NVidia has just released new WHQL certified drivers for the GeForce & ION graphics cards. Not normally a huge deal, but this new driver offers some huge performance boost in certain applications. From the driver notes:
- Increases performance in several PC games from v196.21 WHQL. The following are examples of measured improvements. Results will vary depending on your GPU and system configuration:
- Up to 13% performance increase in Crysis: Warhead with a single GPU
- Up to 30% performance increase in Crysis: Warhead with SLI technology
- Up to 13% performance increase in H.A.W.X with single GPU
- Up to 15% performance increase in H.A.W.X with SLI technology
- Up to 30% performance increase in Left 4 Dead with single GPU
- Up to 28% performance increase in Left 4 Dead with SLI technology
If you’re a gamer, then there is even more to try out. Ambient Occlusion added to several games, improved SLI support, and a new PhysX version. Get all the details and downloads from NVidia’s site.
Here’s the download links:
- via NVIDIA DRIVERS 196.75 WHQL (For Vista/Windows 7)
- via NVIDIA DRIVERS 196.75 WHQL (for Windows XP)
- via NVIDIA Drivers 196.75 WHQL (for Windows XP64/Windows Server 2003)
Update 3/5/2010: Seems these drivers are badly glitched. Read the full story, and wait for replacements. If you’ve already upgraded, I recommend you Downgrade ASAP.
Well they are awesome drivers for us that were cool…. enought to be watercooling their Gforce cards 😛
Why, why would you post this story now of all times with links even to the driver? So many people had there PC’s raped by this and you’re encouraging them to go download this? Wow, just wow.
These drivers are disabling the automatic fan control under win7/64bit. Do not upgrade yet.