NVIDIA GeForce 266.58 WHQL Driver Suite Released

[btarunr]

NVIDIA released its latest version of GeForce software suite, the unified package that installs GeForce drivers, PhysX system software, 3D Vision software, HDMI audio driver, and related system software. Version 266.58 released by NVIDIA is WHQL-signed and available for all current versions of Windows. All GeForce GPUs from 6-series onward, and ION series, are supported. Version 266.58 WHQL installs PhysX system software v9.10.0514 and HDMI audio driver version 1.1.13.1. In terms of performance improvements, 266.58 WHQL introduced a number of game-spcific performance improvements for GeForce 400 and GeForce 500 series GPUs. SLI profiles were added and improved for several games.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 266.58 WHQL

A list of changes follows.

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)
• Improves performance in Final Fantasy XI on GeForce 400 Series and 500 Series GPUs.

Visual Quality

• Adds ambient occlusion support for one of the most popular games of the year: Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty. Ambient occlusion improves the quality of lighting, shadows, and depth perception in many parts of the game.

NVIDIA 3D Vision
With Release 260 and 265 drivers, the installation process for 3D Vision has changed. Please view this knowledgebase article for more information on the changes.

• Adds support for 3DVisionLive.com Beta 2:
• Adds support for 3D photo sharing and viewing
• Adds new 3D video clips to the website
• Improved scaling quality with video streaming content from 3DVisionLive.com over previous 266.35 Beta driver
• Adds 3D Vision Window Mode support for the following games and applications:
  o Aion
  o Crazy Racing Kart Rider
  o Crossfire
  o Dragon Nest
  o EverQuest 2
  o Guild Wars 2
  o NED
  o PopKart
  o Dance QQ
  o Xian Xia
  o Tian Long Ba Bu
  o World of Warcraft - Burning Crusade
  o World of Warcraft - Wrath of the Lich King
  o Xun Xian
  o Zhu Xian 2
  o Google Earth
  o Improvements to 3DVisionLive
• Adds support for new 3D Vision Desktop LCD monitors: Acer GN245HQ, Acer HN274H, Hannstar HS233, I-O Data 3D231XBR, Lenovo L2363dwA, Planar SA2311W
• Adds support for new 3D Vision projectors: Acer X1261P, Sanyo PDG-DXL2000
• Adds support for new 3D Vision All-in-On PC: ASUS ET2400XVT
• Adds support for new DLP HDTVs: Mitsubishi WD-83838, WD-83738, WD-73838, WD-73837, WD-73738, WD-73638, WD-73C10, WD-65838, WD-65738, WD-65638, WD-65C10, WD-60738, WD-60638, WD-60C10, L75-A91.
• Added the following 3D Vision game profiles:
  o Arcania: Gothic 4
  o Crazy Racing Kart Rider 크레이지레이싱 카트라이더
  o Crossfire 穿越火线
  o Darksiders
  o DC Universe Online
  o Dragon Nest
  o Front Mission Evolved
  o Guild Wars 2
  o Hank Haney's World Golf
  o Lineage 2
  o Medal of Honor (2010) Multiplayer
  o Medal of Honor (2010) Single Player
  o NED
  o Need for Speed Hot Pursuit
  o NVIDIA Demo: Aliens vs. Triangles
  o NVIDIA Demo Endless City
  o PopKart
  o QQ Dance QQ
  o QQ Xian Xia Zhuan QQ
  o Tian Long Ba Bu 天龙八部
  o TRON: Evolution
  o Vizerra (fullscreen version)
  o World Rally Championship 2010
  o Xun Xian 寻仙
• Update the following 3D Vision game profiles
  o Lost Planet 2 - rating is now changed to Fair
  o Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. 2- rating has been changed to 3D Vision Ready

NVIDIA Surround

• Improved performance for 3-way and 4-way SLI configurations
• 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 SLI

• Adds SLI profiles for the following PC games:
• Alien vs. Triangles Demo
• Endless City Demo
• Lionheart: Kings Crusade
• Moscow Racer: Legends of USSR
• Rift: Planes of Telara
• Shaun White Skateboarding
• Enhances SLI profiles for the following PC games:
• Age of Conan
• Arcania: Gothic 4
• Civilization V - DX11
• Lost Planet 2
• World Of Warcraft

Other

• Installs HD Audio driver version 1.1.13.1
• Installs PhysX System Software to version 9.10.0514
• Supports 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 GPU and system requirements, visit the NVIDIA Blu-ray 3D website.
• Supports lossless DTS-HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD audio bitstreaming support for compatible Blu-ray movies with GeForce GTX 460, GTS 450, and GT 430 GPUs.
• Supports high definition 24-bit, 96 and 192 KHz multi-channel audio sampling rate support for compatible Blu-ray movies with GeForce 400 and 500 series, GT 240, GT 220 and 210 GPUs.
• Supports the new GPU-accelerated features in Adobe CS5.
• Supports GPU-acceleration for smoother online HD videos with Adobe Flash 10.1.
• Supports the new version of MotionDSP's video enhancement software, vReveal, which adds support for HD output.
• 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 OpenGL 4.1 on GeForce 400 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.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[JrRacinFan]

Are these essentially 266.35's but WHQL'ed? Just curious if I have to reinstall drivers. (I'm lazy.)

 

[claylomax]

The latest beta were rubbish, first and last time that I use an Nvidia beta driver. As always I'll do a fresh/clean install of Windows, install this WHQL drivers and I'll be set for months. EDIT: See JrRacinFan, I'm lazier than you.

 

[Over_Lord]

every driver update has around 10% crysis performance, i should have been at 100fps by now...

 

[xkche]

i have problems with the land of BFBC2 with a GTX460 768. I hope this drivers do not have the problem.

 

[char[] rager]

Should I follow erockers guide for a complete uninstallation and reinstallation of GPU drivers if there is a checkbox on this nvidia installer to allow for a clean install?

 

[dustyshiv]

Clean install done and folding on full throttle!! No issues detected so far.

 

[newtekie1]

Are these essentially 266.35's but WHQL'ed? Just curious if I have to reinstall drivers. (I'm lazy.)

Usually if the WHQL is the same as the beta they will have the same version number, or very close to the same, and be releases pretty quickly after the beta is released. With these being so far apart in version number, and taking so long to come out after the beta, I'm guessing there were some tweaks done to the beta before WHQL certification.

 

[MxPhenom 216]

every driver update has around 10% crysis performance, i should have been at 100fps by now...

Uhhh theres a reason why they say it depends on your setup and game settings in the release notes.

Side note: theres people on OCN complaining about FERmi low GPu usage in BC2 however i havent noticed any of these problems what so ever! Im 99% usage in every game i have except cod4 which is a given

 

[xkche]

Uhhh theres a reason why they say it depends on your setup and game settings in the release notes.

Sarcastic mode jajajaj

Side note: theres people on OCN complaining about FERmi low GPu usage in BC2 however i havent noticed any of these problems what so ever! Im 99% usage in every game i have except cod4 which is a given

i'm gonna check this info... tnks!!!

 

[hat]

Uhhh theres a reason why they say it depends on your setup and game settings in the release notes.

Side note: theres people on OCN complaining about FERmi low GPu usage in BC2 however i havent noticed any of these problems what so ever! Im 99% usage in every game i have except cod4 which is a given

Yeah, depends on what driver you're coming from as well... I bet they use really old drivers to fudge those so called performance increases we see every time.

 

[JrRacinFan]

The latest beta were rubbish, first and last time that I use an Nvidia beta driver. As always I'll do a fresh/clean install of Windows, install this WHQL drivers and I'll be set for months. EDIT: See JrRacinFan, I'm lazier than you.

LOL...

It was starting to bother me that I didn't have the latest, you know that OCD pet peeve kinda thing some people have. Downloaded and installed 10 mins ago. So far working good, no change from what I can tell.

 

[MxPhenom 216]

LOL...

It was starting to bother me that I didn't have the latest, you know that OCD pet peeve kinda thing some people have. Downloaded and installed 10 mins ago. So far working good, no change from what I can tell.

Im at 258.96 drivers still. are these worth it to install??

 

[JrRacinFan]

Im at 258.96 drivers still. are these worth it to install??

I do know coming from those to 260.63's (or was it 36's) I had quite a performance gain. Most I could say is I would assume so. Oh also to add, I was on the latest 266 betas before installing these.

 

[Flibolito]

Any word on if this fixed the BC2 spots that people are getting (including me) in a few of the new Vietnam maps. I know the issue exists on both AMD and Nvidia cards just wondering. I'll check tonight if i can.

 

[MxPhenom 216]

Any word on if this fixed the BC2 spots that people are getting (including me) in a few of the new Vietnam maps. I know the issue exists on both AMD and Nvidia cards just wondering. I'll check tonight if i can.

Its a game problem i think

 

[qu4k3r]

I'm using new drivers and there is a little improve of gaming performance on my pc.

F1 2010: all settings very high.
AA=4x
260.99 : Avg/min = 43/37 fps
266.58 : Avg/min = 48/44 fps
AA=0
260.99 : Avg/min = 47/39 fps
266.58 : Avg/min = 57/49 fps

DiRT2: all settings ultra.
AA=4x
260.99 : Avg/min = 60/51 fps
266.58 : Avg/min = 60/48 fps
AA=0
260.99 : Avg/min = 72/54 fps
266.58 : Avg/min = 72/61 fps

FarCry2: all settings very high.
AA=4x
260.99: min/avg/max = 50/81/122 fps
266.58: min/avg/max = 55/81/114 fps
AA=0
260.99: min/avg/max = 61/88/141 fps
266.58: min/avg/max = 58/92/144 fps

 

[HammerON]

Might try this one...

Still don't see support for SLI in 3DMark 11
I am surprised that NVIDIA hasn't addressed this issue yet<>

 

[v12dock]

Ugg this laptop is super picky. 2 crash today... how are these different from the beta, when I was able to achieve complete stability

 

[johnspack]

It's actually a good driver. Folds good, and does sli good.

 

[claylomax]

Might try this one...

Still don't see support for SLI in 3DMark 11
I am surprised that NVIDIA hasn't addressed this issue yet<>

Although it's not in the release notes, there is SLI support for 3DMARK 11.

 

[dalekdukesboy]

It's actually a good driver. Folds good, and does sli good.

yeah, cept for me they absolutely suck for the current game I play in SLI with gtx 470's...which is gothic 4 and supposedly part of the update was to "improve" the sli support for that game, all the same settings to the T and I was in the 50's with 260.99 drivers...maybe 40's at the least in demanding areas/fights etc...I tried these drivers no less than 2 times with a clean install both times and same save game and same area netted me low 30's and 20's for that game! And for shits and giggles I re-installed the old driver same way with clean install...same 50's fps frame-rate, go figure when it specifically promotes the driver for sli as an improvement from older drivers lol. Maybe it was an improvement from the last driver which was even WORSE than the new driver!

•Enhances SLI profiles for the following PC games:
•Age of Conan
Arcania: Gothic 4
Civilization V - DX11
•Lost Planet 2
•World Of Warcraft

I mean...there it is, "enhances sli profiles"? Does that mean almost halving my framerates is "enhancing" my game experience somehow? I find it almost comical how bad a decrease it is, granted every setup as they say provides different results but it should be almost a guaranteed improvement for a game they specifically engineer an enhancement for...unless that driver just really doesn't like my setup for some reason, but I tried another game and it worked about the same...go figure.

 

[HammerON]

Although it's not in the release notes, there is SLI support for 3DMARK 11.

I will try it when I get off work tonight

Thanks

 

[hv43082]

So if we installed this, do we still need the SLI profile enhancement from EVGA?

 

[Laurijan]

Rivatuner is not recognizing the newest Nvidia GTX460 driver 266.58 (WinXP) - tried the older one 260.99 and it dont work either. With not working I mean the hardware-monitor not working etc.
Any ideas?