New Nvidia 266.58 WHQL drivers available

[Hellshade]

I'm downloading them now. I'll let you know how they play in a bit.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/win7-winvista-64bit-266.58-whql-driver.html

 

Hellshade

[TurtleHawk]

Great, look forward to your assessment.

[Hellshade]

Great, look forward to your assessment.

 

The only real difference I've noticed so far is that I can now switch it up to 32xQ from 16xQ multisampling AA mode or from 4xS Combined AA mode and it still plays smooth. Visually, it's hard to say there is much of a difference though. It all runs pretty damn smooth for me now anyways. Even above airfields I'm usually at 50 FPS. It does support Nvidia cards all the way up from the 6 series to the newest hardware so more than likely most Nvidia owners here can make use of the drivers. As far as non-OFF games are concerned, they added Ambiant Occlusion to Starcraft II and bumped up performance on a lot of newer games from between 5 - 12%.

 

Hellshade

[TurtleHawk]

Thanks for the info.

Noticed you have a GTX 580.

Don't imagine you're having much trouble running anything

[carrick58]

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm 580

[Hellshade]

I take it back. I did find a nice visual change. Since upgrading to the new drivers, I can set texture quality at High Quality (instead of at Performance), with AA enabled and still get 50 - 60FPS while recording in FRAPS, even over airfields. Obviously alot depends on if there is a ton of scenery (trees, etc) but here's a screenshot and a nice video of me getting blown out of the sky to show you how nice it looks.

 

High Quality Texture Test (4:05) 1080HD

 

[Javito1986]

Gorgeous indeed, but what the 'ell happened at the end there?!

[Hellshade]

Gorgeous indeed, but what the 'ell happened at the end there?!

 

Flak burst.

 

Hellshade

[CW3SF]

I have a old GTX 260 and running Windows XP pro------ would this download help OR hurt my rig??

 

Thanks for your input.

[Hellshade]

I have a old GTX 260 and running Windows XP pro------ would this download help OR hurt my rig??

 

Thanks for your input.

 

Download the XP version of the driver and it should help things as the driver is also for the GTX 200 series. I can't make any promises though as every rig is different. For me it helped out the quality quite a bit. Somebody else the drivers might get a different result. The link I provided is for the Windows 7 64 bit version so you'll need to head to www.nvidia.com and ask it to supply you the right drivers. Drivers are always a "at your own risk" kinda thing.

 

Hellshade

[+Winder]

Thanks Hellshade - nice driver set IMO!

 

WM

[CW3SF]

Thanks Hellshade, I did go to that link and downloaded a Windows XP pro version ( about half the size of the Win. 7 version) and so far so good.

 

Thanks again

 

CW3SF

[Hellshade]

Other games seem to benefit nicely as well. Oblivion now makes much better use of Ambient Occlusion and higher textures as well. Here's a pic of my two AI partners (Adriana & Zoe) after a brutal battle against some robed spellcasters and another one battling a zombie.

[TaillyHo]

Thanks Hellshade (and CW3FS), about time I updated drivers, so given your feedback I'll be downloading the XP version tonight.

[smilingmonkey]

Just did it and it hasnt crashed OFF yet.

 

I take that as a good sign.

 

I have the GTX 460 card, it's pretty nice for a more budget card I think.

 

I did have a moment of terror before I realised I had to reconfigure the graphics stuff from the workshop, and a few of the things I had disabled such as the target cone, chat etc had turned back on.. And the sliders had all been mysteriously reset to 2 across the board, which was a bit weird.

 

Played a few QC's, still looks awesome.

 

Thanks for the heads up Hellshade.

Edited January 20, 2011 by smilingmonkey

[Hellshade]

Just did it and it hasnt crashed OFF yet.

 

I take that as a good sign.

 

I have the GTX 460 card, it's pretty nice for a more budget card I think.

 

I did have a moment of terror before I realised I had to reconfigure the graphics stuff from the workshop, and a few of the things I had disabled such as the target cone, chat etc had turned back on.. And the sliders had all been mysteriously reset to 2 across the board, which was a bit weird.

 

Played a few QC's, still looks awesome.

 

Thanks for the heads up Hellshade.

 

Whenever you install new drivers, CFS3 resets everything to default low settings (at least it always has for me). So thats normal in my experience. The GTX 460 looks like a pretty damn good card to me so you should be doing great. If you haven't already, try bumping up the Texture Quality in the Nvidia control panel to Quality or High Quality and see how it does.

 

Hellshade

[RAF_Louvert]

.

 

I will give these new drivers a go next week when I get back from the EMS conference and trade fair, (which I will be heading north for in a few hours). I'll be curious to see what improvements they might give my flying kit. Thanks for the heads-up HS.

 

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