I have been installing/uninstalling lots of different drivers lately for my GTX 580. It all started when I installed the newest WHQLs. It gave me a stutter in Section X. Voss and other areas of the game. Also had about a 10 FPS drop in all areas. So i rolled my drivers back to the ones i have been using for a while, 304.79 beta. 304.79 was the 1st driver to include native Ambient Occlusion for SWTOR.

I tried every WHQL from 304.79 release to the present and nothing works better than the 304.79.

Better FPS, completely removed stutter, and AO still works fine.

Just thought i should share!

http://www.geforce.com/drivers/results/46279

Nah I don´t touch drivers before around a week after launch to make sure they are safe. Betadrivers I will not meddle with at all.

Nvidia had a driver that messed up the fan and overheated the graphic card some time ago, since then I have been careful.

296.10

That is all.

I have a gtx 580 as well - and have been noticing some mad 'stutter' in operations, the fleet - it seems mainly to occur if i alt-tab (if im in fullscreen windowed or fullscreen) and come back. I thought it might be an issue with my nvidia driver since i did update to the latest one recently...but no other game performs like this so I dunno :/

The problem with gfx drivers is that updates do not necesarilly impact all games in a negative way. Better yet, the entire point of nvidia to update the drivers is to optimize performance. However, sometimes games which aren't in their testing panel (SWTOR being one of those), may be negatively affected.

That's also the prime reason why it's frequently recommended not to upgrade graphics card drivers, if you're not having performance issues, and the titles you frequently play aren't mentioned on the list of having a performance boost.

Beyond that, best drivers for a single game are often hard to identify, as the drivers have generation specific optimizations as well. So 304.79 beta drivers may be best for the card the OP uses, however they may for example not be best for yours.

Myself for example I still use the 306.79 drivers with my GTX 680, and never experience any microstuttering, also have no performance issues with the rest of my setup. Better yet, I can run 2 games such as SWTOR and TSW both in borderless windowed mode at the same time and still maintain an around 40 ~ 50 FPS in SWTOR. 60+ with ease if I play SWTOR alone, further improved if played fullscreen.

I have been installing/uninstalling lots of different drivers lately for my GTX 580. It all started when I installed the newest WHQLs. It gave me a stutter in Section X. Voss and other areas of the game. Also had about a 10 FPS drop in all areas. So i rolled my drivers back to the ones i have been using for a while, 304.79 beta. 304.79 was the 1st driver to include native Ambient Occlusion for SWTOR.

I tried every WHQL from 304.79 release to the present and nothing works better than the 304.79.

 

Better FPS, completely removed stutter, and AO still works fine.

 

Just thought i should share!

 

http://www.geforce.com/drivers/results/46279

Thanks for the information, but please remember that Beta drivers are not finished and are not WHQL certified.

Use at your discretion.

My question to the OP is, other than your GPU, what other specs can you provide to us? I suspect that it might not be your GPU causing the stuttering and framerate drops. Just saying.

Thanks for the information, but please remember that Beta drivers are not finished and are not WHQL certified.

 

Use at your discretion.

 

My question to the OP is, other than your GPU, what other specs can you provide to us? I suspect that it might not be your GPU causing the stuttering and framerate drops. Just saying.

i7 3.4 liquid cooled

12G RAM

Rampage IV motherboard

GTX 580 3G edition

1000 wat thermaltech PSU

Windows 7 64 bit

spent $2300 on the build just before BF3 came out

Hi nosmos,

This has proven to help with stuttering

Quote: Originally Posted by Demetriscy

Fix #3: Note: This is the best fix which worked for me, it provided the most smoothest experience. If you have an nVidia GPU, go to "manage 3D settings" > "Program Settings" > "Add" (find the swtor.exe from the installed directory) > "Maximum pre-rendered frames = 1" > "Multi-display/mixed-GPU acceleration = Single display performance" > "Power management mode = Prefer maximum performance" > "Triple buffering = ON". The rest of the settings should be left as Default. Make sure you have max-prerendered frames on "1" and Triple buffering = ON as this is what I suspect is making the game run smooth.

This reminds me, I haven't updated my drivers in a while.

If you aren't having issues you don't need to.

Any suggestions for a GTX 460M laptop card?

If I remember correctly that's a 2 year old card. I usually like to upgrade in a 2-3 year time frame. Also, the fact it is on a laptop might not be helping. I hate to be the one to tell you so, but it's time to upgrade soon.

296.10

 

That is all.

I'm with you.

Been rockin' 296.10 for over a month. My computer auto-updates itself every 2 days and I have to roll-back to 296.10 every time because I lose 25-30 fps every time.

I also have a gtx 580 and what saddens me the most is that when SWTOR came out I had 85 fps on maximum setting and now, one year later, I struggle at 30 fps

Going to try the old drivers and hope it doesn't make a mess of other games.

Bioware stated a while back to disable ambient occulation because there were known issues with the new ways shadows were being rendered. So this only fixes what Bioware told you to do in the first place.

Wait... What? The driver uses AO. All drivers before 304.79 do not support it. I use it just fine.