The 175.19s

[BoeingGuy 0]

Hello everyone,I have been hearing many rumors around which tell of horrible problems with the 175.19 drivers. Would downgrading to 175.16s have any bad effects or is it safe to do so?Thanks,

[Guest UlfB]

Yeah, horrible, horrible problems }( :-bat :-sae Sure.You must be kidding ;-)Ulf B

[BoeingGuy 0]

Not at all, my 2000 Midtown Madness 2 game crashes every 5 seconds, and FSX is stuttering horribly. Even the 165.25s did better than this. I know I have to lock the frame rate to get good perf on these drivers but that lowers performance and quality even though the stuttering might decrease. With 169.25s I could easily fly a silky smooth game with frame rate unlimited.:-hmmm

[sargeski 16]

The drivers are working just fine for me with FSX. Actually they are the best drivers I have used to date for FSX. Couldn't be happier.

[Guest SuperFortress]

>The drivers are working just fine for me with FSX. Actually>they are the best drivers I have used to date for FSX. >Couldn't be happier.I have to agree. As a matter of fact these drivers alleviated an annoying problem I was having before with a constant D3D9.DLL crash.

[Art_P 6]

The 175.19 driver worked fine for me until I loaded an FSX flight with dual monitors. Whenever the loaded FSX flight display came up while in dual monitor configuration, it would be followed by a serious blue screen video driver crash. I have reverted back to the 169.25 driver because I need to run FSX with a second display while working on scenery.I have been doing some troubleshooting and need to amend the post. Dual monitor mode has nothing to do with the problem. The 175.19 driver crashes when loading a flight into windowed mode with the window maximized. With a downsized window or full-screen it works fine, even with the window stretched out to fill the screen.ArtBiostar TF560-A2+, Athlon 64X2-6000+, 4GB RAM, Geforce 8800GTS-320MB, 500W PSU, 250GB HD, FSX (SP1-SP2), Vista Home Premium 32 bit, CH Yoke & Pedals, 22" WS LCD monitor

[Guest UlfB]

So it wasn't that much rumors, but your own experience then. Sorry.Ulf B

[vgbaron 3,486]

Sadly there's a lot of truth in rumors. I'm also one who has the 175.19's fail on my system. I had more CTD's in three days than I've had with FSX since it was released. Uninstalled the 175.19's and haven't had a CTD yet.For *SOME* folks, they suck big time and THAT"S not a rumor Ulf, it's a fact.I can only assume that Nvidia heard the same "rumors" and pulled the XP version from their site. Since I don't care for Vista I can't attest to results with that OS.VicQ6600 G0 CPU 2.4 o/c 3.65Evga 680i A1 with P31 BIOS 2G XP2-8500 DDR2 1066FSB Mushkin 996535 RAM 5-5-4-12-2T320G 7200 HD partitioned for XP/Programs 2 - 74G Raptors in RAID0 500G 7200 HD for backup SATA DVD burner Evga 8800GTS 640 PCIx 174.74beta 702/1620/792HannsG 28" & Viewsonic 22" Kandalf LCS case w/ built in liquid cooling 850W Thermaltake power supplyVisit the Virtual Pilot's Centerwww.flightadventures.comhttp://www.hifisim.com/banners/hifi-supporter-sigbanner.jpg

[Guest firehawk44]

Strange. The 175.19 display drivers for Vista have been great for me and FSX. Never a crash, never a stutter. I know the XP version was pulled because they "forgot" to include the program profiles so I can see why XP users are a little upset. I heard a lot of "rumors" (see their SLI forum) that these are the best drivers yet from Nvidia but they still haven't fixed the FSX DX10 problems. I would keep them on your system if you're a Vista user.Jim

[Art_P 6]

>Strange. The 175.19 display drivers for Vista have been great>for me and FSX. Never a crash, never a stutter. I know the XP>version was pulled because they "forgot" to include the>program profiles so I can see why XP users are a little upset.>I heard a lot of "rumors" (see their SLI forum) that these are>the best drivers yet from Nvidia but they still haven't fixed>the FSX DX10 problems. I would keep them on your system if>you're a Vista user.>>JimHave you tried a flight in FSX with a maximized window rather than full screen? The driver crashes when I try it in this configuration, and there are also problems reported with AA in windowed mode, not just with FSX.ArtBiostar TF560-A2+, Athlon 64X2-6000+, 4GB RAM, Geforce 8800GTS-320MB, 500W PSU, 250GB HD, FSX (SP1-SP2), Vista Home Premium 32 bit, CH Yoke & Pedals, 22" WS LCD monitor

[Mace 1,902]

> I would keep them on your system if>you're a Vista user.>Opposite experience for me. As I've said in some other thread, I run V64 and the 175.19's were quite unstable. Back to 169.xx's and sys is stable, good performance, smooth, etc.There is a reason for everything. So I am sure, if a person wanted to spend enough time figuring it out, they could determine exactly what component makes 175.19 work for one person, and not another.RhettFS box: E8500 (@ 3.80 ghz), AC Freezer 7 Pro, ASUS P5E3 Premium, BFG 8800GTX 756 (nVidia 169 WHQL), 4gb DDR3 1600 Patriot Cas7 7-7-7-20 (2T), PC Power 750, WD 150gb 10000rpm Raptor, Seagate 500gb, Silverstone TJ09 case, Vista Ultimate 64ASX Client: AMD 3700+ (@ 2.6 ghz), 7800GT

[GHarrall 494]

As I posted in another thread...See this link:http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?opti...=1&limitstart=6

[GHarrall 494]

For those that don't want to go to the link.The very last paragraph sums it up."As I have previously mentioned in this article, it's my belief that drivers should improve stability and performance with each new revision. Now, one could argue (if they had the data) that NVIDIA enhanced stabililty at the expense of performance. That someone would probably be playing Devils advocate, because I can't believe any reasonable person would decide that very good stability raised to extremely good should result in very good performance dropping to fair. This kind of argument also doens't explain why 3dMark06 would see a 55% reduction in performance between driver versions. Of course, I will have to reiterate for the ump-teenth time that all Forceware drivers were uninstalled using the Add/Remove programs interface, and then Driver Cleaner Pro was utilized to remove any remaining traces. I have to repeat all of this, because of the hordes of "readers" who don't bother to actually read. So now that this information is on nearly half the pages of the article, I should only receive half the hate mail from visitors claiming I should use Driver Cleaner Pro. Anyway... It's not up to me to make decisions for you. I know that as a hardware reviewer, benchmark scores are worth their weight in gold because of the time spent on gathering them. If one tiny driver revision changes the entire table of scores, then there's very good reason for concern. For me, as a reviewer, I have to be careful now that I not test with the Forceware v175.19 driver as I benchmark ATI's Radeon HD 4850 and 4870. All of my GeForce GTX and 9800 series benchmarks were conducted with the 175.16 driver, and that's what I will use for future comparison in the coming articles. But I'm not the only one who should be alarmed: you should be, too. My money doesn't get spent on video cards, since most manufactures will loan the websites a sample to test that gets returned or exchanged for another. So when it comes to reading the reviews out on the web, you'll want to make sure they disclose the full details of the test methodology. Most website mention the brand and model of the product, but often times it's nearly impossible to figure out which driver they're using. This doesn't mean that the benchmark results on other sites are wrong, but it does mean you should be wary of those who are unaware of the impact that Forceware 175.19 has on video cards like the 9800 GTX and GX2. Ultimately though, you don't even have to take my word for it. Go benchmark the two driver versions yourself. 3dMark06 offers a trail version (to the best of my knowledge), and Driver Cleaner Pro is available for free from our affiliate driverheaven.net. After all I've done my homework and it's your time and money at stake, not mine. Questions? Comments? Benchmark Reviews really wants your feedback. We invite you to leave your remarks in our Discussion Forum. EDITORS NOTE: I apologize that this article did not get more involved with control panel changes and other benchmark results, but my time was cut very short due to unexpected travel. UPDATE 06/27/08: Thank you to forum member slickric21 who points out that others are producing similar results with Forceware 175.19. He mentions several other discussions in his post, which identify missing profiles in this version of the driver. Read more about this issue in our FPS Impact: NVIDIA Forceware 175.16 vs 175.19 discussion thread. UPDATE 06/27/08: Only one day after this article was published, NVIDIA has pulled the Forceware 175.19 driver from its website and re-published the version 175.16 driver. Benchmark Reviews agrees with their decision, as the Forceware 175.16 worked considerably well in all of our tests. UPDATE 07/07/08: Since this article has published, NVIDIA has pulled the v175.19 driver and then later re-posted it. Presently the 175.16 driver is available to the open public. It would be my advice to wait for an entirely new driver that doesn't wear the 175.19 name"

[BoeingGuy 0]

Well I've done more testing. The 175.19s stutter with light bloom+frame rate locked options, so it's one or the other. The 175.16s seem to be the way out, heck, even the 169.25s don't seem too bad.

[Walouigi 1]

The new 175.19 for XP is back outhttp://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_175.19_whql.htmlRegards