Santa Clara (CA) – Nvidia recently released a massive new WHQL driver, which may be worth considering, even if you do not regularly download new drives. Version 178.13 delivers the usual speed improvements in certain applications, but most notably adds PhysX acceleration for all 8-, 9- and 200-series of graphics cards with at least 256 MB of memory.

The new driver arrives as a 86.9 MB download, which more than twice the size of previous Nvidia driver updates and is the first new WHQL driver for the recently released 9800 GTX+, 9800 GT, 9500 GT and 9400 GT GPUs since June of this year. Also supported are all 6-series, 7-series, 8-series, 9-series, and 200-series GPUs.

The driver includes Nvidia’s PhysX system software v8.09.04, which supports (PhysX-based) physics acceleration on all GeForce 8-series, 9-series and 200-series GPUs with a minimum of 256MB dedicated graphics memory, Nvidia said. The effect should be seen in PhysX games, and GPGPU accelerated applications such as Photoshop CS4. If you don’t have access to applications with physics or GPGPU acceleration you can download Nvidia’s GeForce Power Pack, which includes demos and sample applications.  

The driver update also comes with 2-way and 3-way support for GeForce GTX 200-series GPUs running on Intel D5400XS motherboards as well as Nvidia’s 3D Stereo technology. The company also promotes support for the Folding@home distributed computing application, which has become a differentiator for the company to highlight the GPGPU horsepower of its graphics processors.

The software can be downloaded from Nvidia’s support pages.

nice... but only nice

Sep 29, 2008 19:13     

I have tested it on a MSI 8800 GT Oc. The warmonger is... a large demo, whose characters move really bad looking. Not bashing it. I love having physx for free. I would love more to have really physX support on 3dmark 2006, wich support physX, but this driver makes no difference.
mm report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

close the comment window!!!

Sep 30, 2008 13:31     

This is a crappy way to get ppl to respond to posts, please close the comment boxes. the normal page was fine.
close the comment window!!! report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -3

It's simply a new driver update and I don't see any...

Oct 04, 2008 05:56     

It's simply a new driver update and I don't see any difference after installing it.
Anubhav report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Very Good

Oct 08, 2008 22:59     

Big improvement on sli with Stalker Clear Sky game. Most folks have no idea how much work goes into improving drivers. My hats off to NVIDIA for their dedication to the gaming community. Hard work pays off and this updated driver shines. I do not work for NVIDIA but if I did I'm certain I will see total dedication to give us the best in quality.
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