Posts Tagged ‘vista’
nVidia 182.06 WHQL Drivers Released
nVidia released their latest set of drivers, 182.06, which come packed with improvements in many games and full OpenGL 3.0 support. These drivers work with GeForce 6, 7, 8, 9, and 200-series cards. Here’s what comes with the download:
- Recommended for the best experience in F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin.
- Boosts performance in several 3D applications. The following are examples of improvements measured with Release 182.06 WHQL drivers vs. Release 181.22 WHQL drivers (results will vary depending on your GPU, system configuration, and game settings):
- Up to 8% performance increase in Fallout 3 at high resolution and AA.
- Up to 10% performance increase in F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin.
- Up to 9% performance increase in Half-Life 2 at high resolution with AA.
- Up to 11% performance increase in Left 4 Dead at high resolution with AA.
- Up to 10% performance increase in Race Driver: GRID at high resolution and AA
- Includes full support for OpenGL 3.0 on GeForce 8-series, 9-series, and 200-series GPUs.
- Automatically installs the new PhysX System Software version 9.09.0203.
Download : nVidia ForceWare 182.06 for Windows XP 32-bit
Download : nVidia ForceWare 182.06 for Windows XP 64-bit
nVidia 177.41 WHQL Drivers Released
nVidia has some new drivers, but note that if you already have the 175.16 WHQL Drivers, you are already up-to-date unless you just bought one of nVidia’s brand new 200 series cards.
Download : nVidia ForceWare 177.41 for Windows XP 32-bit (37.2 MB)
Download : nVidia ForceWare 177.41 for Windows XP 64-bit (48.1 MB)
Download : nVidia ForceWare 177.41 for Windows Vista 32-bit (35.5 MB)
Download : nVidia ForceWare 177.41 for Windows Vista 64-bit (49.5 MB)
The GeForce GTX 280 is the best graphics card to-date, and probably the best processor to-date too, with 240 processing cores! Most processors on the market today have 2 cores, with powerful processors utilizing 4. The amount of power availible in the 280 is almost unimaginable. The 280 is the world’s first graphics card that can run Crysis at a screen resolution of 1900×1280 with settings on high at 15 frames per second. The closest card to that can run it at only <1 frame per second. Overall, the GeForce GTX 280 is an insanely powerful graphics card that comes at the hefty price of $650.
Windows XP To Be Continued Until 2010
Microsoft just announced that Windows XP can continue to be shipped on low-cost PC’s until 2010. They said earlier in the year that they would discontinue XP in June 2008, but because of all the protests against it, they decided to change their decision. Companies have been pressuring Microsoft to do this too because Vista, a power-hungry OS, while XP runs great on low-end PC’s that are becoming more popular among the non-gaming crowd. When asked about more powerful machines, Microsoft said that even though they are keeping XP on the market for low-end PC’s, they won’t have exact specifications on the computers XP can be used on. One of the PC’s that MS is keeping XP around for is the Eee PC, which is a cheap ($300 or less) laptop that is built for internet browsing and video viewing, coming with a max hard drive of 250 GB and 802.11n Wi-Fi for browsing around the internet.
ATI Catalyst 8.5 WHQL Drivers Released
ATI released their new Catalyst drivers, bringing in new features like 1080p HDTV support, Windows XP Service Pack 3 support, and improved HDMI Audio, among other things. Take a look over the changelog if you want to see all the specifics that the 8.5 drivers bring. The drivers are fully compatible with Windows XP and Windows Vista 32 and 64 bit, and a reboot is required (what program doesn’t require a reboot?) after installation. So if you’re an ATI user on a Windows machine, download the update and get new features and bug fixes to make your computer a better machine.
DExposE2 Does For Windows What Expose Does For Macs
DExposE2 for Windows is a great app, even it it’s just a copycat. Actually, I’m not giving it enough credit, this things copies and then improves on the original. For those of you who don’t know what Mac’s Expose does, its pretty simple: Press a key and all of the windows open make themselves smaller so that you can see all of them at once, then click on a window you want to use. There is also another key you can press to hide all of the windows open on the side of the screen, giving you instant desktop access. DExposE2 adds these functions to Windows (XP and Vista), giving it multi-monitor support, mouse-over hot corners, and closing windows.
