Nvidia GeForce R275 WHQL-certified Drivers Released
The Nvidia GeForce R275 drivers are now WHQL-certified and available for download.
Nvidia's latest drivers are sporting improvements to the NVIDIA Update application, performance increases in numerous games, 3D Vision enhancements, improved monitor scaling, and improved HDTV resizing and scaling.
Notebook users on Windows 7 or Windows Vista can download the equivalent Verde 275.33 drivers on GeForce.com.
Of greatest interest to GeForce users will be the performance improvements for GeForce 400 and 500 series GPUs, compared to Nvidia's latest driver release, R270. As an example, on the GTX 580, Batman: Arkham Asylum is now up to 14% faster when running at 1920x1200, with 8x Anti-Aliasing, maximum settings, and PhysX set to High; Bulletstorm is now up to 13% faster when running at 1920x1200, with 8x Anti-Aliasing, 16x Anisotropic Filtering and all in-game graphics settings set to max; Portal 2 is up to now 9% faster when running at 2500x1600, with 4x Anti-Aliasing and all in-game graphics settings set to max; Civilization V is now up to 5% when running in SLI at 2560x1600, and with all settings and DirectX 11 goodies set to max; and Crysis 2 is up to now 4% faster when running at 1920x1200, with the graphics settings set to High.
Nvidia has also made optimizations on the newly released GeForce GTX 560. Under the same conditions and on the same system hardware, Bulletstorm is now up to 15% faster, Batman: Arkham Asylum is up to 14% faster, Portal 2 is up to 8% faster, and Crysis 2 is up to 6% faster.
Nvidia's software team has also increased performance by up to 12% on dual-core CPUs in CPU-limited situations. This was measured in Left 4 Dead 2 with a GTX 580, but the optimization can affect many more games when performance becomes CPU-bottlenecked.
Updates to 3D Vision
In the realm of 3D Vision, Portal 2 is now rated as 'Excellent,' thanks to the removal of a water reflection glitch and SLI corruption, meaning you can enjoy a flawless 3D Vision experience when playing Valves latest game in stereoscopic 3D. Nvidia has also introduced new 3D Vision profiles for the following titles, bringing the total number of profiles to over five hundred - of special note is Duke Nukem Forevers profile, which is certified 3D Vision Ready, ensuring the best possible 3D Vision experience in the long-awaited first-person shooter:
- Age Of Empires Online
- Assassins Creed: Brotherhood
- Battlefield Play4Free
- Duke Nukem Forever
- Dungeon Siege III
- Super Street Fighter IV
- World Of Tanks
And finally, the 3D Vision Photo Viewer now works in a window as well as in fullscreen.
Control panel updates
In the NVIDIA Control Panel Nvidia has ramped the Adjust Desktop Size and Position page, inserting a new user interface with a preview window and three easy-to-use scaling mode defaults. The page will now be available for all VGA, DVI and HDMI-connected monitors, and you can override games that no longer scale properly on Windows 7, forcing games to use the Control Panels scaling.
Nvidia revamped the Adjust Desktop Size and Position page for HDTV users, too. Now, HDTV users will be shown how to disable overscanning on their HDTV, but if thats impossible the Control Panel will create a custom, resized resolution with 1:1 pixel mapping and will automatically resize standard resolutions for games that dont support custom resolutions.
Bug fixes
Shortly after the release of the 275.27 beta drivers, NVIDIA identified an issue that caused a significant performance problem in The Witcher 2: Assassins Of Kings. Engineers and technically-minded end users discovered the issue independently after in-depth testing. This problem is resolved in the new 275.33 WHQL GeForce drivers, and as one final measure NVIDIA also re-checked performance in other top titles, confirming that the performance problem was an isolated issue that did not affect other games.
Notebook users on Windows 7 or Windows Vista can download the equivalent Verde 275.33 drivers on GeForce.com.
Of greatest interest to GeForce users will be the performance improvements for GeForce 400 and 500 series GPUs, compared to Nvidia's latest driver release, R270. As an example, on the GTX 580, Batman: Arkham Asylum is now up to 14% faster when running at 1920x1200, with 8x Anti-Aliasing, maximum settings, and PhysX set to High; Bulletstorm is now up to 13% faster when running at 1920x1200, with 8x Anti-Aliasing, 16x Anisotropic Filtering and all in-game graphics settings set to max; Portal 2 is up to now 9% faster when running at 2500x1600, with 4x Anti-Aliasing and all in-game graphics settings set to max; Civilization V is now up to 5% when running in SLI at 2560x1600, and with all settings and DirectX 11 goodies set to max; and Crysis 2 is up to now 4% faster when running at 1920x1200, with the graphics settings set to High.
Nvidia has also made optimizations on the newly released GeForce GTX 560. Under the same conditions and on the same system hardware, Bulletstorm is now up to 15% faster, Batman: Arkham Asylum is up to 14% faster, Portal 2 is up to 8% faster, and Crysis 2 is up to 6% faster.
Nvidia's software team has also increased performance by up to 12% on dual-core CPUs in CPU-limited situations. This was measured in Left 4 Dead 2 with a GTX 580, but the optimization can affect many more games when performance becomes CPU-bottlenecked.
Updates to 3D Vision
In the realm of 3D Vision, Portal 2 is now rated as 'Excellent,' thanks to the removal of a water reflection glitch and SLI corruption, meaning you can enjoy a flawless 3D Vision experience when playing Valves latest game in stereoscopic 3D. Nvidia has also introduced new 3D Vision profiles for the following titles, bringing the total number of profiles to over five hundred - of special note is Duke Nukem Forevers profile, which is certified 3D Vision Ready, ensuring the best possible 3D Vision experience in the long-awaited first-person shooter:
- Age Of Empires Online
- Assassins Creed: Brotherhood
- Battlefield Play4Free
- Duke Nukem Forever
- Dungeon Siege III
- Super Street Fighter IV
- World Of Tanks
And finally, the 3D Vision Photo Viewer now works in a window as well as in fullscreen.
Control panel updates
In the NVIDIA Control Panel Nvidia has ramped the Adjust Desktop Size and Position page, inserting a new user interface with a preview window and three easy-to-use scaling mode defaults. The page will now be available for all VGA, DVI and HDMI-connected monitors, and you can override games that no longer scale properly on Windows 7, forcing games to use the Control Panels scaling.
Nvidia revamped the Adjust Desktop Size and Position page for HDTV users, too. Now, HDTV users will be shown how to disable overscanning on their HDTV, but if thats impossible the Control Panel will create a custom, resized resolution with 1:1 pixel mapping and will automatically resize standard resolutions for games that dont support custom resolutions.
Bug fixes
Shortly after the release of the 275.27 beta drivers, NVIDIA identified an issue that caused a significant performance problem in The Witcher 2: Assassins Of Kings. Engineers and technically-minded end users discovered the issue independently after in-depth testing. This problem is resolved in the new 275.33 WHQL GeForce drivers, and as one final measure NVIDIA also re-checked performance in other top titles, confirming that the performance problem was an isolated issue that did not affect other games.
