the old drivers have way too much slowdown on shrink and rotate
effects

These features aren't generally driver functions. Sure, there might be GDI
calls to shrink and rotate stuff, but they'd be crappy quality. If you use
programs like Photoshop etc, they always have their own function calls to
perform these types of operations.

and the new drivers screw up the graphics in windows. whats the best
version?

I'm thinking "buy new graphics card". Nvidia doesn't exactly focus on the
TNT series anymore in their driver development efforts, and haven't for a
LONG time. Heck, they don't even focus on GF4 chips anymore.