Vista Tutorial - Latest NVIDIA ForceWare Video Drivers

Thanks Shawn. I'm not precious about Winamp so I might try that but I fear the worst.
Whilst my card was being "tested" by Overclockers.co.uk-they played Crysis in 32 bit Vista apparently- I put my old 8600GT back in. That runs on the 169.25 drivers as well and was fine in both Winamp and games and has been since I got the pc 6 months ago.
Also, I've done a clean install on a brand new drive and installed SP1 which was supposed to be the answer to all ills.
I cannot understand why I'm not able to install the 174.44 drivers (see my earlier post)
I'm at work now but I'll give it some further testing in games later on but the driver issue is weird and the Winamp problem was occurring when the card was crashing in games.
In fact, apart ftom SP1, I'm in exactly the same setup as before so I'm pessimistic.
Cheers, John

Hi, further to my last mail

I still can't get any of the newer drivers to install. All I get is:

"You are running a 32 bit version of Nvidia Uninstaller on a 64 bit system. Wrong version of Uninstaller. Uninstaller exits now"

This is after uninstalling through control panel and then running Driver Cleaner in Safe Mode.
This is followed by:

"Nvidia Setup Error
Setup detected the operating system in use is not Windows Vista (64bit)
This setup program is designed to run on Windows Vista (64bit)
The installation will be terminated"

So I'm stuck with a card that BSODs all the time( and the length of time it will function for is getting shorter).
I have no idea if newer drivers would remedy this because they won't install.
Overclockers are fobbing me off. They have tested it on 32 bit systems and said it's fine.
They are now saying tell Gigabyte. I have mailed them several times and their replies indicate they are not really reading (or maybe understanding) my mails.
They basically suggest it's Overclocker's problem.

I wish I'd never bought this card or done business with Overclockers.
This is a nightmare. Does anybody have any suggestions?

Thanks, John

Wow, and I thought I had this problem...
Check this out...I have a BFG 8800 GTX OCII 768MB using driver 169.25 on Vista's X64, now when I installed 174.44 BETA, from nVidia's site, I had the same problem like John.
Funny thing is evga's site offers 169.44 which is not a BETA release, but if you go to nVidia's site only offers 169.25 stable drivers, and 169.44 is a BETA driver??
Can I use eVga's 169.44 for my GPU?

The 174.44s are not betas they are WHQL ( not sure what that stands for). I can't just find the link but I got them from Nvidia.
There is a newer one than that that is beta. 174.79 I think.
As I say I do not know whether they solve any problems as I can't install them.
My card is getting worse all the time.
I don't know whether it is a Gigabyte problem or Nvidia or Microsoft but it's really getting me down.

Yours, John

Just install 169.25, or 169.44, which i am doing @ the moment.
If it still acts up, then it's ur GPU unfortunately...btw which card is it??

Hi reaper. It's a Gigabyte 8800GT OC 512MB with a great big copper Zalman, which is why I got it.
I had to do a system restore to get back to 169.25 drivers which I'm running it on now but the main problem is it won't do anything for long without BSOD and needing hard shutdown and reboot.
Please see my previous posts. I wish I had never seen this damn card.
Off to bed now. I'll be back, John

I'll let you know if i have the answer- get some rest

Ciao.

Well hooray!. I take back all (or almost all)of the bad things I said about Overclockers. Looks like I'm going to get a refund on my Gigabyte 8800 GT OC.

This leaves me with a problem. I want a good graphics card. I want to play Crysis etc.
Looking around it seems that Vista 64 and Nvidia is a problem.
Don't know who's to blame but the driver problems seem to happen to all makes in the 8800 series.
Grimreaper; you are having problems with your GTX by another manufacturer.

Is anybody out there having a trouble free time with Vista 64 and Nvidia mid to high end cards?
Hmmn. Maybe I should start a new thread about this?
Surely most people must be doing ok with these card because they are selling like hot cakes.
Also people who have no problems with their 8800 won't be scanning these forums, they'll be too busy playing games.
I don't want to get a different brand 8800 and end up in the same place.

Cheers, John

Hi John,

The BFG GeForce 9600 GT OC card I have works great on my Vista 64 bit. It's a great brand. The 9800 cards just came out to, but they are a bit pricey.

Shawn

Good morning Shawn (is it morning in Texas?)

Did you have trouble with the 8800?
If you've read my previous posts you'll know I've been having a really bad time with mine.
At the moment I can't change the Nvidia driver at all. I just get this "32 bit uninstaller" stuff followed by " operating system in use is not Vista 64 bit".
That's rather worrying. I hope it goes away when I swap it out for my old 8600GT.
I'll have a look at the 9600s. They'll run on the 174.44 I imagine. Now I need to figure out what to get instead of the 8800GT.
How does the 9600GT compare performance wise to the 8800GT and does it keep going and going.

Cheers, John