182.06 vs. Win Update Drivers

[benmandude]

Well, I was messing around and thought I would test out the Vista beta 182.06 drivers vs. the drivers you get through Windows Update. All I did was run a demo in Team Fortress 2 in with both drivers. Also my gfx card is a 7800gt, so this might not apply to newer cards.

182.06
Run 1:
1003 frames rendered in 71.503 seconds 14.03fps
Run 2:
1003 frames rendered in 71.113 seconds 14.10fps

Win Update Driver
Run 1:
1003 frames rendered in 38.940 seconds 25.76fps
Run 2:
1003 frames rendered in 37.57 seconds 26.69fps

Of course take this with a grain of salt, especially for newer systems, but if you have an older pc, and are running with the 182.06 or maybe Vista drivers in general, try using the Windows Update drivers again. I know which one's I will be using from now on.

 

[Mark]

I just gave them a go on my set up and my results are very different.

Game: Company of Heroes on Auto settings with DX10
Graphics Card: GTX260

Nvidia Driver 182.05 Beta
Only run once.
Average: 58.1Fps
Highest: 62.3Fps
Lowest: 8.9Fps

Windows Update Driver 179.43 Released 19/01/09
Only run once.
Average: 57.8Fps
Highest: 62.3Fps
Lowest: 7.8Fps

Seems with a high end card there is no noticeable difference.

 

[benmandude]

That's what I was expecting, I'm not sure why the increase is so dramatic with my set up. But it's definitely real, I think people with older nvidia cards should definitely check out the Win Update driver though.

 

[LePoilu]

I think people with older nvidia cards should definitely check out the Win Update driver though.

Older card (something like 2 years and more) are fully driver optimised in general. New drivers never bring perf. optimisation for the older card, maybe bug correction but that all you can expect. As WinUpdate driver are based on not so older driver but stable.
With a recent card you may avec perf. improvement, because there's something to do and they still work on it.

And for Seven with Winupdate driver you have WDDM1.1 support (which as better ressources usage), with Vista driver it's still WDDM 1.0

 

[Forman]

According to RivaTuner the nVidia drivers provided by Windows Update is 179.43
I got theese no more than 30minutes ago, since 182.05 kept giving me sudden restarts. Also I got a lot of squeaky noises from the card that wasn´t there with the WU driver.

A few weeks ago it was 179.23, so I guess they´re updating as they make new builds. Nice to know.

Im done messing with graphics drivers for a while now. I hate sudden reboots and squeaky computer.

EDIT: The 180-series was a bit more stable if I lowered the clocks, but not much. Not even lowering the clocks to 650/1400/1050 helped. With WU drivers I can run 720/1500/1150 all day long with only 40% fan.

 

[Neilsouth]

Also opengl games work correctly with win update driver , some videos also flicker alot with the vista drivers on win 7 but don't with win update