Windows 8 Graphics Drivers for Windows 8

[Mitchell_A]

Currently, The ATI Catalyst drivers along with the nVidia drivers support Windows 8. In December 2010, nVidia released the 265.90 drivers that added Windows 8 support, every subsequent release since then has been fully compatible with all leaked builds of Windows 8. Some users have reported issues with Catalyst drivers for their AMD cards, however in my experience, all drivers since 11.4 (didn't test any earlier drivers than this) are compatible with Windows 8.

Once you've installed any build of Windows 8, Get your updated drivers from here:

nVidia notebook & desktop card drivers:
Drivers - Download NVIDIA Drivers
AMD Catalyst and Catalyst Mobility drivers:
Link Removed
The current stable release of Catalyst is 11.7, with a leaked 11.8 suite available.
Latest stable nVidia release: 280.26, nVidia runs a public beta program available here.

 

[BigFeet]

I can confirm, nvidia's 280.26 driver works perfectly fine. The HDMI audio also works fine. Hopefully tonight I'll get to installing a game and really putting them to the test.

 

[Mitchell_A]

I can confirm, nvidia's 280.26 driver works perfectly fine. The HDMI audio also works fine. Hopefully tonight I'll get to installing a game and really putting them to the test.

Thanks for your input and welcome (as one of the first active members) to Windows8Forums.com, great to have you aboard . The leaked 11.9 drivers are also fully functional (although Windows Update still installed a newer engineering sample version).

 

[Trouble]

Nvidia's latest drivers do work (seem to work very well) however; when I tried to use their auto scan my computer (activeX) method, I got handed the Linux 64 bit drivers for my Windows8 64 bit install. So just make sure you download them manually.
Regards
Randy

 

[Mitchell_A]

On closer examination (and in thanks to Rich), in order to have functioning Radeon Mobility (notebook) drivers, you need to use the leaked 11.9 suite. Which is available from here Link Removed

 

[Master0fPuppets]

I was having lock-up issues with the newest nVidia drivers on my x64 Developers Version (I'm running a GT440), so I went back to the 275 release, and it's been working perfectly since. I don't want to upgrade to the current drivers again, of course - I also used the default drivers that MS gave during install, and they worked fine as well. On the 32bit version and the plain 64 bit that I installed, I had the same issues - I'm guessing it's something with the card I have, and that release of the driver. I will install the next driver release and update if the issue is fixed.

 

[Medico]

I installed the ATI drivers mentioned in Post #5, but do not see a way of starting the Catalyst Control Center I see in my Win 7 installation. Am I missing something here? Thanks.

 

[Mitchell_A]

I've moved away from the modded mobile drivers and am now using an AMD driver released on the 21st by Microsoft, one of the engineering samples. Unfortunately, it renders the VECC completely useless, but I could care less.

@Ted, have you ensured the CCC is selected for installation via "custom" install?

 

[Medico]

I've moved away from the modded mobile drivers and am now using an AMD driver released on the 21st by Microsoft, one of the engineering samples. Unfortunately, it renders the VECC completely useless, but I could care less.

@Ted, have you ensured the CCC is selected for installation via "custom" install?

Thanks Mitchell. I have uninstalled the AMD Catalyst drivers and went back to the drivers released and installed by Win 8. They seem to work fine. The leaked drivers did not seem to do anything more than what I had.

 

[nmsuk]

I'm using the Catalyst RCx drivers, otherwise theres no crossfire support for my card. Engineering ones run well for me otherwise but I wanted crossfire so I could test gaming in 8. So far it's all going well.

 

[Mitchell_A]

Thanks Mitchell. I have uninstalled the AMD Catalyst drivers and went back to the drivers released and installed by Win 8. They seem to work fine. The leaked drivers did not seem to do anything more than what I had.

If you're using the mobilitymod (notebook) drivers, than it should come as no surprise. The driver is simply modified to accept all card models at install. It's not modified for each one. The engineering samples from Microsoft would be.

 

[OldTimer]

When win-8 loaded on my PC it installed it's own set of drivers for everything. And, everything works just fine.
Video, sound, lan...............they all just work. I'm Impressed!
Heck, it even loaded the drivers for my Epson workforce 500, AIO printer.
No driver conflicts here!

Doc

 

[Medico]

For such an early release this is surprisingly stable and fairly complete. Sharing was easy as well with the ribbon on Windows Explorer. Loaded drivers for all my hardware that worked well right out of the box. I have not had to upgrade any drivers. In fact my Logitech mouse (wireless) works similarly to in Win 7 with the Logitech Setpoint software. Did not install Setpoint in Win 8 DP. So far I am pretty impressed. Still working on getting used to Metro UI, but I'm going to continue and give it a fair chance.

 

[OldTimer]

Ted & all,
I'm running version 8102 and I'm wondering if there's a later version available.

I still can't get Windows mail running. It keeps asking for different .dll files.

I finally got AVG 2012 to load but it keeps wanting to restart to finish the install. I've restarted it at least six times already.

Oh well, fussing with win-8 is cheaper than going to the pool hall.

Cheers Mates!
The Doctor

 

[Medico]

So far, I have been happy with the built in Windows Defender while using Win 8 DP, which is not often any more. I just find the more complete OS (Win 7) allows me to do more than Win 8 DP.

 

[OldTimer]

I'm on Win XP right now, but I try to get on Win-8 at least every other day, just to keep up.

I totally bombed, trying to activate Windows Mail, so last night I installed "Thunderbird" and
was surprised at how easy it set up, almost by itself, for my GMail. It's up and running with
absolutely NO problems at all.

AVG is another story. I ran the install, from my flash drive, in Administrator mode and it
actually did install, BUT, it came up and told me that it needed to reboot the PC to finish the
install. I've rebooted at least 8 times now and it's still saying the same dang thing. Grrrrrr!
Also the email scanner remains inactive, despite my efforts to activate it and the 'Link Scanner'
doesn't work either. It (AVG 2012) may work better with the final release of Win-8, but right
now it's a wash. Thank goodness, my #2 security program, Malware Bytes, is running just fine.

I've installed a few other little programs that I like and they too are running great.
I have "Img Burn" and "Photo Filtre" installed and working, to just name two.

With the power built into this early release, I'm suspecting that the final release date may be
moved up a bit. The fewer PC's built and marketed with Win-7 on them, the better off we'll
all be.

OH, and I reversed the process to Kill Metro UI and then ran just the batch file and not the
registry script. I now have a much cleaner desktop without the Huge disclaimer in the right
corner of the desktop. And, the PC boots right up to my custom desktop, without issues.
I also have my Programs menu, which was not there after running the .reg script.

I'm happy to say that I'm getting this thing beat down to size, and finding out what will
work and what won't. I like most of my customers, just want something that works for
the every day stuff like eMail and some internet browsing, checking my bank account, etc.

Happy Holidays Everyone!
The Doctor

 

[kemical]

Nvidia has released the 296.17 Preview driver. This driver is for GeForce 6 and higher desktop cards. It is specifically designed only for the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, and provides full WDDM 1.2 support.

Link Removed

 

[Drew]

Thanks for this info! Had been looking or waiting for something like this. Now, likely, the Previewer will work in 8, now.

Yep, Previewer works, now! Yea!

Drew