NVIDIA BETA UNIFIED DRIVER 301.24

[Infinity7]

Downloads over at NVidia: http://www.nvidia.co.uk/Download/Find.aspx?lang=en-uk

Release Highlights:

This is the first unified driver from the R300 family of drivers (versions 300.00 to 301.99).

GeForce R300 drivers are packed with new industry-leading, GeForce-exclusive features as well as some really nice performance increases in top games.

New in R300 Drivers:

•New GPU Support – Adds support for the new GeForce GTX 680, the fastest, most efficient GPU ever built. Explore GeForce GTX 680 and its new SMX architecture on GeForce.com.

•Performance Boost – Increases performance for GeForce 400 Series and 500 Series GPUs in several PC games vs. GeForce 296.10 WHQL-certified drivers. Results will vary depending on your GPU and system configuration:

GeForce GTX 570/580:

?Up to 23% in Just Cause 2 with SLI

?Up to 21% in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

?Up to 17% in StarCraft II with SLI

?Up to 14% in Far Cry 2 with SLI

?Up to 9% in Bulletstorm

?Up to 7% in Civilization V

?Up to 6% in Deus Ex: Human Revolution with SLI

?Up to 6% in Dragon Age 2 with SLI

?Up to 5% in Metro 2033 with SLI

?Up to 5% in Total War: Shogun 2

GeForce GTX 560/560 Ti:

?Up to 20% in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

?Up to 15% in Just Cause 2 with SLI

?Up to 13% in Far Cry 2 with SLI

?Up to 12% in Bulletstorm

?Up to 11% in Civilization V

?Up to 10% in StarCraft II with SLI

?Up to 9% in Batman: Arkham City

?Up to 4% in Deus Ex: Human Revolution with SLI

?Up to 4% in Dragon Age 2 with SLI

?Up to 4% in Metro 2033 with SLI

?Up to 4% in Total War: Shogun 2

•NVIDIA FXAA Technology – shader-based anti-aliasing technology available from the NVIDIA Control Panel that enables ultra-fast anti-aliasing in hundreds of PC games. FXAA delivers similar quality to 4x multi-sample antialiasing (MSAA) but is up to 60% faster, enabling substantially higher performance in games. FXAA is supported on all GeForce 8-series and later GPUs. Note: This feature is disabled for games that already have built-in support for FXAA. Visit GeForce.com to learn more.

•NVIDIA Adaptive Vertical Sync – dynamically enables vertical sync based on your current frame rates for the smoothest gaming experience. Adaptive VSync is supported on all GeForce 8-series and later GPUs. Visit GeForce.com to learn more.

•NVIDIA Frame Rate Target – dynamically adjusts frame rate to a user specified target. Support for this feature is enabled via third party applications via NVAPI. Visit GeForce.com to learn more.

Edited April 9, 2012 by Infinity7

[feigned-existence]

link on nvidia site did not want to link properly to 64 bit vista/win7 driver so i tweaked the 32bit download link a bit and managed to grab the 64bit version here is the link http://www.nvidia.co...uk&type=GeForce

Edited April 9, 2012 by feigned-existence

[tribaljet]

I've noticed GPU-Z reporting CUDA and DirectCompute as unavailable with this driver version. Any ideas on why this might be happening?

Also, I have no target frame rate option on the Nvidia control panel, and the Adaptive V-Sync has two options, Automatic and Automatic (interval 2). Do note that due to localization, might not be "interval". I assume the second Automatic mode is the Half-Refresh option made for 120Hz monitors, but it doesn't limits fps at 60 or at 120, while the first mode does limit at 60.

This on a GT 555M.

And a curious thing, while testing World of Warcraft, I ended having 30fps with FXAA enabled and AA disabled, but with 4x MSAA in-game and no FXAA I get 45+ fps. I thought the whole principle behind FXAA was to have a comparable effect to 4x MSAA with much less overhead, but that's not what I've seen so far.

Edited April 9, 2012 by tribaljet

[conscriptvirus]

I will try these out later as 301.10 have been the best I've seen so far. and yeah i did notice that FXAA is pretty slow when forced via control panel and IQ is pretty blurry. Do you have optimus? I remember when using the FXAA injector on optimus laptops, it would only use the intel graphics card and no matter what, the nvidia card couldn't be turn on with the fxaa injector, and this would result in worse IQ and lower fps. I wonder if that's the case with the control panel fxaa. Also, when games do support fxaa (in-game options like BF3) fxaa looks fine and runs much better than even 2x AA.

[Infinity7]

I've noticed GPU-Z reporting CUDA and DirectCompute as unavailable with this driver version. Any ideas on why this might be happening?

Also, I have no target frame rate option on the Nvidia control panel, and the Adaptive V-Sync has two options, Automatic and Automatic (interval 2). Do note that due to localization, might not be "interval". I assume the second Automatic mode is the Half-Refresh option made for 120Hz monitors, but it doesn't limits fps at 60 or at 120, while the first mode does limit at 60.

This on a GT 555M.

And a curious thing, while testing World of Warcraft, I ended having 30fps with FXAA enabled and AA disabled, but with 4x MSAA in-game and no FXAA I get 45+ fps. I thought the whole principle behind FXAA was to have a comparable effect to 4x MSAA with much less overhead, but that's not what I've seen so far.

Don't enable FXAA in the Global tab. Instead enable it the Program Settings tab for whatever game you want to use it with. Perhaps that is your issue with the FXAA right now.

There is no need to set Enhance Application Settings or Override Application settings when turning on the FXAA.

Perhaps try to use NVidia Inspector rather than GPU-Z right now. Inspector was updated after the 680 card came out.

Also there was a new article posted today at GeForce.com which fully explains the FXAA and Adaptive Vsync: http://www.geforce.c...ivers-released/

Edited April 10, 2012 by Infinity7

[Infinity7]

I will try these out later as 301.10 have been the best I've seen so far. and yeah i did notice that FXAA is pretty slow when forced via control panel and IQ is pretty blurry. Do you have optimus? I remember when using the FXAA injector on optimus laptops, it would only use the intel graphics card and no matter what, the nvidia card couldn't be turn on with the fxaa injector, and this would result in worse IQ and lower fps. I wonder if that's the case with the control panel fxaa. Also, when games do support fxaa (in-game options like BF3) fxaa looks fine and runs much better than even 2x AA.

You don't say if you were forcing the FXAA in the Global tab or the Program Settings tab but you should use the Program Settings tab as opposed to the former.

Driver release notes say that games that already have FXAA in them will disable the NVidia driver FXAA but I hear there's a way to get around that.

[tribaljet]

I will try these out later as 301.10 have been the best I've seen so far. and yeah i did notice that FXAA is pretty slow when forced via control panel and IQ is pretty blurry. Do you have optimus? I remember when using the FXAA injector on optimus laptops, it would only use the intel graphics card and no matter what, the nvidia card couldn't be turn on with the fxaa injector, and this would result in worse IQ and lower fps. I wonder if that's the case with the control panel fxaa. Also, when games do support fxaa (in-game options like BF3) fxaa looks fine and runs much better than even 2x AA.

It's truly slow when compared to MSAA. And yes, I'm running an Optimus system here.

Don't enable FXAA in the Global tab. Instead enable it the Program Settings tab for whatever game you want to use it with. Perhaps that is your issue with the FXAA right now.

There is no need to set Enhance Application Settings or Override Application settings when turning on the FXAA.

Perhaps try to use NVidia Inspector rather than GPU-Z right now. Inspector was updated after the 680 card came out.

Also there was a new article posted today at GeForce.com which fully explains the FXAA and Adaptive Vsync: http://www.geforce.c...ivers-released/

I never said I enabled FXAA through global, that wouldn't be smart of me, would it? Nor did I change any AA settings, since the game has AA settings itself.

It's not just a matter of feature recognition issues, these 301.24 are blocking the Nvidia GPU from being recognized in a series of apps, defaulting to the Intel IGP. As much as Adaptative V-Sync is nice, I won't sacrifice flexibility and stability (already had a TDR with these, while 296.10 gave me none under my usage) for a single feature.

And while Nvidia Inspector have Target Frame Rate options, the Nvidia control panel does not.

I'm going to give 301.10 a try, but if that displays a similar behavior, I'm back at 296.10.

EDIT: It's been a long time since I've used a driver that felt so unfinished. Broken features, missing features, low performance on scenarios where it could only have better performance than before. Quite a mess TBH.

Edited April 10, 2012 by tribaljet

[Infinity7]

It's truly slow when compared to MSAA. And yes, I'm running an Optimus system here.

I never said I enabled FXAA through global, that wouldn't be smart of me, would it? Nor did I change any AA settings, since the game has AA settings itself.

It's not just a matter of feature recognition issues, these 301.24 are blocking the Nvidia GPU from being recognized in a series of apps, defaulting to the Intel IGP. As much as Adaptative V-Sync is nice, I won't sacrifice flexibility and stability (already had a TDR with these, while 296.10 gave me none under my usage) for a single feature.

And while Nvidia Inspector have Target Frame Rate options, the Nvidia control panel does not.

I'm going to give 301.10 a try, but if that displays a similar behavior, I'm back at 296.10.

EDIT: It's been a long time since I've used a driver that felt so unfinished. Broken features, missing features, low performance on scenarios where it could only have better performance than before. Quite a mess TBH.

I have seen it mentioned today by different people that they needed to reboot more than once to have all parts of the driver install properly. I would suggest that maybe you try installing the driver a second time over the top of itself then reboot. Maybe it'll help in your situation. Most people are not reporting same results as you so I think that might work. Custom Install/Clean Install over the top of the same drivers which are already there.

[tribaljet]

I have seen it mentioned today by different people that they needed to reboot more than once to have all parts of the driver install properly. I would suggest that maybe you try installing the driver a second time over the top of itself then reboot. Maybe it'll help in your situation. Most people are not reporting same results as you so I think that might work. Custom Install/Clean Install over the top of the same drivers which are already there.

It is indeed a good idea to do more than one reboot, but unfortunately it didn't fix things, and due to having more TDRs, I went back to 296.10. But now I'm in a pickle, as GPU-Z reports that I don't have CUDA nor DirectCompute support. I'm getting a bit desperate here as I do require CUDA support for work and it's rather serious to have this issue.

Previously, 296.10 installed without a hiccup, but now the PhysX package had issues when installing. Not to worry, as I installed it afterwards, but the odd part is that the PhysX menu was already present on the control panel, despite the components being missing.

I'm going to reinstall 296.10 on top of itself to see if it helps, but if it won't, I'm installing 295.73 then doing an in-place upgrade to 296.10. Worst case scenario, I'm going to have to clean the OS and install fresh, but I'm afraid I might not have enough time for all that :(

[tribaljet]

After going through the hell of having no CUDA nor DirectCompute on 301.24, its installer corrupted the registry to the point that no further drivers could be installed, neither manufacturer nor OEM drivers, even when using a modified .inf. It was a catastrophe, made me skip half a day of work just so I could do a clean OS install. And considering I work with computers for many years now, this situation happening is indeed a sign that these beta drivers are really to be avoided, as Adaptative V-Sync is half broken, FXAA is buggy and delivering lower performance (also noticed by users on other forums), Target Frame Rate is missing, and I got a few TDRs.

Basically, 301.24 was the worst driver I ever installed on this hardware. Hopefully, the first WHQL UDA driver will correct all this, but for now I'm back at 296.10.