New Forceware 180.48 Drivers, Claims up to 80% Improvement

New Forceware 180.48 Drivers Released, Claims up to 80% Improvement, Enables SLI Multi-Monitor Support​

Written by Paul Lilly 1/20/08 at 12:30:55 PM


Nvidia has released new WHQL-certified videocards driver for GeForce 200-series, 9-series, and 8800-series GPUs only (owners of older videocards need not apply). The approximately 73MB download enables finally brings to fruition a license agreement between Nvidia and Intel by enabling SLI on SLI-certified Intel X58-based motherboards. The new driver also supports multi-monitor support in an SLI-configuration, which previously had only been available with beta drivers. PhysX acceleration is also enabled when installing the new driver.

On the gaming front, Nvidia claims double-digit percentage performance gains in a number of titles, including a giant 80 percent boost in Lost Planet: Colonies. Far Cry 2 is the other big beneficiary with a purported 38 percent performance gain. Devil May Cry 4, Assassin's Creed, BioShock, Comapny of Heroes: Opposing Fronts, Crysis Warhead, Race Driver: GRID, and World of Conflict all receive performance gains ranging from 10 percent to 25 percent, according to Nvidia. And for you benchmarking gurus, 3DMark Vantage's performance preset should perform 10 percent better as well.

For NVIDIA driver download: http://www.vistax64.com/graphic-cards/139495-latest-nvidia-forceware-video-drivers.html


Source: New Forceware 180.48 Drivers Released, Claims up to 80% Improvement, Enables SLI Multi-Monitor Support | Maximum PC

 

[Slimy]

Interesting, thanks for the heads up!

 

[Brink]

You're welcome Slimy.

 

[grimreaper]

Don't know about 80%, but I've seen an improvement for sure playing Far Cry II.

 

[johngalt]

I am going to test this out in both Mass Effect and Fallout 3 and let you know - my holidays start in less than 24 hours!!!

BTW, x64 DL is just shy of 91 MB....

 

[roy69]

Looks like I am going to be a bit busy tonight.
Cheers for the link Brink.:D

 

[Brink]

John and Roy, please post back your results.

Have fun.

 

[joel406]

Well Brink is the man when it comes to things like this. I found it while re-building my Vista install yesterday and upgradeing my RAM and adding a 4GB ready boost drive.

So its hard to tell where all my performance gains are all comeing from.

I doubled my RAM. Sooo that and the new ready boost and all the other updated drivers I picked up(intel had new inf drivers up) I AM SMOKING HERE.

This thing opens stuff before I can even click it.

But I did notice a couple of nvidia improvements. The cursor is back in the password box when I start the system, I used to have to place it there after every start up. I have been running dual monitors for years, never had any problems there.

Vista has always booted great. Puts a MAC to shame!

My 9800 likes.

 

[angelo621]

Thanks always Brink

 

[Fumz]

I don't like them.

My favorite game is 1942. Usually drivers are just too fast for the game, if that makes any sense, so I just enable some candy in the driver CP and the game runs like glass; however, no matter what I did the drivers seem sticky, unpolished. I tried no AF, 4xAF, 4xAF with 2xAA/4xAA. 8xAF, 8xAF with 2xAA/4xAA... no combination of candy would make 42 run smoothly, which was odd considering these things are supposed to be 80% faster?

I thought it might be the game, or the server, so I tried CoD4... same thing. The odd thing is that single player stuff runs just fine, nice and smooth... but... SP is not my thing.


***EDIT***

Ok, the magic number now seems to be 16x. I guess they are faster? Too tired to play anymore today (who said that!), so I'll try some more games tomorrow.

 

[IvanI]

We would like to have seen the performance gains NVIDIA talked about. While we don't doubt that they are in there, it is likely we just didn't look at the right settings or hardware. Across the board performance gains are hard to come by any more, but improving performance in the corner cases and on underperforming hardware is still a good thing to do.

AnandTech: NVIDIA Fall Driver Update (rel 180) and Other Treats

 

[Everlong]

Don't know about 80%, but I've seen an improvement for sure playing Far Cry II.

Me too. It could get a bit sluggish when playing on Ultra High with my two 8800's at 1680x1050 and 2xAA with the 180.43. Very High played flawlessly, but now with these, it plays a lot better at Ultra High with 1680x1050 and 2xAA.

 

[roy69]

X3 Terran Conflict still runs the same on my system. I only have one 8800 so it may be the sli systems that are going to see an inprovement.

 

[archie123]

no improvement at all over the 180.43 , especially not by 80% , ive never heard such rubbish , far cry 2 does feel smoother though although running all the demo's the fps is the same and they gave me some colour corruption in COD 5

where the hell do they get off claiming an 80% improvement? are we expected to beleive this? Game profiles dont seem to stick either and if i enable vsync in COD 5 AF stops working????

NVidia have released so many drivers recently its hard to keep up

BTW 180.70 available now

64 bit ForceWare 180.70 Vista (64-bit) download from Guru3D.com

32 bit ForceWare 180.70 Vista (32-bit) download from Guru3D.com

 

[Everlong]

no improvement at all over the 180.43 , especially not by 80% , ive never heard such rubbish , far cry 2 does feel smoother though although running all the demo's the fps is the same and they gave me some colour corruption in COD 5

where the hell do they get off claiming an 80% improvement? are we expected to beleive this? Game profiles dont seem to stick either and if i enable vsync in COD 5 AF stops working????

NVidia have released so many drivers recently its hard to keep up

BTW 180.70 available now

64 bit ForceWare 180.70 Vista (64-bit) download from Guru3D.com

32 bit ForceWare 180.70 Vista (32-bit) download from Guru3D.com

Thanks. Looking at the Guru3D forums, they seem to be better than the current drivers. I'll give them a test sometime soon.

This is what it says on the Nvidia website, too:

Boosts performance in numerous 3D applications. The following are some examples of improvements measured with Release 180 WHQL drivers vs. Release 178 WHQL drivers (results will vary depending on your GPU, system configuration, and game settings):
Up to 10% performance increase in 3DMark Vantage (performance preset)
Up to 13% performance increase in Assassin's Creed
Up to 13% performance increase in BioShock
Up to 15% performance increase in Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts
Up to 10% performance increase in Crysis Warhead
Up to 25% performance increase in Devil May Cry 4
Up to 38% performance increase in Far Cry 2
Up to 18% performance increase in Race Driver: GRID
Up to 80% performance increase in Lost Planet: Colonies
Up to 18% performance increase in World of Conflict

The "up to 80%" is just for Lost Planet.

 

[mansrm81]

Too bad it wasn't release for my card.

 

[bughaters]

I am new to this forum. I tried to download the new NVIDIA 180.48 driver. It won't download saying my system isn't Windows 32bit. I have the Dell, Inc. Inspiron 531s, Windows Vista 32bit with 957 Physical memory, AMD Sempron (tm) processor 3600+. Any suggestions

 

[Brink]

Hello Bughaters,

Just to double check, right click on Computer in the Start menu and click on Properties, then check under System Type to verify if you have a 32-bit or 64-bit Vista. Sometimes a OEM may change something at not update the package list.

Did you download the 180.48 driver from here for only the series 8800, 9 , and 200 cards:
GeForce Release 180

or the 178.24 driver version for the 6, 7, and below 8800 cards:
GeForce Release 178


Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[bughaters]

My system type is Windows Vista 32 bit . Also, I went to NVIDIA Corporation Drivers and Downloads and it stated my driver 178.24 is the most current for my GPU. Whatever the GPU is on my computer I guess I have the current driver for it. Thanks for your advice Shawn

 

[Brink]

You're welcome Bughaters.