Originally posted on April 28, 2010 @ 3:28 am
Finally, NVIDIA will unify its driver releases for laptops and desktop computers. This move, expected to be rolled out gradually over the next few weeks and months, will simplify the process of updating your graphics drivers. Instead of waiting for a driver from your computer’s manufacturer, all you need to do is to go to NVIDIA’s website and grab the latest drivers from there. One driver release for all computers, manufacturer-independent.
From Hothardware:
NVIDIA’s Verde GPU drivers, as they are called, will bring the company’s mobile GPU drivers up to feature parity with desktop GeForce drivers. This is particularly important as of late, because the GPU is being used for more than just gaming. Owners of notebooks with discrete NVIDIA GPUs that wanted to take advantage of the increasing number of CUDA-enabled applications, for example, can’t do so if their notebook drivers didn’t enable CUDA.
The Verde drivers aren’t only about CUDA-support, however. With recent driver releases, NVIDIA has also implemented features like ambient occlusion and included compatibility updates and SLI profiles for many new games, in addition to 3D Vision support (with a compatible notebook). NVIDIA will also be releasing a feature called 3D TV Play, which will allow notebook users to connect their systems to 3D TVs, to exploit the benefits of 3D Vision and 3D multimedia content using the glasses included with the TV. And let’s not forget about performance. NVIDIA’s 197 series drivers also offer significantly increased performance in a number of games and applications, over the old 17x / 18x series drivers. And those performance increases can sometimes make a game that was previously unplayable on the mobile GPU, playable.
I can’t stress enough that I’m all for this. Anything that will make computer maintenance less complicated than it really is, is welcome.