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.
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
forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=123304&page=4
Read after half of page 4 till the end of 5th page. I got it before, it has to do ATi Physx.
HI people,I've got a question for you.recently I've updated the driver package for my Gainward GTX470 to 257.21 and after few days a realised one strange behavior of the package.might be not the software,but what else then?..Ok,so I open the Nvidia control panel and after I've customized the 3D settings,I (obviously) press apply to save the settings and now the issue comes:wether I reopen the control panel immediately or after any time passed,the 3D settings are Reseted.I've tried all sort of settings,its the same scenario...any idea?thanks in advance!:banghead:
If the same thing happens to you,it seems that after all its not any issue.You just have to follow couple of steps. first go to 3D settings,then adjust image settings with preview and click on use the advanced 3D image settings and then apply to save.And now you are free to play with the 3D setting and after saving them it wont reset.like in my case...so basically my conclusion is,that if you jump between the 3 settings, Let the 3D aplication decide/Use the advanced 3D image settings/Use my preference emphasizing: to quickly do some settings and previously not apply one of those 3 basic categories of settings,your settings will reset...Well may be its bit silly,but we could call it a small glitch,cos as a ATI Catalyst user I've never had to worry about such a thing.As soon as I did a change in settings,they changed and remained as Custom settings no matter If I did them in one of the Preset setting...