NVIDIA Releases GeForce 257.15 Beta Video Card Drivers

[Apoptosis]

Nvidia has released the 256 series drivers, GeForce 257.15 beta drivers.

The new driver incorporates several new features, including support for 3D Blu-ray playback, new visual quality modes (including up to 96xAA for GeForce GTX 400 3-Way SLI users), new multi-GPU setup controls, and full support for CUDA 3.1 and OpenGL 4.0.

Gamers will also be happy to hear that today’s Release 256 driver also includes performance enhancements for GeForce GTX 400 series cards in many of today’s leading titles.

For more details on today’s driver release, please see Chris Daniel’s blog post at the following link: http://blogs.nvidia.com/ntersect/2010/0 ... lease.html

You can find the new drivers here (http://www.nvidia.com/Download/Find.aspx) or click on the direct links for Windows 7 drivers below:

Windows 7 64-bit desktop link: http://www.nvidia.com/object/win7-winvi ... -beta.html
Windows 7 32-bit desktop link: http://www.nvidia.com/object/win7-winvi ... -beta.html
Windows 7 64-bit notebook link: http://www.nvidia.com/object/notebook-w ... -beta.html
Windows 7 32-bit notebook link: http://www.nvidia.com/object/notebook-w ... -beta.html

[Apoptosis]

Wow the changes in this driver stack are huge!

This is the first driver release from the Release 256 family of drivers (versions 256.xx to 259.xx). This driver package supports GeForce 6, 7, 8, 9, 100, 200, 300, and 400-series desktop GPUs as well as ION desktop GPUs. Learn more about Release 256 drivers here .

New in Version 257.15

* Adds support for Blu-ray 3D with NVIDIA 3D Vision technology. Learn more about the hardware and software requirements here .
* Increases performance for GeForce GTX 400 Series GPUs in several PC games. The following are examples of some of the most significant improvements measured with GeForce GTX 480. Results will vary depending on your GPU and system configuration:

o Up to 14% in Aliens vs. Predator (1920x1200 noAA/AF – Tessellation on)
o Up to 4% in Batman: Arkham Asylum (1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF PhysX=High)
o Up to 5% in BattleForge (1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF – Very High settings)
o Up to 5% in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF)
o Up to 4% in Crysis: Warhead (1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF – Enthusiast setting)
o Up to 24% in Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (1920x1200 no AA/AF)
o Up to 9% in Far Cry 2 (2560x1600 8xAA/16xAF)
o Up to 25% in Just Cause 2 (2560x1600 no AA/AF - Concrete Jungle)
o Up to 7% in Metro 2033 (1920x1200 no AA/16xAF – Tessellation on)
o Up to 40% in Metro 2033 with SLI ((1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF – Tessellation on)
o Up to 8% in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat (1920x1200 no AA/AF – Day)
o Up to 110% in Stone Giant with SLI (2650x1600 – Tessellation on, DoF on)
o Up to 6% in The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Athena (2560x1600 no AA/AF)
o Up to 9% in Unigine: Tropics (2560x1600 no AA/AF – OpenGL)
o Up to 5% in 3DMark Vantage (Performance and Extreme Presets)
o Up to 19% with Transparency AA (1920x1200 4xTrSS – measured in Crysis)

* Upgrades PhysX System Software to version 9.10.0222.
* Adds support for OpenGL 4.0 for GeForce GTX 400 Series GPUs.
* Adds support for CUDA Toolkit 3.1 which includes significant performance increases for double precision math operations. See CUDA Zone for more details.
* Adds support for new extreme Antialiasing modes for 3-way SLI PCs, including up to SLI48x AA for GeForce 200 series GPUs and up to SLI96x AA for GeForce GTX 400 series GPUs.
* Adds support for a new ‘Quality’ mode for NVIDIA’s Ambient Occlusion control panel feature.
* Adds a new NVIDIA Control Panel setup page for SLI and PhysX for ultimate control over multi-gpu configurations.
* Adds a new NVIDIA Control Panel feature for ultimate control over CUDA GPUs, allowing the user to effectively choose which GPU will power each CUDA application.
* 3D Vision customers can download the v257.15 3D Vision drivers here.
* Includes numerous bug fixes. Refer to the release notes on the documentation tab for information about the key bug fixes in this release.

[kenc51]

Seems useful only if you're running a 4 series card

[hark]

That's great for the 4XX series since I feel the performance has been lacking considering the delays and the power and heat situations. I'd be interested in seeing how big of a difference this truly makes.

[InspectahACE]

I like how they added more options to use an SLI setup. I would've figured the 2nd GPU would've acted as the primary PhysX driver though as it showed the 1st one(top one) as default in my rig. Luckily you can choose either one(or the cpu )..bit of a bummer that I only have 3 games that are on the list lol