Tag Archives: Forceware

NVIDIA ForceWare 178.13 WHQL Graphics Drivers

NVIDIA has released tody the new version of ForceWare graphics drivers. This is a WHQL-certified driver for GeForce 6-series, 7-series, 8-series, 9-series, and 200-series GPUs, including the newly released GeForce 9800 GTX+, 9800 GT, 9500 GT, and 9400 GT GPUs. PhysX acceleration is supported on all GeForce 8-series, 9-series and 200-series GPUs with a minimum of 256MB dedicated graphics memory (this driver package installs NVIDIA PhysX System Software v8.09.04). From the release note, there are performance improvements with several 3D applications (Assassin’s Creed DX10, Bioshock DX10, Call of Duty 4 and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars).


Downloads:

[Geeks3D-Test] NVIDIA ForceWare 177.83 vs 177.92 – OpenGL Side


Just a little performance test of the latest ForceWare 177.92 BETA versus the latest ForceWare 177.83 WHQL using oZone3D.Net OpenGL Benchmarks Suite and Lightsmark2008:

Release 177.83 Release 177.92 Difference
FurMark 1280×1024 4272 4272 0%
Soft Shadows Branching OFF 6054 5817 -4%
Soft Shadows Branching ON 10198 9542 -6.5%
Surface Deformer 7721 7716 0%
FluidMark GeForce PhysX 9626 9579 -0.5%
FluidMark Software PhysX 1495 1503 0%
Lightsmark2008 766.7 759.4 0%

Well… many websites have claimed that release 177.92 brings a boost in performance. Maybe in Direct3D (I also ran Aquamark and 3DMark2006 under WinXP and I didn’t see differences) under Vista. But in OpenGL, there is no performance gain.

Related links:

NVIDIA ForceWare 177.92: GeForce GTX 280 OpenGL Extensions

Here is the list of OpenGL extensions supported by Forceware 177.92 WinXP 32 drivers for a GeForce GTX 280.

ForceWare 177.92 offer the same OpenGL extensions than Forceware 177.66. OpenGL 3.0 support is not included in these drivers.

Graphics card used: EVGA GeForce GTX 280 / 1Gb

– Drivers Version: Forceware 6.14.11.7789
– OpenGL Version: 2.1.2
– GLSL (OpenGL Shading Language) Version: 1.20 NVIDIA via Cg compiler
– OpenGL Renderer: GeForce GTX 280/PCI/SSE2
– Drivers Renderer: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280
– ARB Texture Units: 16
– Vertex Shader Texture Units: 32
– Pixel Shader Texture Units: 32
– Geometry Shader Texture Units: 32
– Max Texture Size: 8192×8192
– Max Anisotropic Filtering Value: X16.0
– Max Point Sprite Size: 63.4
– Max Dynamic Lights: 8
– Max Viewport Size: 8192×8192
– Max Vertex Uniform Components: 4096
– Max Fragment Uniform Components: 2048
– Max Varying Float: 60
– Max Vertex Bindable Uniforms: 12
– Max Fragment Bindable Uniforms: 12
– Max Geometry Bindable Uniforms: 12
– Multiple Render Targets / Max draw buffers: 8
– MSAA: 2X
– MSAA: 4X
– MSAA: 8X
– MSAA: 16X
– MSAA: 32X

OpenGL Extensions: 162 extensions

The extensions exposed by the old ForceWare drivers are HERE.
You can use GPU Caps Viewer to retrieve the list of extensions of your graphics card.

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