Which nVidia driver for Vista 64?

Can anyone advise me on which nVidia driver to use for Vista 64? I have the nVidia 8800 Ultra, and I get periodic crashes, sometimes preceded by graphical anomalies. I'm using the official LL viewer. I've tried various drivers, all the way back to 169.25, and I don't seem to have particularly good luck with any of them -- sooner or later, the crashes start, about once an hour.

Are the newest drivers, with OGL 3.0 support, more stable? I tried them briefly and saw no improvement, but I didn't fuss with my settings much.

Well, I *thought* I had set SL so that Aero would turn off every time I run the game. (Right-click SL icon, choose properties, 'composition off' or some such.) But I had left it on. I turned it off and had crash-free gaming for two hours tonight. Maybe my drivers are OK after all...

All the drivers work fine on 64 bit vista for me. maybe you fixed it.


If it keeps going try blowing out your card, sounds like overheating is a possibility too :3

Sigh, well I definitely don't have Aero on now, and I'm still getting crashes -- every 10 minutes.

I don't have heat problems with any other app. In fact, I have a watercooled PC, with heat sensors everywhere...the PC and videocard run pretty cool.

I guess I'll try the latest nVidia drivers. Anyone have any other suggestions?

I'm using 175.19 for an 8800GT on Vista 64 and have very few problems. This one is located under the archived/beta drivers.

Edit - And I have Aero turned on.

Heh, I tried that very driver not long ago. It didn't help. Turning off Aero doesn't help, either. I'm at wit's end. I guess I'll try the most recent driver on the nVidia site, but I'm not holding my breath.

178.13 works on this Vista machine.........but it's 32 bit, not 64.

I've also heard 178.16 works too.

It wouldn't hurt to try the Release Candidate and see if it works any better.

This probably doesn't help, but I have a Nvidai GeForce 9600M GT running 64-bit vista and it runs like a charm. My ForceWare version is 175.86 <- Is that what you wanted?

I'll try that driver, Sleeper. I don't have much to lose. Suezanne, I have tried Release Candidates and First Look before; no help.

I have XP on another partition; I may just dual-boot to that. But I think the last time I tried that, SL crashed even under XP.

One question is whether to use Driver Cleaner. I know Chosen swears by it, but I know of a couple people who lost everything when using it. My PC runs everything flawlessly except SL; not inclined to risk it all for one program. How do you all upgrade your drivers? I note that nVidia doesn't even seem to recommend that we uninstall old drivers anymore.

Uninstalling your older driver before installing a new one is all I do. Well, I do run CCleaner for registery issues after the uninstallation sometimes, I've yet to see CCleaner find an issue related to leftover remnants of old drivers. The use of programs like Driver Cleaner sort of put me off since it relies on that "one size fits all" way to find and delete leftover crap from a previous driver.......just a little too aggressive for my tastes. CCleaner is a lot less aggressive and will only pick up the obvious stuff. Besides there will always be leftover stuff in your resgistry after more than a few weeks of using your computer.......every program you install on your system puts registry entries in the registry, and there is no "uninstall cleaner" to pick up all those tidbits. It normally does not cause problems......even left over driver stuff.

I would say uninstall your old driver, run CCleaner (or some other non aggressive system clean up program, if you want) and install your new driver. On nVidia's website there is a FAQ somewhere (I forget where it is......maybe support) where they recommend uninstalling first. They also recommend NOT replacing a driver unless it is necessary. A new driver version does not mean you need it.

Thanks, Peggy. I'll look into CCleaner.

Ricky, I'd be curious to hear more details on the stories of people who "lost everything" to DriverCleaner. I can't imagine how that would be possible. It only goes after very specific files. It has no power to delete anything besides what's on its predetermined list. If people experienced trouble, I'd say either they did something wrong themselves, or they just don't know what they're looking at.

I have read some fairly silly complaints on various support forums from people who had mistakenly assumed there was damage to their system just because their display settings were different, or because Aero would no longer work, after running DriverCleaner. If you can believe it, I've even read fiercely angry posts from people who were under the mistaken impression that their entire Windows was downgraded to Vista Basic just because their display was set to the Vista Basic theme. Yeah, people can be really panicky when it comes to computers.

Sometimes I just want to reach through the Internet and slap some sense into those people. "Stewardess, please, allow me..."

After the slap, here's what I'd say to all those people if I could. "Look, OF COURSE high resolution settings and hardware-accelerated functions like Aero won't work after running DriverCleaner and doing nothing else. You just removed your display driver, and the things that now won't work are precisely what a display driver is for. So rather than panic half way through the procedure, take a breath, and just keep going. Install that new replacement driver, and everything will be fine. Don't complain that something didn't work right when you've only followed half the directions."

Is that the kind of thing you heard about, Ricky, or was it something else?




Since CCleaner was mentioned, let make a few things clear about the diffence between it and DriverCleaner. Some people tend to think anything programs with "cleaner" in their names all do the same kinds of things. I'd like to nip any potential confusion on this in the bud, if I can.

CCleaner is a good app, but it's got nothing to do with drivers. It's a general maintenance tool for PC's, a general purpose "garbage collector". It's not an alternative to DriverCleaner in any way. The two programs do completely different things.

What CCleaner actually does is it removes temp files from dozens of programs, deletes orphaned registry entries as it finds them, clears browser history and cookies, wipes free hard drive space, etc., and it doesn't touch driver files at all. DriverCleaner, on the other hand, removes only drivers and their related files, as referenced from a pre-existing list, without touching anything else. There's no functional overlap between the two at all.

This is why in all Peggy's use of CCleaner, she has "yet to find an issue related to leftover remnants of old drivers." That's simply not what CCleaner does. She might as well be trying to find underground PVC pipes with a metal detector. Just because the metal detector says there's no metal doesn't mean there are no pipes. And just because CCleaner says there are no registry problems doesn't mean there are no driver problems.

To be clear, it's not the registry that is usually the issue when it comes to bad driver uninstalls. It's the presence of leftover files, which then interfere with proper installation of the new replacement driver.

CCleaner won't do anything at all to remove those leftover files. It's got no way of even detecting them, let alone determining whether they're good or bad. That's why DriverCleaner is so important. It will remove everything relating to an uninstalled driver, all at once, without affecting anything else.



All that said, is it still a good idea to run CCleaner when changing drivers? Sure, there's nothing to lose by it. It's also a good idea to run it once a week, or when uninstalling programs, or just before defragging a hard drive, or after running Disk Cleanup or chckdsk, etc. Like all general maintenance tools, the more you use it, the better. But again, I'll stress, none of that means CCleaner is actually doing anything specific for your driver install/uninstall. It's very important to understand that.



The "one size fits all" description of DriverCleaner, if you want to use those terms, is absolutely crucial to its ability to do its job. It's got a pre-existing list of files to look for. Those files will be present on any and all computers that are using the drivers it knows about. When it finds them, it safely and properly uninstalls them. How that could possibly be thought of as a bad thing is beyond me.

As for which one could fairly be described as "less aggressive", well, it depends on what you're focusing on. If you're looking specifically at drivers, then I guess you could call the program that doesn't touch them the "less aggressive" one. After all, doing nothing is as non-aggressive as you can possibly be, by definition. So in that sense, yes, CCleaner is "less aggressive".

But if you're looking at everything else, CCleaner is actually very aggressive. It uses its own judgment to find and remove all sorts of things, from all over the system, while DriverCleaner only looks for a very small handful of extremely specific things.

Top put it another way, if you're a driver file, then you would call CCleaner totally non-aggressive, since it won't ever do anything to you at all. If you're a miscellaneous orphaned registry entry, then you would call DriverCleaner non-aggressive since it won't even know you exist. If you're a computer that's just generally in bad shape, then you probably could benefit from both.

Please explain why you spent 2/3 of your post devoted to disputing my use (or non use) of "cleaners"? I put forth my opinions on programs like "driver cleaner"...........my freaking opinions (I didn't mention anyone's name). I do not use programs that deal with my registry at the driver level. I use programs that I feel comfortable with..........and none of them aggressively delete or modify my registry. That is why I mentioned CCleaner if anyone feels the need to even think registry after an uninstallation.........it only finds the very (hear that? VERY) obvious registry entries that are no longer necessary. I'm quite well aquainted with what CCleaner does.........it's not designed for heavy duty registry clean ups. And my understanding of what Driver Cleaner does is a little different.........it specifically goes into the registry to find DRIVER registry entries after an uninstallation. Drivers, I'm quite sure you know, are a little more serious than DLL's or orphaned entries. Drivers can make your computer completely unusable if corrupted or damaged. I happen to not want some third party program designed by some whiz kid digging into my registry and assuming something should be deleted. I'll deal with a program not starting up because a program like CCleaner saw it as an orphaned entry...........I can get my computer booted to restore the last (or any) backup copy of my registry should that happen. If a program makes my computer unbootable because a similar miss reading of an entry.........quite a different story. I do not use. I do not like, and I'd never recommend a program that deletes anything in my registry dealing with drivers. You can do it all you want..........I will not endorse it. And, to be honest, it irks me when you so highly taut the program. Just because you happen to think it's the greatest thing since the wheel does not make it a fact. Every (I repeat, EVERY program has a potential to fail or have a bug). You know as well as I know, most people don't know what damage can be done with one little miss cue in the driver files.........yet you seem to enthusiatistically recommend a program that automatically "fixes" driver issues (or I should say, potential driver issues) after an uninstallation. And then feel it's necessary to spend 2/3 or a rather long post devoted to telling people that what I said was foolish or misinformed in some way.

My method works, my method is safe..........my method is recommended by most driver developers. A simple uninstallation is safe. Yeah it could cause problems if something is left over in the driver files..........but it's very unlikely your system will become unusable. Your method and recommended way is riskier because if your program messes up it's very likely the user is in for a formating of the drive to "fix" it. Finding and fixing a driver unistallation problem is easier (you can still boot your system)...........just reinstall and uninstall once again.

Do you have stock in the company that developes or distributes Driver Cleaner?

Here we go again. It wasn't about you, Peggy, so calm down. I didn't "dispute" you at all. The only thing I was trying to do was exactly what I said, dispel any potential confusion about whether CCleaner does the same thing as DriverCleaner, since drivers were the subject of the thread.

I never said that you were wrong to be using CCleaner, or that you were trying to confuse anyone, or anything of the kind. As I thought I made clear in my post, I've seen plenty of people in the past mistakenly assume that all programs with the word "cleaner" in their names do the same things, and I wanted to throw out a quick FYI to all readers that CCleaner is not a program that cleans up driver files. I can't imagine why you have such a problem with that.

As for why it happened to be "2/3 of the post", all I can say is that my post had two parts to it, and the second part happened to require more words for a thorough explanation than the first did. The first part was mostly a question, after all. The second part was more technical.

I'm not sure why you assign so much weight to the length of a post. Just because something takes longer to explain doesn't mean it's got any extra importance to it. If I were to write a post about how I like the smell of roses, and include in it a summary of the chemical reasons for why roses smell the way they do, chances are the chemistry part would take a lot longer to explain than the enjoyment part. But that doesn't mean I think the chemistry is more important than the enjoyment. Quite the opposite, in fact.

So relax. I wasn't trying to imply that you somehow demanded twice as much attention as poor Ricky who still hasn't gotten his driver to work. That kind of thinking never would have occurred to me. That's simply not how my mind works.

I realize post length is a hot button for you, and that you seem to delight in freaking out when I write anything beyond a certain length in any thread in which you've participated. But please realize, that's your own issue. It's got nothing to do with me. I'm sorry if you can't bring yourself to contain it.




I fail to see your point. Yes, you expressed your opinion. Great. What does mentioning anyone's name or not have to do with it?

Yes, I mentioned your name. BECAUSE I WAS RESPONDING TO SOMETHING YOU SAID. Is that a crime?



Understood. None of that was in dispute.



Yes, as I said, it looks for specific things, from a pre-existing list. If it finds them, it removes them. If they're not there, then it does nothing.

Some of the items on the list happen to be registry entries for driver files. If they're present, they're always in the same place, and DriverCleaner will find them in a matter of seconds. If they're not present, DriverCleaner simply won't do anything at all in the registry. It can't delete what's not there. Either way, it won't even look at any other parts of the registry besides the places where the driver related keys should be. So it's powerless to do any harm.




I can't agree with that. Even if a driver is absolute toast, it's not the end of the world. 99% of the time, you can still get into Safe Mode, and remove it. But If the registry is broken, there's a good chance you'll have no choice but to rebuild your system from scratch.

Given the choice of screwing up one or the other, I'd screw up the driver every time. The registry "ain't no joke", as they say. (Of course, I wouldn't screw up either one. I'm just saying.)



I'm not sure "comletely unusable" is the right choice of words. As I said, you should be able to get into Safe Mode, no matter what's going on with your drivers. That's what it's for.

But you're certainly right that a bad driver will make normal operation impossible, until it's been properly uninstalled and replaced. That's why DriverCleaner is so important. It's the only way I know of to ensure that drivers are properly uninstalled, so that they can be reinstalled cleanly.

Frankly I find your fear of it to be extremely puzzling. On the one hand, you know how disastrous bad driver installations can be. But on the other hand, you refuse to use the best possible tool to make sure your drivers will always be in perfect working order. How do you possibly reconcile that? It doesn't make a whole lot of sense.




First, it doesn't "dig". It looks for specific things only in specific locations. If you've got an nVidia driver on your system, you'll have certain nVidia keys in a certain place in the registry. If you've got an ATI driver, you'll have certain ATI keys in a certain place in the registry. If you've got a Creative driver, you'll have certain Creative keys in a certain place in the registry. The program knows where those keys have to be. It's not random at all. It only looks at what's on its list, nothing else.

If you want to be concerned about "digging", you've got a lot more to worry about with ANY general purpose registry cleaner, including CCleaner, than you could ever have with Driver Cleaner. It's not unheard of for registry cleaners to assume a key is orphaned when it's not, especially if your hard drive is heavily fragmented, and then you end up having to reinstall programs, or sometimes even reinstall the whole OS. It doesn't happen often, of course, but it does happen.

Heck, I had a registry cleaner kill my Acrobat installation once. It was a nightmare to fix. Eventually I got it to work by rolling back the computer to an earlier restore point, uninstalling the entire Adobe suite, and then reinstalling it. It didn't shake my faith in registry cleaners. On the whole, they do a lot more good than harm. But it did demonstrate quite clearly that they're not infallible. Had it been a Microsoft key instead of an Adobe key that got killed, I would have had to rebuild the whole hard drive. That really would have sucked.

DriverCleaner simply can't do that sort of thing. The worst thing it could possibly do is uninstall a driver unintentionally, due to the user selecting the wrong one when running it. For example you could inadvertently uninstall your Creative sound card driver because it's right next to ATI on the list, and you clicked on the wrong one. If something like that happens, you simply reinstall the driver, and there's no problem. It's not going to break the computer in any way, or interfere with any other programs, or anything like that. It's completely benign.

Second, regarding the "whiz kid" thing, who exactly do you think invented CCleaner? It wasn't handed down from God, I can assure you.



Your decision, your loss. That's all I can really say.



Peggy, why are you so obsessed with what I write? If my posts "irk" you, simply don't read them. I'm not going to stop recommending things I know work well, just because you feel the need to stalk me like this.

Really, this is starting to get disturbing. Please tell me I'm not going to walk into my kitchen tonight and find a rabbit boiling on the stove.

Come on, give it a rest already, will you?




Let me get this straight. What you're saying is that when you spout your assumptions about something you've never used, that's OK because it's your opinion. But when I share my experiences with a program I actually HAVE used, that's not OK because my opinion isn't fact. So you have the right to opine, and I don't. Wow.




Sure. What's your point?

A couple weeks ago, an airplane fell on my neighbors. A few days ago, a large asteroid almost hit the Earth. A few months ago my brother in law almost died of an E-coli infection, after swimming in a pool that hadn't been treated properly. Crazy things happen all the time. But I don't sit around my house expecting every last thing to fail.

If you're so concerned about such things, why are you so comfortable with CCleaner? It's got a whole lot more potential to kill your system if it malfunctions than most other programs do, including DriverCleaner. Chances are it won't, of course. As I said, it is a good program. But it could.

So could Windows itself, for that matter.

Should anyone stop using it because it MIGHT one day malfunction out of the blue? Of course not. It's got a good track record of not doing bad things. So does DriverCleaner. Again, why you're so afraid of DriverCleaner, I really don't get. Sorry, but it makes zero sense.




How can I put this in the simplest possible terms? The reason I recommend DriverCleaner is precisely BECAUSE of the potential damage you mentioned. The most common "miss cue", as you put it. is when leftover remnants of older drivers interfere with the successful installation of newer ones. In order to prevent that, you've got two options. One is to go through by hand, and remove every file and every registry entry by hand. But as you point out, most people wouldn't have the first clue how to do that, and the procedure is far from error-proof, even for those who do. It's a big risk to do that sort of thing by hand. So the other option is to use DriverCleaner, which automates the same exact process, so that people don't have to know how, and so that human error can't happen.

Why that doesn't make sense to you, I can't imagine.




That's not what I said at all, Peggy. This obsession of yours is getting really pathetic. Please let it go.




Your method works for doing the things that CCleaner does. But driver cleanup is not one of those things. You want to talk general PC maintenance, great. Your method for that is not a bad one. But if you want to talk drivers, which is what this thread is about, your "method" is irrelevant.




Well, it's "safe" until one of those dreaded malfunctions you mentioned earlier happens, right?

But yes, if I were a leftover driver file, looking to cause a malfunction with a newer driver, and I saw you running CCleaner, I'd feel pretty darned safe that you weren't gonna do anything to stop me.




Sorry, but I can't help but laugh at that statement. Exactly how many driver developers have you talked to to arrive at that conclusion?

Want to know who first turned me on to DriverCleaner? I'll give you a hint. His job title rhymed with "shmoftware shmengineer", and he worked for a company that rhymened with "shminvidia".





The chances that something could go wrong are so remote, they're not worth talking about. Honestly, I don't know where you get this stuff. Do you just make it up? Look, you've got a better chance of getting struck by lightning tomorrow than of having DriverCleaner damage your system in any way. Again, the only power it has is to delete a specific list of files, and a specific list of registry entries. It has no other function whatsoever. Your display of paranoia towards it is laughable at best, and certifiable at worst.



No, if the problem is a bad uninstallation, then simply trying to uninstall again the same way won't fix it. Windows is almost never able to remove the offending files on its own. Add/Remove programs is nowhere near smart enough to handle it properly (despite years of complaints to Microsoft and requests for improvements). Again, the solutions are locate the problem files and keys by hand and delete them by hand without making any mistakes, or let DriverCleaner do its job. That's it.



No. Do you have any in CCleaner?






ETA: Ricky, I'm sorry that this garbage has derailed your thread. I debated not responding to that last post, so as not to feed the troll, but in the end I decided it was better not to leave the questions hanging. There was a lot of misinformation in there, and I wanted to dispel the myths as best I could. I'm not sure if that was the right decision or not.

I'm still hoping we can find a solution to your problem. Please keep us informed of your progress.

I was sincere when I asked for more information on your friends' problems with DriverCleaner. I'd really like to hear what happened.

I'd like to chime in and say that both of these programs do exactly what Chosen says they do. Driver Cleaner itself I've been using since the old Voodoo 5 card days to remove fragments of old drivers that were causing mayhem with the new drivers, and on everything from Windows 98 to Windows Vista 64. There has not once been a single problem with it.

To answer the question in the topic of the thread, I am using the latest nvidia drivers with Vista 64. However, my card is a GTX 260, so there might be some hardware related differences there.

Chosen, you seem to be a fairly intelligent person. But, the above is what I said in my first post in this thread (this is my third post.......the second post is my semi rant about your disputing what I said in the first post. Read it again. Show me where I recommended anything concerning the use of CCleaner for cleaning up left over driver tidbits after an uninstallation..........I said I sometimes run CCleaner after a driver uninstallation AND that I have yet to see anything related to the driver I uninstalled as an issue. I beleive my saying that told anyone reading my post that CCleaner was more or less and excerise of futility. I said it because I have, on occassion, run CCleaner after uninstalls.........any uninstall which encludes drivers. I did not say it would help eliminate driver issues. I also stated I don't use programs such as Driver Cleaner and stated my reasons for not using them. I did relate my thoughts on the use of CCleaner if anyone wants to use it after a driver uninstall.......but I did say it does not seem to be very effective (the part about "I've yet to see CCleaner find an issue related to leftover remnants of old drivers."

I went on to tell the OP how I replace drivers. My way works (driver updates on no less than 10 different computers over ten years with numerous updates on each computer......I have experience in how to successfully replace an existing driver. I conservatively estimate about 100 to 150 driver replacements). I've had one driver issue in that ten years..........it was caused by not uninstalling the older driver first. It caused me problems for quite some time until I went back to the driver I had tried to replace and installed it again........then uninstalled it again. That fixed the problem for me.......just as someone whose computer knowledge I respect one hell of a lot more than I do you, told me it would. So call me a troll.........I'm not. I simply get sick and tired of you jumping in with your long, elaborate posts taking other people's posts line by line and putting your vast (?) knowledge to it to show just how precise and smart you are. You do it to quite a few people..........perhaps you get off with your not so subtle put downs.

You need to learn to read. You need to learn that you are not the end all on anything you say. My post said nothing that was untrue...........until you distorted it (again, not so subtly) what I said. And you really need to quit with the backhanded name calling.

Oh by the way, you are not the only one who offers what they know in an effort to help others. Many here do that.........actually, I do that too. So pat yourself on the back. You deserve it. But so do many others here.......we don't deserve your BS post backs. And we don't get paid either........just like you.

Depends on your definition, I guess. My IQ is in the 99th percentile (19, so by that standard I'm a genius, for whatever that's worth. But I never did exceptionally well in school, except for in subjects that really excited me, so by school standards I'm nothing special. Like many people in America, I lost 2/3 of my life savings in the stock market decline, so for financial smarts, I'd say I'm about average. I've always had a natural knack for artistic abilities, so I guess maybe I've got more "intelligence" in that regard than most. I'm pretty good when it comes to technical stuff. I've got a better command of language and grammar than most people I've ever encountered, but I'm not sure that has anything to do with intelligence. That's totally from how I was raised.

Like everyone else, there are things I'm very good at, and things I'm not so good at. On the whole, I'd say I'm probably above average, but I'm sure everyone thinks that. (Except maybe you, since I've seen you on more than one occasion refer to yourself as stupid.)

I don't believe anyone can or should be so simply defined as "smart" or "stupid". It's a continuum. Different people have different talents. Nobody's good at everything and nobody's bad at everything. Intelligence manifests in many ways. Most people are smarter than most others tend to give them credit for, I think.




OK, I've read it again. It still says exactly what it said the first time. What was the point of this exercise?




Peggy, how many times do I have to explain this? I never said you recommended CCleaner for driver cleanup. I said I wanted to make sure people reading the thread would not be confused by the similar names of the two programs, since I've seen that happen before. Your mention of CCleaner right after a reference to DriverCleaner opened up the door for the (very common) misconception that the two do the same thing, whether you meant it that way or not. Such misconceptions happen all the time. So I took a few minutes to try to make it more clear TO THE READERS, not to you, that CCleaner is not in fact a tool that is of any direct benefit for driver cleanup. That's it.

It had nothing to do with you. It wasn't an attempt to claim you said anything you didn't actually say. It was just an effort to try to head off potential confusion among readers. I have no idea why you saw fit to make such a big deal out of it.

If you want proof of why it was a necessary and proper response, you need look no further than the OP's reply to your first post. He said, "Thanks, Peggy. I'll look into CCleaner." The implication was quite clear. He apparently thought you had recommended CCleaner as a driver cleanup tool, an alternative to DriverCleaner, even though you didn't. If he thought that, other readers probably thought it as well.

I simply can't imagine why you insist on continuing to try to change my meaning. It was never about what you're saying it was about.



Right, and my response was simply to point out the reason for that. CCleaner is not designed to detect typical driver related issues. So OF COURSE you won't find any with it. What's wrong with explaining that?



Well, quite obviously your belief is incorrect. Your wording didn't get that message across very well at all. As you can plainly see, at least one person who read your post and responded to it were under the impression you mentioned CCleaner because you thought it was was a helpful tool for the task being discussed. After all, if you thought it was futile, why would you even bring it up.




What it very much looked like you were trying to say, whether you meant it this way or not, was that you believed that since CCleaner never found any driver uninstallation problems, there just must not be any uninstallation problems to find. My response was simply to point out that the real reason CCleaner won't find such problems is because that's not one of its functions. If you want to find that stuff, you need a program designed specifically to find it, like DriverCleaner. That's it.




Yes, you stated your reasons. They don't make any sense, but you stated them, nonetheless.



Again, if you believe it to be ineffective, why mention it at all? If that's really what you meant, it was hardly the best way to get the point across. It sure didn't look like that's what you were trying to say. It still doesn't.




Great, I'm glad to hear you've been so successful. That doesn't negate anything I said, though.

Fact: Uninstalling drivers without a proper cleanup tool almost always leaves remnants behind. Unless you already know what they are, you have no way of detecting them. You almost undoubtedly have tons of them on your computers right now, since you've never used DriverCleaner. If you haven't experienced any problems thus far from them, you've been lucky. Sooner or later you will. It's one of the most common PC mallodies in existence. It affects almost every PC at least once before the end of its lifespan, unless the user makes a point of cleaning out the offending files with each uninstall.



You've deliberately derailed two threads in as many days, to demonstrate your personal dislike for me. If that's not trolling, what is?



These comments are not trolling? What would you call them then? Because they sure look like a deliberate attempt at insult. Or are you now going to backtrack again and say what you wrote wasn't actually what you wrote?

If you truly believe I post just to "show how smart I am", then I feel sorry for you, Peggy. Out of the millions of possible reasons for why I do what I do, that's the one you pick? I hope you can come to realize that that says a whole lot more about you than about me.

If nothing else, let's look at it logically for a second. If "showing how smart I am" were actually one of my goals in life, there are much more direct and more tangibly rewarding ways I could be doing it than by posting in Second Life support forums. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that if anyone were to choose this particular venue as the main stage upon which to showcase his intelligence, then that person must not actually be very intelligent at all, because this is one of the least effective places for such a demonstration to take place effectively. But you already said you believe I am intelligent, so clearly I must not be doing that, right?

Whether you can bring yourself to accept it or not, the reason I post is because I enjoy helping and sharing what knowledge I do have. When I see information that I know is factually inaccurate, potentially confusing, or just plain wrong, I do what I can to correct it. That's all.



Um, OK. I guess I'll head over to the store now and pick up that copy of Hooked On Phonics I've been meaning to get. I mean all those books on my shelf, I don't even know what they're for. This computer thing in front of me that I'm typing on, well I'm really just 10,000 monkeys on 10,000 typewriters, and all this stuff I've written is just the inevitable statistical outcome of 10,000 years of random button pushing. Tell me, how did you figure it out?



Peggy, I have no desire to be the "be all end all" on anything at all. If I weren't interested in discussion, I wouldn't post on discussion forums. I learn as much from others as I'd like to think they learn from me.

As I've said a few times now, this obsession of yours with me is really pathetic. Please, for your own sanity, just let it go.



Right. That would be why I didn't say anything you posted was untrue. Who was it you said needs to learn to read again?



How did I "distort" it? I saw potential for confusion, as well as evidence that at least some degree of it had already happened, so I tried to clarify a few things. You're the one who saw fit to jump into a tantrum over it.



What names, exactly, did I call you?




Who said I thought I was the only one? Once again, where do you get this stuff?

For the record, I have no desire to pat myself on the back. I help people here because I enjoy it. Since I derive pleasure from it, it's by definition not a selfless act, so it's hard to accept that I might deserve praise for it, certainly not self-praise, at any rate. I do appreciate the occasional thank you, just like anyone else, but that's not why I do it.




You're kidding, right? Tell me, what's the more "BS" response, a factual explanation of the function of a couple of programs, or a deliberately personally insulting tirade about how someone's posts are too long and insinuations about ulterior motives for their writings?




What exactly does that have to do with anything?

I have precisely this issue with the 9800GTX+ / Vista 64-bit and it is only SL that is crashing for me too.

I'm on Vista 64 with 182.06 and a 260 GTX.

Try this....

Edit....Preferences...Graphics...hardware options.....and pull your "texture memory" back to 256.

That is if you have it at 512. This has worked for others I know with the same issues you are having.


DoC

I think I fixed my problem and this may be useful for others here.

I remembered on my old computer the "Enable OpenGL Vertex Buffer Objects" option in Preferences > Graphics > Hardware Options would cause spikey random shapes to occur.

Although this wasn't happening with the new computer, I went an unchecked this and "so far" it seems that it's a lot more stable.

I had a similar problem as I posted in another thread and this may help some other people

I remembered on my old computer the "Enable OpenGL Vertex Buffer Objects" option in Preferences > Graphics > Hardware Options would cause spikey random shapes to occur. Although this wasn't happening with the new computer, I went an unchecked this and "so far" it seems that it's a lot more stable.

When you say you have tried various drivers, have you tried the most current which is 182.08?

I've used driver sweeper before with no issues. Many recommend running it in safe mode. (f8 at startup)

I used to own that exact card and did have some overheating issues with it. Also the graphic anomoly/crash is a classic sign of heat issues. (But not necessarily the only reason it could happen)

I would recommend downloading Evga's Precision http://downloads.guru3d.com/EVGA-Precision-1.3.3-download-2112.html and then set your card's fan at 100 percent and see if the problem persists. You can also monitor your card's actual temp with the app. I know you said the rest of your computer was watercooled but is your video card as well? Even if your card is watercooled I would be curious to know what exact temp you are getting in SL. I know you say you don't have a prob in other apps but I find that SL works my video card harder than most apps.

Precision is a nice tool and basically the same as RivaTuner with a simplified front end.

Also if you are using Ntune or Nvidia System tools, remove that junk, that could cause you to crash in itself.

If that doesn't work some other things you could try are making sure your chipset drivers are up to date and running a few passes with memtest86.

Good luck.

I have an NVidia 8600M GT in my Acer Aspire laptop that came with v.156.55 from Acer. I just tried the latest driver from NVIDIA for this chipset, which is 179.48 (BETA), and with it, I don't crash, but I have both a lower framerate and jitteriness/choppiness when moving my camera around which I did not have at all before.

156.55 is the latest available from Acer. While NVidia does have one other driver available for my 8600M GT chipset under the archived section, both (the 179.18 and the 179.4 are BETA versions. ...so I'm curious:

How did you get version 175.86 for your NVidia GeForce 9600M GT, Sleepy? Manufacturer? (I wonder if it would work with mine, though I know it's a risk to try if from another manufacturer, especially.)

I rolled my driver back to 156.55 for now.


...And, yes, I agree.. for your problem, Ricky, lowering the texture cache should work, - particularly if you receive an "Out of Memory" or "Memory Heap" error upon your crash.

---edit---
More info about the Texture Memory (MB) option under 'Preferences > Graphics > Hardware Options' can be found in the following JIRA posts:


Graphics > Hardware Options > Texture Memory (MB) doesn't show/explain well the correct amount of memory
https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-10012

Change 'Graphics Card Memory' radio buttons to 'Texture Memory' slider
https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-2161
---edit---


Did you solve your issue, Ricky?

Thanks for all the further comments. Case Wrangler and I had a nice long chat about this in-game yesterday. I um still had my texture memory setting at 2G! So I've tried decreasing it to half the size of the memory on my card -- 384M. So far no crashes since I did that. I'm going to increase to 512M today.

The other thing I will try is running in full-screen; I run windowed, because every time I try to switch to full screen, I crash. Maybe that won't happen now.

Heat could be an issue with this videocard. I actually have a watercooled PC, but I chose not to watercool the video card becaues this was my first go at using a watercooling kit. I'm not sure I'll repeat the experiment; I'm now too nervous even to touch the back of my case! Anyway, paradoxically, because I watercool, I have less air blowing around in the case, so maybe the vid card is running hotter? Still, my thermal indicators don't suggest it's a problem.