Updating nVidia drivers

[Voetsjoeba]

Hello :)

I recently bought Command & Conquer Generals and Command & Conquer Generals - Zero Hour. When starting Zero Hour and viewing the options menu, the game turned all red (some red overlay), and the graphics got distorted.

I'm using an GeForce 5 FX 5200 and Windows XP Home SP1 with the latest nVidia drivers: 53.03. I heard some rumors that these drivers aren't really optimal, and I should try to use an older, stable version of the drivers, somewhere among 45.xx. My question is: how ?

I have an idea about it but I want confirmation that this is correct before I start changing stuff. I think I have to uninstall the current drivers through the device manager, then reboot, and windows should detect new hardware and ask for drivers. But since nVidia's drivers are all .exe files and not the files themselves, how can I specify the drivers here ? I don't think Windows will accept the exe file containing the drivers ...

This is what I'm mainly unsure about: do I have to cancel the Windows installation, get into windows and then execute the nVidia .exe file containing the drivers ? That would make sense, but I'm still unsure. Is this the correct way ? And also, has any ever experienced this red overlay in Zero Hour ? Thanks :)

[kirupa]

Hey Voets,
For the most part, I usually just overwrite older drivers with newer ones or vice versa. I just run the EXE file also. nVidia doesn't give me nearly as many problems with driver installation that ATI gives.

All of the EXE files, I think, can be extracted using WinZip. Simply right click on the EXE file and select Extract to Folder or Extract Here. All of the individual files should neatly find themselves in a strangely named folder....or if you are unlucky, splattered all over your current folder.

If you want to see which drivers are better, a good indicator would be programs like 3DMark 2001 or even 2003. Run it for each driver set, and whichever gives you a better performance (higher score), that may be your best bet.

Of course, benchmarks can be fooled, and they aren't typical of your gaming, but they are slightly better than hearsay. Slower performance for someone else could depend on various factors beyond just graphics drivers. It could be the motherboard, settings like fastwrites/sideband addressing enabled/disabled, etc.

:bandit:

[Voetsjoeba]

Thanks for the reply Big K :)

So I should just download the exe and run it without uninstalling any previous drivers ? I know that the ones I have currently are probably the most performant ones, but I do prefer to be able to play my games decently.

[kirupa]

Well - whichever way works for you. For me, I never really found a point in uninstalling previous versions, restarting, have Windows automatically install an older version, and then have me manually install the latest version. If you are having problems trying my way, you may want to go to the Device Manager and tell Windows to recognize your current gfx card as a Standard VGA adaptor.

Once you have done that, you will be able to uninstall your current nvidia drivers and restart your computer without windows trying to install another, possibly older version of the drivers it has in its backup folders.

If your current game does not work, go for the official release. No gaming is worse than slightly slower gaming :be:

[Voetsjoeba]

Thanks for the help Kirupa ! =)

[Niann]

You could always use XP's "Driver Rollback" feature to roll the driver back to a state when it worked. =)

Cheers!
-Niann