Geforce 301.42 WHQL driver launched

[cech]

Recently I was reading on a website about new games that will be released. While reading the articles about the game, my sight fell on an article which showed that Nvidia has launched new graphic drivers. The name was Geforce 301.42 WHQL driver which was mentioned. I am currently using Evga GTX 560 Ti in my computer. I wanted to know if these new driver launched by Nvidia will be compatible with my graphic card or not. Also which games will now have better performance due to this enhancement? Can anybody provide me information about this new Geforce 301.42 WHQL driver?

[Non-$ensoi]

This new graphic driver, that is, Geforce 301.42 WHQL driver provides a better anti-aliasing feature that provides better quality of smoothing at a faster rate than before. It will provide an option for shader based anti-aliasing from the control panel of your computer which will be supported many of the PC games that are available in the market as well will be launched in the market in coming days. The default anti-aliasing Geforce 301.42 WHQL driver will provide will be equivalent to MSAA, which is 4x multi sampling. The best part of this enhancement made in the graphic driver is that this anti-aliasing feature will work 60% faster than its previous versions and drivers. This feature of advanced anti-aliasing will be useful in giving more details to the objects that are made on the transparent layers, for example, leaves of trees and bushes. You will find a noticeable difference in games like Portal 2 where the geometry of the objects consists of many sharp edges and the coloring scheme used in the background is contrasting.

[Sib Bachchan]

Geforce 301.42 WHQL driver will also add more dynamicity in the V-Sync that is provided by the graphic card. Due to this dynamicity, the graphic card will enable and disable the V-Sync as the framerate of any game rise and fall. When the framerate goes down to a specified limit, the graphic driver will stop V-Sync till the framerate come at a designated level again. This feature will help to reduce the micro-stutter and the page tearing that is seen in many games. Also many new features for systems using multiple monitor setups have been introduced in this graphic driver. It provides the option to have an accessory display, that is fourth display to view other documents, browse internet and do text editing while playing games. The support for the fourth display will be achieved by sharing the resources from the third graphic card. It will also provide options to maximize any application in all three displays at a time and the taskbar being applied only in the centre display. The PhysX System Software will be updated to v9.12.0213 in Geforce 301.42 WHQL driver. It will install the OpenGl version 4.2. If you are using a graphic card from GeForce GTX 600 series, then this new graphic driver will add support for DisplayPort 1.2. The HD Audio will be updated to v1.3.16.0. The other features will be almost same, that inclusion of support for DirectX9, 10 and 11. Also the settings and the types of SLI will be retained, that is, 3-way SLI, Quad SLI, and SLI support will be provided for SLI-certified motherboards manufactured by Intel and AMD.

[CamilleT]

The newly introduced graphic driver by Nvidia will also work with custom applications provided by the graphic cad manufacturers. In your case, you use an Evga GTX 560 Ti, so you can use Evga’s Precision X application along with Geforce 301.42 WHQL driver to restrict the framerate by setting custom parameters to it. This will be helpful to maintain compatibility with old game. Also if proper hardware is available along with the graphic card, then this application can dynamically overclock and underclock the graphic card to provide a well balanced performance in the game. Also after I installed this graphic driver, that is, Geforce 301.42 WHQL driver, I can now run some latest games in highest display settings possible. I can now run Batman: Arkham City at a resolution of 1920 X 1080 with graphic details set at very high. Also the values of Tessellation, FXAA and PhysX are set to high. Other games that I am running at the maximum graphic settings are BulletStorm, Saints Row the Third, Civilization V, Just Cause 2 and Star Craft II. When playing these games in SLI mode, I see an improvement of 2% to 4 % as compared to performance using older version of graphic driver.

[Lennon Norris]

Geforce 301.42 WHQL driver has added and also updated SLI profile for many games which includes Alan Wake, Call of Juarez: The Cartel, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Deus Ex: Human Revolution - The Missing Link, Left 4 Dead, Orcs Must Die!, Portal 2, Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City, Risen 2: Dark Waters, The Darkness II, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Crusader Kings II, Max Payne 3, Sniper Elite V2 and Street Fighter X Tekken. Many of the mentioned games already had SLI support, but many of them failed to achieve in specific graphic card or maybe some bugs would start showing up. So Nvidia has minimized most of these bugs and added compatibility to the SLI technology in Geforce 301.42 WHQL driver.

Many games will also get enhancement by addition of Nvidia’s 3D Vision technology in this graphic driver. Some of the games that will have updated Nvidia’s 3D Vision technology as well as addition of it are All Zombies Must Die!, Ghosts 'n Goblins Online, Oil Rush, Postal III, Rayman Origins, SevenCore, Stacking, Wargame: European Escalation, Warp, Wings of Prey, Krater, Adam's Venture Episode 1, Blacklight: Retribution, The Darkness II, Depth Hunter, Dirt: Showdown, Resident Evil: Operating Raccoon City, rFactor 2, Trackmania 2: Canyon and World of Tanks. Though the results of 3D Vision may not be same for all the games, it will be working with best performance for Oil Rush and rFactor 2. But similarly, it won’t properly or to be precise, the output won’t be as good as other games for Krater and Blacklight: Retribution.