Nvidia and graphics drivers

I find that I alternate between graphics processor brand allegiances with every computer I buy. I always go with the one I did not suffer with previously, then back to the other after a cooling off period / heating up period for the present. Trouble is, there are only two viable brands and I have already taught myself a few times now that they all continue to suck. I'm tempted to buy into Intel's stuff just to escape them.

Anyhow, I made the happy discovery today that, while Nvidia's 179.13 Vista driver improves performance in The Witcher and seems to restore some sign of stability to general graphics performance, it has also broken dynamic HDR while slaughtering performance in any Source engine game. (How it does both at once, given that dHDR eats performance, is beyond me).

My issue is that NVidia and ATI have philosophies something like the idea of kicking a TV until the reception returns. They prod at random things to improve performance for one arbitrary game, completely ignoring what it may do for everything else, then call it a release in one of three (or is it four?) unhelpfully labeled branches. I don't think what nvidia releases as a new driver really qualifies as an update any more.

Any time saved for said game is easily lost from the numerous times a week I must reinstall my bloody graphics drivers. Perhaps there is a compatibility chart somewhere so I can just download the drivers which suck the least and use them.

Anyhow, my point here is two fold:

* I am completely annoyed at NVidia, and that isn't just the free software fanatic talking. Welcome to the "Be mad at graphics manufacturers" thread, 4113th edition.

* I need a solution! How do you guys deal with NVidia drivers? Is there a particular branch of them which avoids the constant trail of regressions, instead focusing on stability and doing what graphics drivers are supposed to do? (That being handling graphics reliably and consistently like any self-respecting hardware manufacturer should be used to).

The nVidia driver problems only occurs on Vista as far I know.
On XP you can always use the latest driver. The new 180.48 driver gives a huge FPS boost over older drivers, as stated also on nVidia's page (upto 38% in Far Cry 2):
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_180.48_whql.html
For Vista you need to try and error and use some older driver which works stable enough.

I think that's pretty much run of the mill these days. Having said that, I've been really happy with my two latest cards, both of which were ATi.

This is what I remember of having an nVidia card too. What I ended up doing was making a compatibility list myself. Apart from a few games (like Rise of Nations and Earth 2150 which helpfully provided which drivers would work best in the readme file) it was pretty much trial and error, whenever you bought a new game.

my last ATI cards were great, but driver faults seemed to cause permanent damage to both of them- with both cards showing signs of memory failure after a few weeks.

Nvidia is ok, had one of the "more efficient" ones blow my PSU within an hour of installing- got it replaced with a similar card and no issues anymore.

For me, Nvidia are better with drivers, EXCEPT on laptops- where I've found ATI chips more stable.

I don't have problems with nvidia cards even with hacked drivers since mine are older and not supported because of the new physic drivers. I have an integrated 6100, 6600 and 7800. Maybe its them trying to squeeze the latest hardware, or I just don't play that many games.

The Nvidia SLI setup in my laptop has been 100% solid since day one. I went through a period of beta and hacked drivers, which saw the occasional BSOD but that was entirely my fault.

I now get my drivers direct from nvidia.co.uk so I don't generally have any issues.

I haven't had a problem playing Fallout 3 with an old-ish (3-4 months old) driver. I'm installing 179.28 beta now though, just to see what happens.

For the Nvidia drivers:
1. NEVER use a beta / hacked driver unless you need it.
2. NEVER install a newer driver unless you need it.

Simple as that... ;)

Fallout 3 now runs very much more smoothly on my laptop, after installing 179.28 beta. Detail set to high, anti-aliasing turned off.

I'll install a stable driver as soon as one is released :)

SLI is a very nice feature. It might kill the performance-per-watt ratio, but at least I can put off upgrading to 8800GTX's for a while!

I install the year-old drivers Microsoft hand me occasionally via Microsoft Update - if I need to install anything from nVidia themselves (like, if I need better OpenGL support) I will install the version that closest matches the version given to me on Microsoft Update.

If a game runs badly, I blame the game, lower the quality settings and continue to play. Because I rarely ever change drivers, I never notice how much better it could have run. Ignorance is bliss. Plus side to this is that older games (my preference) run -better- (although the really old ones don't run great anymore under any circumstances).