Display Driver Promlem - i think.

[meat_helmet]

Well i got my 8800GTS 320mb a few days ago and i have been having problems since. I initially just uninstalled the old drivers, plugged it in and then reinstalled the new ones.

The new ones did work - but were terrible in games. At first i thought i had a dud card, but i noticed that the sound was getting stuffed up and jumping with the frame rate in games, so i figured it might be a driver issue.

Anyway i tryed installing different ones, it had no change. I tryed using Driver Cleaner, but it just stopped working after a few seconds (every time i tryed). Eventually i tryed using DC in safe mode, and then installing the drivers in safe mode and it worked!

But, that wasnt the end of it, because yesterday it then reverted back to the way it has been. I have a feeling it might be because of my dual display setup, however, i have always had 'single display performance mode' on in the nvidia control panel. I tryed cleaning and installing from safe mode again, but this time it didnt help.

Basically the difference is i could get a score of 10,000 in 3dmark when the drivers were working, but now i can only get 3,500!

I cant play any games, it looks terrible, the sound is basically reduced to stutters and the framerate is terrible. Has anyone got any ideas about what is wrong??? Im almost out of ideas.

Thanks.

 

[meat_helmet]

Okay, i think ive managed to get it working again.

It seems for some reason it was only using 1x PCIe lanes instead of the 16x. This was showing up in cpuz anyway. Anyone know why it would do this?

 

[eyeCpc]

The drivers out for the new cards are the main problem. I ran into a number of issues with the MSI HD 2600XT ATI model here lately until they released a new catalyst version this week. Now the blank screens when first starting up, BSODs with the ati2dvag.dll error, and even sudden system restarts while at the desktop were suddenly gone.

The first problems were seen with the Creative Xtreme Gamer when Vista drivers were automatically being installed XP. When sticking with those found on the software disk only blocking the auto updater things went well until the ATI driver mess. Having Vista on another drive without a dual boot configuration that also saw blue screens at startup out of nowhere until the latest catalyst went on.

Those were seen on the 32bit versions of Windows so you can imagine some problems now for the 64bit edition shows in your sig. Hardware companies have been much slower for both XP Pro 64 and the newer Vista editions for driver support. Like the rest of us you simply have to wait for the next update.

 

[meat_helmet]

Hmmm, it looks like i really might have to dual boot my old win2k, vista is starting to **** me off a bit now...

 

[eyeCpc]

When asked by someone about running a 64bit version of Windows the one I recommend often is to run it as a second not primary OS. Only recently have support sites been adding driver support for the 64bit versions since Vista came out. But like any new Windows good drivers take some time.

On the better side Vista will see it's first large service pack nex month. SP1 will be out for Vista while SP3 for XP? That will finally be out soon as well. That will help since both versions are 32bit.

Since games are still 32bit as well as the majority of desktop applications you may want to consider XP over 2000 or go with a 32bit version of Vista once the SP1 is out for gaming purposes. The driver support is still going to be far better there since the manufacturers are slow with the 64bit.