Vista NVIDA Gforce 7600 drivers. Oh...Oops!

[Adam Albright]

Lots of people use Nvida based graphics cards. Mine is brand new and
supposedly "Vista Ready". I have some new drivers from the vendor I
haven't installed yet because Vista installed its own Microsoft GForce
video driver according to Device Manager.

OK, seems to work. Well, not really.

I do a short little test of a raw 30 second MPEG-1 video clip in Media
Player. It plays fine. It repeats automatically and still plays fine.

I edit this little video in Vegas. Again test play it in Media Player,
first time still plays fine, it tries to repeat and the entire video
is now out of synch, nothing but a mass of horoziontal lines filling
the screen much like a misaligned tv.

To rule out Vegas did something to the file I replay in six different
players. They all play fine as I would expect since Vegas follows the
MPEG-2 encoding scheme strickly which is what I encoded the file to.
Just for fun I burn to a CD and play again.

Only Media Player has trouble and then only if its repeated. Something
is happening when Media Player resets to replay a video over.

Since Media Player is the default viewer/player for Windows this again
is a totally unnecessary and careless bug that should have been found
very early in the beta testing process and wasn't. I'll try to install
"real" Nvida Vista video drivers later and toss Microsoft junk and see
if that fixes this problem.

 

[AJR]

I an not into "video" - however drivers is a different matter. Microsoft's
WDM generates what can be considered "generic" drivers - they may or may not
provide complete range of operations of the hardware.

Having said that - how many times must it be recommended and repeated -
always, always check the vendor site for updated drivers - and they do not
help uninstalled.

 

[kevin forsythe]

you NEVER install video drivers from an Nvidia vendor... you get them
directly from Nvidia...
you should be running the following driver..

for vista x86 32bit
ForceWare Release 95
Version: 97.46
Release Date: January 5, 2007
WHQL Driver


the driver above is RTM and supported...
Release Highlights:
a.. These drivers are only compatible with Windows Vista RTM build 6000
and higher, and should not be used with other versions of Windows Vista.
b.. Includes the new NVIDIA Control Panel. Please visit the NVIDIA
Control Panel website for more information.
c.. Includes OpenGL driver for compatibility testing.
d.. Improved application compatibility and performance.
e.. For a full list of fixes issues, please view the Release Notes.
Release Notes - 97.46


These NVIDA Windows Vista drivers are under development. This version is not
fully optimized for full 3D performance and may not include all available
features available on different operating systems. NVIDIA, along with the
industry, is continuing to update its Windows Vista drivers to ensure
maximum performance on 3D applications and add support for features. These
drivers are provided "AS IS." NVIDIA MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES
OF ANY KIND WHATSOVER AS TO MERCHANTABILITY, COMPATABILITY, PERFORMANCE,
APPLICATION OR FUNCTION, AND DISCLAIMS ALL SUCH WARRANTIES TO THE FULLEST
EXTENT ALLOWED BY LAW... blah blah blah.. if it blows up your PC forget
where you read this..



the driver below is beta for vista

GeForce BETA Drivers
100.59
Windows Vista 32-bit
Release Date: January 31, 2007
BETA driver

Release Highlights:

a.. Beta driver for NVIDIA SLIT support for GeForce 8800 GTX/GTS
GPUs
b.. This driver supports the following features:
a.. Single GPU support
a.. DirectX 9 support for GeForce 6/7/8 series GPUs
b.. DirectX 10 support for GeForce 8800 GPUs
c.. OpenGL support for GeForce 6/7/8 series GPUs
b.. NVIDIA SLI support
a.. DirectX 9 support for GeForce 8800 GPUs
b.. OpenGL support for GeForce 8800 GPUs
c.. DirectX 9 and OpenGL NVIDIA SLI support for GeForce 6 and 7
series GPUs and DirectX 10 NVIDIA SLI support for GeForce 8800 GPUs will be
available in a future driver
d.. If you would like to be notified of upcoming drivers for Windows
Vista, please subscribe to the newsletter
e.. Please read the release notes for more information on product
support, feature limitations, and known compatibility issues

 

[Adam Albright]

you NEVER install video drivers from an Nvidia vendor... you get them
directly from Nvidia...

I didn't. The point is Microsoft installed its own flavor, on its own,
without asking. Typical isn't it. Micosoft has a buggy driver, don't
ask if you want it, forces it on you, then turns a deaf ear if people
complain it isn't up to par or causes problem. Its the Microsoft way.