Nvidia releases next beta drivers for Vista

Author: Brett Thomas
Published: 5th March 2007
Comments (9) Stumble
Nvidia releases next beta drivers for Vista

SLI for 6-series and 7-series cards is finally out.

There is an old saying that says, "March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb." Well, the "in like a lion" part is at least accurate in our industry. Nvidia has finally released its latest beta drivers for Windows Vista this week, and we took a look. The verdict? Not too shabby!

The new drivers, Forceware 101.41 to be exact, have been hotly anticipated through the gaming sector. Our contacts at Nvidia promised us repeatedly that the new ones would bring SLI support to 7-series and 6-series cards, which previously was cause for either games or Vista to crash (on every release after the very first build). This release blunder even crippled the 7950 GX2 card, which required SLI to run properly.

I'm happy to say that after a weekend of use with the drivers, they are more than I had been made to believe. Nvidia braced me for the worst - support wasn't finished, these were still beta, there may be some big kinks. However, aside from having to do a bit of manual configuration (which one could expect from SLI), the drivers ran well above my expectations. It seems that Nvidia hasn't just been sitting pretty at the top of the food chain.

That's not to say that there are not some issues - texture shimmering happens across the board with a variety of applications and settings, even on Nvidia's "High Quality" settings in the drivers. Random artefacts occur in some games, GRAW in particular (patched to 1.35). ES4: Oblivion runs well, but is a touch slow compared to XP - but it still runs fairly comparable, which is a notable achievement.

All in all, the drivers are a great step for Nvidia card owners on Vista. Frame rates aren't up to XP standards yet, but then I wouldn't really expect them to be - "perfection" won't come until a couple months of extensive testing. However, games are very playable and enjoyable with SLI enabled - a great place to be when only a month ago a flagship card couldn't run at over 40% of its potential.

If you've got an Nvidia 7 or 6 series card and have Vista, I highly recommend giving the new build a try. Remember to report your bugs!

Got a thought on the drivers? Been testing them out yourself? Let us hear about it in our forums.
Quote [USRF]Obiwan 5th March 2007, 09:31
I find it strange that, a old game (oblivion) made for old (dx9) generations cards for old OS, can run "slow" on the nextgen 2x faster in benchmarks dx10 cards running on the nextgen OS.
Quote hughwi 5th March 2007, 10:05
Quote:
Originally Posted by [USRF]Obiwan
I find it strange that, a old game (oblivion) made for old (dx9) generations cards for old OS, can run "slow" on the nextgen 2x faster in benchmarks dx10 cards running on the nextgen OS.

It just goes to show what driver optimisation can do for performance in games. nvidia have had several years now to perfect their XP drivers and squeeze every last bit out of their hardware, but with vista, that work is only just beginning! Im sure in a few months we will be seeing similar performance between the two OS's even with vista being a slightly more resource hungry incarnation.

I am waiting for dx10 games before i take the leap to vista, and things are looking hopeful!
Quote Blademrk 5th March 2007, 10:16
I'm currently running the drivers that came on the Vista install disk for my 6600, so I may give the beta drivers when I get home (if I remember).
Quote chimaera 5th March 2007, 10:36
Installed these last night, and Sleep *still* doesn't work properly :(

Everything else seems to work better though

8800gtx non-sli here
Quote Lazlow 5th March 2007, 11:01
I'll give these a go soon - Oblivion seemed to stutter now and then on my 7800GT in Vista Ultimate, whereas in XP it ran flawlessly. So hopefully they'll iron it all out.
Quote perplekks45 5th March 2007, 11:28
Dual-booting XP and Vista here. Main OS still XP but I'll give 1.41 a try tonight. Let's see what they'll bring.
Quote img 5th March 2007, 16:59
any news on new xp drivers for 8800 though?
Quote Mr T 5th March 2007, 19:50
Still no temp controlled fan on my 7900GS
Quote Redbeaver 6th March 2007, 16:02
FINALLY!

yup, tried it couple days ago... 3dmark goes from 5500ish to 9000ish... so thats all good!

but...

SupremeCommander still doesnt support SLI...... :( :( :( :( so im still stuck at 10FPS @1680x1050 - High when there's 1000 units on screen on the last mission lol

of course, changing it to Medium didnt help AT ALL, meaning it could be my CPU... oh well....
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