic

You're asking for help, make blanket statements about new drivers "cause bugs", then making a suggestion for using older drivers with lack of reasoning AFTER people have made specific advice that you should use new drivers, and your follow up is this?

You seem to have made up your mind about what the facts are already.

 

[Schmide]

You're asking for help, then making a suggestion for using older drivers with lack of reasoning AFTER people have made specific advice that you should use new drivers, and your follow up is this?

/Thread

 

[KingFatty]

The position is based on a premise, that assumes that the changelogs are fully informative. But it's possible that many many bug fixes or other fixes for older cards are simply omitted from the changelogs, to focus on listing the more relevant/informative information. I dunno, there is that chance, so it would be better to go with more recent drivers. Even so, if they are fiddling around with fixing bugs for the newest cards, it's not guaranteed they will create bugs for older cards.

 

[Schmide]

All modern cards compile vertex and shader instructions on the fly. nVidia is famous for optimizing these pipelines via game profiles. I highly doubt there would be any regression in performance or compatibility with newer versions.

 

[theprodigalrebel]

In my experience, depends. I learned after a lot of head scratching that anything newer than Catalyst 14.4 causes NFS: Rivals to get stuck on the loading screen, requiring a force quit.

That's really the only bug I found but I imagine that can't be the only one.

Radeon 5850 on 8.1 x64

 

[SPBHM]

In my experience, depends. I learned after a lot of head scratching that anything newer than Catalyst 14.4 causes NFS: Rivals to get stuck on the loading screen, requiring a force quit.

That's really the only bug I found but I imagine that can't be the only one.

Radeon 5850 on 8.1 x64

I also can report my recent experience with the 5850 (5 years old card), depending on the version AMD fixes and includes again some 2d bugs (like 12.6+ had the bug, 13.9, 14.1 or something fixed and 14.3 brought it back, a bug first reported by some users in 2009 or 2010), but outside of that when I tried to play "Watch Dogs" with 14.2 it would crash all the time and have other problems, 14.4 (actually 14.6+ is the driver recommended for this game, but I haven't tested) looks 100% stable with the game, so they are definitely changing things that can affect 5 years old cards,

 

[Moe Zart]

Trust in Nvidia! Don't you dare doubt Nvidia!

//

 

[stahlhart]

//

If you aren't serious about seeking assistance in this forum, then don't bother seeking assistance in this forum.
-- stahlhart