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.
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.