New driver 258.96 - 460 support, 3D vision and performance improvements

[Sylvanas]

Win 7 64bit here

Lots of good stuff in this BETA:

New in Release 258.96

* Adds support for GeForce GTX 460.
* Adds support for NVIDIA 3D Vision Surround technology. Learn more about this technology including the hardware and software requirements here.
* Adds additional performance increases for GeForce GTX 400 Series GPUs in several PC games (these improvements are in addition to the previously reported Release 256 improvements). 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 11% in Aliens vs. Predator (1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF – Tessellation on)
o Up to 7% in Crysis: Warhead (SLI – 1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF – Gamer)
o Up to 4% in H.A.W.X (SLI – 1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF – Very High)
o Up to 10% in Just Cause 2 (SLI – 1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF - Concrete Jungle)
o Up to 6% in Metro 2033 (1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF – Tessellation on)
o Up to 7% in Metro 2033 (SLI – 1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF – Tessellation on)
o Up to 10% in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat (1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF)
o Up to 12% in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat (SLI – 1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF)
o Up to 4% in World in Conflict (SLI – 1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF)
* Upgrades PhysX System Software to version 9.10.0224.
* Upgrades HD Audio driver version 1.0.15.0 (for supported GPUs).
* Includes numerous bug fixes. Refer to the release notes on the documentation tab for information about the key bug fixes in this release.
* Users without US English operating systems can select their language and download the International driver here.

All of these improvements are in addition to the performance improvements in the previous 257 driver. Impressive that Nvidia is still getting more out of Fermi. Note the improvements however are for GTX400 series cards only, but users of older cards can, as usual, benefit from bug fixes.

 

[Cookie Monster]

Sounds good although I dont know how beneficial these are for users that use a res size of 1680x1050. Ill download the WHQL version when it comes out.

 

[happy medium]

"Upgrades HD Audio driver version 1.0.15.0 (for supported GPUs).'"

Oh ,the gtx 460 does hd audio over hdmi now?

 

[tviceman]

I wish Anandtech would do a reevaluation article on the current performance state of all hd5800 cards and gtx400 cards with the most up-to-date drivers. There have been many driver releases with performance improvements, but Anandtech's reviews are consistently recycling benchmarks achieved with driver versions that have since been updated many times.

 

[Wag]

"Upgrades HD Audio driver version 1.0.15.0 (for supported GPUs).'"

Oh ,the gtx 460 does hd audio over hdmi now?

Yes, but like the other nvidia cards unfortunately no bitstreaming. I'm hoping they fix this soon- ATI can do it, no reason why nvidia can't.

 

[happy medium]

I wish Anandtech would do a reevaluation article on the current performance state of all hd5800 cards and gtx400 cards with the most up-to-date drivers. There have been many driver releases with performance improvements, but Anandtech's reviews are consistently recycling benchmarks achieved with driver versions that have since been updated many times.

I think the Anandtech article said there was virtually no performance increase since the 10.3 drivers for ATi.

Wonder where I heard that before?

edit:
Found it..

"As for our Radeon cards, we are continuing to use the 10.3a drivers. Radeon 5000 series performance has not changed for the games in our suite since those drivers were released."

 

[WaitingForNehalem]

"Upgrades HD Audio driver version 1.0.15.0 (for supported GPUs).'"

Oh ,the gtx 460 does hd audio over hdmi now?

Instead, we’re looking at a re-designed chip that employs the Fermi architecture, but sports a different arrangement of resources and about two-thirds of GF100’s complexity—making it a smaller, cooler-running, and believe it or not, more functional (that’s right—this new GPU includes an updated video processor capable of bitstreaming Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks from Blu-ray movies).

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-460-gf104-fermi,2684.html

Yes it does!

 

[Wag]

Wow. I guess GF104 platform now does bitstreaming? Someone want to test it?

 

[happy medium]

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-460-gf104-fermi,2684.html

Yes it does!

Cool!!!! I didnt know that. In fact I never read that in any other review.

You should make a thread on it.

 

[hennessy1]

Not sure if anyone uses this in their setups but

Driver version 258.96 will be the last driver to support Hybrid Power, a Hybrid SLI
technology. Hybrid Power is supported on GeForce 9800 GX2 and GeForce 9800 GTX
GPUs.