Best Windows NVIDIA DRIVERS for current Pre23_3 release

[bepea]

Hi!
I have a question regarding the windows drivers which best fit the newest 23_3 release, Im currently on 258.96 WHQL and everything works fine from my point of view but I was wondering if I could get more speed out of:
- 257.21 Developer drivers that are on the page with the windows CUDA Toolkit 3.1, or maybe
- 197.13 Developer drivers that go with CUDA Toolkit 3.0






My config: i3 530, 4 GB Ram(ddr3), ASUS GF GTS 250 1GB, Win 7 x64

[Nostromo]

first rule, always is:

"if it ain't broken, don't fix it"

[bepea]

You might be right sir, because the 23_4 version kinda works smoother, one thing though:
The drivers crash from time to time( no fataly, the recover after a few secound but octane stops responding).

Ps. im using the x64 version

[radiance]

You might be right sir, because the 23_4 version kinda works smoother, one thing though:
The drivers crash from time to time( no fataly, the recover after a few secound but octane stops responding).

Ps. im using the x64 version

can you be more specific ? what driver and what circumstances create the crash ? can you reproduce it or is it random ?
can you restart octane afterwards or do you need to do a warm or cold reboot to get octane running again ?

have you got a tool to monitor GPU temperature and load/fanspeed ? (get the free 'evga precision' google for it, registration required but free download, and no spam)

Radiance

[kloczas]

I think I might have run on a problem similar to what bepea mentioned - the display driver stops working, Octane crashes and then display driver restores.

I did some tests and here's what I've noticed:

The problem occurs for me only with pathtracing method (default settings) and only with resolutions higher than 3200x2048 (I tested it on every resolution from 'Computer Display' preset and from lowest up to 2048x1536 everything seems to be fine).

With direct lighting everything works fine on all mentioned resolutions (up to 4096x3072).

I'm working on Win7 64bit, 258.96 display driver, CUDA 3.0 197.13

[radiance]

does this happen when you use the 2nd GPU only which is NOT connected to a display ?
it can be a windows display watchdog timeout issue, as you're spec is severe, eg you have a very long time per render pass,
and a GPU rendering that only responds to windows (as it has a display connected and is serving a windows UI) every 20 seconds,
will be killed by windows as it thinks the card hangs.

so can you tell me if you have a 2nd display attached to your grunt card that's running octane ?

Radiance

[kloczas]

I've got only one display connected to 8200 card and I use my GTX 260 only for rendering, with no display connected to it.

[Nostromo]

I ran into a strange issue but I don't think it's CUDA related. I'll have to investigate.

[bepea]

can you be more specific ? what driver and what circumstances create the crash ? can you reproduce it or is it random ?
can you restart octane afterwards or do you need to do a warm or cold reboot to get octane running again ?

have you got a tool to monitor GPU temperature and load/fanspeed ? (get the free 'evga precision' google for it, registration required but free download, and no spam)

Radiance

I tried to reproduce the driver crash but I could not get octane to crash with the same settings and scene, so I went and upped the resolution to 4K( full aperture) and when I tried to render the whole computer froze. I tried it on the fresh restart and this time Ive monitored the cpu/gpu temp. and gpu was temp. was 45 degrees celsius and cpu was 60 degrees. Next I tried the 23_3 version and the same thing happened.

Im using Windows 7 64bit with 258.96 version of NVIDIA drivers running a GF GTS 250 1gb ram.