NVIDIA has updated its beta ForceWare driver to version 174.53, which is intended for use only on the GeForce 9600 GT and the new 9800 GX2. The only changes in this release are new PureVideo HD features for the GX2 card. Download locations are as follows:

• Windows XP 32-bit - here
• Windows XP 64-bit - here
• Windows Vista 32-bit - here
• Windows Vista 64-bit - here

NVIDIA has updated its beta ForceWare driver to version 169.44, which supports just about all GeForce 6, 7 and 8 series graphics cards, although the 9600 GT is not listed as being supported. This driver is intended for use with the recently released Crysis 1.2 patch, and the download locations are as follows:

• Windows XP 32-bit - here
• Windows XP 64-bit - here
• Windows Vista 32-bit - here
• Windows Vista 64-bit - here

Another day, another ForceWare driver. NVIDIA has released the 174.16 beta of its display driver, which is intended for the 9600 GT. It is available for all versions of Windows XP and Vista, and although it may support other cards the 9600 GT is the only card listed on NVIDIA's website. Download locations are as follows:

• Windows XP 32-bit - here
• Windows XP 64-bit - here
• Windows Vista 32-bit - here
• Windows Vista 64-bit - here

Oh boy, more unstable drivers! If you enjoy playing with such things, ForceWare 174.13 supports the GeForce 8200, 9200, nForce 730a, 750a, 780a and GeForce 9800GX2. Here are linkies if you want to give it a whirl.

ForceWare 174.13 x86.

ForceWare 174.13 x64.

NVIDIA's 174.12 beta ForceWare driver has found its way onto the internet and can now be downloaded for all versions of Windows XP and Vista. It supports just about all GeForce 6,7 and 8 series cards, although there are no release notes. The download locations are as follows:

• Windows XP 32-bit - here
• Windows XP 64-bit - here
• Windows Vista 32-bit - here
• Windows Vista 64-bit - here

NVIDIA's new 171.23 and 173.80 beta drivers for Windows XP 32-bit and Windows Vista 32-bit respectively have found their way onto the internet, although no new 64-bit drivers are available. There are no release notes unfortunately because the drivers are not officially available from NVIDIA, but they should support just about all current GeForce 6, 7 and 8 series cards, as well as the upcoming 8200 and 9200 cards. The download locations are as follows:

• Windows XP 32-bit - here
• Windows Vista 32-bit - here

NVIDIA has released new ForceWare drivers version 169.32 dated January 29, 2008. This ForceWare 169.32 WHQL driver is for use with GeForce 8800 GS GPUs only.

DOWNLOAD:
Windows XP 32-bit|Windows XP 64-bit|Windows Vista 32-bit|Windows Vista 64-bit

The 171.16 beta of NVIDIA's ForceWare driver for Windows Vista 32-bit has been leaked onto the internet, but as this isn't an official release there is little information about any changes - Expreview has run a few tests and found the average increase in performance to be 2.05% on an 8800 GT. The driver, which supports just about all GeForce 6, 7 and 8 series cards, can be downloaded here (Vista 32-bit only).

NVIDIA has updated its beta ForceWare driver to version 169.28, which supports just about all GeForce FX, 6, 7 and 8 series graphics cards. This driver is recommended for customers experiencing issues with the retail version of Unreal Tournament 3. Download locations are as follows (there is no driver for the 64-bit version of Windows XP):

• Windows XP 32-bit - here
• Windows Vista 32-bit - here
• Windows Vista 64-bit - here

NVIDIA has updated its WHQL ForceWare driver for Windows Vista to version 169.25, which supports just about all GeForce FX, 6, 7 and 8 series graphics cards. The changes in this release are added support for 3-way SLI, added support for the new 512MB 8800 GTS and numerous game and compatibility fixes. Download locations are as follows:

• Windows Vista 32-bit - here
• Windows Vista 64-bit - here

NVIDIA ForceWare 169.21 WHQL Released

NVIDIA has updated its WHQL ForceWare driver to version 169.21 for Windows XP, which supports just about all GeForce FX, 6, 7 and 8 series graphics cards. The changes in this release are added support for the new 512MB 8800 GTS and numerous game and application compatibility fixes. Download locations are as follows:

• Windows XP 32-bit - here
• Windows XP 64-bit - here

Now that 3-way SLI is released, NVIDIA has updated the ForceWare family to 169.25 BETA. This release adds:

• BETA driver for GeForce 6, 7, and 8 series GPUs.
• Added support for NVIDIA 3-way SLI Technology.
• Added support for GeForce 8800 GTS 512 GPU.
• Recommended driver for the latest DirectX 9, DirectX 10, and OpenGL applications.
• Numerous game and application compatibility fixes. Please refer to the release documentation for more information on features, driver fixes, and known issues.

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The 169.21 BETA release of NVIDIA's ForceWare drivers for GeForce 6, 7, and 8 series GPUs highlights the following improvements:

• Added support for GeForce 8800 GTS 512 GPU.
• Recommended driver for the latest DirectX 9, DirectX 10, and OpenGL applications.
• Numerous game and application compatibility fixes. Please refer to the release documentation for more information on features, driver fixes, and known issues.

DOWNLOAD

Following the unofficial release of its 169.13 display driver earlier this week, NVIDIA has once again uploaded new drivers to its downloads server in the form of the 169.17 betas. As these aren't intended to have been released yet, there are no driver information pages, but apparently these drivers are only recommended for people that play Final Fantasy XI. If you want to give them a try, here are the download links (direct to NVIDIA's FTP server):

• Windows XP 32-bit - here
• Windows XP 64-bit - here
• Windows Vista 32-bit - here
• Windows Vista 64-bit - here

NVIDIA has updated its beta ForceWare driver to version 169.13, which supports just about all GeForce 6, 7 and 8 series graphics cards. The only listed changes in this release are increased SLI performance in Crysis when the official patch (which hasn't been released yet) is installed and a fixed Sleep/Hibernate issue with the 8800 GT on Windows Vista. Download locations are as follows:

• Windows XP 32-bit - here
• Windows XP 64-bit - here
• Windows Vista 32-bit - here
• Windows Vista 64-bit - here

Update: NVIDIA seems to have withdrawn the driver information pages, but I've updated the links directly to the download location. Let me know if they stop working and I'll find another site which hosts them.

Following AMD's new drivers, NVIDIA has released the ForceWare 169.12 BETA package for Windows Vista 32/64-bit. This BETA driver is for use with GeForce 6, 7, and 8 series GPUs only. It fixes a resume from Sleep/Hibernate issue with GeForce 8800 GT. NVIDIA recommends this driver for Crysis although there are no Crysis changes from release 169.09.

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NVIDIA has updated its beta ForceWare driver to version 169.09, which supports just about all GeForce FX, 6, 7 and 8 series graphics cards including the 8800 GT. The only changes in this release are application and compatibility fixes, and this is the recommended driver for Crysis. Download locations are as follows:

• Windows XP 32-bit - here
• Windows XP 64-bit - here
• Windows Vista 32-bit - here
• Windows Vista 64-bit - here

NVIDIA has released new ForceWare 163.75 WHQL certified driver for GeForce FX, 6, 7, and 8 series GPUs. ForceWare 163.75 has improved compatibility and performance for NVIDIA SLI technology on DirectX 9, and OpenGL applications. It also adds support for the following Motherboard GPUs:

• GeForce 7150 / NVIDIA nForce 630i
• GeForce 7100 / NVIDIA nForce 630i
• GeForce 7100 / NVIDIA nForce 620i
• GeForce 7050 / NVIDIA nForce 630i
• GeForce 7050 / NVIDIA nForce 610i

Please read the release notes for more information on product support, features, driver fixes and known compatibility issues.

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An interesting article over at Elite Bastards has revealed that NVIDIA's latest 169.04 driver for its GeForce series of graphics cards may in fact be sacrificing image quality in the new Crysis game in order to gain better performance. If you look at the first two images below, you will see quite clearly that the reflections in the water have been unrealistically stretched and look quite odd. The obvious explanation for this would be that NVIDIA's new driver is having issues rendering the shadows and you'd expect the company to fix it. However, this issue may run a little deeper than that. When the Crysis executable has its name changed from crysis.exe to driverbug.exe, these strange shadows mysteriously look normal all of a sudden, as shown in the second two images. Further tests revealed that the renamed executable was actually performing around 7% worse on a number of tests using both an 8800 GTS and an 8800 GT compared to the default name. So it seems that NVIDIA has tried to subtly increase the framerate when playing Crysis using its cards at the cost of image quality, without giving customers any choice in the matter. Some sites are claiming that NVIDIA is using driver tweaks to 'cheat' and gain better performance, and whilst that may be an extreme way of looking at it, this certainly seems like more than just an accidental driver issue.

Just a day after version 169.02 became available, more beta NVIDIA drivers have been released, this time version 169.04. The driver supports all GeForce 6, 7 and 8 desktop cards (as well as FX cards on Windows XP), with a number of compatibility fixes and performance improvements - this is the recommended driver for both Crysis and TimeShift. Download locations are as follows:

Windows XP 32-bit
Windows XP 64-bit
Windows Vista 32-bit
Windows Vista 64-bit

NVIDIA has released new WHQL Candidate ForceWare drivers version 169.02, made especially for the newly-released GeForce 8800 GT.

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Just in time for the release of Crytek's next-gen FPS, NVIDIA has unleashed a new Crysis demo recommended ForceWare drivers. The ForceWare 169.01 beta comes with support for GeForce 6, 7 and 8 series of video cards. This release also adds several game and application compatibility fixes.

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NVIDIA has released new beta ForceWare drivers version 163.75 for GeForce 6, 7, and 8 series GPUs. What's new in this release:

• Added product support for the following NVIDIA Motherboard GPUs: GeForce 7050, GeForce 7100 and GeForce 7150
• Improved compatibility for Half-Life 2: Episode 2.
  Added NVIDIA SLI profiles for Portal, Clive Barker's Jericho, SEGA Rally Revo, NHL 08, and European Street Racing
• Several game and application compatibility fixes

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NVIDIA has now released the WHQL version of its 163.71 ForceWare display driver for all GeForce FX, 6, 7 and 8 series graphics cards running on Windows XP. The main changes are improved SLI performance in OpenGL 2.1 and DirectX 9.0c, game fixes in titles such as BioShock and Crysis, new PureVideo HD decoding acceleration for GeForce 8600, 8500 and 8400 users and numerous application compatibility fixes.

Download: 32-bit | 64-bit

I don't know if NVIDIA is going to continue releasing new drivers every week, but here we have another one. In this release of NVIDIA ForceWare 163.71 BETA drivers for GeForce 6, 7 and 8 series you'll find nothing new, but added NVIDIA SLI profile for Team Fortress 2 and improved compatibility for PT Boats: Knights of the Sea. If you're willing to give it a try, click on the link below.

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