Nvidia driver confusion

from Elemental Forums

Hi guys. It seems to be time to update my video card drivers again. The current version I have installed is 180.48. This is somewhat confusing because these do not appear in the Nvidia driver archive. Anyway the latest version to come out is 181.22. Because of the problems I had in the past with this rig I ended up installing windows and the like from scratch multiple times. This is the first time I am in a position to be replacing older video drivers.

The last time I did this was back when I owned a radeon 9600 pro and it involved strange utilities and uninstalling stuff in safe mode. Does anyone know what the proper procedure is now? Can I simply run the driver package, let it overwrite everything and reboot? And if there is a problem is there a button to roll everything back?

The nvidia control panel is no help in this regard and the official documentation basically amounts to "if you run into a problem just call us" and is no help either.

54,995 views 14 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Download new drivers.

Control Panel - Add/Remove Programs.

Uninstall Nvidia drivers.

Reboot, and cancel the 'New Hardware Found' window.

Open Windows Explorer and navigate to the location of your new Nvidia driver download.

Run the file to install the new drivers. Reboot and set the options.

Reboot again for good measure.

All done.

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

Whenever i'm installing newer drivers, i just download the installation files, and run it normally without uninstalling anything, never had any problems. Replacing  drivers with an older version is a bit more complicated, but newer drivers have never given me any problems.

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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Yep, although I got an ATI - download the CCC and run it. Everything else went automatically, without having to uninstall old drivers first.

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

At the very least you should uninstall the old driver first.

Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Are you updating this driver from XP or Vista?

AFAIC, NVidia install transparently within Vista's own "driver" placeholder and does it without having to uninstall previous versions first. Btw, do NOT pick your NVidia video drivers off Windows auto-Update since their "packages" are never recent enough to keep up with NVidia.

But, on XP it matters that the previous 'driver files' **must** be cleared before any new install is performed... this has to do with the detect function of pre-boot GDI lock & the fact that some dll (can't recall which exactly) of the NVidia second installation might not overwrite some XP's runtime 'reserved files' while being into transition between old & new driver sets.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Im running XP SP3. Is it safe to get rid of the video drivers and the physX stuff through the add/remove menu? Or do I need a special utility?

Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

PhysX_engine is mostly reserved for some high-end cards (as it can access an SLI framework while tracking the GDI chipset "more" accuratly, so does NVidia claims!)... btw, what is THE card?

XP = uninstall previous Driver, first -- as per Moosetek13's recommendations.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Current card I have is an 8800 GTS 512. So uninstalling both the drivers and the phyxs stuff should do the trick? The new drivers contain an updated version of physx and there might be problems if it gets overwritten.

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top

in my professional experience, nvidia drivers WILL update successfully without needing to un-install the old drivers, but does want a re-boot after updateing,but when you uninstall the drivers you need to re-boot twice, first after uninstalling, the second after installing the new driver

harpo

Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Tamren, i'd recommend KEEPING the PhysX_system for that specific 8800 since the shift in acceleration is possible with it. The chipset can handle whatever is thrown into the GDI array - if, of course, the game(s) or program(s) are currently using this 'boosting' feature. Dunno if GC2 exploits this advantage (going from 60FPS on average to 90+ is a huge leap in gameplay stability, btw!) though; someone at SD might say otherwise.

What the uninstall does is simple... it clears all references of earlier stuff from the OS itself; some of it, is archived, kept in odd locations (in XP) and grabs HD space for nothing except if you had to revert back from either a Restore Point or through other methods.

The actual presence of any newest Drivers outweighs (sometimes, in great amount) the risk of maintaining access to earlier versions of NVidia stuff.

Re-boot, as harpo said, and you're done.

 

Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top

I have a 8800gtx, I installed a recent set of drivers and I get an error message that I've never seen before. Plus it not a 'windows' error, its tan with a big X in the middle, and I cant right click to find out what the hell it is. The message states  --- Your software confiquration has changed you must reinstall the software---- With a yes or no at the bottom.

If I click yes the screen will go blank and I must reboot in safe mode. If I say no it go away and all is fine, until the next reboot. Anyone know what this message is? I tried reinstalling other recent Nvidia driver's but I still get the message.

Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top

wbino, do you have any game software protected by SecuRom? Software from EA Games for example.

Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top

Sounds similar to the message I got from BioShock when I installed a second hard drive. However, it only came up when I tried to start the game, not on the initial computer boot. I'd boot in safe mode and do a virus/malware scan just to eliminate that as a candidate.

Reply #14 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting wilebill, reply 12
wbino, do you have any game software protected by SecuRom? Software from EA Games for example.

I have Crysis installed, thats EA.........why do you think there is a connection?