For nvidia : Try the 35.98 drivers (for scaling) and make sure that if your are using a monitor that exceeds 60hz that you use refreshlock so you can force 60hz when needed if you experience black screen issues if you use a resolution and refresh rate that is higher than hbr1.
Refreshlock is needed since alot of games don't use the refreshrate specified for the desktop and instead use the Mac refresh rate that the monitor supports so if that exceeds hbr1 then you get a black screen.
I can't remember if hbr1 supports 144hz at 1080p or not, I want to say yes. The nvidia drivers for xp only support hbr1. Do not use hdmi with these later drivers unless you want to you'll have overscan issues and be limited to 60hz and i want to say a color issue. DVI and displayport FTW.
It may be possible to modify the edid with a quadro, a mitm device or on the monitor itself to force a max refresh rate so the driver doesnt exceed hbr1 but I didn't have any luck there.
The scaling not working with later drivers is likely due to the driver detecting the monitor as a TV due to the extra features like audio support, nvidia would "fix" thus in the driver via driver updates so it wouldn't detect those monitors as a TV. Thinking the only fix we could do is modify the edid ourself or update the drivers, never had any luck there.
Remember that safe mode is your friend.