Latest drivers (NVidia and ATI)

[Raistmer]

look here:
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=56399&nowrap=true#953054
(in short, I see slowdown dor 195 but no difference for prev drivers)

[msattler]

look here:
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=56399&nowrap=true#953054
(in short, I see slowdown dor 195 but no difference for prev drivers)

Thank you so much for the link and the test, Raistmer.
I'll stick with the 190.62 then.

[Sutaru Tsureku]

And.. - now.. - ... ...

.. nVIDIA_driver_196.21 was published!

The opt. crew looked already what's new in this driver?

It's interesting for the CUDA cruncher out there?
Or I can continue with my 190.38 ?
191.x & 195.x showed slowdown on my OCed GTX260-216.

[Jason G]

Might be.  While I don't see mention of performance improvement in the release notes, It does mention fixes for Cuda recognising multiple 295's in Windows7 x64 & Vista x64, so that would help some people.

I suspect the performance hiit from the support iof beta Cuda 3.0 might still be there, but why not give it a try and let us know ? You're in the best position to check this out.

[Devaster]

nothing special in compute performance - only changes in support for games - as i have it tested is the same in limits of statistical error ....

[Jason G]

Note from nVidia;s facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/NVIDIA?_fb_noscript=1

" NVIDIA  We are aware that some customers have reported fan speed issues with the latest 196.75 WHQL drivers on NVIDIA.com. Until we can verify and root cause this issue, we recommend that customers stay with, or return to 196.21 WHQL drivers. Release 196.75 drivers have been temporarily removed from our website. Thanks, and stay tuned for updates."

[Ghost0210]

Thanks Jason
I got the 196.75 drivers on my gt240's
fan speeds seem fine to me so far, both running @ about 86% load @60-62 degrees and according to both GPU-Z and MSI Afterburner fan speeds are reported at about 16%
Not sure how this would affect the higher end cards, but I don't seem to have that issue   

[HSchmirPo]

My Card is the 295 and is on water. With the optimized drivers I always got VGA restarts with all releases up to 196.21 from nvidia.
Then I resetted the project and installed stock drivers through boinc and the nvidia 196.75. This is the end of the VGA restarts, wich always errored out the workunit.

[Ghost0210]

I used to get the crashes as well especially on the 195 drivers.
Went back to the 191.07 drivers and problem solved
Thought I'd try thee 196.75 drivers as there seems to have been some stability work done by nVidia on this set - had them since thrusday and no crash yet - also reported problem of fan speed issues hasn't affected me
No improvement or reduction of speed either

[HSchmirPo]

I have a second 295 card with nvidia driver  196.75  AND OPTIMEZED apps (Lunatics installer V0.2).
This card shows VGA restarts. So I think the optimized apps causes the card to restart.

[Ghost0210]

could be the higher end cards that this is affecting then
I run 2 GT240's on the 196.75 drivers and the opt apps and so far have had no problems
I've seen it mentioned here in another thread that its possible that the newer drivers work ok for the 240's
both my temps and fan speeds are normal with no crashes

[HSchmirPo]

Yes, higher end cards.
I have a 285, 250, and a 8800 GTX, all with optimezed apps. None of them shows VGA restarts.
So I think I have to switch to the stockversion on the second 295 card.

[Pepi]

Reading this thread, I am little confused.
Please tell me what will be fastest combination on my GT 9800 Green ( cuda 2.3)
Some says that optimal is 190.38, some other says 190.62 and also 191.07. It is clear that 195.62 is not fastest.
Thanks for reply

[RottenMutt]

I used to get the crashes as well especially on the 195 drivers.
Went back to the 191.07 drivers and problem solved
Thought I'd try thee 196.75 drivers as there seems to have been some stability work done by nVidia on this set - had them since thrusday and no crash yet - also reported problem of fan speed issues hasn't affected me
No improvement or reduction of speed either

are you running quad sli or higher?  i've got three gtx 295's, one in one rig and two in another, and am only able to get two optimized apps to run without what i call thrashing (invalid results and nvidia driver restarts).
can you get four stock gpu apps to run?
how much slower is the stock app?
i was able to get the quad sli rig to run three apps, but you could feel it trying to leave the kernel (not responding).
don't put your rig to sleep with the 196.75 drivers, this caused my fans not to run.

[Raistmer]

you could try latest opt CUDA MB build, x4 one, for your multy-GPU host. Maybe it will achieve more stable results (all GPUs could be loaded with maybe w/o crashes)