210°

FPS Impact: NVIDIA Forceware 175.16 vs 175.19

Benchmark Reviews: Most people would think that when NVIDIA, who is the world-class leader in graphics technology, releases a new driver to the public that performance would either remain the same with some stability improvements, or that both performance and stability would increase. As a hardware enthusiast for over a decade, I know that this isn't true. Very recently NVIDIA updated their Forceware driver from version 175.16 to 175.19. Anyone familiar with their updates would agree that the version number difference is so small that it would suggest nothing has really changed. But did NVIDIA take two steps backward instead? Benchmark Reviews offers this small article to demonstrate what we discovered while testing the GeForce 9800 GTX and 9800 GX2 video cards.
Updates:
Benchmark Reviews: Since this article was published, NVIDIA has pulled their Forceware 175.19 driver from the public download site. A few days later it re-appeared, and then a day later it was removed again. I would suggest waiting for an entirely new driver before updating.
Das Capitolin - contributor
Published: 540 days 1 hour ago | Article | PC
 
 

Showing: 1 - 6 of 6 Comments
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centrum2k - 540 days ago
1 - wow
i think i'll switch back to 175.16 after read this. does this includes the 8800??
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romaink - 540 days ago
2 - Wow!
Great Review! I think it's time I do a fresh install of XP and rollback to 175.16
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TheIneffableBob - 540 days ago
3 -
Strange. I've gone through dozens of drivers and have never noticed any drastic performance increases or decreases. I have used some great releases that made gameplay smoother, improved image quality, and improved FPS a few in some games, but have never used one that was significantly different from the previous driver.

I'm currently using 177.39 on my 8800 GTS 512.
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titntin - 539 days 23 hours ago
4 -
Ouch!!

Not a good time to screw its users with a driver update that restricts performance. Not when the 'opposition' have finally woken up and released a card for half the price of the flagship nvidia one that performs just as well...

Maybe the balance of power in this martket will have a little shift?
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Lumbo - 539 days 19 hours ago
5 -
Seems to be fitting with my own experiences. After installing the latest forceware i had a severe drop in performance in AoC. I am reverting to the older version for that reason, the drop of close to 50% performance impacts visibly on the gaming fps. Old forceware: no stuttering smooth fps, new forceware: stuttering hell with drops to single digit fps. No idea what devil rode nVidia to release this obviously broken driver.
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scissor_runner - 539 days 3 hours ago
6 -
Whew still running good ol 175.16! I guess they are trying to get us ready for the new card eh? See this is why I like PCs so many whistle blowers.
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