Microsoft default video driver gives ‘better’ performance than Nvidia drivers

[gdavies]

I have a Nvidia 8500 video card in the PC I use for FSX. Recently I needed to reinstall Windows and noticed a curious difference between the default Microsoft driver and the Nvidia driver that I was using on the old configuration. The Microsoft driver appears to give better performance – at least that’s what the Windows Experience Index (WEI) tells me. If you run WEI (Control Panel>System>Windows Experience Index) using the ‘NVIDIA GeForce 8500 (Microsoft Corporation -WDDM v1.1)’ default driver I get a Graphics rating of 4.9 and a Gaming graphics rating of 5.8. I can’t remember the exact rating you get if you install the Nvidia drivers, but they didn’t score as highly.

I would have thought that the Nvidia drivers should have been at least as good as the default Microsoft driver. So much for my strategy of installing the latest video driver on the assumption that the newer Nvidia drivers will be better performers. I will probably try out the Nvidia driver soon enough, but in the meantime has anyone else experienced this?

[deeknow]

I'd say its more likely the way the Nvidia driver is configured by default that isnt helping you. There are a bunch of settings to look at in the NVidia control panel, dont give up on it, look on the web too lots of tips-n-tricks there re how to manage that control panel, esp things like anti-aliasing and game-profiles etc