[SOLVED] Which is the most stable and latest driver for GTX980?

TwinDenis

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May 8, 2014
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Hello, so I downloaded the latest version of the graphics drivers along with a clean installation so I noticed some stuttering and I recall that this happens sometimes when a graphics driver is unstable for a specific graphics card so I was wondering which is the most stable while also being latest stable graphics driver for nvidia gtx980?
It would be helpful to know where to check that directly or which one it is,
Thanks
 
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It seems an army of people say the best driver is the new driver and if it doesn't work, it must be your PC so go away and stop bothering us... but i answer BSOD posts here, and I see Nvidia drivers causing crashes a lot. Now, sure, the number of cards out there that are Nvidia compared to AMD means the majority I see will have Nvidia cards. Last years drivers really didn't like the 10 series cards. I would see a 10 series card and start wondering if the bsod I am seeing now isn't caused by Nvidia drivers.

For a long time I didn't trust them at all but I have a 2070s now and so far the drivers seem to work fine. So it put a dent in my "blame BSOD on Nvidia" belief. Especially if the machine in question has a 20 or 30 series card, the...

Colif

Win 11 Master
Moderator
Up until a few months ago I was using a gtx980. tbh, the best drivers i found for them that are stable are whatever drivers Microsoft have with windows 10. They cause the least BSOD anyway. Nvidia drivers are hit and miss with anything apart from newest cards, and even then they can cause errors.

I would run DDU in safe mode, remove Nvidia drivers and then after restart, run windows update and allow it to install drivers for GPU. - https://forums.tomshardware.com/faq...n-install-of-your-video-card-drivers.2402269/
 
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TwinDenis

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Up until a few months ago I was using a gtx980. tbh, the best drivers i found for them that are stable are whatever drivers Microsoft have with windows 10. They cause the least BSOD anyway. Nvidia drivers are hit and miss with anything apart from newest cards, and even then they can cause errors.

I would run DDU in safe mode, remove Nvidia drivers and then after restart, run windows update and allow it to install drivers for GPU. - https://forums.tomshardware.com/faq...n-install-of-your-video-card-drivers.2402269/
If that is true, why is that the case?
PS: I also recently ran a anti-bloatware process which might have stripped some features away from windows 10 so that might also cause issues but not that likely, I will have to review but in the meantime I still look for those drivers.
 

Colif

Win 11 Master
Moderator
I don't know why its the case, its possible Microsoft's Update Catalog has way more old drivers there than the actual hardware makers have themselves as really, windows is installed on so many different combinations that it needs them. People would complain about Windows otherwise :)

980 is a 5 year old card. Nvidia only have one driver for all their cards? AMD at least have legacy drivers and slowly add their older cards to it, meaning no support apart from a base driver. I don't know how Nvidia balance making drivers work with 30 series cards as well as possibly GTX 700's as well.

Its possibly best driver is a few years old. I am not sure which Nvidia driver it would be specifically.
 

Colif

Win 11 Master
Moderator
this was 2 years ago =
RodroG on Reddit seems to have done a lot of benchmarking and doesn't agree. His recommended driver for Pascal is 391.35.

Is it so far out to consider that an older driver may suite older hardware better? Benchmarks focus on maximum FPS and sometimes minimum FPS. My focus is which driver is best at holding vsync at a constant 60fps and I tune the graphics settings with this in mind. I find more frames are dropped with latest driver, I'm only talking slight drops down to 57fps where 388.59 will hold 60 or 59fps. I guess most people wouldn't notice and maybe benchmarks are missing this as they are normally using current gen hardware.
 

TwinDenis

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this was 2 years ago =

Yes that sounds like a solid focus, usually whats most important is proper balance and not just highest fps (I believe we call it frametimes nowadays?)
So that is my focus too, the hardware might be strong but if the consistency is unstable then we experience all sorts of visual glitches, especially in games where it is most visible.
Windows Update usually does indeed install drivers suited for the hardware however it is risky because oftentimes I get screen tearing because of said drivers by microsoft's catalog, so it is a tricky one to answer, usually I see posts about the "most stable drivers" for x or y card for this year so far and so on.
I was curious about the same thing for this one too as I am currently having a fresh installation.
 

Colif

Win 11 Master
Moderator
It seems an army of people say the best driver is the new driver and if it doesn't work, it must be your PC so go away and stop bothering us... but i answer BSOD posts here, and I see Nvidia drivers causing crashes a lot. Now, sure, the number of cards out there that are Nvidia compared to AMD means the majority I see will have Nvidia cards. Last years drivers really didn't like the 10 series cards. I would see a 10 series card and start wondering if the bsod I am seeing now isn't caused by Nvidia drivers.

For a long time I didn't trust them at all but I have a 2070s now and so far the drivers seem to work fine. So it put a dent in my "blame BSOD on Nvidia" belief. Especially if the machine in question has a 20 or 30 series card, the drivers should work with them.

I don't see many people with 9 series cards getting BSOD so I can't say. Maybe owners of them are like me and stopped looking for newer drivers once I had some that worked. I realise you just want to find the best now, but it is likely something from 2018 is best you will find. Priorities have been look forward, not backwards
 
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