Yoosty
09-13-2007, 09:35 PM
Nvidia Forceware Tweak Guide
Forceware Installation
The Nvidia Forceware drivers require some attention to detail when installing and setting up, as there are several things you can do along the way to make your entire system work much better with them. Follow the advice in this section to ensure smooth, trouble-free performance from your Nvidia graphics card.
Download the Latest Drivers
The official Nvidia Forceware driver package is suitable for all Nvidia graphics cards, regardless of their brand. You may have used specific drivers found on your graphics card manufacturer's website before, or those on the CD which comes with your graphics card, however these are always based on the generic Nvidia Forceware drivers anyway and almost always well out of date. It is recommended that instead you use the latest Forceware drivers for all graphics cards except when using motherboards with onboard (integrated) video.
To download the latest Forceware drivers, go to the Nvidia Driver Site (http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp), and on the Nvidia Software Download page select 'Graphics Driver', then your particular graphics card, and finally your operating system and click the Go button. On the next page click on one of the download links to download the latest Official version of the Forceware Drivers which come in a single large unified driver package.
Note the following specific requirements for certain graphics cards/configurations:
For those running Windows Vista use the latest official Vista drivers, or those on the Official Nvidia Beta Page (http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us), or NZone (http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_downloads_rel70betadriver.html), whichever is newer.
if you have an Nvidia graphics card with Video In/Video Out (VIVO) and TV tuner capabilities, you will also need to select 'Multimedia Software' on the main driver page, then 'WDM Driver' and your graphics card type, and click the Go button to download additional drivers to enable VIVO/TV Tuner functionality.
If you want to download an earlier version of the Forceware drivers, or recently released official and unofficial beta Forceware drivers check the Official Nvidia Beta Page (http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us) or the Nvidia FTP Site (ftp://download.nvidia.com/Windows/).
I always recommend using the latest available official version of the Forceware drivers simply because they contain the largest number of specific fixes and optimizations for recent games, usually have the best performance particularly in newer Pixel Shader/Vertex Shader-reliant games, and are a lot more stable and much less likely to cause problems than beta/unofficial Forceware releases. If you run a very recent Nvidia graphics card, you may instead want to try the latest available official beta driver as these provide better support for newer hardware and newer games. But in general there is no reason to go backwards to older drivers unless you're experiencing serious issues with the latest Forceware. Even if you gain a couple of extra FPS from an older driver, it is likely to cause problems in newer games and applications.
Old Driver Removal
Now we move on to the simplest, and yet most commonly mishandled part of using graphics drivers - the removal of previous Nvidia graphics drivers. To do this successfully, you need to follow some simple steps which will help guarantee that your installation of the drivers is 'clean', and leads to trouble-free performance. I particularly recommend this procedure if you are experiencing graphical corruption or strange behavior. To completely remove your existing graphics drivers and all traces of them from your system do the following:
1. Uninstall any existing graphics drivers. To do this, go to Control Panel>Add or Remove Programs in XP or Control Panel>Programs and Features in Vista. Select the 'Nvidia Drivers' (or similar) item if available and click the Change/Remove or Uninstall button and follow the prompts, rebooting as required. If you happen to have any other graphics drivers left over from previous hardware, such as ATI graphics drivers, uninstall them from here as well. If you have an Nvidia-based motherboard, when uninstalling the Nvidia drivers you will have to specifically select the 'Remove only the following' item, then only select the 'Nvidia Display Drivers' box. If you cannot find any Nvidia display-related entries (e.g. a fresh install of Windows), you are probably using the default Windows graphics drivers, which means you can skip to the New Driver Installation section further below.
2. When you reboot, you will find Windows will detect your graphics card as a new device and attempt to find appropriate drivers for your card. Cancel out of all such attempts. If you can't then don't worry about it, but it is preferable if you can prevent this from occurring.
3. This step is optional, however it is strongly recommended if you are either (a) downgrading your Forceware drivers to an older version, or (b) experiencing problems and want to ensure you have a complete 'clean' install of the Forceware drivers. Basically the aim is to find all the individual Nvidia graphics driver files and remove them manually. Note that if you have an Nvidia nForce motherboard, it is recommended that you undertake this step with great caution, as you may accidentally delete Nvidia driver files which relate to your motherboard and not the graphics card. The instructions differ based on your OS:
Windows XP: For nForce users, the only file you can safely delete is nv4_disp.dll which relates to the graphics driver - skip to step 4 below after that. For all non-nForce users, to manually delete the Forceware drivers go to your \Windows\System32 and \Windows\System32\Drivers directories, and find and delete all files beginning with 'NV...'. You may notice that some of these files keep recreating themselves - don't worry, these are just the default XP Nvidia drivers which are protected and can't be permanently deleted. Just delete all the Nvidia driver files and let Windows decide which default files the system should keep. Alternatively you can use the Windows Search function (Start>Search), with the search string NV*.* to make searching and deletion faster. Importantly however, do not delete the files under the \ServicePackFiles or \Lastgood directories, or under any game or application-specific directories. Just stick to files found under the two directories mentioned earlier.
Windows Vista: See the 'Viewing, Updating or Uninstalling Drivers' section of the Windows Drivers chapter of the TweakGuides Tweaking Companion for Windows Vista (http://www.tweakguides.com/TGTC.html). It is trickier to manually remove driver traces in Vista, so you must read the instructions carefully to see how it's done. Note that the latest Vista drivers automatically attempt to remove previous Nvidia graphics drivers during installation as described here (http://www.nvidia.com/object/vista_driver_x86_installation_instructions.html).
Note: If you want to know the exact filenames of all the Nvidia graphics driver files in use on your system, prior to uninstalling the drivers open the Forceware Control Panel and click the 'System Information' link in the bottom left corner of the new Forceware CP. Under the Components tab of the box which opens you can see all the individual filenames and the functionality they relate to. Make a note of these and you can then search for and remove any that are left after you've uninstalled the drivers.
Finally, make sure you delete the entire program folder(s) where you installed the Forceware drivers. The default install location is \NVIDIA but if you chose another location when installing, go there and delete the folder and all its contents. Note, if you don't have the time or patience to do things manually, or are worried about accidentally deleting the wrong file, use DriverCleaner Pro (http://www.drivercleaner.net/). This utility clears out remnants of old drivers from a range of manufacturers, but is no longer free. The free version (http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=745) of it is no longer being updated, so I recommend learning to use the manual method.
4. This step is optional, but again it is recommended if you want to ensure a 'clean' install, especially if you are experiencing graphics-related problems. It involves removing any graphics-related Nvidia registry entries left over. To do this, I recommend using either RegSupreme (http://www.macecraft.com/downloads/), or its earlier (and completely free) cousin, RegCleaner 4.3 (http://www.majorgeeks.com/download460.html). To use RegSupreme, start the program and once it has cached your files, start a 'Deep' scan, then wait and choose the 'All' item under the Select menu to highlight all the 'invalid entries' found, and click the Fix button to remove them all, making sure to save a backup under a descriptive name. To use RegCleaner, open the program and on the front page put a tick next to the 'Nvidia'-related entries which don't refer to nForce as well, and then click the 'Remove Selected' button. If you want to use the Windows Registry Editor instead - which is recommended especially for Vista users - go to Start>Run and type "RegEdit" (without quotes). Then go to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE key, select the 'Software' subkey, and scroll down to the 'Nvidia Corporation' entry, and underneath you should find a 'Global' entry. Right-Click on this 'Global' key and select Delete to remove it. Do not remove any other items, such as the 'nForce' key.
That should remove all the main bits and pieces of old Nvidia graphics drivers and Control Panels which have been installed on your system previously. Of course the quickest method is to just uninstall the Nvidia Display Driver item in Add/Remove Programs or Programs and Features under the Control Panel, but as I said, if you have a history of graphical problems, if you've installed multiple versions of the Forceware drivers without a clean out, or if you are reverting to an older version of the Forceware drivers from a newer one, I strongly suggest you follow all four steps above at least once.
New Driver Installation
Once you've uninstalled any old Nvidia graphics drivers, there is nothing tricky or difficult about installing the new Forceware drivers. The whole process is simple, but here it is in case you want to be 100% certain it's being done right:
1. Once you've downloaded the latest Official Forceware driver package, simply double-click on it to launch the Nvidia driver installation wizard.
2. When the driver package prompts you for a directory to install the Forceware drivers, it is important to note that this directory is just the place where the files will be temporarily unzipped for installation purposes. It is not where the final drivers will be installed. You can leave the default location shown, but I personally recommend you specify an empty folder of your own choosing. In any case make a note of the directory name, as after installation you can safely delete this directory and its contents - see the Tidying Up section.
3. Follow the remaining prompts and during the installation process reboot as often as you are prompted, since this is also an important step in making sure Windows has a chance to replace system files which are currently in use.
If you want to install an unofficial or beta Forceware driver set, and there is no single executable driver package, you will have to manually install the driver file. To do this, go to the Windows Control Panel>System>Hardware>Device Manager in XP or Control Panel>Device Manager in Vista and under the 'Display Adapters' category, double-click on your particular graphics card. Go to the Driver tab and click the 'Update Driver' option, then select 'Install from a list or specific location' and click Next. Then select 'Don't search, I will choose the driver to install' and click Next. On the next screen click the 'Have Disk' button and Browse to the directory where the new Forceware driver files are located, and find the appropriate .INF file.
Once the above is done, your new Forceware drivers should be installed and your system should be fully functional. Test out a few of your games to see if there are any obvious issues or glitches.
The next section continues with details of how to clean up your system and do some initial optimization after the Forceware installation.
Tidying Up
Before we move on to tweaking the Forceware drivers, let's do some cleaning up and optimization of the system in preparation for more specific tweaking. These steps are important so try to do each and every one of them each time you install a new Forceware version.
Delete Installation Files
When the new Forceware drivers have installed, and you've rebooted your system, it is now perfectly safe for you to delete the temporary installation files which were created in the directory you specified during installation. These are simply the unzipped contents of the Nvidia driver installation package which were used to install the drivers elsewhere on your system - they are not the actual driver files being used by Windows and are no longer needed. Delete them all.
Remember to also delete or backup the latest Forceware driver package which you downloaded earlier. You probably won't need to use it again given the frequency of Nvidia Forceware drivers, but if you know you may need to do a reformat/reinstall of Windows soon, it may be worth saving them somewhere for future use. Try not to keep lots of older driver packages as these are readily available for download around the net and I generally recommend against installing older driver versions.
Disable Unnecessary Services & Startup Items
When the Forceware drivers install on your system, they install new Services and startup items. Some of these can be removed or disabled, depending on your circumstances. If you're unfamiliar with how to disable a Service, or how to find and temporarily or permanently remove startup items, see the Services and Startup Programs chapters of the TweakGuides Tweaking Companion (http://www.tweakguides.com/TGTC.html).
Nvidia Display Driver Service - This service generally doesn't have an essential function. In my experience, most people can safely disable it and not run into any difficulties or reduced functionality whatsoever. In fact some users note that disabling this service improves Windows startup and shutdown times and general performance. However, some people report potential issues with temperature monitoring on their graphics cards if this service is disabled. In general if you feel you are experiencing any other strange behavior due to the disabling of this service, set it back to Automatic and restart it. Note: In Vista, the Nvidia Display Driver Service is actually a startup item called NvSvc, not a service, but the same description applies.
nTune Service - This service is installed only if you install the Nvidia nTune Utility (http://www.nvidia.com/object/sysutility.html) which adds several performance and stability monitoring functions to your Forceware Control Panel. To find out more about nTune, see the Forceware Control Panel section of this guide, but note that nTune is not at all necessary for proper operation of your graphics card. However if you have installed nTune, then setting this service to anything other than Automatic will cause problems in both launching and using the Forceware Control Panel, hence it is not recommended that you alter this service.
The Forceware drivers also install up to three additional startup programs which load at Windows startup: NvCplDaemon, NvMediaCenter (sometimes called NvMcTray) and Nwiz. Depending on the functionality you use in the Forceware drivers you can remove some or all of these from your Windows startup, speeding up startup times and reducing background memory usage:
NvCplDaemon - Relates to the Nvidia System Tray icon and related functionality. If you don't use the System Tray icon to access the Forceware Control Panel settings - and it's certainly not necessary - then you can remove this item. Note however that if you're overclocking your graphics card using the Forceware Control Panel (See the Overclocking section) then you need to keep this item in your startup.
NvMediaCenter - Relates to certain Multimedia functionality in the Nvidia System Tray icon and once again it is recommended you disable this item as well. However if you find particular games don't function correctly with this disabled - which should be rare - re-enable it.
Nwiz - Relates to nView functionality in XP (See the nView Desktop Manager section), and unless you use nView you can safely disable it.
nTuneCmd - If you've installed nTune, this item is added to your startup. Once again it should not be removed if you use nTune, as it can cause issues with the Forceware Control Panel working properly. Even if it is removed, it seems to recreate itself as a startup item regardless, so it is best left untouched.
If you have any doubts, or experience any issues, reset all of the above back to their defaults. If you've permanently removed a startup item, you can get it back by reinstalling the graphics driver. It is not critical that you disable or remove these items if you don't feel confident in doing so.
Remove Unused Devices
This is a slightly trickier procedure, but it won't be harmful if you follow the instructions below. If you've had several Forceware versions installed on your system in the past, or even an ATI graphics card installed previously on the same Windows install, not to mention any other previous items of hardware which you no longer use, then this tip lets you remove them completely from the registry.
To view unused devices in Device Manager, do the following:
1. Open a Command Prompt by going to Start>Run and typing "cmd" (without quotes). Once the Command Prompt is open, type the following lines, pressing return after each:
Set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1
Devmgmt.msc
2. In the Device Manager window that opens, go to the View menu and select 'Show Hidden Devices' - this is very important if you want to see the unused devices. Now expand each of your devices and look through all the sub-components listed. You will see that some of the devices are shown in a lighter grey color.
3. For the purposes of this guide, what we need to look for are entries under the Monitor and Display Adapter device categories. Under Monitor there should be at least one darker monitor entry for each monitor on your system. If there are any greyed out entries, you can remove them by right-clicking on the entry and selecting 'Uninstall'. Do this for all greyed out entries under the Monitor device.
4. Under the Display Adapter device, if you find two entries - a main one, and another one which has 'Secondary' next to it - these just indicate that your graphics card is capable of two separate outputs to two different display devices. You should keep both of these. Do not attempt to uninstall the dark entries under here. You can however uninstall all other greyed out entries under the Display Adapter device list, especially those which relate to previous graphics cards you had on this system.
5. If you're feeling game, you can go through some of your other device entries and delete greyed out devices which you know for certain are no longer connected to your machine, or are traces of a device which has been moved around a few times. For example, under Human Interface Devices you may find multiple greyed out entries for a mouse which you may have moved from one port to another. As long as there is a solid entry for the device when it is still connected to your system, you can uninstall the greyed out ones. However I do not recommend uninstalling devices which you are not sure about. Most importantly, do not uninstall any greyed out Microsoft (or other Codec) entries under the Sound, Video and Game Controller device, and be extremely careful about entries under the Non Plug and Play Drivers, and Network Adapters device list. If in doubt, do not uninstall a device.
If you do happen to uninstall a device which is still connected to your system, it's not the end of the world. Windows will usually re-detect it upon reboot and look for drivers to reinstall it. If not, then remove and reconnect the device, and/or reinstall its drivers.
Refresh Rate Fix
Windows XP and Windows 2000 have an issue in which the screen Refresh Rate (http://www.tweakguides.com/Graphics_7.html) resets to 60Hz (60 times per second) for every resolution by default whenever you install a new graphics driver. This is far too low for CRT monitors (but not really a problem for LCD monitors). Most CRT monitors can easily exceed this refresh rate, especially at lower resolutions. Most people notice a flickering effect with a 60Hz refresh rate on CRT monitors, and it is indeed very unhealthy for your eyes to view for long periods. If you want to override this tendency for Windows to default to 60Hz, there are two simple ways you can do this:
1. Use Refresh Force (http://www.pagehosting.co.uk/rf/). Download this small utility and run it, then click the 'Auto Populate' button and it will detect the correct maximum possible refresh rates for each supported resolution on your monitor. You can also view and manually change the refresh rate for any resolution (be careful to make sure your monitor supports the new refresh rate entered though), and even specify additional display resolutions. Click the Apply button and the fix is done. It won't run again at startup, or sit in the background, it just changes some registry settings. You will need to use this utility again every time you install a new driver, so keep it handy.
2. Use RivaTuner to alter your refresh rates and/or add, edit or remove particular resolutions and their associated refresh rates. Details are in the RivaTuner area of the Advanced Tweaking section.
If you want to know more about altering or creating custom resolutions and refresh rates, see the Forceware Control Panel section.
Defragment
This is a simple but important step which should never be skipped. You should defragment your hard drive each time after installing/copying/deleting/patching any application, game, driver or large file. Any time files, particularly game files and system files (like drivers) are added to or deleted from your hard drive they can become 'fragmented' meaning portions of them may be spread over several physical areas of your hard drive. This fragmentation increases loading times and more importantly often results in greater stuttering, especially during games. Details of both the built-in defragmenting utility in Windows XP and Vista, as well as third-party defragmenters, is in the Drive Optimization chapter of the TweakGuides Tweaking Companion (http://www.tweakguides.com/TGTC.html). Defragmentation can make a substantial difference to stuttering in games in particular, so it should not be overlooked.
The next section looks at all the settings in the generic Windows Graphics Control Panel.
For information on Forceware Control Panel, NVIEW Desktop Manager, Advanced Tweaking and Overclocking. Go to link below.
http://www.tweakguides.com/NVFORCE_6.html
Forceware Installation
The Nvidia Forceware drivers require some attention to detail when installing and setting up, as there are several things you can do along the way to make your entire system work much better with them. Follow the advice in this section to ensure smooth, trouble-free performance from your Nvidia graphics card.
Download the Latest Drivers
The official Nvidia Forceware driver package is suitable for all Nvidia graphics cards, regardless of their brand. You may have used specific drivers found on your graphics card manufacturer's website before, or those on the CD which comes with your graphics card, however these are always based on the generic Nvidia Forceware drivers anyway and almost always well out of date. It is recommended that instead you use the latest Forceware drivers for all graphics cards except when using motherboards with onboard (integrated) video.
To download the latest Forceware drivers, go to the Nvidia Driver Site (http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp), and on the Nvidia Software Download page select 'Graphics Driver', then your particular graphics card, and finally your operating system and click the Go button. On the next page click on one of the download links to download the latest Official version of the Forceware Drivers which come in a single large unified driver package.
Note the following specific requirements for certain graphics cards/configurations:
For those running Windows Vista use the latest official Vista drivers, or those on the Official Nvidia Beta Page (http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us), or NZone (http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_downloads_rel70betadriver.html), whichever is newer.
if you have an Nvidia graphics card with Video In/Video Out (VIVO) and TV tuner capabilities, you will also need to select 'Multimedia Software' on the main driver page, then 'WDM Driver' and your graphics card type, and click the Go button to download additional drivers to enable VIVO/TV Tuner functionality.
If you want to download an earlier version of the Forceware drivers, or recently released official and unofficial beta Forceware drivers check the Official Nvidia Beta Page (http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us) or the Nvidia FTP Site (ftp://download.nvidia.com/Windows/).
I always recommend using the latest available official version of the Forceware drivers simply because they contain the largest number of specific fixes and optimizations for recent games, usually have the best performance particularly in newer Pixel Shader/Vertex Shader-reliant games, and are a lot more stable and much less likely to cause problems than beta/unofficial Forceware releases. If you run a very recent Nvidia graphics card, you may instead want to try the latest available official beta driver as these provide better support for newer hardware and newer games. But in general there is no reason to go backwards to older drivers unless you're experiencing serious issues with the latest Forceware. Even if you gain a couple of extra FPS from an older driver, it is likely to cause problems in newer games and applications.
Old Driver Removal
Now we move on to the simplest, and yet most commonly mishandled part of using graphics drivers - the removal of previous Nvidia graphics drivers. To do this successfully, you need to follow some simple steps which will help guarantee that your installation of the drivers is 'clean', and leads to trouble-free performance. I particularly recommend this procedure if you are experiencing graphical corruption or strange behavior. To completely remove your existing graphics drivers and all traces of them from your system do the following:
1. Uninstall any existing graphics drivers. To do this, go to Control Panel>Add or Remove Programs in XP or Control Panel>Programs and Features in Vista. Select the 'Nvidia Drivers' (or similar) item if available and click the Change/Remove or Uninstall button and follow the prompts, rebooting as required. If you happen to have any other graphics drivers left over from previous hardware, such as ATI graphics drivers, uninstall them from here as well. If you have an Nvidia-based motherboard, when uninstalling the Nvidia drivers you will have to specifically select the 'Remove only the following' item, then only select the 'Nvidia Display Drivers' box. If you cannot find any Nvidia display-related entries (e.g. a fresh install of Windows), you are probably using the default Windows graphics drivers, which means you can skip to the New Driver Installation section further below.
2. When you reboot, you will find Windows will detect your graphics card as a new device and attempt to find appropriate drivers for your card. Cancel out of all such attempts. If you can't then don't worry about it, but it is preferable if you can prevent this from occurring.
3. This step is optional, however it is strongly recommended if you are either (a) downgrading your Forceware drivers to an older version, or (b) experiencing problems and want to ensure you have a complete 'clean' install of the Forceware drivers. Basically the aim is to find all the individual Nvidia graphics driver files and remove them manually. Note that if you have an Nvidia nForce motherboard, it is recommended that you undertake this step with great caution, as you may accidentally delete Nvidia driver files which relate to your motherboard and not the graphics card. The instructions differ based on your OS:
Windows XP: For nForce users, the only file you can safely delete is nv4_disp.dll which relates to the graphics driver - skip to step 4 below after that. For all non-nForce users, to manually delete the Forceware drivers go to your \Windows\System32 and \Windows\System32\Drivers directories, and find and delete all files beginning with 'NV...'. You may notice that some of these files keep recreating themselves - don't worry, these are just the default XP Nvidia drivers which are protected and can't be permanently deleted. Just delete all the Nvidia driver files and let Windows decide which default files the system should keep. Alternatively you can use the Windows Search function (Start>Search), with the search string NV*.* to make searching and deletion faster. Importantly however, do not delete the files under the \ServicePackFiles or \Lastgood directories, or under any game or application-specific directories. Just stick to files found under the two directories mentioned earlier.
Windows Vista: See the 'Viewing, Updating or Uninstalling Drivers' section of the Windows Drivers chapter of the TweakGuides Tweaking Companion for Windows Vista (http://www.tweakguides.com/TGTC.html). It is trickier to manually remove driver traces in Vista, so you must read the instructions carefully to see how it's done. Note that the latest Vista drivers automatically attempt to remove previous Nvidia graphics drivers during installation as described here (http://www.nvidia.com/object/vista_driver_x86_installation_instructions.html).
Note: If you want to know the exact filenames of all the Nvidia graphics driver files in use on your system, prior to uninstalling the drivers open the Forceware Control Panel and click the 'System Information' link in the bottom left corner of the new Forceware CP. Under the Components tab of the box which opens you can see all the individual filenames and the functionality they relate to. Make a note of these and you can then search for and remove any that are left after you've uninstalled the drivers.
Finally, make sure you delete the entire program folder(s) where you installed the Forceware drivers. The default install location is \NVIDIA but if you chose another location when installing, go there and delete the folder and all its contents. Note, if you don't have the time or patience to do things manually, or are worried about accidentally deleting the wrong file, use DriverCleaner Pro (http://www.drivercleaner.net/). This utility clears out remnants of old drivers from a range of manufacturers, but is no longer free. The free version (http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=745) of it is no longer being updated, so I recommend learning to use the manual method.
4. This step is optional, but again it is recommended if you want to ensure a 'clean' install, especially if you are experiencing graphics-related problems. It involves removing any graphics-related Nvidia registry entries left over. To do this, I recommend using either RegSupreme (http://www.macecraft.com/downloads/), or its earlier (and completely free) cousin, RegCleaner 4.3 (http://www.majorgeeks.com/download460.html). To use RegSupreme, start the program and once it has cached your files, start a 'Deep' scan, then wait and choose the 'All' item under the Select menu to highlight all the 'invalid entries' found, and click the Fix button to remove them all, making sure to save a backup under a descriptive name. To use RegCleaner, open the program and on the front page put a tick next to the 'Nvidia'-related entries which don't refer to nForce as well, and then click the 'Remove Selected' button. If you want to use the Windows Registry Editor instead - which is recommended especially for Vista users - go to Start>Run and type "RegEdit" (without quotes). Then go to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE key, select the 'Software' subkey, and scroll down to the 'Nvidia Corporation' entry, and underneath you should find a 'Global' entry. Right-Click on this 'Global' key and select Delete to remove it. Do not remove any other items, such as the 'nForce' key.
That should remove all the main bits and pieces of old Nvidia graphics drivers and Control Panels which have been installed on your system previously. Of course the quickest method is to just uninstall the Nvidia Display Driver item in Add/Remove Programs or Programs and Features under the Control Panel, but as I said, if you have a history of graphical problems, if you've installed multiple versions of the Forceware drivers without a clean out, or if you are reverting to an older version of the Forceware drivers from a newer one, I strongly suggest you follow all four steps above at least once.
New Driver Installation
Once you've uninstalled any old Nvidia graphics drivers, there is nothing tricky or difficult about installing the new Forceware drivers. The whole process is simple, but here it is in case you want to be 100% certain it's being done right:
1. Once you've downloaded the latest Official Forceware driver package, simply double-click on it to launch the Nvidia driver installation wizard.
2. When the driver package prompts you for a directory to install the Forceware drivers, it is important to note that this directory is just the place where the files will be temporarily unzipped for installation purposes. It is not where the final drivers will be installed. You can leave the default location shown, but I personally recommend you specify an empty folder of your own choosing. In any case make a note of the directory name, as after installation you can safely delete this directory and its contents - see the Tidying Up section.
3. Follow the remaining prompts and during the installation process reboot as often as you are prompted, since this is also an important step in making sure Windows has a chance to replace system files which are currently in use.
If you want to install an unofficial or beta Forceware driver set, and there is no single executable driver package, you will have to manually install the driver file. To do this, go to the Windows Control Panel>System>Hardware>Device Manager in XP or Control Panel>Device Manager in Vista and under the 'Display Adapters' category, double-click on your particular graphics card. Go to the Driver tab and click the 'Update Driver' option, then select 'Install from a list or specific location' and click Next. Then select 'Don't search, I will choose the driver to install' and click Next. On the next screen click the 'Have Disk' button and Browse to the directory where the new Forceware driver files are located, and find the appropriate .INF file.
Once the above is done, your new Forceware drivers should be installed and your system should be fully functional. Test out a few of your games to see if there are any obvious issues or glitches.
The next section continues with details of how to clean up your system and do some initial optimization after the Forceware installation.
Tidying Up
Before we move on to tweaking the Forceware drivers, let's do some cleaning up and optimization of the system in preparation for more specific tweaking. These steps are important so try to do each and every one of them each time you install a new Forceware version.
Delete Installation Files
When the new Forceware drivers have installed, and you've rebooted your system, it is now perfectly safe for you to delete the temporary installation files which were created in the directory you specified during installation. These are simply the unzipped contents of the Nvidia driver installation package which were used to install the drivers elsewhere on your system - they are not the actual driver files being used by Windows and are no longer needed. Delete them all.
Remember to also delete or backup the latest Forceware driver package which you downloaded earlier. You probably won't need to use it again given the frequency of Nvidia Forceware drivers, but if you know you may need to do a reformat/reinstall of Windows soon, it may be worth saving them somewhere for future use. Try not to keep lots of older driver packages as these are readily available for download around the net and I generally recommend against installing older driver versions.
Disable Unnecessary Services & Startup Items
When the Forceware drivers install on your system, they install new Services and startup items. Some of these can be removed or disabled, depending on your circumstances. If you're unfamiliar with how to disable a Service, or how to find and temporarily or permanently remove startup items, see the Services and Startup Programs chapters of the TweakGuides Tweaking Companion (http://www.tweakguides.com/TGTC.html).
Nvidia Display Driver Service - This service generally doesn't have an essential function. In my experience, most people can safely disable it and not run into any difficulties or reduced functionality whatsoever. In fact some users note that disabling this service improves Windows startup and shutdown times and general performance. However, some people report potential issues with temperature monitoring on their graphics cards if this service is disabled. In general if you feel you are experiencing any other strange behavior due to the disabling of this service, set it back to Automatic and restart it. Note: In Vista, the Nvidia Display Driver Service is actually a startup item called NvSvc, not a service, but the same description applies.
nTune Service - This service is installed only if you install the Nvidia nTune Utility (http://www.nvidia.com/object/sysutility.html) which adds several performance and stability monitoring functions to your Forceware Control Panel. To find out more about nTune, see the Forceware Control Panel section of this guide, but note that nTune is not at all necessary for proper operation of your graphics card. However if you have installed nTune, then setting this service to anything other than Automatic will cause problems in both launching and using the Forceware Control Panel, hence it is not recommended that you alter this service.
The Forceware drivers also install up to three additional startup programs which load at Windows startup: NvCplDaemon, NvMediaCenter (sometimes called NvMcTray) and Nwiz. Depending on the functionality you use in the Forceware drivers you can remove some or all of these from your Windows startup, speeding up startup times and reducing background memory usage:
NvCplDaemon - Relates to the Nvidia System Tray icon and related functionality. If you don't use the System Tray icon to access the Forceware Control Panel settings - and it's certainly not necessary - then you can remove this item. Note however that if you're overclocking your graphics card using the Forceware Control Panel (See the Overclocking section) then you need to keep this item in your startup.
NvMediaCenter - Relates to certain Multimedia functionality in the Nvidia System Tray icon and once again it is recommended you disable this item as well. However if you find particular games don't function correctly with this disabled - which should be rare - re-enable it.
Nwiz - Relates to nView functionality in XP (See the nView Desktop Manager section), and unless you use nView you can safely disable it.
nTuneCmd - If you've installed nTune, this item is added to your startup. Once again it should not be removed if you use nTune, as it can cause issues with the Forceware Control Panel working properly. Even if it is removed, it seems to recreate itself as a startup item regardless, so it is best left untouched.
If you have any doubts, or experience any issues, reset all of the above back to their defaults. If you've permanently removed a startup item, you can get it back by reinstalling the graphics driver. It is not critical that you disable or remove these items if you don't feel confident in doing so.
Remove Unused Devices
This is a slightly trickier procedure, but it won't be harmful if you follow the instructions below. If you've had several Forceware versions installed on your system in the past, or even an ATI graphics card installed previously on the same Windows install, not to mention any other previous items of hardware which you no longer use, then this tip lets you remove them completely from the registry.
To view unused devices in Device Manager, do the following:
1. Open a Command Prompt by going to Start>Run and typing "cmd" (without quotes). Once the Command Prompt is open, type the following lines, pressing return after each:
Set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1
Devmgmt.msc
2. In the Device Manager window that opens, go to the View menu and select 'Show Hidden Devices' - this is very important if you want to see the unused devices. Now expand each of your devices and look through all the sub-components listed. You will see that some of the devices are shown in a lighter grey color.
3. For the purposes of this guide, what we need to look for are entries under the Monitor and Display Adapter device categories. Under Monitor there should be at least one darker monitor entry for each monitor on your system. If there are any greyed out entries, you can remove them by right-clicking on the entry and selecting 'Uninstall'. Do this for all greyed out entries under the Monitor device.
4. Under the Display Adapter device, if you find two entries - a main one, and another one which has 'Secondary' next to it - these just indicate that your graphics card is capable of two separate outputs to two different display devices. You should keep both of these. Do not attempt to uninstall the dark entries under here. You can however uninstall all other greyed out entries under the Display Adapter device list, especially those which relate to previous graphics cards you had on this system.
5. If you're feeling game, you can go through some of your other device entries and delete greyed out devices which you know for certain are no longer connected to your machine, or are traces of a device which has been moved around a few times. For example, under Human Interface Devices you may find multiple greyed out entries for a mouse which you may have moved from one port to another. As long as there is a solid entry for the device when it is still connected to your system, you can uninstall the greyed out ones. However I do not recommend uninstalling devices which you are not sure about. Most importantly, do not uninstall any greyed out Microsoft (or other Codec) entries under the Sound, Video and Game Controller device, and be extremely careful about entries under the Non Plug and Play Drivers, and Network Adapters device list. If in doubt, do not uninstall a device.
If you do happen to uninstall a device which is still connected to your system, it's not the end of the world. Windows will usually re-detect it upon reboot and look for drivers to reinstall it. If not, then remove and reconnect the device, and/or reinstall its drivers.
Refresh Rate Fix
Windows XP and Windows 2000 have an issue in which the screen Refresh Rate (http://www.tweakguides.com/Graphics_7.html) resets to 60Hz (60 times per second) for every resolution by default whenever you install a new graphics driver. This is far too low for CRT monitors (but not really a problem for LCD monitors). Most CRT monitors can easily exceed this refresh rate, especially at lower resolutions. Most people notice a flickering effect with a 60Hz refresh rate on CRT monitors, and it is indeed very unhealthy for your eyes to view for long periods. If you want to override this tendency for Windows to default to 60Hz, there are two simple ways you can do this:
1. Use Refresh Force (http://www.pagehosting.co.uk/rf/). Download this small utility and run it, then click the 'Auto Populate' button and it will detect the correct maximum possible refresh rates for each supported resolution on your monitor. You can also view and manually change the refresh rate for any resolution (be careful to make sure your monitor supports the new refresh rate entered though), and even specify additional display resolutions. Click the Apply button and the fix is done. It won't run again at startup, or sit in the background, it just changes some registry settings. You will need to use this utility again every time you install a new driver, so keep it handy.
2. Use RivaTuner to alter your refresh rates and/or add, edit or remove particular resolutions and their associated refresh rates. Details are in the RivaTuner area of the Advanced Tweaking section.
If you want to know more about altering or creating custom resolutions and refresh rates, see the Forceware Control Panel section.
Defragment
This is a simple but important step which should never be skipped. You should defragment your hard drive each time after installing/copying/deleting/patching any application, game, driver or large file. Any time files, particularly game files and system files (like drivers) are added to or deleted from your hard drive they can become 'fragmented' meaning portions of them may be spread over several physical areas of your hard drive. This fragmentation increases loading times and more importantly often results in greater stuttering, especially during games. Details of both the built-in defragmenting utility in Windows XP and Vista, as well as third-party defragmenters, is in the Drive Optimization chapter of the TweakGuides Tweaking Companion (http://www.tweakguides.com/TGTC.html). Defragmentation can make a substantial difference to stuttering in games in particular, so it should not be overlooked.
The next section looks at all the settings in the generic Windows Graphics Control Panel.
For information on Forceware Control Panel, NVIEW Desktop Manager, Advanced Tweaking and Overclocking. Go to link below.
http://www.tweakguides.com/NVFORCE_6.html