Forceware 162.22 Beta for Vista

[tjm397 0]

Have just spotted that Nvidia has released new forceware beta drivers for Vista 32 & 64.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x86_162.22.html

Has anyone tried these yet?

I'm hoping the fix listed as "Increased Total Graphics Memory under Windows Vista for GeForce 7 and 8 series GPUs" helps in Arma especially with 8800 cards.

They have also released 163.11 betas but these seem to be targeted towards the "World in Conflict" beta.

Reports on these drivers most welcome.

[nubbin77 0]

The 163.11's are GREAT for me anyway. They re-enabled Digital Vibrance - I am extatic about these drivers.

There is a thread about these drivers on Guru3d that is generally very positive. I'm using them without issue in Arma. So all in all I am very happy with 163.11's.

(disclaimer, I still can't use the "default" texture value.

[SDF 0]

the 162.22 doesnt fix the texture foggy dealy thingy

[Pierre From Belgium 0]

Still the same and the same problem !

AA is still UNPLAYABLE !!!

[MATRA 0]

Its an engine problem, not drivers.

[kklownboy 43]

Its an engine problem, not drivers.

? And thats why the 7xxx run good? or my 2900 and 1950xtx run fine? Or didnt run fine untill new drivers came out (everymonth ATI). I think its more NVDA way of doing things to make there card look good on popualr games (ati too) than putting time in a very very VERY small game/user base. With the Atari release, i think the ATI drivers will be better in september.. but you have to tell them NVDA and ATI about the issues, NOBODY from NVDA comes to this fourm to read about 8xxx game issues and they never will...

[Pierre From Belgium 0]

Its an engine problem, not drivers.

I get problems only with AA...Nothing else !

You may be right, but why does AA work with other nvidia cards and why don't they make anything to resolve this problem?

I'm so sad...

[Pierre From Belgium 0]

but you have to tell them NVDA and ATI about the issues, NOBODY from NVDA comes to this fourm to read about 8xxx game issues and they never will...

Totaly right !

[TheVoodoo 0]

Its an engine problem, not drivers.

I get problems only with AA...Nothing else !

You may be right, but why does AA work with other nvidia cards and why don't they make anything to resolve this problem?

I'm so sad...

You're right!

Only AA making trouble like hell! Everything else runs PERFECT on my system! I cant belive that the dev's cant get this shit running right since its out!

[SWAT_BigBear 0]

but you have to tell them NVDA and ATI about the issues, NOBODY from NVDA comes to this fourm to read about 8xxx game issues and they never will...

Totaly right !

But some of us bitch in the nvidia sli forums

I actually report....erm, bitch to Vista Quality Assurance more, hoping they will get it right before my time on this planet ends.

ArmA is really sweet those 10 mins or less it last..with sli on. (158.24 whql)

Don't get me wrong...sli/off is still impressive.

162.22 & 163.11 beta, will not enable sli for me and seems several have the problem. Otherts don't.

Maybe the soon released WHQL 162.22 promised, will help. did i say soon?

[sickboy 13]

My Current setup makes me a more happy Vista 32-bit user atm and brings me more on par with my XP 32-bit performance.

The information below, except for the Vista-specific drivers and options, may very well help XP users aswell.

System:

[*] Intel Core2 Duo E6600 (Default 2.4ghz, running at 3.33ghz)

[*] Nvidia Nforce 650i + 590 Hybrid Chipset on Asus P5N32-E SLI Plus Motherboard

[*] Nvidia Geforce 8800GTX 768MB

[*] Corshair 2GB DDR2-800Mhz 4-4-4-1t

[*] Creative Soundblaster X-Fi

Drivers:

[*] Nvidia Display Driver 163.11 (Geforce 7 series and lower might need 162.22, XP-Users need 162.18)

[*] Nvidia Chipset Drivers downloaded from Windows Update (For XP I can recommend the 15.00 drivers from nvidia.com)

[*] Creative Soundblaster X-Fi 2.15.0002 (For XP: 2.09.0007)

Steps:

1. Uninstall Current Nvidia Display Driver

2. Reboot

3. Use the guru3d driver cleaner to remove any residue from Nvidia Display Drivers, get it at www.guru3d.com

4. Install Nvidia Latest Display Drivers (Vista 163.11, for 7 or lower series 162.22, for XP 162.18)

5. Reboot

6. Edit My Documents\ArmA\ArmA.cfg and change the HDRPrecision=8 to HDRPrecision=32 (will put the HDR to 32-bit and give a more fluent and nice HDR, but should only be available to 8 series Nvidia cards and newer ATI cards. 16 and 32 will probably eat some performance, depending on your system... Just toy around with 8, 16 and 32 (if possible on ur card))

7. Start ArmA with startup parameter: -maxmem=512

(This parameter prevents the cannot create surface memory errors, aswell as some weird slowdowns and texture issues. Some ppl reported that they even had to turn it from 512 to 256 to get away from all issues)

My Current Settings:

[*] Quality Perference: Very High

[*] Visibility: 3538

[*] Resolution: 1600x1200

[*] RefreshRate: 100hz

[*] Terrain: High

[*] Objects: High (Normal seems to give the game some more breathing space while nearing bushes. Very High seems to be more problematic when flying over towns)

[*] Texture Detail: Very High

[*] Shading Detail: Very High

[*] Post Process: Low (High/Very High costs ~10fps depending on scenery)

[*] Anisotropic Filtering: Very High

[*] Shadow Detail: Very High (Disabled saves ~6 fps)

[*] Antialiasing: Low (Higher gave too less extra quality for the performance it took)

[*] Blood: High

[*] Hardware Sound and EAX are enabled.

[*] NO Nvidia Gaming Profile changes... Every setting in Nvidia Display Manager is 100% Default

SP FPS: Sahrani ~25 Rahmadi ~40 FPS

MP FPS: Sahrani ~35 Rahmadi ~50 FPS

Notes:

[*] Depending on your system specs, you might need to turn down some settings. With less than 768mb VideoRAM, I found the Texture Details, Object Details and Antialiasing to eat most VideoRAM.

[*] Users that do not have an X-Fi soundcard might want to disable EAX, as it eats up quite some performance on many onboard and other sound solutions.

[*] FPS Depends a lot on scenery and mission complexity

[*] I tested with -window parameter to run the game in windowed mode aswell as without, I seem to get better performance in Windowed mode

[*] I right clicked the exe file and at the Compatibility tab I enabled the option: Disable windows desktop composition, which disables the Aero interface while playing the game. I do not see much of a performance difference, but you might wanna try it!

[*] You can read temperatures, graphics memory usage, fps and much more by using the RivaTuner utility, get v2.02 or newer (if available) from www.guru3d.com

[*] Vista64 crashed many times with BSOD on NVStor64 Driver (even with different versions) aswell as "Application had locked pages" or sth similair. Vista32 resolved this completely.

[*] Most, if not all, drivers are available at www.guru3d.com

[Pierre From Belgium 0]

6. Edit My Documents\ArmA\ArmA.cfg and change the HDRPrecision=8  to HDRPrecision=32

7. Start ArmA with startup parameter: -maxmem=512

It seems you're right...

I'm re-testing now!!!!

[Pierre From Belgium 0]

> It doesn't work completly... but it works!

Now, I don't have anymore these horrible bugs but some time to time,...boum..., black screens, error messge and back in Windows.

So, it's still not playable because of these black screens !

[sickboy 13]

> It doesn't work completly... but it works!

Now, I don't have anymore these horrible bugs but some time to time,...boum..., black screens, error messge and back in Windows.

So, it's still not playable because of these black screens !

Tried maxmem=256 as noted? Or -window ?

I updated my post about 12 times in the past minutes lol, please review it again

[MehMan 0]

> It doesn't work completly... but it works!

Now, I don't have anymore these horrible bugs but some time to time,...boum..., black screens, error messge and back in Windows.

So, it's still not playable because of these black screens !

You're using Vista, right?

[sickboy 13]

> It doesn't work completly... but it works!

Now, I don't have anymore these horrible bugs but some time to time,...boum..., black screens, error messge and back in Windows.

So, it's still not playable because of these black screens !

You're using Vista, right?

His sig does say so

[Guest Ti0n3r]

Hmm I just found out these drivers are extremely overklocking friendly if you use a geforce 6600

[SWAT_BigBear 0]

Sickboy,

Maybe its b/c I'm using 64bit and you 32... but I've tried all your suggestions.. and many more. The ONLY thing that lets me play at all on 1 VC... is the  -maxmem=512.

Any other settings..either VC gives up or ArmA gives up... in long games.

With the ONLY thing that helps me and sli/off.. I have ran ArmA for 9 straight days playing EVO, (minimized while at work).. without any issues at all.

When ArmA will do that with my SLI on... I will have an orgasm!  

[Maximus-Sniper 0]

Sickboy,

Maybe its b/c I'm using 64bit and you 32... but I've tried all your suggestions.. and many more. The ONLY thing that lets me play at all on 1 VC... is the -maxmem=512.

Any other settings..either VC gives up or ArmA gives up... in long games.

With the ONLY thing that helps me and sli/off.. I have ran ArmA for 9 straight days playing EVO, (minimized while at work).. without any issues at all.

When ArmA will do that with my SLI on... I will have an orgasm!

Hi

Current Forceware drivers do not enable SLI in Arma. You can however, fool the drivers by making it think you're running a SLI-enabled game by renaming arma.exe to fear.exe (FEAR has been reported as a stable SLI-profile for Arma).

I think you can use the same method for ATI's Crossfire.

[SWAT_BigBear 0]

Sickboy,

Maybe its b/c I'm using 64bit and you 32... but I've tried all your suggestions.. and many more. The ONLY thing that lets me play at all on 1 VC... is the  -maxmem=512.

Any other settings..either VC gives up or ArmA gives up... in long games.

With the ONLY thing that helps me and sli/off.. I have ran ArmA for 9 straight days playing EVO, (minimized while at work).. without any issues at all.

When ArmA will do that with my SLI on... I will have an orgasm!  

Hi

Current Forceware drivers do not enable SLI in Arma. You can however, fool the drivers by making it think you're running a SLI-enabled game by renaming arma.exe to fear.exe (FEAR has been reported as a stable SLI-profile for Arma).

I think you can use the same method for ATI's Crossfire.

Thx..but that was part of the "many more attempts" I tried.

Yes it did work..how long..I do not know after 30 mins b/c it was actually horrible looking on night time maps and using NV goggles. After trying ingame settings with it..I gave up.

[SDF 0]

I still get the texture blur error, with the loss in framrates about 15 mins into the game...how do I stop this? I already read the recent forum about it and that was what stopped the bug from occuring for 15, but it still happens mainly when I die and the screen goes black. How do I fix this? Does anyone else have this problem with vista 32 and an 8800?

[Heavy Metal 0]

E6700

Vista64

P5N32-e Deluxe

4GB Titanium OCZ

8800 GTX Ocz

And neither of these drivers work for me in the game.

I get corrupt icons at the island screen and a blue grey haze where the land and water should be.

I did everything I could to clean my old drivers too.

Tried everything. Old drivers work. These don't.

[SDF 0]

Oh MY GOD. I JUST WANT TO PLAY THIS GAME!