facebook rss twitter

NVIDIA brings official support to Windows 8 with 296.17 drivers

by Alistair Lowe on 14 March 2012, 09:39

Tags: NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA)

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qabdvb

Add to My Vault: x

We have two driver releases from NVIDIA today, the mainstream WHQL-GeForce 296.10, along with a 296.17 release, specifically for the Windows 8 Consumer Preview.

The 296.10 driver is a fairly small update and brings support for the GeForce GTX 560 SE along with enhancements and fixes to SLI configurations, including performance boosts for Blacklight: Retribution (up to 1.8x), DiRT 3 (enhanced DirectX 11 performance), Dishonored, Dungeon Defenders, F1 2011 and rFactor 2. 3D Vision support has also been added for Dear Esther and Deep Black: Reloaded.

The 296.17 release takes the changes from 296.10 and adds official Windows 8 support from NVIDIA and, according to the firm, will be the start of regular driver releases for the new OS. Primarily, the driver brings with it support for the new Windows Display Driver Model 1.2, which features new power saving features, reducing power consumption during full-screen media playback with Aero enabled and allowing the GPU to enter low-power and sleep states more readily. The new interface also allows for GPU preemption, where, instead of relying on applications to play nice, the OS will ensure that all tasks receive a fair slice of time with the GPU and, with this, WDDM 1.2 also brings finer grain task recovery in the event of a stall.

WDDM 1.2 also lays the foundations for DirectX 11.1 which looks to bring official stereo 3D support and better interoperability between graphics, video and compute. Windows 8's starting to look quite appealing on the graphics front, no?

Click for a full list of changes.



HEXUS Forums :: 2 Comments

Login with Forum Account

Don't have an account? Register today!
It's a shame windows 8 isn't looking appealing on anything other than the Tablet front.
Aye true, but you can still run the old style GUI and not have to rely on the tiles. Although from what I've heard, a little time spent with the tiles and you fall in love.

I'll wait until my system is unbearably slow and needs a reformat before giving 8 a try.