I grabbed the new Nvidia drivers; I haven’t updated in a while. However, when I try to install them, it goes through the motions. It lokos lik eit works, unpacks the drivers, and asks to restart… and then nuffin’. My card won’t work right - it doesn’t load the full software package that works with the drivers directly. I can change resolutions, but everything is slow and in the Device manager is says the card failed to start.
Well, that sucks. Any ideas? I rolled back the drivers and those still work perfectly.
My WAG is that they still have that issue with the PhysX that is bundled with the driver and won’t let it install properly.
Here’s the solution:
If you have tried to install the driver before then the files should be unpacked at C:\NVIDIA\Winvista\182.50\English, or something like that. If the files do no exist, then run the file you downloaded from nvidia but cancel the installation when it says “Welcome to the Installshield Wizard”
Then go to the path I mentioned above and delete the physx file (should be named PhysX_9.09.0203_SystemSoftware.exe or something similar). Then run setup.exe and hopefully the installation will complete without a glitch.
I’ll try and give that PhysX thing a shot. I downloaded them properly and I tried both the auto-install and deleting+manual install, and it were the same problem.
My experience with NVIDIA taught me never, ever update the drivers until theyre good and stale. Even then once you have a good stable system dont bother upgrading unless a bugfix addresses an issue you are experiencing.
A recent upgrade broke remote desktop. NVIDIA has known about this for at least 8 months. They havent bothered to do anything about it. I eventually found a workaround on the web.
Another recent upgrade broke the graphics in Battlefield 2112.
Sometimes they fix the stuff they break but it takes at least two version for them to do so. I’d just still with the working drivers and try the newer ones in about 3 or 4 months.