BEWARE of NVidia's GeForce 381.65 driver!!

[Ken1171]

Last night I was notified by NVidia GeForce Experience that my video card had a driver update, and as usual, I just let it update it. I didn't realize until the next day that all Poser versions I have installed now crash at launch after this. I didn't connect the two things right away, but I had my suspicions - it has happened before a few years ago.

The current GeForce driver is 381.65 (04/05/2017), and I here confirm that, at least in my computer, it crashes Poser 7, 10, and 11 right at launch. I have downloaded the previous GeForce driver version (378.92) from NVidia, uninstalled the current, rebooted, installed the previous version, rebooted, and now Poser runs normally again.

I don't know if the current GeForce 381.65 driver will crash Poser in all computers, but beware of that if you have upgraded the driver and Poser (any version as far as I know) can no longer launch. If that happens to you, just follow the simple steps above and you should be fine. Just DON'T update the driver back to 381.65 if Windows or NVidia Experience ask you to, or else you will be back to not being able to launch Poser.

Hope this helps any potential victims in case you have Poser and an NVidia video card, and haven't happen to have updated the driver to the current 381.65 yet. If so, DO NOT update to that version. Maybe the next one will be alright, but this particular one crashes Poser right at launch. Let me know if it has happened to you too.

 

[Glitterati3D]

Thanks for the heads up, Ken. I don't update drivers when I am in the middle of rigging so I didn't update mine yet. You can mark off one save here!

 

[Pendraia]

Yeah...I'm a bit slack about updating so I haven't updated yet either. Thanks for the headsup...

 

[Dragonsegg]

Mine doesn't crash and I updated right away because one of the games I play needs the latest driver. My card is GTX970 4Gig

 

[Pendraia]

Could be it's card specific...what card are you using Ken?

 

[Ken1171]

I have a GTX 980 Ti, which is a Maxell GPU. I have talked to other people with different cards, and many crash but some don't. Indeed it might depend on the video card. In addition, I am on Windows 10 x64 here.

 

[Pendraia]

Hmmm, might be worth giving it a try then. Will need to wait until I finish what I'm doing.

 

[sapat]

I was having an issue with an Open GL version error when trying to open the new Public Build of DS. I was on a chat with an Nvidia person who said I needed to UD my drivers even though Windows told me my drivers were up to date. So I dl and installed 381.65 which let me open DS, but now my mouse is all jerky and hard to control, Nvidia Iray is very slow in Draw Mode and just everything in general in DS is wonky. My card is 3 1/2 yr old and is only a GeForce 760, but until this UD, I never had an issues like this. I'm on Windows 8.1.

Is anyone going to roll back? Do you know what the procedure is?

Edited to add: I was just able to open both Poser 11 Pro and PP2014, load a figure, load her up with clothing, hair, a pose and a scene prop. No issues at all, everything rendered fine with no glitching or crashing. However DS is another story when using Nvidia Iray render engine.

 

[Ken1171]

Seems like the 381.65 driver affects different computers in different ways. I have rolled back to the previous driver, and everything is working now. To roll back, first to go NVIDIA.com and download the previous driver version that is compatible with your GPU. Once you have that in hands, just uninstall the current video card driver using the regular Windows method. In Windows 10 it's under Programs And Features. After rebooting to complete the uninstall, go ahead and install the older driver you have previously downloaded from NVIDIA. Reboot again and everything should be good again. Of course, maybe Windows or the video card software will start nagging about a new driver version, but just skip this one and perhaps try the next one. ^^

 

[Pendraia]

I haven't updated and might not if this is going to happen. I'll wait for the next update...

 

[Miss B]

There was an issue with a recent nVidia Cuda (don't recall if it's the same version) and Poser in recent months, as well. I saw several folks posting on the SM Poser forums about it, and several there had to roll back to a previous driver to get things working again, so it's not just a DS issue.

It's probably affecting 3D software most often, because everything's more graphic intensive than normal everyday apps we use.

 

[sapat]

Seems like the 381.65 driver affects different computers in different ways. I have rolled back to the previous driver, and everything is working now. To roll back, first to go NVIDIA.com and download the previous driver version that is compatible with your GPU. Once you have that in hands, just uninstall the current video card driver using the regular Windows method. In Windows 10 it's under Programs And Features. After rebooting to complete the uninstall, go ahead and install the older driver you have previously downloaded from NVIDIA. Reboot again and everything should be good again. Of course, maybe Windows or the video card software will start nagging about a new driver version, but just skip this one and perhaps try the next one. ^^

Even though Poser is working fine for me with this new driver, DS isn't and that's what I use all day every day for beta testing Iray products. So probably will roll back just for that reason. Thanks for the 'how to' Ken.

 

[Ken1171]

I do the same with DS, because there is always a risk DAZ might break something with every update, so I am still using a 4.8 build I know I can trust for content creation. DAZ no longer provides installers for older versions, so we have to be careful.

 

[Pendraia]

lol...I do it with DS and with Poser because I've found that both can have issues and yes I was caught by that recently with DS as I uninstalled a version and when I went to reinstall it, it had vanished from my system. So annoying. I thought as I hadn't downloaded the newer version that it would be okay but it wasn't.

 

[sapat]

Well, it's after 3am here and I just finished rolling back my Nvidia driver to 378.92. My DS is acting fine again. No more jerky mouse and the Nvidia Iray is performing better.

I used DDU which is Display Drivers Uninstaller, and makes the job a cinch to perform.

Don't know if it's ok to post the link, but I will since it's what the techs at Nvidia downloaded to my computer during our remote session. I figure if anyone wants to rollback theirs, it's worth a try.
Display Driver Uninstaller Download version 17.0.6.1

 

[Pendraia]

Thanks sapat...

 

[sapat]

Thanks sapat...

No problem. I hope it helps someone else.

 

[LeoLee]

My DS 4.9 is crashing when I quit it since February till now, and the DS support can not find out what's causing that. I'm working normally, but only when I quit it crashes.
Daz support reported that I have a script causing this, but I can't find it out yet.
On the other hand, Poser is working fine and I have updated to 381.65 without any problem.
I already had problems with other driver versions. Maybe in the next update.
Btw, thank you for the advice, Ken.

 

[Ken1171]

@LeoLee Crashes on exit are typical of extensions side-effects. For example, the Reality plugin was causing my Poser 11 to degrade performance down to a crawl when it was not even used. Anything I did would cause intensive disk access for a few minutes, which freezes Windows itself. I took a look on the log, and it was the Reality plugin. Uninstalling it got Poser back to normal performance, thanks goodness! I have reported this to SMS and also to Paolo, but I think they just acknowledged it.

Right now Poser is refusing to close on exit, and the logs are showing the culprit is the "Figure Manager" plugin. I think it wasn't updated between Poser 10 and 11, and now it's causing trouble. I bought it from RDNA, so I am not sure what can be done about it.

But the bottom line is that plugins and extensions can definitely cause issues, especially in DS, because DAZ tend to change things without notice, which can affect the plugins in unexpected ways.

 

[sapat]

Basil Gass (semidieu) is a vendor at the store that starts with 'D'. You can always PM him there or post in the Poser forum to see if anyone can help.
He's also a member at DeviantArt. I think he's under the name Semidieu.
Also, his email address should be in the pdf that came with the product. All mine have it at the bottom of most every page in the pdf.