Nvidia GeForce Drivers 180.42 Betas (Vista)

**MIG-31** · Oct 21, 2008, 11:34 AM

Beta driver for GeForce 200-series, 9-series, and 8800-series desktop GPUs (refer to the products supported tab for more detail).
Recommended for the best experience on Far Cry 2:

“Since we first began working on Far Cry 2 in early 2005, we have used GeForce GPU’s to develop the game and worked closely with NVIDIA’s excellent engineers. While Far Cry 2 represents an outstanding PC gaming experience for a wide range of systems, GeForce users can expect to enjoy the game quite literally ‘The Way It Was Meant To Be Played’.” - Louis-Pierre Pharand, Ubisoft, Far Cry 2 Producer
Enables NVIDIA SLI technology on SLI-certified Intel X58-based motherboards with the following GPUs: GeForce GTX 280, GeForce GTX 260, GeForce 9800 GX2, GeForce 9800 GTX+, and GeForce 9800 GTX.

Download: 32 Bit / 64 Bit

CDsDontBurn · Oct 21, 2008, 12:42 PM

these here are "big bang 2" drivers. more info can be found here

Knight_Rider · Oct 22, 2008, 01:09 AM

Will image quality take a big hit considering the awesome performance?

Knight_Rider · Oct 22, 2008, 01:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CDsDontBurn

these here are "big bang 2" drivers. more info can be found here

Not up to expectation yet.

VR-Zone : Technology Beats -Nvidia Forceware 180 Series Preview Part 2

CDsDontBurn · Oct 22, 2008, 01:39 AM

even if it's not "up to expectation" yet, it's still gone a far way since SLI was first introduced.

Vikingod · Oct 22, 2008, 08:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Knight_Rider

Not up to expectation yet.

VR-Zone : Technology Beats -Nvidia Forceware 180 Series Preview Part 2

I find it odd that they took a driver released specifically for Far Cry 2 and didn't show it's effect on that games performance.

CDsDontBurn · Oct 22, 2008, 07:50 PM

i'm actually hearing that it's having issues with FC2 and you would need to revert back to the 178.24s in order for the game to work properly!

Vikingod · Oct 22, 2008, 10:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CDsDontBurn

i'm actually hearing that it's having issues with FC2 and you would need to revert back to the 178.24s in order for the game to work properly!

That I can confirm. Can't use these with my system, Vista 64-bit. The problems seem to center around x64 from what I can tell.

phantommenace2 · Oct 23, 2008, 12:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CDsDontBurn

i'm actually hearing that it's having issues with FC2 and you would need to revert back to the 178.24s in order for the game to work properly!

I had an issue where I could not change my screen resoultion (when using the 180.42 beta drivers with Vista-64)...but I found the solution online and now everything runs perfect!

Vikingod · Oct 23, 2008, 07:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by phantommenace2

I had an issue where I could not change my screen resoultion (when using the 180.42 beta drivers with Vista-64)...but I found the solution online and now everything runs perfect!

Care to share?

Seems the problem I had has something to do with resolution (the game would start in a window, you could hear it running, but the screen was black).

Edit: According to the all powerful interweb, running the game (Far Cry 2) in compatibility mode one time solves the black screen problem on Vista x64. I'll give this a shot this evening.

In general, there appears to be issues with this driver and BF2142 and potentially Crysis Warhead. Be advised.

**MIG-31** · Oct 23, 2008, 08:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vikingod

Edit: According to the all powerful interweb, running the game in compatibility mode one time solves the black screen problem on Vista x64. I'll give this a shot this evening.

In general, there appears to be issues with this driver and BF2142 and potentially Crysis Warhead. Be advised.

Thanks for posting that... I have not tried C Warhead since installing this set on Vista 64 Bit.Will need to try it out later.

Appart from that all games i have tried are running ok.. Hal life 2 (64 Bit Enabled) has lost the slight stutter during the switch to Vista 64 bit.

phantommenace2 · Oct 23, 2008, 12:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vikingod

Care to share?

Seems the problem I had has something to do with resolution (the game would start in a window, you could hear it running, but the screen was black).

that's exactly what happened with me...when attempting to change resolutions the screen would just turn black and stay frozen...searched online and found this solution which worked perfectly...no more issues

Go in your (user)\Documents\My Games\Far Cry 2 folder and open up GamerProfile.xml.
Find (Maximized="0") change it to a 1 and save...Now load game and go to options and change dx9 to dx10 and accept then quit game...load game and go back to options and change your resolution to what ever you like then accept and play

Vikingod · Oct 23, 2008, 03:09 PM

Here is another set of instructions I've found today which seems to be effective.

1. Locate shortcut to game, right click and slecet properties.
2. Navigate to Compatibility tab
3. Under the Settings heading, check "disable desktop composition"
4. Run the game

Knight_Rider · Oct 23, 2008, 07:41 PM

More thoughts.

Release 180 Drivers Sneak Peek - SLI Multi-Monitor, Dedicated PhysX & More! :: Articles :: www.hardwarezone.com

Vikingod · Oct 23, 2008, 09:11 PM

The above fix worked for me, but it just crashed out. I'm not sure these are the most stable drivers in the world, but who knows.

Vikingod · Oct 24, 2008, 07:47 AM

Having spent much of last night with these, I can say they aren't worth installing. After they initially crashed, I couldn't even get the game running again for more than a couple minutes. Rolled back and everything ran like a charm for two hours (then I went to bed). I didn't notice an significant performance decrease in using the older drivers, but the 180.42's are a bit faster.

phantommenace2 · Oct 24, 2008, 10:07 PM

noticed that Nvidia has released an updated 180.43 beta set of drivers...maybe this new set has fixed all the issues people were having with Far Cry 2...I gave up on the 180.42 drivers and went back to the last official set...I'm not gonna try these new 180.43 drivers