NVIDIA has made available the first WHQL-certified release from its 260-series driver.
Version 260.89, available to download from NVIDIA.com, introduces official support for the GeForce GT 430, as well as performance improvements for other 400-series GPUs.
The well-received GeForce GTX 460 - which itself looks set to be facing new competition from the Radeon HD 6800 series next week - will benefit most from the new release, with at least eight games said to see a performance boost of over 10 per cent.
The free software update also introduces support for Blu-ray 3D and lossless HD audio, as well as a new driver installer.
Here's NVIDIA's complete list of changes:
Performance
- GeForce GTX 480:
- Up to 10% in StarCraft II (2560x1600 4xAA/16xAF Ultra)
- Up to 14% in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat (1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF)
- Up to 16% in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat (SLI – 2560x1600 4xAA/16xAF)
- Up to 6% in Aliens vs. Predator (SLI – 1920x1200 noAA – Tessellation on)
- GeForce GTX 460:
- Up to 19% in StarCraft II (SLI – 1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF Ultra)
- Up to 15% in Battlefield Bad Company 2 (SLI – 2560x1600 4xAA/16xAF)
- Up to 12% in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat (2560x1600 noAA)
- Up to 9% in Aliens vs. Predator (1680x1050 4xAA/16xAF – Tessellation on)
- Up to 7% in Metro 2033 (1680x1050 noAA – Tessellation on)
- Up to 11% in Dirt 2 (SLI – 2560x1600 4xAA/16xAF)
- Up to 12% in Crysis:Warhead (SLI – 1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF Gamer)
- Up to 13% in Far Cry 2 (2560x1600 4xAA/16xAF)
- Up to 12% in H.A.W.X (SLI – 1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF SSAO Very High)
- Up to 5% in Just Cause 2 (1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF)
- Up to 22% in Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena (1920x1200 noAA)
- Up to 5% in 3DMark Vantage (Extreme Preset)
Blu-ray 3D
- Adds support for playing back Blu-ray 3D discs when connecting your GPU to an HDMI 1.4 3D TV. Playback requires compatible software application from CyberLink, ArcSoft, Roxio, or Corel. For more information,NVIDIA Blu-ray 3D website.
HD Audio
- Adds lossless DTS-HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD audio bitstreaming support for compatible Blu-ray movies with GeForce GTX 460 GPUs*.
- Adds high definition 24-bit, 96 and 192 KHz multi-channel audio sampling rate support for compatible Blu-ray movies with GeForce GTX 400 Series ,GT 240, GT 220 and 210 GPUs*.
- Upgrades HD Audio driver to version 1.1.9.0.
*Note: A Blu-ray movie player update may be required to enable these new features; check with your movie players software manufacturers for more details.These features are only supported on Windows 7.
Installation
- New driver installer with enhanced user interface and new Express and Custom installation options.
- Express – fast and easy one-click installation
- Custom – customized installation
- Option to perform a clean installation (completely removes older drivers from your system prior to installing the new driver).
- Option to choose which driver components (ie. PhysX or 3D Vision) to install.
- Improved installation time for multi-GPU PCs.
NVIDIA Surround
- Updated NVIDIA Surround setup wizard
- After first setup, wizard allows users to jump to any setup step.
- Improved display connection diagrams and tooltips.
- Improved UI for setup and arrangement of displays.
- Improved bezel correction setup experience.
- Adds help page to highlight which in-game resolution to select (e.g. how to pick bezel corrected resolutions)
- Option to dedicate an extra GPU to PhysX or to drive an additional display.
- Allows for portrait or landscape setup directly from the setup wizard.
- Updated 3D Vision Surround and NVIDIA Surround game support list. Please visit the 3D Vision Surround web page for a full list of supported games.
NVIDIA 3D Vision
- With Release 260 drivers, the installation process for 3D Vision has changed. Please view this knowledgebase article for more information on the changes.
- Adds NVIDIA 3D Vision streaming support for Firefox 4 and Google Chrome web browsers.
- Adds support for Sony’s 3D Sweep Panorama picture format added to NVIDIA 3D Photo Viewer (Sony digital cameras that can capture 3D Sweep Panorama pictures include NEX-5/NEX-3, Alpha a560/a580 and Cyber-shot DSC-WX5/DSC-TX9/DSC-T99 models).
- Adds support for new 3D Vision Desktop LCD monitors: BenQ X2410 and NEC F23W2A
- Adds support for new 3D Vision projectors: Sanyo PDG-DWL2500 and ViewSonic PJD6251
- Added the following 3D Vision game profiles:
- Arcania: Gothic 4
- Fallout: New Vegas
- FIFA 11
- Formula 1 Racing
- Final Fantasy XIV Benchmark
- Guild Wars 2
- Kane &Lynch 2 – Dog Days
- Lead and Gold
- Lego Harry Potter
- Live For Speed
- Lost Planet 2
- Moonbase Alpha
- Serious Sam HD – The Second Encounter
- Shrek Forever After
- Singularity
- Vitua Tennis 2009
- Virtua Tennis 3
- Update the following 3D Vision game profiles
- Drakensang: The Dark Eye – updated in-game compatibility text
- Mafia II – updated profile to properly for 3D Vision-Rating
- StarCraft II – fixed profile to properly recognize the retail game executable name and match the 3D Vision rating of “Good”
- Super Commander – fixed HUD elements
- TRINE – new profiles fixes that allow the game to be rated “3D Vision-Ready” when used with the TRINE patch v1.08, available via Steam.
NVIDIA SLI
- Adds or enhances SLI profiles for the following PC games:
- City of Heroes: Going Rogue
- Alien Swarm
- Dead Rising 2
- Front Mission Evolved
- Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days
- LEGO: Harry Potter
Other Improvements
- Adds support for OpenGL 4.1 for GeForce 400 series GPUs.
- Upgrades PhysX System Software to version 9.10.0514.
- Improves compatibility for older PC games (DirectX 7 to DirectX 9) running on Windows 7 (examples: Gothic, Gothic II, Falcon 4.0: Allied Force, Links 2003, Independence War II - Edge of Chaos, and X2: Wolverine's Revenge).
- Adds drag and drop display arrangement support to the “Set up multiple displays” page.
- 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.
Additional Information
- Supports the new GPU-accelerated features in Adobe CS5.
- Supports GPU-acceleration for smoother online HD videos with Adobe Flash 10.1. Learn more here.
- Supports the new version of MotionDSP's video enhancement software, vReveal, which adds support for HD output. NVIDIA customers can download a free version of vReveal that supports up to SD output here.
- Supports DirectCompute with Windows 7 and GeForce 8-series and later GPUs.
- Supports OpenCL 1.0 (Open Computing Language) for all GeForce 8-series and later GPUs.
- Supports OpenGL 3.3 for GeForce 8-series and later GPUs.
- Supports single GPU and NVIDIA SLI technology on DirectX 9, DirectX 10, DirectX 11, and OpenGL, including 3-way SLI, Quad SLI, and SLI support on SLI-certified Intel X58-based motherboards.
- Supports GPU overclocking and temperature monitoring by installing NVIDIA System Tools software.
