NVIDIA Release New GPU Drivers - Forceware 266.58

Performance improvements, 3D Vision tinkering and more.

Sriram Gurunathan|Jan 19, 2011, 15:38:32 IST

NVIDIA have released the latest version of their Forceware drives for the GeForce graphics cards, Forceware version 266.58. This version promises performance increases, further improvements to 3D Vision and more. Here’s an excerpt from the release notes:__STARTQUOTE__Performance

Increases performance for GeForce 400 Series and 500 Series GPUs in several PC games vs. the latest Release 260 drivers. The following are examples of some of the most significant improvements measured on Windows 7. Results will vary depending on your GPU and system configuration:

GeForce GTX 580:

Up to 7% in Battlefield Bad Company 2 (1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF)
Up to 12% in Battleforge (SLI 1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF Very High)
Up to 11% in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (SLI 1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF)
Up to 7% in Dirt 2 (SLI 1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF)
Up to 7% in Far Cry 2 (1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF)
Up to 5% in Just Cause 2 (1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF Dark Tower)
Up to 5% in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat (SLI – 1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF)
Up to 9% in Stone Giant (SLI 1920x1200, DOF on)
Up to 8% in Unigine Heaven v2.1 (SLI 1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF)

__ENDQUOTE__Apart from this, the new drivers add in a whole host of game and monitor profiles for 3D Vision and SLi support, adds ambient occlusion support for Starcraft II and improves SLi performance. You can check out the whole list of changes and download the drivers here (64-bit here).

Counter!

This certainly comes as a blow to AMD, who had just announced the release date for the new version of their Catalyst Drivers. They had wanted to decrease the performance gap before the GTX 560 released, but NVIDIA have hit right back with this perfect counter.