Recommended NVIDIA driver?

[terrypin 0]

I'm no graphics expert so would appreciate some plain advice about what driver I should be using please. The NVIDIA driver installed on my new PC a few months ago was 169.2. I upgraded it to 175.19 a few weeks ago, basically just following the advice to "always use the latest driver".. All seems generally OK, apart from a few quirks which I can't be sure are NVIDIA related. But this morning I had a spectacular crash while attempting to play a large AVI video clip. Extensive graphics corruption and total freeze, so had to reset PC. So I'm keen to know:1) Is the consensus amongst others with more experience that 175.19 is reliable and generally OK on XP Pro please?2) On my PC (Quad Core Q9450 2.66 GHz, 4 GB, running XP Pro) with 512 MB nVIDIA GeoForce 8800GT, should I upgrade to another driver? Or maybe revert to an older one?There seem to be a lot of versions in the archives. And on various forums and newsgroups there are many conflicting opinions on what is the 'best' driver, even for a specific card like my 8800GT.-- Terry, East Grinstead, UK

[Virtualwombat 4]

I always use the latest driver. I'm also running a 8800GT and have had no issues with 175.19.Cheers,Noel

[Guest belga1]

The NVIDIA driver installed on my new PC a few months ago was 169.2. I upgraded it to 175.19 I allways ask myself this question before any upgrade:What this upgrade (in this case a graphic driver) will add to my simming or PC usage experience?When I know the answer I upgrade or not.When something is not broken .. repair is not needed.In a word ... what is the difference for you between 169.2 ans 175.19 regard to your PC usage (in this case the graphic performances) ?Do you read this ?http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...id=41156&page=2http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...id=41246&page=3Cheers.

[Guest firehawk44]

"Extensive graphics corruption and total freeze, so had to reset PC."Probably not caused by your display driver. Did you check your Event Viewer and see what caused the crash? Logic states that if this was a display driver problem, then everyone playing a video clip with the 175.19 driver installed would have this crash. Not the case. Sorry you got a crash though and fully understand your frustrations. You have another problem and you need to find out the exact cause as it could be serious and demand immediate attention before things get worse. Or, it could have been a one-time thing. Graphics corruption could be the result of several issues relating to memory configuration, sound card or graphics card address conflicts, etc., etc. Sometimes a display driver does not install correctly too and is missing an important line in the system registry. A simple reinstall will fix this in most cases. I remember having crashes playing videos several years ago and it turned out to be the sound card conflicting with other hardware. I would stay with the latest WHQL driver for your graphics card. The only time I would go back is if NVIDIA forgot to set up game profiles like they recently did for the XP driver or NVIDIA pulls the drivers because they are receiving so many complaints about incompatibility (extremely rare). As I understand you could manually set up a profile but I thought accidently removing the profiles was inexcusable for such a large corporation.Best regards,Jim

[Guest triangle]

Like all Nvidia driver releases, everyone has a different experience. You can troll gaming forums everywhere and people's experience with 175.19 will vary from brilliant to awful - I for one, despite using Driver Cleaner Pro in safe mode etc, found that 175.19 would crash my machine to a restart very quickly. Others have had this experience too while others have found it to be rock solid.Work backwards - try 175.16 next, which is the latest release that is perfectly stable and performs well for me, until you find the driver set that works. And, most importantly:1) Uninstall your drivers from the control panel;2) Reboot into safe mode;3) Run Driver Cleaner in safe mode to eradicate all traces of the previous Nvidia installation;4) Reboot into Windows and reinstall your new driver set.Triangle

[terrypin 0]

>"Extensive graphics corruption and total freeze, so had to>reset PC.">>Probably not caused by your display driver. Did you check>your Event Viewer and see what caused the crash?Thanks all, appreciate te advice.I saw nothing relevant in the Event Viewer directly after the crash.I've downloaded the re-released version of 175.19 and plan to install it over the old one later today.-- Terry, East Grinstead, UK