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NVIDIA 257.21 WHQL is out...

Lonbjerg

Lonbjerg

Diamond Member
http://www.nvidia.com/object/win7-winvista-64bit-257.21-whql-driver.html

This is the first driver release from the Release 256 family of drivers (versions 256.xx to 259.xx). This driver package supports GeForce 6, 7, 8, 9, 100, 200, 300, and 400-series desktop GPUs as well as ION desktop GPUs. Learn more about Release 256 drivers here .

New in Version 257.21
  • Adds support for Blu-ray 3D with NVIDIA 3D Vision technology. Learn more about the hardware and software requirements here .
  • Increases performance for GeForce GTX 400 Series GPUs in several PC games. 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:
    • Up to 14% in Aliens vs. Predator (1920x1200 noAA/AF – Tessellation on)
    • Up to 4% in Batman: Arkham Asylum (1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF PhysX=High)
    • Up to 5% in BattleForge (1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF – Very High settings)
    • Up to 5% in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF)
    • Up to 4% in Crysis: Warhead (1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF – Enthusiast setting)
    • Up to 24% in Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (1920x1200 no AA/AF)
    • Up to 9% in Far Cry 2 (2560x1600 8xAA/16xAF)
    • Up to 25% in Just Cause 2 (2560x1600 no AA/AF - Concrete Jungle)
    • Up to 7% in Metro 2033 (1920x1200 no AA/16xAF – Tessellation on)
    • Up to 40% in Metro 2033 with SLI ((1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF – Tessellation on)
    • Up to 8% in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat (1920x1200 no AA/AF – Day)
    • Up to 110% in Stone Giant with SLI (2650x1600 – Tessellation on, DoF on)
    • Up to 6% in The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Athena (2560x1600 no AA/AF)
    • Up to 9% in Unigine: Tropics (2560x1600 no AA/AF – OpenGL)
    • Up to 5% in 3DMark Vantage (Performance and Extreme Presets)
    • Up to 19% with Transparency AA (1920x1200 4xTrSS – measured in Crysis)
  • Upgrades PhysX System Software to version 9.10.0223.
  • Adds support for OpenGL 4.0 for GeForce GTX 400 Series GPUs.
  • Adds support for CUDA Toolkit 3.1 which includes significant performance increases for double precision math operations. See CUDA Zone for more details.
  • Adds support for new extreme Antialiasing modes for 3-way SLI PCs, including up to SLI48x AA for GeForce 200 series GPUs and up to SLI96x AA for GeForce GTX 400 series GPUs.
  • Adds support for a new ‘Quality’ mode for NVIDIA’s Ambient Occlusion control panel feature.
  • Adds a new NVIDIA Control Panel setup page for SLI and PhysX for ultimate control over multi-gpu configurations.
  • Adds a new NVIDIA Control Panel feature for ultimate control over CUDA GPUs, allowing the user to effectively choose which GPU will power each CUDA application.
Click to expand...
 
Should I be afraid of my card frying? Or has nvidia learned their lesson...

Anywho thanks for the heads up. I'd like to see some benchmarks with these @ ABT.
 
Would be nice to know how these drivers will affect the 8800GT, as well as the GTX 400 series. I'll try these out later tonight.
 
Patrick Wolf said:
Should I be afraid of my card frying? Or has nvidia learned their lesson...

Anywho thanks for the heads up. I'd like to see some benchmarks with these @ ABT.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure they didn't test them with a Radeon 5770, so you might want to steer clear of them.
 
Nebor said:
Your video card does [redacted]?!

Don't be a potty mouth

-ViRGE
Click to expand...

Hmm, well if what he said was something along the lines of "suck", I'd have to agree. I applied all new TIM and am only testing it out before I sell it.

New drivers are ok for me as well.
 
Not so good in MassEffect2 with GTX470 SLI:

1. SLI enabled (in any mode) causes horrible flickering in open environments
2. Main character's face/helmet textures are sometimes with lower resolution (pixellated)
3. In darker areas with lots of shadows faces and armors are very dark or even black. Same happens also in Squad selection screen.

These never happened with 197-series drivers and with 8800GTS GPU.

But something good also: Team Fortress 2 works now better with SLI, less stuttering if any now. Multithreaded optimization, though, had to be disabled from CP to avoid game crashing to desktop. Unless latest updates and fixes by Valve are to be thanked instead.
 
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Do these "officially" support hybrid PhysX? Or did they disable that in the release drivers. Just curious.
 
Xenofin said:
Not so good in MassEffect2 with GTX470 SLI:

1. SLI enabled (in any mode) causes horrible flickering in open environments
2. Main character's face/helmet textures are sometimes with lower resolution (pixellated)
3. In darker areas with lots of shadows faces and armors are very dark or even black. Same happens also in Squad selection screen.
Click to expand...

Update to the above:

By adding setting "dynamicLights=true" in Gamersettings.ini and setting also "Dynamic Shadows" first off and then On again solved my problem. At least in the map I was testing and in Squad selection display.
 
Zoeff said:
Oh my, look at that bad company 2 comparison. I wonder if the GTX480 is now the fastest card for bc2...
Click to expand...
The Bad Company 2 comparison is irrelevant because [ H ] was comparing super-sampling to TrAA, they just don't know it.
 
BFG10K said:
The Bad Company 2 comparison is irrelevant because [ H ] was comparing super-sampling to TrAA, they just don't know it.
Click to expand...

Well spotted BFG. Yes, TrAA is 'fixed' now in 257 (can still enable SGSSAA through a tool Nvidia made) where as in 197 is was on inadvertently when TrAA was enabled.
 
with the 257x series drivers, the SLI profiles are a little jacked. Meaning, they exist, but the control panel doesn't find any of my steam games. I manually "add" each individual game, and the panel automatically applies the correct profile... almost like an "oh shit, that games does exist!" moment for the panel

still, overall... some of the best performing drivers so far once I figured out the sli profile thing (not a huge deal to me, as I only really play a handful of games)
 
Anybody know if there's improvement for the older cards too? I've got a GTX 275. The performance comparisons I can find stick to the 400 series.

If NVIDIA focused on just the 400 series, I'm going to pass this round. Don't want to run the risk of the newer drivers breaking stuff on the older cards until they get the kinks out.
 
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