**Official** Video Card Drivers Rev2

[Gamingphreek]

Discussion continued from the previous thread.

---

RECOMMENDED DRIVERS:
ATI: Catalyst 5.7
Nvidia: (Official) 77.77
(Modded) any XG Driver

With all the new drivers coming out virtually everyday, i thought this thread might help some people. I will update it daily with any new drivers (Beta or Official)

**NOTES**

**Please post results, and contribute in the forums of TweaksRus.com for their generosity and support.**

Benchmarks Various Nvidia Drivers: Includes the top 7x series drivers. Thanks to Pray For Death for the link.

Benchmarks 7x.xx : The latest drivers compared thanks to some searching around.

Benchmarks (NV) : A BIG thanks to THUGSROOK for providing benchmarks and keeping them up to date!

IQ Difference (NV) : A BIG thanks to McArra for this.

IQ Difference II : A Big thanks to VIAN for taking the time to do this.

**DRIVERS**
Nvidia Forceware
2000/XP
Official WHQL 78,01: Supposed to fix/help fix (until the Rel. 80) the minor flickering observed in 6 and 7 series cards. WOuld recommend for all cards, but more so the 6 and 7 series users.

Official WHQL 77.77: Tagged 11 August 2005. Supports SLI AA. Supports SLI on lower model cards (6600, 6200); various small fixes.

Official Beta WHQL 77.56: Tagged August 4 2005

Beta WHQL 77.74: Tagged July 29 2005

Official Beta 77.76: Adds support for Bridgeless SLI, 16x SLI AA, Support SLI for 6600(LE), FIxers color bug.

Beta 80.40: HIGHLY BETA

Beta 77.18

WHQL 72.14: Unknown as to when it was tagged. Will get more info.

Beta 77.50: Tagged 13 June 2005

Beta 77.30: Tagged 10 June 2005: Required to play Battlefield 2.

Beta WHQL 72.13: Tagged 7 May 2005

Beta 77.13

Beta WHQL 72.12: Drivers are tagged 18 April 2005.

Official Beta 73.00: Fixes SLI and widescreen problems; supports OGL 1.5.3.

Beta WHQL 76.45: Temp bug should be gone, originally for Geforce 6 only but modded inf is included.

Beta 72.03: Temp bug is back. Recommend that you stay with the 71.89's.

Official WHQL 71.89: Temp bug fixed. Tagged April 14; Fixed Riddick bug

Beta 71.91: Originated from Leadtek. Only for laptops unless you use the modded .inf.

Beta WHQL 71.89: Rumored to be very nice set

Beta 76.50

Beta 71.86: Information coming

Beta WHQL 76.44: Only for Geforce 6 series without modded inf.

Beta 72.30 : No OCing via SLI, more info to come.

Beta 76.41 : TEMP BUG FIXED. Supports OGL2.0. Xtreme G Drivers are released as well.

Official WHQL 71.84: Finally an official release. Enjoy

Beta 76.10 : If password is needed (not sure if he uploaded it after crack) the password is proe. Supposedly fixes all bugs, but many people still have temp bug and SC bug. Performance around the same as 71.84 and 75.90.

WHQL Beta 71.90 : Tagged 27 February 2005. Possibly the precursor to the Official drivers.

Official Beta 71.84 : Originated from Leadteks FTP server. Rumored to fix the shiny grass in CS. You must register with Tweaks R Us (Formerly Valance Studios) in order to download from their sight. Drivers are tagged 24 February 2005.

Beta 75.90: Originated from station drivers. All cards supported. So far people reporting decent gains in everything. Temp "bug" is still present. Tagged 10 February 2005.

Beta 67.71: Originated from Dell for the "Go" mobile cards but works with all. OLD: Tagged 30 November 2004.

Official Beta 71.81: Originally for Quadro cards but works with all cards. Fixes Halo bugs. Tagged 28 January 2005

Official 71.80: Originated from Nvidias FTP sight. Tagged 20 January 2005. Minor gains here and there, intended for use with Quadro cards.

Official Beta WHQL 71.25 : Tagged 10 January 2005.

Official Beta 67.66 : Tagged 10 January 2005. Newest Official driver straight from Nvidia. Supposed to completely enable pure video.

Beta 71.21 : Drivers are tagged 6 December 2004

Beta 70.78: Drivers are tagged 23 November 2004. For Quadro only so you must use the modded .inf which is included.

Beta 71.50 : Drivers tagged 22 of December 2004. Originated from leadtek. Again, mixed reviews by people. Setup.exe sometimes does not work, therefore manual installation is recommended.

Beta 71.40 : Drivers are tagged 16th of December. Latest unofficial (not originating from another manufacturer) drivers. People have mixed thoughts on these. Best to stay with what you have unless they are giving you problems.

Beta 67.65 : Drivers are tagged 30 December 2004: Originated from Asus: Recommend installing manually

Beta 67.60 : Drivers are tagged 11 November 2004

Beta 71.24 : Drivers are tagged 30 December 2004. Originated from Sparkle. *Only Geforce 6 users, anyone else must use the modded .inf file.

Beta 71.22 : Drivers are tagged 28 December 2004. Originated from MSI. If card is not supported use modded .inf that is included.

Beta 71.20: Drivers are tagged 2 December 2004. New Driver Interface; Improves performance in general. Benchmark is here

Beta **WHQL 66.97: Drivers are tagged 2 December 2004. ONLY FOR GEFORCE 6 SERIES UNLESS YOU USE THE INCLUDED MODDED INF (Will lose WHQL for cards other than Geforce 6 series.

Beta 70.90: Drivers are tagged 11 November, supposed to boost games by 2-6fps and a small boost in 3dMark.

Official Beta 67.03: Drivers tagged December 1, 2004. Supposed to fix a bug with the 6600's.

Beta 67.42: Drivers November 22, 2004; Supposedly only for laptops but modded INF is included.

Beta 67.20: Drivers tagged November 17, 2004

Beta 67.02's: Drivers tagged November 16, 2004.. supposed to be very new.

Beta 67.50's: Drivers are tagged 27 October

*Official 66.93's WHQLed: Released Nov. 7/

Beta 66.74's: Tagged 27 October. WHQLED but not official.

Beta 70.41's: Tagged 9 October


98/ME
Beta 66.42's: Tagged 28 August



ATI Catalyst
2000/XP
Official WHQL 5.9: More minor performance gains. Some Video acceleration features. All around, from what i see yet another solid driver release.

Official WHQL 5.7: Again, minor performance gains. Those with Hypermemory cards will see much more significant performance gains. Yet another solid driver release.

Official WHQL 5.6: Reports of minor performance gains <2%. However have heard various reports of larger gains at lower resolutions. Another solid release.

Official WHQL 5.5: New monthy drivers. Anyone have anything on them?

Official WHQL 5.4: New ATI drivers... more info to come

Official WHQL 5.3: Info will be updated as i get it.

Official WHQL 5.2: Released 02-09-05

Official WHQL 5.1 : Just released. >5fps increase in Source based games as well as various stability improvements.

4.12 WHQL: Final revision of the 4.12.... not sure on performance

*Official 4.11's: WHQLed

*Official 4.10's: Tagged 14 October

Beta 8.07's: Tagged 27 September


98/ME
Beta 4.11's: Tagged 8 November

*Official 4.10's: WHQL: Tagged 30 October


MODDED USE AT YOUR OWN RISK

DNA Catalyst 3.6.5.1a Great alternative to the legendary Omega drivers.
Nice improvements all around from what i gather

Omega Catalysts 5.1 : Most popular modded ATI driver out there.

Nvidia DNA Force Drivers (Based on 71.80): Heavily modified for very good IQ and little speed loss. Not for benchmarking.

Zer0Point 66.97 : Claim to fix the Yellow water and have good all around improvements.

Xtreme G Drivers: Very nice set of drivers. Big thanks to creators!!

ATI DNA Drivers 4.12 : As noted on the main website.

ATI Omega 4.12a : Tagged 3 December 2004 Works with ANY Radeon card including Mobility series.

ATI Omega 4.12 Win2K/XP : Tagged 14 October 2004

Nvidia Omega 61.77 Win2K/XP : Tagged 25 December 2004. Bugs fixed and themes added.


And finally, for all you 3DFXers out there. Here are all the drivers you could ever want for those cards.

3DFX Drivers : Various Tag Dates

Links courtesy of Neowin, Nvidia, ATI, and Guru3d, Omegacorner, and Tweaks R Us.

-Kevin

 

[Gamingphreek]

Since the last thread was getting so big, someone suggested that i create a new thread. So here is the continuation of the last thread.

-Kevin

 

[Megatomic]

Excellent work Kevin. Keep it up. :beer: <--- That's root beer btw.

 

[Gamingphreek]

Thanks!!

New Nvidia drivers

 

[McArra]

76.71 64bits out!!!

 

[Rike]

*Rike sits waiting for THUGSROOK to post his results for the official 71.89 drivers*

Gamingphreek, thanks again for maintaining this thread. It has been a great resource for vid drivers. :thumbsup:

 

[Gamingphreek]

I would like to say sorry to everyone about the ATI Cat 5.4's link. It was broken. Now that i tried to fix it i cannot do a direct link to ATI's driver page. I can only link to the homepage. Hopefully ill find someway around this.

As for those new drivers, itll be a little until i get those up because they are 64bit. I have to create a new 64 bit category and compile a list of drivers that were popular for that OS. But rest assured i will have them up ASAP.

-Kevin

 

[McArra]

This and 64bit 71.84 are the best by far. This one improves performance in 3dMark but has to be manually installed
Also 64bit Catalyst 5.4 are out.

 

[PrayForDeath]

What are the 64bit drivers for? Last time I checked, WinXP64bit wasn't out.
Thanks GamingPhreek for maintaining this thread, it is really helpful

 

[Gamingphreek]

Win XP 64bit isn't out yet, however there are free evaluation and testing versions out. Additionally if you have XP-Pro you can upgrade, when it comes out, to 64bit edition for free.

-Kevin

 

[Gamingphreek]

New Official Nvidia drivers... 71.89

 

[PrayForDeath]

I tried the new officials yesterday. They are fast and stable. But my only gripe would be the lack of "refresh rate override" tab. I don't understand why they do that.

 

[Hyperlite]

faster than 76.44?

 

[cjsketchy]

I'm lovin' the 71.89's so far... great IQ, great performance, rock solid. I use ReForce so I don't notice the lack of refresh rate override tab. Best nV drivers I've used thus far in my 6 months since switching from ATI...

 

[McArra]

XG 76.50 are great!!!

 

[theslug]

People said the 71.84 drivers released in March made their card run much hotter than usual. Does 71.89 fix this?


Edit: Nevermind, says right there in the release notes it does. Now to figure out which is better, this or the XG ones.

 

[Gamingphreek]

XG ones are hands down better in all aspects

Also the card was never running hotter. It was a bad sensor reading. However i have heard recent reports that it did run a little hotter because it did not throttle back from 3d mode.

-Kevin

 

[PimpRigForNow]

So I have a question for all you guys. I have read all of the forums about how the X850 is a lot stonger than the 6800GT. When I upgraded from the 6800GT to the X850 I gained about 700 points in 3dmark03 and lost about 25 fps in CSS. Tried the catalyst drivers as well as the omega drivers. Is there a bios flash or anything that is make this thing performe like it should. Thanks guys

 

[Gamingphreek]

Ok we need more system information as well as what drivers you are using.

Make sure you uninstalled the Nvidia drivers completely and reinstall the Omega 5.4's or the Catalyst 5.4's.

The 850 should have around a 20fps advantage not a loss. Do not worry about 3dMark scores... they no longer accurately represent your system when you are doing that close of a comparison.

-Kevin

 

[PimpRigForNow]

I am using the latest 2.6.12 driver from omega
Running Windows XP Pro
Just reinstalled windows so no other drivers are present
Don't know what else you need??

 

[Gamingphreek]

Check your voltage monitors in you BIOS. Make sure you have the Molex connector plugged into the card, then make sure that it is supplying a constant amount.

What kind of powersupply do you have. It might not be strong enough... the X850 consumes more power than the 6800GT.

Additionally try the Official ATI drivers. You might just have a problem with the Omegas.

-Kevin

 

[PrayForDeath]

PimpRig, are you running the X850 on similar settings to what you ran the 6800 on? Were you running the 6800 on performance mod (drivers)? Were you using any optimizations? There might be a difference in settings between the two. The only way to find out is to compare your X850 benchmark to the reviews, and see if it's really >20FPS off.

p.s:yay, 1111 post count!

 

[Kid Vicious]

xtreme G's based on the whql 71.89's is out too:

oop, sorry. already posted.

 

[Oceanic]

71.89 are giving me problems in flight sim 2002, it messes up the planes textures...it just pastes the thumbnail file or whatever on the plane instead of putting it on right...on some planes anyways

 

[ROJAS]

Thanks,excellent post.