NVIDIA GPU driver 197.13 released

Robert Hallock 17 Mar, 2010 at 11:07am ET Article published in Tech

NVIDIA has today announced the newest ForceWare version for GeForce 100, 200, 300, 6000, 7000, 8000, 9000 GPUs. In addition to resolving the fan issue in the 196.75 beta responsible for bricking several cards, this new beta GPU driver offers the following changes:

Adds support for Next Generation ION.
Adds support for GeForce GT 320, GeForce GT 330, and GeForce GT 340.
Upgrades PhysX System Software to version 9.10.0129.
Upgrades HD Audio driver to version 1.0.9.1 (for supported GPUs).
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
Adds SLI and multi-GPU support for top new gaming titles including Assassin Creed II, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Command and Conquer 4: Tiberium Twilight, Grand Theft Auto IV: Episodes from Liberty City, Mass Effect 2, Napoleon: Total War, and Zombie Driver.
Enhanced SLI support for World of Warcraft and Unigine.
Adds Ambient Occlusion support for Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, Need for Speed: Shift, Resident Evil 5, RUSE, and Street Fighter IV.
Adds override anti-aliasing support for Mass Effect 2.
Includes numerous bug fixes. Refer to the release notes (PDF).

Download

Windows Vista & 7 x86-32: Here
Windows Vista & 7 x86-64: Here
Windows XP x86-32: Here
Windows XP x86-64: Here

Comments

17 Mar 2010 ~ 3:41pm Sledgehammer70 Well these should work better
17 Mar 2010 ~ 3:45pm UPSLynx Excellent, SSAO for Street Fighter IV will be excellent.

Makes me wonder why bother implementing AO for any racing games though. The visuals are too quick to notice the additional detail, really, and most games implement AO in a way that it sort of bakes in the effect after the image holds still for a moment. I don't see it making much of a difference in a racing game when the visuals are always moving.
18 Mar 2010 ~ 9:25am mirage This driver crashes with my overclocked GTX260 when I run Furmark. But Borderlands was fine. I have been running this GTX260 at the same overclock since one year; it can run Furmark v1.4 indefinitely with any previous driver. I will check with the latest version of Furmark. If the problem persists I will go back to 196.75; fan problem did not affect my card.
18 Mar 2010 ~ 9:44am Thrax This driver gives me horrible framerate issues on World of Warcraft if I put the game in windowed mode and maximize the window. If I leave it in windowed mode and take it out of maximized, my FPS returns to normal.

This issue was not present on 196.21, so I rolled back to those.
18 Mar 2010 ~ 9:55am mirage I think I should stop trying the new drivers. It is only waste of time lately.
18 Mar 2010 ~ 8:03pm Optux I gave up trying new drivers years ago. More headaches than improvements.
18 Mar 2010 ~ 8:39pm Sledgehammer70

mirage wrote:

This driver crashes with my overclocked GTX260 when I run Furmark. But Borderlands was fine. I have been running this GTX260 at the same overclock since one year; it can run Furmark v1.4 indefinitely with any previous driver. I will check with the latest version of Furmark. If the problem persists I will go back to 196.75; fan problem did not affect my card.

While your GTX260 isn't being effected yet from the 196.75 drivers... It very much can be. When the cards fan is scaling with the GPU temp it can stop at a lower level making the chips run hot. This is only the case if your not already auto adjusting the fans yourself.

But 197.13 improved frame rates with my GTX 295 in BFBC2.
18 Mar 2010 ~ 9:48pm mirage

Sledgehammer70 wrote:

While your GTX260 isn't being effected yet from the 196.75 drivers... It very much can be. When the cards fan is scaling with the GPU temp it can stop at a lower level making the chips run hot. This is only the case if your not already auto adjusting the fans yourself.

But 197.13 improved frame rates with my GTX 295 in BFBC2.

Yes, I am controlling the fan speeds with Rivatuner (automatic, low-level settings). That is why, 196.75 is not affecting my fan speed.

But I am still testing the 197.13. I found that, if GPU-Z is not running in the background when I run Furmark, it does not crash.