Folding Forum

art_l_j_PlanetAMD64 wrote:

bruce wrote:Was this a certified driver or a candidate for certification?

NVidia says it is a certified driver: link

By Chris Daniel on Dec 17 2012

GeForce 310.70 drivers are now certified by the Microsoft Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL) and are available for download from GeForce.com.

It was only the title of the NVidia forum that referred to a candidate for certification:
Official NVIDIA R310.70 WHQL Candidate Display Driver Feedback Thread (Released 12/4/12)

The forum was created on December 4, when the driver was only a candidate for certification. The actual certified driver was released yesterday, December 17.

I installed them last night on a Windows 7 64bit machine with a pair of GTX 580's and had no problems with them both cards are happily folding 76xx WU's with a TPF of 5:26 at a core clock of 875, so on my particular rig I see no problems with them as far as folding goes.

I, for one, appreciate the heads-up. After appropriate precautions, I took the plunge on a 64bit Win7 Ultimate setup. Yep yep, upgrading from previous WHQL wasn't quite the install-reboot-enjoy experience I had hoped for and gotten used to, but I believe I got it right in the end. Nothing remarkable to report as far as folding is concerned, PPD and temperatures didn't change one way or the other. Oh well, at least I now have official support for CUDA5 Toolkit, in case I need it any time soon...

I'm going to see how R310.70 WHQL works on a 32bit XPSP3 Home tomorrow, just out of curiosity. Based on the OP's experience, I'm not expecting any trouble there. But honestly, I don't see any particular reason to recommend R310.70 over previous WHQL driver for folding, especially considering that you'd probably have to jump through some extra hoops in order to upgrade.

Grandpa_01 wrote:I installed them last night on a Windows 7 64bit machine with a pair of GTX 580's and had no problems with them both cards are happily folding 76xx WU's with a TPF of 5:26 at a core clock of 875, so on my particular rig I see no problems with them as far as folding goes.

I upgraded my GTX 560 Ti this morning from the 306.97 driver (Win7 64-bit), doing a clean install as noted in my previous post, with no problems. I have completed one work unit (P7626) at the same 25420 PPD as I was getting on the earlier driver. It is not unusual to have problems when upgrading from one series (e.g., 306) to another (e.g., 310), as Nvidia sometimes changes its installation routines.

Napoleon wrote:I, for one, appreciate the heads-up. After appropriate precautions, I took the plunge on a 64bit Win7 Ultimate setup. Yep yep, upgrading from previous WHQL wasn't quite the install-reboot-enjoy experience I had hoped for and gotten used to, but I believe I got it right in the end. Nothing remarkable to report as far as folding is concerned, PPD and temperatures didn't change one way or the other. Oh well, at least I now have official support for CUDA5 Toolkit, in case I need it any time soon...

I'm going to see how R310.70 WHQL works on a 32bit XPSP3 Home tomorrow, just out of curiosity. Based on the OP's experience, I'm not expecting any trouble there. But honestly, I don't see any particular reason to recommend R310.70 over previous WHQL driver for folding, especially considering that you'd probably have to jump through some extra hoops in order to upgrade.

As bruce and mmonnin both said upthread, updating drivers/software is really pointless (or worse than pointless) unless there is an absolute need to or some beneficial gain. It's working as is and if there's no benefit, only bad can happen.

I had hoped that the increased performance of the new driver (for games) might have extended to FAH performance (maybe faster CUDA code execution), but this has turned out to be false.

NVidia has even moved the feedback forum topic:
Official NVIDIA R310.70 WHQL Candidate Display Driver Feedback Thread
away from the front page of the GeForce Forums, where it used to be the first one at the very top. Perhaps too much bad feedback?
Have a read of the last 5 or 6 pages of that topic, the problems I had are extremely trivial compared to some of the poor souls there.

So in the future, I will only upgrade when:
1) there is a significant benefit, either in improved performance or features (eg new GPU support), and:
2) the new driver has a demonstrated track record of stability and reliability.

I will definitely include reading the feedback of others on the NVidia GeForce Forums before trying a new driver, rather than after (as I did this time).

art_l_j_PlanetAMD64 wrote:I had hoped that the increased performance of the new driver (for games) might have extended to FAH performance (maybe faster CUDA code execution), but this has turned out to be false.

Same here, since R310.70 is the 1st WHQL driver to support CUDA5 Toolkit. Then again, there would also have to be a new version of FahCore, adapted to said toolkit to reap the benefits (if any). There's no ETA for that, chances are there will be new & improved WHQL releases from NVidia before it happens. So I merely earned some bragging rights early on - I'd be ready and willing to test such FahCore right now.

Napoleon wrote:I'm going to see how R310.70 WHQL works on a 32bit XPSP3 Home tomorrow, just out of curiosity. Based on the OP's experience, I'm not expecting any trouble there.

At least that went very easily, I even managed to do the update over VNC. No screen flickering or anything like that. Then again, primary display is supposed to be the onboard ATI Xpress200, NVidia GPU is just for FAH. No news, identical folding performance and GPU temperature compared to previous WHQL.

More new topics at the NVidia GeForce Forums, regarding the 310.70 "WHQL" driver:


310.70 WHQL crashes continuously, 306.97 WHQL runs great.

sblantipodi wrote:with the rig in signature running Windows 8 64bit I get continuous crashes with 310.70WHQL,
if I reinstall 306.97 driver all is ok.
My PC was very very stable since [meaning "until the"] 310.70 driver, when I switched from 306.97 driver I noticed
crashes everywhere in games like Assassin's Creed 3.
I can't play more than 10 minutes without a crash.
Can't believe that nvidia release a WHQL driver like this, it remember me the old ATI driver
and it make me forget why I choosed nvidia.

mjordan79 wrote:Same problem here, using Windows 8 Pro 64 bit and Geforce GTX 580 SLI.

em_t_hed wrote:These drivers are causing problems with Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5. Causes the program to not shutdown and causes the image in the Program Monitor to not scrub properly.
I agree with the OP. These drivers weren't ready to be WHQL.

sblantipodi wrote:just another crash. the computer completely freeze with a black screem and I must reboot,
ctrl+alt+canc does not even respond.
this is the first driver that makes my computer crash in this way.

Still waiting...

gregsuarez wrote:So, NVIDIA gets 310.70 WHQL certified, but Far Cry 3 still plays sub-optimally. The game's been out for a couple of weeks now, and I'm still waiting for better drivers... still waiting... and here I am, still waiting... and this is me: still waiting...

Dooley2009 wrote:Screw Nvidia.
I dare one of these mods to tell all of us why their **** has ruined their image.
No one?
That's what I thought.

gregsuarez wrote:Thing is, I don't think AMD is any better. With only two companies making GPUs, there's really no serious competition.

Unable to install 310.70 WHQL on WinXP 32 , GTX 580

Jabba wrote:...it just says Driver Installation Failed.
The previous version (306.23) uninstalls and re-installs clean.
Besides from setup package from NVidia, I have tried just "Update Driver" from Device Manager and it fails with "Incorrect parameter"
I am running as Admin, with no antivirus. I have tried even installing from safe mode. The result is the same. Again, the older driver, installed from scratch, has no such issue. Also, I was able to install 310 on the same machine under Win7 x64.
Any clue? Anywhere that the install is logged so I can find what fails?

They sound like a bunch of keyboard heros living in their mom's basement....

mmonnin wrote:They sound like a bunch of keyboard heros living in their mom's basement....

Yeah, there are 30 pages of them on the various topics on the NVidia GeForce Forums. All living in mom's basement. Every one of them a pathetic loser, worthy of your contempt.

Umm, how about just calling R310.70 a sub-par (EDIT: pre-Xmas) release, and leave it be?

Napoleon wrote:Umm, how about just calling R310.70 a sub-par (EDIT: pre-Xmas) release, and leave it be?

An excellent idea, agreed!

<EOF>

I am running the GeForce GTX 650 Ti and I also updated to the newest driver and app kept crashing. When you go to Nvidia web site click drivers then gforce down a bit is a box that says Beta/Legacy Driver Search click it. Input your card info and search and it will list most of the drivers newest to older. I had to go back to the 306.97 driver and still waiting about an hour now for a crash and has not happened yet. Some times you need to update drivers but most of the time you should wait a while and do research before updating. I updated the driver before starting this program and spent the last 3 hours looking up info to find out why the crashing. Only to find out Nvidia has problems with the program. My advice for anyone using Nvidia don't update driver past 306 and if 306 version has problems try something alittle older. Best of luck.

Update since switching back my time went from 1 day to less than 17 hours....

I've had the opposite experience with the 310.70s on my spare PC's single GTX 460. So far, they're running flawlessly (and turning out ~22k PPD on the current WU). I had upgraded from 295.73. I tried a couple of 300-series drivers before (301.42 and 306.23 I think), both were very problematic with F@H and games for me. The PC in question is running Win7 Pro x64.

ford316 wrote:I am running the GeForce GTX 650 Ti and I also updated to the newest driver and app kept crashing. When you go to Nvidia web site click drivers then gforce down a bit is a box that says Beta/Legacy Driver Search click it. Input your card info and search and it will list most of the drivers newest to older. I had to go back to the 306.97 driver and still waiting about an hour now for a crash and has not happened yet. Some times you need to update drivers but most of the time you should wait a while and do research before updating. I updated the driver before starting this program and spent the last 3 hours looking up info to find out why the crashing. Only to find out Nvidia has problems with the program. My advice for anyone using Nvidia don't update driver past 306 and if 306 version has problems try something alittle older. Best of luck.

Update since switching back my time went from 1 day to less than 17 hours....

I have GTX 650 Ti OC/driver NV 306.97 of about three weeks. No problems. I will renew this driver only if read in this forum that the new driver gives some advantage. Win 7 Pro/64b; Client v7.2.9.

Afew of us has upgraded to the 310.90 and well over the 36 hour mark with no problems I have seen yet with mine or others posted... I just updated with out doing clean install over the 306 driver without problems... yes some of us have different cards not sure if anyone with the 460 card has updated yet but it might be worth someone doing so.. the new 310.90 Adds a security update for the NVIDIA Display Driver service (nvvsvc.exe).