Drivers

**nanjong** · 09-25-2007, 02:10 PM

I have not much experience with videodrivers, but I found on the nVidea-site a new driver 162.18 and on the TweakForce-site the XG163.69 and the XG163.67SE.
Is there someone who had experience with this drivers for FS2004?
I have a Geforce 6200

Nan

**noell** · 09-25-2007, 08:52 PM

I've been a long-time fan of XG drivers but I did not think much of XG163.69. These are the problems I saw:
- It has the old Nvidia control panel and, now that I've gotten used to the new panel, it seems really clunky.
- I could not set AA to anything but Application Controlled.
- In my dual monitor setup, the mouse pointer would not transfer to the second monitor anywhere along the top 1/4 of the edge of the screen (I've never seen a video driver do that before!).
- Image quality was inferior to my previous driver (XG160.20).
- Performance (FPS) was about 10% lower in FSX than with XG160.20.

I did not try XG163.67SE because I didn't like some of the comments posted about it in the TweakForce forum.

Nvidia's stock, WHQL version 162.18 has been kicking around for about two months now and actually its pretty decent for a stock, un-tweaked driver. IMO, though, the tweaked version of 162.18 from NGO beats it in image quality and FPS in FSX. It also beats my long-time favorite, XG160.20. I don't know about FS9 but I suspect it would be better there as well. Also, I've never tried it with a "6" series video card but, seeing it performs well for an "8" series, I think it would be worth a try with your 6200. If you want to give NGO 162.18 a shot, get it here:
http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=1702

And I can't sign off a post on drivers without using my standard line:
"For a guaranteed clean driver install, be sure to use my video driver installation guide pinned at the top of this forum".

....Noell

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**nanjong** · 09-26-2007, 03:01 AM

Hallo Noell,

Thanks for your quick and professional advise. For me you are the expert and I always use your great video driver installation guide !! I will try te 162.18

Nan

**nanjong** · 09-27-2007, 05:43 AM

Hallo Noell,
I have installed the 162.18 drivers and it works great with FS2004 and FSX.
Thanks for your advise !!

Nan

**noell** · 09-27-2007, 08:54 AM

You are very welcome. Glad you're pleased with the results.

...Noell

**Rcca** · 10-19-2007, 03:02 PM

Wow Noell!I was crusing in our post last night,saw this.My new Gateway has been real good,never had to spend a lot of time trying different drivers every week or less.
The GW came with 91.96 or something like that,I'm not at home,on my notebook now.
I been having just micro stutters on the GW,but FPS were good,but when the stutters would happen the FPS I notice dropped.
Now using these NGO holly cow FPS shot up 20-30 FPS more.I set the FPS to unlimited and I saw over a 100 FPS never before had that high,usally about 70 FPS was the highest.
Now that the FPS are running high I locked FPS about 40FPS.
I still get some small Micro stutters,but the FPS does not drop so I have noticed,not at all when Micro stutters happen.
I have my AA set on in the game.Any other idea of the setting in the NGO panel settings? Thanks Noell
Ron

**Rcca** · 10-21-2007, 02:52 AM

>Wow Noell!I was crusing in our post last night,saw this.My
>new Gateway has been real good,never had to spend a lot of
>time trying different drivers every week or less.
>The GW came with 91.96 or something like that,I'm not at
>home,on my notebook now.
>I been having just micro stutters on the GW,but FPS were
>good,but when the stutters would happen the FPS I notice
>dropped.
>Now using these NGO holly cow FPS shot up 20-30 FPS more.I set
>the FPS to unlimited and I saw over a 100 FPS never before had
>that high,usally about 70 FPS was the highest.
>Now that the FPS are running high I locked FPS about 40FPS.
>I still get some small Micro stutters,but the FPS does not
>drop so I have noticed,not at all when Micro stutters happen.
>I have my AA set on in the game.Any other idea of the setting
>in the NGO panel settings? Thanks Noell
> Ron
Update.I made some ajustments in the 3d settings.Made some difference.
I'm a happy camper.
Ron

**noell** · 10-21-2007, 09:14 AM

Hi Ron. Glad its looking better for you.
I wasn't ignoring you BTW and I was puzzling over why you were getting micro-stutters. My experience has been that stutters are more often due to things other than the driver although there's no doubt game play with some drivers just seems smoother than with others. If you haven't already, try Googling "FSX stutters". It should give you a few more things to try.

Good luck.

....NOell

**smundye** · 10-21-2007, 12:16 PM

"Nvidia's stock, WHQL version 162.18 has been kicking around for about two months now ....... the tweaked version of 162.18 from NGO beats it in image quality and FPS in FSX. .... If you want to give NGO 162.18 a shot, get it here: http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=1702"

"For a guaranteed clean driver install, be sure to use my video driver installation guide pinned at the top of this forum".

Hello Noell

I'm using a GeForce 6600 on Win2000 to run FS9 on two 19" screens.

Having spotted this thread I checked my video drivers and they were way old (2005) so decided to go for your recommendation here.

Followed your installation guide to the letter (except unable to set a 'restore' point in Win2000 of course) and all seemed to go OK.

However, now with the new drivers installed I seem to be stuck in 'clone' view. I select 'dual view' in the nVidia control panel, the system restarts ..... and comes back up in 'clone' view.

Any ideas?

EDIT:- I've just run CCleaner and am getting a mass of ActiveX/COM issues which are still there no matter how many times I tell it to fix them. Any clue there?

EDIT 2:- Though CCleaner still reporting 40 odd ActiveX/COM issues, Registry Mechanic says no problems found!!

Regards

Stuart

**noell** · 10-21-2007, 04:10 PM

I've never had a video driver cause a problem with the setting up of dual-view. About all I can suggest at this point is to try another version and see what happens. What version did you install, BTW?

As for CCleaner, my experience has been that it always gets rid of any invalid entries whenever the Fix command is initiated. Try downloading and installing the latest version if you haven't already. If that doesn't fix it, suggest you post your problem on CCleaner's forum.

...Noell