NVIDIA Releases GeForce 337.50 Performance-Focused Graphis Driver

[Cristian_25H]

NVIDIA has now made available the GeForce 337.50, a new, beta-tagged graphics driver that is claimed to deliver 'performance gains of up to 71% in DirectX 11 games'. This release boosts both single-GPU and SLI performance while also including tweaks to reduce game load time, new and updated SLI profiles, plus 3D Vision optimizations.

The GeForce 337.50 beta supports GeForce 8, 9, 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600 and 700 Series cards and comes bundled with GeForce Experience 2.0 which brings ShadowPlay desktop capture, advanced Twitch streaming controls, ShadowPlay for notebooks, and SHIELD GameStream support for notebooks.

Download: Windows 8.1/8/7/Vista (32-bit) / Windows 8.1/8/7/Vista (64-bit) / Windows XP (32-bit) / Windows XP (64-bit)





New in GeForce 337.50 Beta drivers

Performance - Introduces key DirectX optimizations which result in reduced game-loading times and significant performance increases across a wide variety of games. Results will vary depending on your GPU and system configuration. Here are some examples of measured gains versus the previous 335.23 WHQL driver:
GeForce GTX 700 Series (Single GPU):

• Up to 64% in Total War: Rome II
• Up to 25% in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
• Up to 23% in Sleeping Dogs
• Up to 21% in Star Swarm
• Up to 15% in Batman: Arkham Origins
• Up to 10% in Metro: Last Light
• Up to 8% in Hitman Absolution
• Up to 7% in Sniper Elite V2
• Up to 6% in Tomb Raider
• Up to 6% in F1 2013

GeForce GTX 700 Series (SLI):

• Up to 71% in Total War: Rome II
• Up to 53% in Sniper Elite V2
• Up to 45% in Aliens vs. Predator
• Up to 31% in Sleeping Dogs
• Up to 20% in CoD: Black Ops 2
• Up to 10% in Hitman Absolution
• Up to 9% in F1 2013
• Up to 7% in Far Cry 3
• Up to 6% in Metro: Last Light
• Up to 6% in Batman: Arkham Origins

SLI Technology

• Total War: Rome II - added profile
• War Thunder - added profile
• Watch Dogs - updated profile
• Diablo III - updated profile

Gaming Technology

• Supports GeForce ShadowPlay technology
• Supports GeForce ShadowPlay Twitch Streaming

SHIELD

• Supports NVIDIA GameStream technology

3D Vision

• Supports new "3D Compatibility Mode" for 3D Vision that enables us to improve the 3D experience for many key DirectX 10 and 11 games.

3D Vision Profiles

• Path of Exile - rated "Good"
• KickBeat - rating now "Excellent"

3D Compatibility Mode Profiles

• Assassin's Creed Liberation - previously "Not Recommended", now rated as "Excellent"
• Sniper Elite: Nazi Zombie Army - previously "Good", now rated as "Excellent"
• Sniper Elite: Nazi Zombie Army 2 - previously "Good", now rated as "Excellent"
• Strike Suit Zero - previously "Not Recommended", now rated as "Good"
• Watchdogs - rated as "Good"

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Rahmat Sofyan]

"Performance-Focused"...I wish no Quality decrease...

If this all was true, kudos to nvidia, they can optimize their cards only with driver, not like AMD need new API...

 

[john_]

"Performance-Focused"...I wish no Quality decrease...

If this all was true, kudos to nvidia, they can optimize their cards only with driver, not like AMD need new API...

Both companies optimize their drivers. It is not something new, it is just normal. What changes from time to time is the number of slides and the size of the marketing campaign before a driver release.

 

[THE_EGG]

Someone really needs to do a review on this driver for game performance before I start believing those huge increases are true.

 

[Hilux SSRG]

Is this the anticipated "WONDER 337.xx driver" that was touted at the GTC conference as giving massive gains in Dx11? I hope so, it was supposed to reduce CPU overhead with "tiled resources" and provide big increases. I can't wait to try.

 

[Kaynar]

I just hope future drivers will increase performance on all games due to the new way of API interaction and that this will not be the typical "oh hey here are improvements on a year old games or games that nobody ever played". Glad to see the improvements on TW2 and Skyrim which seem huge, this means that poorly coded games actually see huge performance increase from this new way of dealing with the API.

 

[the54thvoid]

Someone really needs to do a review on this driver for game performance before I start believing those huge increases are true.

A very mini one - not too convincing (by which I mean a bit hyped perhaps)
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7926/...r-offers-significant-performance-improvements

 

[Hilux SSRG]

A very mini one - not too convincing (by which I mean a bit hyped perhaps)
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7926/...r-offers-significant-performance-improvements

Not a bad review but I find Anandtech's video card reviews in generally lacking [compared to TPU of course].

NVidia/Amd always spout extra hype for product and driver releases. But glad for Amd pushing Mantle out bc its forced Nvidia to push further improvements.

 

[HumanSmoke]

Like Mantle, it comes down to whether the game is CPU limited (possible gains) or GPU limited (no gain).
Most games are GPU limited, so I'd doubt you'd see massive framerate increases. G3D tested 780 Ti SLI which should show that CPU limitation before that of GPU.
Seems fairly obvious from the results, that games that aren't utilizing the CPU to any great extent.
As an example, Bioshock Infinite is obviously not CPU limited. Crysis 3 on the other hand, most definitely is.

As for whether the actual gains tally with the press slide kit, is this a something that happens with any vendor?

 

[Xzibit]

A very mini one - not too convincing (by which I mean a bit hyped perhaps)
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7926/nvidia-releases-33750-beta-driver-offers-significant-performance-improvements

Total War: Rome II.

Any gains are welcome. I'll hold out on installing them. Need to see more reviews on these and see what feedback they get.

I suspect that 0.01 increase from R331-R337 would have been smaller if R335 was tested. I also wouldn't call it a Dramatic Improvement.

 

[Fluffmeister]

As with 337.50 Beta’s single-GPU DirectX 11 optimizations, CPU overhead reductions apply globally, benefitting the majority of DirectX 9, DirectX 10, and DirectX 11 games the instant they go on sale. Per-game optimizations will continue to be developed before and after a game’s release, but now every game can potentially see an immediate boost.

Source: http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/nvidia-geforce-337-50-beta-performance-driver

The beauty is these drivers reduce CPU overhead across multiple games, rather than specific games running a vendor locked API.

Obviously if you are GPU bound, then they aren't going to work miracles, no different from Mantle.

 

[Assimilator]

These drivers are currently eliciting a "meh" from me, but perhaps they are meant to help lower-spec cards more, like Mantle? Regardless, currently they don't give any performance boost close to what Mantle achieved, so it seems the nVIDIA hype machine is trying to make a mountain out of a molehill, again.

 

[Eagleye]

All this hype over nothing. Its 2/3 FPs at best from 335 to 337 ROFLMAO

 

[Fluffmeister]

The increases are marginal, thankfully everyone is using a decent Intel CPU these days.

 

[mastrdrver]

The increases are marginal, thankfully everyone is using a decent Intel CPU these days.

Exactly! I'd like to see if what (if any) performance increase there is with something from the lower end of the CPU spectrum. If nVidia is touting this as a Mantle beater, then stop using the fastest CPU they can get. Use something on the lower end. If they still do it, then they have something to talk about. Until then it's all marketing fluff.

 

[Nordic]

Someone elses testing, showed that they got 7 fps more but vastly smoother gameplay.

On my old 3Ghz I7, GTX570 my framerate increased from 82 to 89 with the new driver. The overview for the runs looks something like

As can be seen, the first lap around the map causes all kinds of hickups for me - this was a freshly booted machine, and ns2 is on a non-ssd disk, which probably explains it; there are probably some kinds of data that needs to be loaded from disk while you are playing the game

 

[etayorius]

4 mere extra FPS increase on GTX780Ti on Skyrim and 2 on Sleeping Dogs with GTX780Ti, and zero performance increase with a GTX470 on the same games, in all... the performance increase is extremely small, but any extra performance ill take.

 

[Naito]

Exactly! I'd like to see if what (if any) performance increase there is with something from the lower end of the CPU spectrum.

Maybe see if someone around here with an AMD CPU paired with a 600/700 series GPU would run a few benchmarks for us all. See if these drivers really do benefit CPU limited situations.

 

[The Von Matrices]

This is marketing at its best (or worst, depending on how you want to look at it).

Of course the Y-axis doesn't start at zero. Also consider that the difference in MSRP between the cards is 27%, although the actual difference in price is probably lower for US buyers.

 

[sweet]

Total War: Rome II.

Any gains are welcome. I'll hold out on installing them. Need to see more reviews on these and see what feedback they get.

I suspect that 0.01 increase from R331-R337 would have been smaller if R335 was tested. I also wouldn't call it a Dramatic Improvement.

R331 is long time ago, and the bench results R337 vs R331 were not impressive enough for a WONDER DRIVER.
nVidia is great at marketing by the way

 

[HumanSmoke]

This is marketing at its best (or worst, depending on how you want to look at it).

You were expecting the marketing to show the conservative real world gains? When was the last time that happened? Check this snapshot from 16 years ago. Same as it ever was.
BTW, I haven't seen many site test reviews set out incorporating DX11 v Mantle v FW335 v FW337 as per the slide, but ComputerBase gave it a shot as well as a Win 7 vs Win 8.1 comparison

 

[Xzibit]

You were expecting the marketing to show the conservative real world gains? When was the last time that happened? Check this snapshot from 16 years ago. Same as it ever was.
BTW, I haven't seen many site test reviews set out incorporating DX11 v Mantle v FW335 v FW337 as per the slide, but ComputerBase gave it a shot as well as a Win 7 vs Win 8.1 comparison

Thief doesn't look right...

 

[HumanSmoke]

Thief doesn't look right...

You're right. Nvidia credit Mantle as giving a 8-9% speedup over DX11 for the R290X (the same as some review sites FWIW). ComputerBase say 27%. Other than that, the Nvidia slide is conservative - looks as though they rate the 780 Ti as being 16-17% faster than 290X under DX11 with the new driver- ComputerBase say 19%.

 

[rooivalk]

as long as it's free, why not.

 

[SIGSEGV]

Marketing hype and bs. Marketing is how its meant to be played.

Yeah as long as its free. I'll download the driver and install on my windows gaming machine. LOL