Tuesday, June 15th 2010

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.

  • 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.
Add your own comment

62 Comments on NVIDIA Releases GeForce 257.21 WHQL Driver Suite

#26
crow1001
Yeah sorry if you are offended by my ever so abusive name calling :laugh: I'm glad we agree I'm right regarding our little disagreement.
Posted on Reply
#28
Eva01Master
It's both laughable and regrettable how many enthusiasts bash at reviewers just because they doesn't share their particular viewpoint. I believe enthusiasts should not behave like regular users and that includes attitudes like bashing and fanboyism, (I'm not sure if that's a proper word, but gets the idea across so I'll use it) you disregard the opinions in the review, express it consistently by presenting facts, not bashing nor trashing the reviewer and his opinion.
Posted on Reply
#29
Bjorn_Of_Iceland
erixxbut BC2 with oc'ed processor seems to work now, been playing it for 2 hours :)
Nothings wrong with the driver, its your OC thats probably messed up. I had the same issue before. Try running 20 iterations of intel aburn test maximum to see if its stable.
Posted on Reply
#31
Tatty_Two
Gone Fishing
As I understand it, across the board,in all resolutions the HD5870 is some 9% faster than the GTX470 as at April 2010.........

www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GTX_470/30.html

Now that is with fairly mature drivers for the HD 5870 and pretty new drivers for the GTX 470, so what we should be asking ourselves is simple really....... over a driver development period of say 6 months, can at least a 9% performance improvement be found through drivers alone, the answer to that is yes, we see it most of the time and on those odd rare occasions 15% plus (ATi's 2900XT back in 2007, NVidia's G92 8800GTS hit about 13% I think).

All thats left to determine is though, will ATi get significantly more performance from their drivers over the next couple of releases, if they do, the 470 may still lag behind a little, if they don't.... it may be close.
Posted on Reply
#32
crow1001
I prefer to look at performance on an individual game basis, not a performance chart that has games benched such as quake 4, prey and some other very redundant titles, in the majority of games the 5870 easily beats the 470, my link again below.

www.techspot.com/review/283-geforce-gtx-400-vs-radeon-hd-5800/

Regarding drivers, as you can see by Nvidia's latest release there is no real performance increase noticeable to fermi owners, benches around the web show basically no difference, Nvidia's performance figures have always been dodgy, when they say up to 25% increase in a game it could mean at one certain point not an overall increase. Nividia drivers for fermi are already very mature, what do you think they were doing the 7 months fermi was delayed??
Posted on Reply
#33
Mussels
Freshwater Moderator
Tatty_OneAs I understand it, across the board,in all resolutions the HD5870 is some 9% faster than the GTX470 as at April 2010.........

www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GTX_470/30.html

Now that is with fairly mature drivers for the HD 5870 and pretty new drivers for the GTX 470, so what we should be asking ourselves is simple really....... over a driver development period of say 6 months, can at least a 9% performance improvement be found through drivers alone, the answer to that is yes, we see it most of the time and on those odd rare occasions 15% plus (ATi's 2900XT back in 2007, NVidia's G92 8800GTS hit about 13% I think).

All thats left to determine is though, will ATi get significantly more performance from their drivers over the next couple of releases, if they do, the 470 may still lag behind a little, if they don't.... it may be close.
its more likely to be a 2% boost, than a 9% boost. driver enhancements tend to fix compatiblity issues more than performance.... the drivers that really boost performance are few and far between.
Posted on Reply
#34
Bundy
trt740looks to me like a bunch of people unfairly went after a guy for doing a review, because they didn't like it , however, back on topic these drivers appear to gain performance at higher resolutions. and not at 1680x1050 as hero shows. Why do I have to be a fanboy if I don't agree??? and one forum is hardly all over the net.
fanboi you are not. I,d rather read a post from someone who sees potential than one that is critical coz they think it,s cool.
Posted on Reply
#35
MuhammedAbdo
Techspot used a very inaccurate method which is a 30-sec fraps run , now I have no problem with fraps as a benchmark tool .. but really a 30 second run ? that accomplishes what exactly? , not to mention that the reviewer did some mistakes regarding Just Cause 2 , he tested it with Bohek Filter and GPU Waters enabled on Geforce cards , and of course they were disabled on Radeons , that shows that he has a limited experience on the benchmarking field , or that he doesn't double-check settings or results .

Here is a more mature review from hardwarecanuks showing GTX470 completely annihilating HD5850 thanks to the new driver :

www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/33190-gpu-benchmarking-methods-investigated-fact-vs-fiction-3.html
wrong driver
Why wrong ? that is the beta driver of the same version ..
Posted on Reply
#36
Mussels
Freshwater Moderator
MuhammedAbdoWhy wrong ? that is the beta driver of the same version ..
same number means nothing, the internals often change between WHQL and betas, even with the same build number.
Posted on Reply
#37
Tatty_Two
Gone Fishing
Musselsits more likely to be a 2% boost, than a 9% boost. driver enhancements tend to fix compatiblity issues more than performance.... the drivers that really boost performance are few and far between.
I would expect to see at least that (2%) between the first and second driver release for much new hardware, in fact I think we did for the 5850 & 5870, I seem to recall a few reveiw sites re-running benches because of the driver > performance ratio improvement..... I may have got that wrong though so I will do a bit of research. I could have added a lot more than just the 2900XT or the 8800GTS in my earlier post, like the HD3870 and the HD3850 but that was not hard, seeing as ATi actually released the HD3870 without a proper driver set at the time.
Posted on Reply
#38
francis511
Just to confirm , these do NOT have the physx "feature" from the betas then ?
Posted on Reply
#39
crow1001
Hardwarecanucks been in Nvidia's back pocket for a long time now, I'll stick with the neutral sites.
Posted on Reply
#40
W1zzard
Musselssame number means nothing, the internals often change between WHQL and betas, even with the same build number.
shouldnt .. when done properly every single change to the code changes the build number
Posted on Reply
#41
erixx
Eva01MasterIt's both laughable and regrettable how many enthusiasts bash at reviewers just because they doesn't share their particular viewpoint. I believe enthusiasts should not behave like regular users and that includes attitudes like bashing and fanboyism, (I'm not sure if that's a proper word, but gets the idea across so I'll use it) you disregard the opinions in the review, express it consistently by presenting facts, not bashing nor trashing the reviewer and his opinion.
ABSOLUTLY!!!!! A real 'enthusiast' should not even know 'brands', etc.... just look for facts.

Fuck the fanboys everywhere and in every way possible!!!!!! haha
Posted on Reply
#42
Mussels
Freshwater Moderator
W1zzardshouldnt .. when done properly every single change to the code changes the build number
well, remember the beta that allowed ATI + physX? they replaced it with a modified file with the same version number. its happened before (Differences in WHQL vs beta with same name) so it could happen again.
Posted on Reply
#43
Helper
francis511Just to confirm , these do NOT have the physx "feature" from the betas then ?
They released a driver that only put back restriction right after betas and they have also changed the betas. It's gone.
Posted on Reply
#44
W1zzard
Musselswell, remember the beta that allowed ATI + physX? they replaced it with a modified file with the same version number. its happened before (Differences in WHQL vs beta with same name) so it could happen again.
nothing has been replaced (i assume you are talking about 257.15 beta). just checked by downloading from nvidia and comparing to the file at tpu downloads

# wget http://us.download.nvidia.com/Windows/257.15/257.15_desktop_winxp_32bit_english_beta.exe
2010-06-16 08:54:45 (558 KB/s) - `257.15_desktop_winxp_32bit_english_beta.exe' saved [86749616/86749616]
# md5sum /tmp/257.15_desktop_winxp_32bit_english_beta.exe
4dbf5b17a552059b63ab488d47d4e47a /tmp/257.15_desktop_winxp_32bit_english_beta.exe

# md5sum 257.15_desktop_winxp_32bit_english_beta.exe
4dbf5b17a552059b63ab488d47d4e47a 257.15_desktop_winxp_32bit_english_beta.exe
Posted on Reply
#45
Mussels
Freshwater Moderator
W1zzardnothing has been replaced (i assume you are talking about 257.15 beta). just checked by downloading from nvidia and comparing to the file at tpu downloads

# wget http://us.download.nvidia.com/Windows/257.15/257.15_desktop_winxp_32bit_english_beta.exe
2010-06-16 08:54:45 (558 KB/s) - `257.15_desktop_winxp_32bit_english_beta.exe' saved [86749616/86749616]
# md5sum /tmp/257.15_desktop_winxp_32bit_english_beta.exe
4dbf5b17a552059b63ab488d47d4e47a /tmp/257.15_desktop_winxp_32bit_english_beta.exe

# md5sum 257.15_desktop_winxp_32bit_english_beta.exe
4dbf5b17a552059b63ab488d47d4e47a 257.15_desktop_winxp_32bit_english_beta.exe
then why did people report hte file being updated/changed, and the ATI physX no longer working? You sure the TPU one has the working PhysX?
Posted on Reply
#46
W1zzard
Musselsthen why did people report hte file being updated/changed, and the ATI physX no longer working? You sure the TPU one has the working PhysX?
i downloaded it on the sunday that the bug was discovered. link me to a version that you think is unfixed please.

if nvidia actually fixed the bug without changing anything else it would be the best thing to happen
Posted on Reply
#47
MuhammedAbdo
crow1001Hardwarecanucks been in Nvidia's back pocket for a long time now, I'll stick with the neutral sites.
Whatever , it is your loss mate ..
And even if that is true , their latest review is topnotch , in fact it is one of the best ever.
Posted on Reply
#48
LiveOrDie
MuhammedAbdoWhy wrong ? that is the beta driver of the same version ..
:laugh: thats not the beta version of this driver thats the 257.15 beta not the 257.21 beta :rolleyes: they change and fix problems making that review a waste of time.
Posted on Reply
#49
Mussels
Freshwater Moderator
W1zzardi downloaded it on the sunday that the bug was discovered. link me to a version that you think is unfixed please.

if nvidia actually fixed the bug without changing anything else it would be the best thing to happen
couldnt tell you sorry, i'm stuck with one PCI-E slot for now
Posted on Reply
#50
Helper
W1zzardi downloaded it on the sunday that the bug was discovered. link me to a version that you think is unfixed please.

if nvidia actually fixed the bug without changing anything else it would be the best thing to happen
Here is mine

rapidshare.com/files/399675797/257.15_desktop_winxp_64bit_english_beta.exe

I got it on 27th of May. You can compare that to the newest ones on Nvidia's site.
Posted on Reply
Add your own comment
Mar 9th, 2025 10:29 EDT change timezone

New Forum Posts

Popular Reviews

Controversial News Posts