HL2 - NVidia 67.02 Beta Driver

[Petros]

I was perusing the Steam Forums and came across a bump-happy poster (my internet is acting up so I can't pull up the link again) who suggested that NVidia's 67.02 beta driver fixed his NVidia problems, AND enabled DX9 functionality. A pretty tall claim, but I'll check it out myself and update everyone. My 5900 is going to have to suffice until I fix my 9800 Pro...

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Edit: After forcing DX9, I realized why Valve chose not to enable DX9 on NVidia cards. My framerates dropped from the 40s to about 8fps, AND none of the shaders worked right. So much for that fix, eh.

Now I'll test for stuttering at DX8.1 and tell you how it goes.

EDIT 2: Level save stuttering is fixed! Framerates are up! Water can be set to "Reflect All" pretty much without a frame hit. Excellent. Still not DX9, though.

 

[ElementalDragon]

well, i'm using a 5700, and it didn't enable DX9. still says Hardware directx version 8.1, software directx version 9.0. but it did seem to give me a higher recommended settings for models and textures and stuff like that. before they were all just about on medium, now most of them are on high. just no AA or anything enabled.

 

[napalmnthemorning]

I'm running the 67.22 Forceware drivers with a FX5200 128. A gig of Ram on a 2.4 and I'm getting incredible graphics and gameplay. This game has the best graphics I've ever seen on a game. They put allot of work into this game at valve and deserve much credit. They've certainly raised the bar once again on gaming.

 

[lancer]

Unwonted, as a note Valve did enable Directx9 for the nvidia cards, but the auto-detect will detect if your graphics card can really run dx9 or not.

Below is a pretty interest review

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2281