nVidia Drivers 306.97 Released

The last driver out was 306.23 released on September 23rd. This newer 306.97 was released on October 10th. I’ve been running the 306.23 since the September release. I haven’t seen any problems in Second Life™ with 306.23. Unless the Pathfinding Characters failing to render correctly in the SL Development Viewer is related to the driver, which doesn’t seem to be the case, more later.

nVidia Driver Updates 306.97

I have seen the behavior of my Vista-32 change with 306.23. There seems to be a serious video lag in several places. Moving icons on the desktop is one place. Moving the icon appears to leave a copy of the icon behind. It can take 10 to 30 seconds or longer for the left-behind-icon to disappear. In some cases I have to do something to make the screen update before it goes away.

In Dreamweaver 12.0 (CS6) I have horrible lag in typing, selecting code and selecting panel items, making it unusable. It is unclear whether this is an Adobe problem or an nVidia problem. Turning off Related Files in Dreamweaver’s General Preferences solves most of the problem. Plus there is considerable discussion in the Adobe forum by Mac users about a similar problem. Some Windows people are chiming in toward the end of the main thread on the subject.

So, I had hopes this new driver would improve the performance in Vista and Dreamweaver (DW). A quick test of icon-moving on the desktop does seem better. But there are still lags. But, the left-behind-icon-copies were way fewer and persisted less disappearing in just 2 or 3 seconds.

Trying a WordPress (WP) blog page it also seems to be improved. WP pages have a load of referenced pages. Previously with ‘Related Files’ on Automatic DW was unusable when editing any WP code.  At first look that seems to be resolved now. I’ll get a better idea as I use DW more this week. At first look it is much better.

For Second Life™ I tried the Development Viewer 3.4.2 (264693) Sep 12 to see if the driver change improved the Pathfinding Character render problems. It makes no difference. Around my home I am seeing 25 to 32 FPS with the Dev Viewer and 306.97.

So, this driver seems to work better than the 306.23. At least that is my preliminary opinion.

Cyber Security

When you update your driver take the time to check your anti-virus (AV) program and assure it is working. Try to run an AV computer scan. If the scan starts and is actually scanning you will usually see it listing files as it checks them. The scan can take hours depending on your computer. You can stop the scan. You just need to be sure the AV is actually working. Some viruses break the AV program but leave the appearance it is working. Make sure. It won’t scan if it is broken.

Also, check that you have the latest updates to your AV and operating system, especially on Windows. If you cannot afford to update or do not have AV protection, visit Microsoft Security Essentials and get their free AV. It is pretty good and places less load on a computer than many other AV packages.

I bring this up because the media in general is not covering the cyber attacks that Iran is making on US systems. These cyber attacks are now considered acts of war, a political term, by the Pentagon and Whitehouse. See: Cyber Combat: Act of War (WSJ), The White House and Pentagon Deem Cyber-Attacks “An Act of War” (Forbes), Iran is behind bank cyber attacks, Sen. Joe Lieberman believes (LA Times), and Report: Iran behind cyberattacks on big banks (Business Journal). But, the Administration is saying little to nothing about the recent attacks.

If you are in the US you absolutely do not want to allow your computer to be used to help with these attacks. Get your AV up to date.

US Politics

If you plan to vote in the US election, you should be securing you personal and work computers and paying attention toUS Foreign Relations. Much of what is happening in our foreign relations is not being reported in the news. What we are hearing in the news and seeing in the debates is filled with propaganda, lies and the media is not reporting honestly to help us know the truth and important facts and events are being omitted from the news. All news sources are omitting coverage of important issues. In the mind of many the US is in a state of war and under both physical and cyber attack.

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