GeForce 296.10 WHQL Driver

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NVIDIA sends word that their brand new GeForce 296.10 WHQL drivers are now out. Grab it if you need it, NVIDIA recommends that ALL GeForce owners use the new driver.

This is the second WHQL-certified driver from the R295 family of drivers (versions 295.xx to 299.xx).

This driver is a recommended upgrade for all GeForce users, especially those playing the latest hot PC games like Battlefield 3, Blacklight: Retribution, Diablo III, Mass Effect 3, or The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and more. These drivers come packed with GeForce-exclusive performance and quality enhancements and are Microsoft WHQL-certified.

New in Release 296.10

  • Adds support for the new GeForce GTX 560 SE GPU.
  • Updates PhysX System Software to version 9.12.0213.

Boosts SLI performance in the following games:

  • Blacklight: Retribution – up to 1.8x performance increase
  • DiRT 3 – updated DX11 profile to improve menu performance
  • Dishonored
  • Dungeon Defenders
  • F1 2011 – improves performance with game patch 1.2
  • rFactor 2

Adds 3D Vision support for the following games:

  • Dear Esther – Rated Good
  • Deep Black: Reloaded – Rated 3D Vision Ready
  • Includes numerous bug fixes. Refer to the release notes documentation for more details.

Highlight Summary for the R295 Family of Drivers

New features and performance since R285 WHQL-certified driver:

  • Game-changing performance boost of up to 45% in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, “the fastest selling title in Steam’s history”
  • Up to 2x performance Mass Effect 3 with SLI technology.
  • GeForce-exclusive quality enhancements with ambient occlusion support for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Diablo III, and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
  • New 3D Vision and SLI profiles for over 50 titles.
  • New PhysX software for the best experience in top PhysX titles like Alice: Madness Returns and Batman: Arkham City.
  • Enables WHQL-certified support for NVIDIA Surround on Intel X79 SLI-certified motherboards.
  • Updates HD Audio to version 1.3.12.0.
 
NVIDIA Prepares GeForce GTX 560 SE to Thwart Radeon HD 7770
For an immediate relief from the market-threat looming in the sub-$200 segment with the introduction of AMD's Radeon HD 7770, NVIDIA is planning to carve out a new SKU based on the 40 nm GF114 GPU, the GeForce GTX 560 SE. The new SKU will be positioned below the GeForce GTX 560 (non-Ti), and target price-points well within $200. The new SKU is identical to the OEM-only model GeForce GTX 555. Its specifications follow:
Based on 40 nm GF114 ASIC
288 CUDA cores
48 TMUs, 24 ROPs
192-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface
1 GB standard memory amount (asymmetric memory chip arrangement à la GTX 550 Ti)
Clock speeds: 776 MHz core; 1553 MHz CUDA cores; 952 MHz (3.828 GHz effective) memory, 92 GB/s memory bandwidth
Source: VR-Zone


http://www.techpowerup.com/160646/NVIDIA-Prepares-GeForce-GTX-560-SE-to-Thwart-Radeon-HD-7770.html
 
Boosts SLI performance in Dungeon Defenders?! WHOO!!!

But seriously, SO not graphically intensive. Really fun game, though.
 
No mention (even in release notes) about the acknowledged sleeping monitor prevents cuda processing bug from 295.xx...anyone know if that's fixed yet? It's the only thing preventing me from upgrading my drivers from 290.
 
Game-changing performance boost of up to 45% in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, “the fastest selling title in Steam’s history”

What? THAT much?
 
With nVidia pushing their drivers to the edge with games like Skyrim, I might end up getting both a HD7870 and a GTX 670 and swapping them out depending on the game I'm gonna play.
 
Caught my eye too. Makes me wonder what the disconnect was between Bethesda and Nvidia that the game got released with 45% worse performance then possible on Nvidia cards.

Nvidia and AMD cards performed very similarly in Skyrim before (7970>580>6970, same as other games), so I don't think it's really a problem specific to Nvidia cards.

I think it's more a case of Skyrim not being very well optimized in general. Like most cross-platform games it doesn't even use more than 2 CPU cores. Also Patch 1.4 alone boosted performance by 20FPS in some areas, especially when running high UGrids values. This leads me to believe it's just not a well optimized game, even if it is a lot of fun. :)
 
but still 45%......those are some bold numbers even if its "up to"
 
No mention (even in release notes) about the acknowledged sleeping monitor prevents cuda processing bug from 295.xx...anyone know if that's fixed yet? It's the only thing preventing me from upgrading my drivers from 290.

I'm curious of this as well. The workaround is to disable putting the monitor to sleep in the power settings, which is fine by me as I just turn off the monitor manually anyway.
 
I can't run their last 295 driver. I lose SLI after reboot. Hopefully this fixes that
 
Going back to 285 drivers, these drivers crash on games in SLI Portrait Surround, just like 295 drivers did. I read its a bug due to network cards or something of that sorts.
 
NVIDIA Prepares GeForce GTX 560 SE to Thwart Radeon HD 7770
For an immediate relief from the market-threat looming in the sub-$200 segment with the introduction of AMD's Radeon HD 7770, NVIDIA is planning to carve out a new SKU based on the 40 nm GF114 GPU, the GeForce GTX 560 SE. The new SKU will be positioned below the GeForce GTX 560 (non-Ti), and target price-points well within $200. The new SKU is identical to the OEM-only model GeForce GTX 555. Its specifications follow:
Based on 40 nm GF114 ASIC
288 CUDA cores
48 TMUs, 24 ROPs
192-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface
1 GB standard memory amount (asymmetric memory chip arrangement à la GTX 550 Ti)
Clock speeds: 776 MHz core; 1553 MHz CUDA cores; 952 MHz (3.828 GHz effective) memory, 92 GB/s memory bandwidth
Source: VR-Zone


http://www.techpowerup.com/160646/NVIDIA-Prepares-GeForce-GTX-560-SE-to-Thwart-Radeon-HD-7770.html

This sounds almost identical to a slightly beefed up GTX460SE.
Only 288SP though? That's a bit of a large nerf.
 
NVIDIA Prepares GeForce GTX 560 SE to Thwart Radeon HD 7770
For an immediate relief from the market-threat looming in the sub-$200 segment with the introduction of AMD's Radeon HD 7770, NVIDIA is planning to carve out a new SKU based on the 40 nm GF114 GPU, the GeForce GTX 560 SE. The new SKU will be positioned below the GeForce GTX 560 (non-Ti), and target price-points well within $200. The new SKU is identical to the OEM-only model GeForce GTX 555. Its specifications follow:
Based on 40 nm GF114 ASIC
288 CUDA cores
48 TMUs, 24 ROPs
192-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface
1 GB standard memory amount (asymmetric memory chip arrangement à la GTX 550 Ti)
Clock speeds: 776 MHz core; 1553 MHz CUDA cores; 952 MHz (3.828 GHz effective) memory, 92 GB/s memory bandwidth
Source: VR-Zone


http://www.techpowerup.com/160646/NVIDIA-Prepares-GeForce-GTX-560-SE-to-Thwart-Radeon-HD-7770.html

I'd rather have my 460 1GB with full 256bit, 32 ROPs and 336 Cuda cores.
 
These drivers are great for BF3. I was getting some nice micro stutter with the last set of drivers. These drivers are butter smooth not one problem for with BF3 :) Very nice improvement...
 
This one actually let's you enable SLI unlike the 295's.

I've heard this a few times and I have never had problems enabling SLI in any of the 295 releases, beta or otherwise. What cards are you using?
 
Going back to 285 drivers, these drivers crash on games in SLI Portrait Surround, just like 295 drivers did. I read its a bug due to network cards or something of that sorts.

THANK YOU! I fought for 2 days trying to get nV surround working. I thought I had bad hardware.
 
The 296.10 release causes artifacts and hanging for me even at the windows desktop. Rolling back to the 295.73 drivers fixes any problems I've had. Anyone else experiencing this?
 
I just installed these the other day but I've been working and haven't had time to game on them. I'll give my impressions Friday or this weekend when I get a chance to play with them a bit.
 
I'm happy to say that it doesn't put my card into sleep mode like the previous beta driver when folding. So far so good.
 
The 296.10 release causes artifacts and hanging for me even at the windows desktop. Rolling back to the 295.73 drivers fixes any problems I've had. Anyone else experiencing this?

I have a similar system as yours and I haven't had a single problem with these new drivers.
Did you do a clean install ? I ask because I did do a clean install. Also, I don't load any 3d drivers.

jime
 
TDR issue fixed at all with these? Will upgrade from previous 295.73 betas when I get home.. had a series of TDRs (3 or 4 in a row) that hard locked my machine last night. Very annoying.
 
Fixed scope flickering and flickering landscape while looking at the ground from high up. However, I get microstutter once and a while. When I was using the 285.38 drivers, I never experienced this problem.
 
The 296.10 release causes artifacts and hanging for me even at the windows desktop. Rolling back to the 295.73 drivers fixes any problems I've had. Anyone else experiencing this?

Yup, it happens to me especially when playing YouTube videos... a lot of the time it will hang in the middle of a video with cyan and magenta artifacts all over the screen (looks alarmingly like bad memory on the card, actually). But I had it hang earlier today just browsing the web...






I also had this problem with one of the previous 295 releases. Looks like I'll be going back to 295.73...
 
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Can also report that these drivers crash.

Just had my first crash in a few months after updating to them about 5 hours ago. Crashed 3 times before they were stable enough to downgrade to 295.

GTX 560 on W8
 
I have a similar system as yours and I haven't had a single problem with these new drivers.
Did you do a clean install ? I ask because I did do a clean install. Also, I don't load any 3d drivers.

jime

Thanks for the input, and yes, I always do a clean install before upgrading drivers, still I get artifacting and hard locks/resets within 30 minutes, even idling at the desktop... :confused:
 
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