Last Good Nvidia Driver?

[Hiebly]

So I'm doing a clean driver install right now because I've been having some performance issues (lately getting fps as low as 50 in GTA V whereas I got like 90+, and as low as 60 in BF4 whereas I got 120+ when I installed my 980 Ti).

 

Not sure what the deal is but when I uninstalled the graphics driver it seemed that there were somehow like 3 drivers installed simultaneously. Uninstalled graphics driver, rebooted, and there was still a graphics driver installed which I then uninstalled and rebooted, and then there was still a graphics driver installed (then no more). o__0

 

I've heard a lot of people saying recent Nvidia drivers are having issues or poor performance... what's the recommended driver right now?

 

also sorry if this shouldve been in software .-.

[don_svetlio]

355.60

[Bananasplit_00]

newest are working great with my 970

[Juanse]

They all work fine on my GPU

[i_build_nanosuits]

latest drivers are flawless on my machine.

[AresKrieger]

Depends I can tell you with certainty the 359.xx updates thus far are bad, (358.91 I think is what I use has been fine for me) the newest drivers use more vram for some reason and crash for many people

[Hiebly]

Thanks for the replies everyone... guess I'll give the latest a go and if I have any issues I'll try rolling back to 355.60.

[GM_Peka]

Are there any benchmark that are showing poor performance on the most recent driver? I would like to see if I could replicate on my 980 ti.

[SteveGrabowski0]

I'm on 359.06 and they work well on my 970, even Chrome with hardware acceleration, which was such a problem for all the drivers released in the summer. I also am getting the best Firestrike and Valley scores I have had on my 970 with this driver, though the difference of course isn't a lot.

[Hiebly]

Are there any benchmark that are showing poor performance on the most recent driver? I would like to see if I could replicate on my 980 ti.

 

Well just driving around GTA Online right now in the city my framerate is frequently dipping to about 50 FPS... previously it would only go that low if there's like 100 explosions on screen at a time. When I first installed my 980 Ti my framerate in GTA V was like 90+ during normal play but now I'm dropping to 50 just while cruising around, and getting massive stutters at certain areas and when I look at the map

 

The performance drops aren't constant, like I'll be playing at 75-100 FPS for a long time (which isn't as good but still pretty solid) and then all of a sudden there'll be a minute or so where it's averaging between 50-65 fps

 

For Battlefield 4 I was playing at like 110+ FPS constantly in multiplayer in basically every map, but now I'm dipping to 57-70 which is really bad by comparison...

 

I'll see if I can find a benchmark where I get poor performance.

[Hiebly]

I'm on 359.06 and they work well on my 970, even Chrome with hardware acceleration, which was such a problem for all the drivers released in the summer. I also am getting the best Firestrike and Valley scores I have had on my 970 with this driver, though the difference of course isn't a lot.

 

I installed 359.06 today (completely clean install - manually uninstalled previous drivers and deleted Nvidia files + registry keys) and I'm still getting subpar performnace... also GTA V crashed on me for the first time since like May - might be a coincidence.

 

I'm gonna monitor GPU performance (temps, clock speed, load) in MSI Afterburner. There's no CPU throttling or anything though... I monitored with HWMonitor while playing and my CPU stayed cool and maintained its clock speed.

[i_build_nanosuits]

I installed 359.06 today (completely clean install - manually uninstalled previous drivers and deleted Nvidia files + registry keys) and I'm still getting subpar performnace... also GTA V crashed on me for the first time since like May - might be a coincidence.

 

I'm gonna monitor GPU performance (temps, clock speed, load) in MSI Afterburner. There's no CPU throttling or anything though... I monitored with HWMonitor while playing and my CPU stayed cool and maintained its clock speed.

are you sure the settings are the same has they used to be (especially the ones under the advanced graphics tab) cause i play GTA5 a lot as well and i use a 980ti just like you do and i get better performance than ever with the latest driver and my game is also up to date...maybe nvidia experience ''optimised'' your settings or something like that without you noticing?

anyways, these are the settings i use i game at 1440p i run shadows on softest and grass on high, otherwise major FPS hit for no reason (it looks exactly the same)

i get 80FPS+ (i would say average 90FPS), 1440p with FXAA (looks georgeous, sharper then even 8xMSAA at 1080p, i tested both)

[Hiebly]

In spite of increasing power target for my GTX 980 Ti it's failing to boost properly. Base clock is 1037MHz with boost at 1240MHz, although it's spending most of its time at 1037 or 1160MHz. I don't think a ~20% lower clock speed is enough to cause the performance issues I'm having but it's peculiar nonetheless... when I first installed it there were no issues maintaining 1240MHz constantly.

 

Maximum performance is enabled in Nvidia control panel and Windows power options. o_0

[i_build_nanosuits]

In spite of increasing power target for my GTX 980 Ti it's failing to boost properly. Base clock is 1037MHz with boost at 1240MHz, although it's spending most of its time at 1037 or 1160MHz. I don't think a ~20% lower clock speed is enough to cause the performance issues I'm having but it's peculiar nonetheless... when I first installed it there were no issues maintaining 1240MHz constantly.

 

Maximum performance is enabled in Nvidia control panel and Windows power options. o_0

in my previous post i added the settings i use for GTA 5, are you gaming at 1440p? i think you should replicate my settings and see how it run?

those clockspeed are very low are you using a reference card? mine out of the box is boosting to 1350mhz without me touching anything and i can get it to 1430mhz without increasing voltage or powerlimit...and yes a 20% reducing in clockspeed will have a 20% performance hit more or less..

[Hiebly]

are you sure the settings are the same has they used to be (especially the ones under the advanced graphics tab) cause i play GTA5 a lot as well and i use a 980ti just like you do and i get better performance than ever with the latest driver and my game is also up to date...maybe nvidia experience ''optimised'' your settings or something like that without you noticing?

 

My settings are even lower now and still getting it. Settings in the advanced tab are disabled and I'm still experiencing the issues... also just tried cruising around with 0.5x frame scaling in the advanced settings and still getting rather poor low-avg framerates.... points to it not being a GPU problem but I can't imagine what it would be. Haven't changed anything about the installation and I've even OC'd my CPU since when I first installed the 980 Ti. And confirmed with HWMonitor that the CPU is maintaining its clock speed.

 

I'm confused .-.

 

DirectX 11

Windowed Borderless

1920x1080

FXAA disabled

MSAA disabled

TXAA disabled

VSync disabled

Population Variety max

Population Density max

Distance Scaling max

Texture Quality - very high

Shader Quality - very high

Shadow Quality - high

Reflection Quality - high

Reflection MSAA - off

Water Quality - high

Particles - high

Grass Quality - ultra

Soft Shadows - soft

Post FX - normal

Anisotropic filtering - 16x

Ambient Occlusion - high

Tessellation - very high

 

If you get a chance could you tell me what FPS you get just driving around the city in GTA Online? These are lower than my settings used to be (max everything except advanced settings), and my fps is still pretty poor :l

[Hiebly]

in my previous post i added the settings i use for GTA 5, are you gaming at 1440p? i think you should replicate my settings and see how it run?

those clockspeed are very low are you using a reference card? mine out of the box is boosting to 1350mhz without me touching anything and i can get it to 1430mhz without increasing voltage or powerlimit...and yes a 20% reducing in clockspeed will have a 20% performance hit more or less..

 

MSI Gaming Lite Edition (basically Twin Frozr cooler but no factory OC). It was boosting to 1240MHz when first installed without any changes... now even with +9% power limit it's failing to boost to that.

[i_build_nanosuits]

MSI Gaming Lite Edition (basically Twin Frozr cooler but no factory OC). It was boosting to 1240MHz when first installed without any changes... now even with +9% power limit it's failing to boost to that.

wow those settings man i think i would get 144FPS consistently at those settings...definitely something ain't right...have you tried re-installing the game? unfortunately i can't go GTA online everytime i try it load me under a bridge somewhere but nothing is loaded correctly it look like a nintendo 64 game and it crash after about 15 seconds and i've tried everything to fix it but nothing worked so i gave up playing GTA 5 online but when i was playing the performance was pretty much the same as regular story mode iirc...

Grass at ULTRA is a major performance hit though that I,m 100% sure of...try running this on HIGH instead.

EDIT: I'm recording a short video with shadowplay in which ill show my settings and some driving around so that you can see normal performance i get...will be up soon i'll post link here in a few minutes...

Edited December 7, 2015 by i_build_nanosuits

[Hiebly]

wow those settings man i think i would get 144FPS consistently at those settings...definitely something ain't right...have you tried re-installing the game? unfortunately i can't go GTA online everytime i try it load me under a bridge somewhere but nothing is loaded correctly it look like a nintendo 64 game and it crash after about 15 seconds and i've tried everything to fix it but nothing worked so i gave up playing GTA 5 online but when i was playing the performance was pretty much the same as regular story mode iirc...

 

Haha IKR... like I said when I first installed the 980 Ti my performance was much higher. It was like 90-140 FPS fully maxed out at 1080P (except for distance)... I think I might have even had like 1.25X DSR too. Full reinstall is rather low on my priorities because GTA V isn't the only game I'm getting worse performance in.

 

Seems like CPU bottleneck but my CPU is even faster than before so... I'm really at a loss. If it was CPU bottleneck it would explain why my card is having such shitty clock speeds in spite of being WELL within temperature limits and having an increased poewr limit (my card is topping out at 65-70C during this testing)

[Hiebly]

wow those settings man i think i would get 144FPS consistently at those settings...definitely something ain't right...have you tried re-installing the game? unfortunately i can't go GTA online everytime i try it load me under a bridge somewhere but nothing is loaded correctly it look like a nintendo 64 game and it crash after about 15 seconds and i've tried everything to fix it but nothing worked so i gave up playing GTA 5 online but when i was playing the performance was pretty much the same as regular story mode iirc...

Grass at ULTRA is a major performance hit though that I,m 100% sure of...try running this on HIGH instead.

EDIT: I'm recording a short video with shadowplay in which ill show my settings and some driving around so that you can see normal performance i get...will be up soon i'll post link here in a few minutes...

 

I appreciate the effort man, thanks. And I'll try reducing grass quality... shame because it looks hella good on ultra lol.

[Hiebly]

Bleh even with lower grass quality performance is the same. I'm worried there's something wrong with the power delivery in my PSU or motherboard >_< but i figure that would cause system crashes?

[i_build_nanosuits]

Haha IKR... like I said when I first installed the 980 Ti my performance was much higher. It was like 90-140 FPS fully maxed out at 1080P (except for distance)... I think I might have even had like 1.25X DSR too. Full reinstall is rather low on my priorities because GTA V isn't the only game I'm getting worse performance in.

 

Seems like CPU bottleneck but my CPU is even faster than before so... I'm really at a loss

your machine should destroy any game at 1440p...let alone 1080p which is a ridiculously low resolution when it comes to a GTX 980ti...i don't know what to say bro

It's very unlikely to be related to drivers since the feedback i get is that the latest driver is a very good one across the board, and even if it wasn't we would be talking like what? a 5% performance hit at most...nowhere near the struggle you are getting...something else is not right but i can't tell you what it is

what about memory clockspeed on the graphics card? i've found the 980ti seem to be held back quite a bit by the memory performance, overclocking the VRAM to 8100mhz gave me a nice healthy boost of about 3 to 5 FPS across the board but again nowhere near the perf you seem to be missing...

I just recorded a short video for you with shadowplay in which i show my settings and some driving around so that you can see normal performance i get (shadowplay performance hit is around 3FPS):

[Hiebly]

Alright I'm fairly certain the problem isn't my GPU anymore... I just tested at lowest settings @ 1080P in GTA V and I still dipped to ~60 FPS within the first 20 sec of testing. Even back on my GTX 760 at low ("normal") settings I would be able to get like 90+ FPS.

 

I think the clock speed throttling on my GPU is just because something else is holding it back so it's throttling because it's not needed to operate quicker.

[i_build_nanosuits]

Alright I'm fairly certain the problem isn't my GPU anymore... I just tested at lowest settings @ 1080P in GTA V and I still dipped to ~60 FPS within the first 20 sec of testing. Even back on my GTX 760 at low ("normal") settings I would be able to get like 90+ FPS.

 

I think the clock speed throttling on my GPU is just because something else is holding it back so it's throttling because it's not needed to operate quicker.

¸have you changed some stuff in regards to your motherboard/CPU/RAM lately? (drivers etc.) could you maybe try to load your BIOS optimised default settings back and see how it goes after that? also what other games can you/have you tested?

...and yes if you see low GPU usage and GPU not boosting and not working as hard as it should then something else is holding it back.

[Hiebly]

¸have you changed some stuff in regards to your motherboard/CPU/RAM lately? (drivers etc.) could you maybe try to load your BIOS optimised default settings back and see how it goes after that? also what other games can you/have you tested?

 

The only other game I've tested recently is Battlefield 4. my fps in Battlefield 4 is like 40% lower than it used to be. 70-110 FPS in BF4 whereas it used to be like 120-200 FPS. Not sure about other games because they ran soooo well that I never even bothered to test their framerate.

[i_build_nanosuits]

The only other game I've tested recently is Battlefield 4. my fps in Battlefield 4 is like 40% lower than it used to be. 70-110 FPS in BF4 whereas it used to be like 120-200 FPS. Not sure about other games because they ran soooo well that I never even bothered to test their framerate.

you could also do some CPU benchmark and see how it goes if you could run multi-threaded cinebench R15 and provide a score then we would know if the CPU is working properly...it could be so many things, maybe you'll need to do a full windows re-install on a fresh partition or something along with all the drivers.

Graphics card is seated properly with all the power connectors fully inserted?