Latest Nvidia/ATi Drivers

[fedz]

For optimal performance, please ensure that your drivers are up to date:
_________________________________________________________________

Nvidia:

Driver home page

Forceware 66.93:
Windows 2000/XP

Forceware 66.94:
Windows 95/98/Me

Forceware 67.66 BETA:
Windows 2000/XP
____________

ATi:

Catalyst 5.1:

Driver home page

Windows XP

Windows 2000

Windows 98/ME

Release notes
_________________________________________________________________

Any further updates/drivers will be posted on this thread

fedz

[fedz]

Firstly, Catalyst 5.1 is unstable in Windows XP, causing cli.exe error messages on some systems. ATi are aware of this, and will release an update shortly to solve the problem. It is recommended that people stick with Catalyst 4.12 for the moment.

Secondly, although Nvidia Forceware 71-- beta drivers are already available, stay away from them for the moment as they suffer from image quality problems (see nvidia driver comparison below). Nvidia's latest Forceware drivers (66.93 for 2000/XP and 66.94 for 98/ME - no difference except in name) are relatively stable and problem free for the moment.

Several alternative drivers also exist:

ATi:

Omega have made their name making modded ATi drivers. Many people use them/have used them, including me. However, many other alternatives are available, two big names being DNA and TechConnect.

A comparison is available here.

Omega drivers home page.

DNA ATi drivers home page.

TechConnect ATi drivers mirror.
______________

Nvidia:

Although Omega has stopped making new Nvidia drivers for the moment, there are several new kids on the block, notably DNA and TechConnect. Note that Nvidia's 71.24 drivers are BETA, and that the image quality comparison halfway down the chart (see link below) may not be representative of Nvidia's final drivers.

A comparison is available here.

DNA Nvidia drivers home page.

TechConnect Nvidia drivers mirror.


Hope that helps

fedz

[cr4zy]

one thing I found pretty cool about ATI's new drivers for their newer cards is that they have added optimizations for certain applications. An example would be that Nvidia has always been much better then ATI when it came to benchmarks in Doom 3 but now with the optimizations they added to their drivers ATI has closed the gap quite well and is pretty much on par with Nvidia's scores in that area.

As a little side note Nvidia has been using optimizations in their drivers for some time now.

[fedz]

Disagree: ATi's new drivers (5.1) are massively buggy, and Nvidia still leads by a mile and a half in Doom 3. ATi's optimisations have been to use brilinear filtering - basically lower image quality, better performance. Considering that Nvidia got labelled cheats for doing that (and now no longer do it) that's a bit rich from ATi, who've now lost moral high ground both in dual-slot coolers and image quality.

fedz

[cr4zy]

I am depressed now.

[Jester]

The omega drivers for catalyst 5.1's are out and fixed now. I get 20 more fps on CSS source.

[netnamakan]

Fedz, maybe you or one of the mods could edit your post, seeing as the ati catalyst 5.2 is out

namakan

[fedz]

Mods should be able to, I'll ask later
Cat 5.2's are much more stable, I've switched back from Omega

fedz

[netnamakan]

Yeah the 5.2s are great, I just installed them for a friend and they brought his aquamark score up another 10,000, and there was a noticeable fps gain in everything

I wonder when nvidia will have thier next ones. For some reason my 6600gt only runs well on the older forcewares, anything else and I get major artifacts and lockups.

namakan

[David M]

Any idea why ATI does not have any drivers for the X800 card? Their website says to use the drivers that came with the manufacturers CD.

Are there any better/faster alternatives out there?

The Sapphire Radeon x800 platinum card I have goes blank for a few seconds then comes back. Its rare, but irritating enough to look for a solution.

Thanks

[Panama Red]

I use Omega drivers for all my ATI cards. They serve me well. Here's a link:

http://www.omegadrivers.net/

[netnamakan]

David, if you don't use the omegas, ATI's catylyst 5.2 are for almost all of the cards, x800 series included. The friend I installed them for has a x800xt PE
and the difference was amazing, much better than the 5.1s. I have not, however tried the omegas on his pc. so maybe try both and see which you prefer.

ATI catalyst 5.2

[spyder003]

New Forceware's 71.84 are out.

[ComputerNut]

Has ATi already got Catalyst 5.3 out? thats what it says on the linky netnamakan gave instead of 5.2.

[netnamakan]

wow thats wierd... the 5.2's just came out.. maybe a typo or something, although unlikely.

namakan

[Yuanji]

no, that would make sense. the way ATi names their drivers are the end number of the year, and the month. they come out with a new driver every month. So the 5.2s are the 2005 feb drivers. the 5.3s just came out since it's march now.

[ComputerNut]

Originally Posted by Yuanji no, that would make sense. the way ATi names their drivers are the end number of the year, and the month. they come out with a new driver every month. So the 5.2s are the 2005 feb drivers. the 5.3s just came out since it's march now.

Wow, thats a different way of doing it. I figured that it was simply a version number, and new versions would come as the need for fixes and improvements become apparent.

CN

[fedz]

Here are the latest drivers from ATi
https://support.ati.com/ics/support/...ge&folderID=27

and from Nvidia
http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp

fedz

[fedz]

Nvidia's latest drivers will always be here:
http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp

Nvidia's betas here
http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_do...etadriver.html

ATi's latest will always be here:
https://support.ati.com/ics/support/...ge&folderID=27

fedz

ATi catalyst 5.5 and forceware 71.89 are currently the latest

[kevinf]

catalyst 5.6 just came out https://support.ati.com/ics/support/...ge&folderID=27

[fedz]

Thanks I was looking forward to that one so much - up to 20% performance improvement according to ATi...

fedz

[fedz]

Again, until further notice:

Nvidia's latest drivers will always be here:
http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp

Nvidia's betas here
http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_d...betadriver.html

ATi's latest will always be here:
https://support.ati.com/ics/support...dge&folderID=27

For alternative drivers look at the second post of this thread.

fedz

[JusB]

I just built a new box with ABit AN8 Fatality SLi, AMD x2 4400, 2 gigs of Corsair Pro, Ultra X-Connect 500+, and an All In Wonder X600 Pro.
The installation CD has 2 sets of sound drivers, AC 97, and NVidia for the AC 97. I have Klipsch speakers, and my goal is to use digital or optical out. Since I have no digital coax out, I settled on the Optical. Pronlem is, if I use the NVidia, I get no sound from the optical, and if I use the AC 97, I have no control over volume.
Can anyone advise?
JusB@aol.com

[Panama Red]

Originally Posted by JusB I just built a new box with ABit AN8 Fatality SLi, AMD x2 4400, 2 gigs of Corsair Pro, Ultra X-Connect 500+, and an All In Wonder X600 Pro. The installation CD has 2 sets of sound drivers, AC 97, and NVidia for the AC 97. I have Klipsch speakers, and my goal is to use digital or optical out. Since I have no digital coax out, I settled on the Optical. Pronlem is, if I use the NVidia, I get no sound from the optical, and if I use the AC 97, I have no control over volume. Can anyone advise? JusB@aol.com

This thread is for updates to drivers only. Please start your own thread with a new post. Thanx.

----------------moderator-----------------

[JusB]

I posted here because it is a driver issue.
Wont happen again.

[RazorDX]

Just in case you didn't know, ATI has just released new Catalyst drivers. All of you with ATI cards should update ASAP.

[pam123]

Release 5.10 : https://support.ati.com/ics/support/...ge&folderID=27

[Two|Bit]

Whats the difference in getting the driver "With Control Panel" and "With Catalyst Control Center"?

[pam123]

Originally Posted by Two|Bit Whats the difference in getting the driver "With Control Panel" and "With Catalyst Control Center"?

The CCC requires .NET and it's a good deal fancier, read uses more resources, and allows more tweaking. The cli.exe of it isn't really accessing the net though, it seems tcp stacks are used just not the net even though it must have net permission.
I'm one of those people for whom it works badly,when I did finally get it to work, so I don't use it now.
The CP is the old one, doesn't use much in the way of resources, allows less tweaking and if you want to overclock the video card you'll need to dwonload the ATI tray tool.
ATI says that it will be switching everything to CCC but it's been more than a year now and they still haven't done it.

[fedz]

To put it bluntly, the CCC uses a nicer user interface and allows more complex options, as said above. However, its overclocking feature is an absolute joke and, as well as being a massive resource hog, it crashes more often than I´d ever care to know about. As a result, I´ve ditched it, and so have many other people.
My system isn´t exactly a slouch, you´d expect it to work best with that graphics card, but no. As a result, I think the expression `don´t touch it with a barge pole´comes to mind.
However, it seems to work for some, so I´d just advise you to try it and see what works best.
Best of luck with that

fedz