Tuesday, June 15th 2010
![NVIDIA Forceware](https://tpucdn.com/images/news/forceware-v1723408558483.png)
NVIDIA Releases GeForce 257.21 WHQL Driver Suite
NVIDIA today released GeForce 257.21 WHQL driver suite for GeForce series graphics cards and NVIDIA ION platforms, this is the first WHQL-signed driver in its 256 series of drivers, which archives two main goals as far as driver packaging goes: unifying desktop and mobile GeForce drivers; and unifying GeForce 400 series drivers with that which supports GeForce 6 thru GeForce 300 series into one package (NVIDIA initially had a separate package for GeForce 400 series). GeForce 257.21 also packs a boatload of changes, including a large number of game-specific performance increments, new technologies, updates key extra components, and fixes bugs.
DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 257.21 WHQL for Windows 7/Vista 64-bit, Windows 7/Vista 32-bit, Windows XP 32-bit, Windows XP 64-bit
A complete list of changes follows.
DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 257.21 WHQL for Windows 7/Vista 64-bit, Windows 7/Vista 32-bit, Windows XP 32-bit, Windows XP 64-bit
A complete list of changes follows.
- 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:
o Up to 14% in Aliens vs. Predator (1920x1200 noAA/AF - Tessellation on)
o Up to 4% in Batman: Arkham Asylum (1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF PhysX=High)
o Up to 5% in BattleForge (1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF - Very High settings)
o Up to 5% in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF)
o Up to 4% in Crysis: Warhead (1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF - Enthusiast setting)
o Up to 24% in Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (1920x1200 no AA/AF)
o Up to 9% in Far Cry 2 (2560x1600 8xAA/16xAF)
o Up to 25% in Just Cause 2 (2560x1600 no AA/AF - Concrete Jungle)
o Up to 7% in Metro 2033 (1920x1200 no AA/16xAF - Tessellation on)
o Up to 40% in Metro 2033 with SLI ((1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF - Tessellation on)
o Up to 8% in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat (1920x1200 no AA/AF - Day)
o Up to 110% in Stone Giant with SLI (2650x1600 - Tessellation on, DoF on)
o Up to 6% in The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Athena (2560x1600 no AA/AF)
o Up to 9% in Unigine: Tropics (2560x1600 no AA/AF - OpenGL)
o Up to 5% in 3DMark Vantage (Performance and Extreme Presets)
o 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.
- 3D Vision customers can download the v257.21 3D Vision drivers here.
- Includes numerous bug fixes. Refer to the release notes on the documentation tab for information about the key bug fixes in this release.
62 Comments on NVIDIA Releases GeForce 257.21 WHQL Driver Suite
2FPS more at 2560x1600 with max settings can give quite a good 'percentage' boost to FPS (10FPS to 12FPS oh wow, 20% faster!)
I have never submitted a bug to them and don't know how I could.
The prices of both side of the fence are bumped up too high for the performance gains at the moment, not to mention the farce that dx10 turned out to be, I wonder why people still clamber for first gen cards.
Like here silly boy www.legitreviews.com/article/1315/1/
Here is a small part of the review
NVIDIA has a monster on their hands, that is for sure. The preliminary reports from their beta 256 series drivers also hint at a lot of potential performance being unlocked as the drivers mature. I think people conveniently forget that AMD has been refining their HD 5870 drivers for six months. With a few revisions I imagine the GTX 470 will easily outperform the HD 5870 and quite possibly the super HD 5870 like the Gigabyte SuperOverclock and MSI Lightning. Only time will tell on this front but I'm confident performance will not degrade.
Now take a look at a " proper " review like the one I posted up.
its W7 Dx10 -the details are set to ultra . i dont see any big difference. game-Dirt 2
Same thing should apply to what we have now. You won't be able to play Metro 2033 totally maxed out at 96XAA or would you? Fits try it :roll:
But 32XQ SLi AA works very well in HL2 on my setup. I usually get over 100 FPS. I believe it only helps in older games. At that setting, first card renders the scene, others do AA only. :laugh: Grestorn says that in nHancer, he says it's just useful in old games, to make use of unused SLi power. Makes sense, I get hundreds of frames in those games...
BTW these settings are new, they just came in latest drivers so you haven't missed anything at all.
Even the site owner called it a bad review, it's one of the worst I and many others have read.