Nvidia Now Offering Direct Driver Updates For Notebooks

Nvidia announced today that laptop users can now directly download upgradeable graphics drivers for their Nvidia graphics processing unit-equipped notebooks directly from Nvidia.com. The drivers will add new features, optimize performance, and better application compatibility. The Beta drivers for GeForce® 8 and 9-series GPUs or Quadro NVS-equipped notebooks are available today, with WHQL-certified version supporting all GeForce 7, 8, and 9 series and Quadro NVS series notebook GPUs coming early next year.

“Nvidia is committed to giving the rapidly growing number of customers using notebook GPUs the same performance optimizations and innovative graphics features that desktop customers have grown accustomed to,” said Dwight Diercks, vice president of software engineering at Nvidia. “To accomplish this, we have worked diligently over the past year to modularize our driver architecture and develop a unified driver install package that will not only work with notebooks from all manufacturers but also maintain all of their specific model customizations such as hotkeys and suspend and resume functionality.”

This should be particularly good news for gamers, as Nvidia’s PhysX technology will allow games to deliver much higher visual complexity on the screen. You can look forward to more realistic (and debris-filled) explosions and lifelike movement. Media creators will also see a significant improvement:

Video applications such as Badaboom from Elemental Technologies, Power Director 7 from Cyberlink, TMPGEnc from Pegasys Software, and TotalMedia Theater from Arcsoft are all seeing significant performance benefits by transferring the workload from the CPU to the more efficient GPU.

Some notebook lines are excluded from the current driver updates with a note for users to contact their notebook OEMs for the updates:

• Dell Vostro
• Dell Latitude
• Lenovo ThinkPad
• Sony VAIO

Official Press Release