NVIDIA enables PhysX and CUDA support for GeForce 8 and higher GPUs with free downloads

It's not a direct response to AMD unveiling the HD Radeon 4850 X2 and 4870 X2 yesterday, but NVIDIA also came to play at SIGGRAPH, and it's got lots of new GPU-as-CPU toys for us this morning -- and what's more, they're free. Like we'd been hearing, GeForce 8, 9, and 200-series cards are all getting PhysX support as of today via a free GeForce Power Pack that contains a free full copy of Warmonger, three PhysX-enabled Unreal Tournament 3 maps, demos of Metal Knight Zero and the Nurien UT3-based social networking service, and a couple tech demos. The Power Pack also includes some new CUDA apps to play with, including a new Folding@Home client (ahem) and a trial version of the Badaboom video transcoder. That's a lot of new toys, so get downloading and let us know what you think!

Read - PhysX GeForce Power Pack apps
Read - CUDA GeForce Power Pack apps

[Rage @ Aug 12th 2008 10:52AM]

As long as the card you have isn't on recall

[avester @ Aug 12th 2008 11:03AM]

What recall?

The one made on the 1st of April?

[Kris @ Aug 12th 2008 10:57AM]

That guy's recall comment disappeared. I wonder why?

[Kris @ Aug 12th 2008 10:58AM]

It's back! Why can't Engadget hire some competent developers to revamp their comment system?

[GenBanks @ Aug 12th 2008 11:52AM]

I love the layout of the comment system, there are just so many weird glitches and annoyances.

[YesHone @ Aug 12th 2008 1:48PM]

Annoyances? Like guys with Mario as their Avatar?

[GenBanks @ Aug 12th 2008 9:29PM]

I wasn't suggesting they get rid of all the assholes, as hard as you might be trying to prove that necessary. Anyway, what's wrong with Mario? You must hate engadget's sister blog, joystiq.

[Bootes @ Aug 12th 2008 11:00AM]

Link to the software since the one in the press release doesn't work.
http://www.nvidia.com/content/forcewithin/us/index.html

[Rocky814 @ Aug 12th 2008 11:57AM]

Thanks much!

[WTangoFoxtrot @ Aug 12th 2008 11:00AM]

where is this stuff available ? i cant seem to find anything on the nvidia webpage...

[waiownsyou @ Aug 12th 2008 12:16PM]

http://www.nvidia.com/content/forcewithin/us/download.asp

[WTangoFoxtrot @ Aug 12th 2008 1:15PM]

sweet thanks. lovin the new folding at home client.

[avester @ Aug 12th 2008 11:00AM]

Let's now just hope that there will be some real support for PhysX, considering that 50% of gamers with high-end rigs support it.

[kevinsteck @ Aug 12th 2008 11:02AM]

Just a note: the address is www.nvidia.com/forcewithin
Gotta love press release typos!

[Dan Halen @ Aug 12th 2008 11:03AM]

All this new stuff and here I am at work.

A travesty.

[Sohip @ Aug 12th 2008 11:03AM]

Thank you NVIDIA. :-)

[TRAFFICBLOWS @ Aug 12th 2008 11:06AM]

sweet... now when will laptopvideo2go have the update????

[laserdemon @ Aug 12th 2008 11:11AM]

Downloading now, 2.7gig with all the demos and all. Might have to get sick here at work to go home and try them, lol

[Stevo @ Aug 12th 2008 2:58PM]

ROFL, Same here :)

[1234321 @ Aug 12th 2008 11:32AM]

first, doesn't the upcoming radeons also support physx via the ati hack?
second that looks more like a cool-aid commercial than water

[Unisyst @ Aug 15th 2008 12:42AM]

First: It's spelled: "Kool-Aid"...

Second: OHH NO!

[pieboy @ Aug 12th 2008 11:41AM]

The nvidia website only mentions desktop GPU's. Does it work on laptop 8-series cards as well?

[Leerlaufprozess @ Aug 12th 2008 11:41AM]

What about Cellfactor? Does it run with an nVidia 88xx without the additional PhysX-Card now?

[Mikado @ Aug 12th 2008 11:43AM]

Downloaded but installing the drivers didn't go to well. Got the old "This driver is for a previous version of windows" and a nice 4bit screen...
So I'm back to the 175.16 drivers

[Stella @ Aug 12th 2008 12:17PM]

Is this written in English? Why doesn't anyone check their grammar before posting?

"It's a not a direct" and "it's got new lots of new GPU-as-CPU". What? Who wrote this, my niece?

[Hguh @ Aug 13th 2008 12:37PM]

yep

[dziban303 @ Aug 12th 2008 12:19PM]

Note that the Kulu tech demo runs only on 260 and 280 GPUs, so if you don't have one, don't bother. (Nice of them to not mention that before I downloaded it.)

[laserdemon @ Aug 12th 2008 1:29PM]

It does say recommmended, not required, so ill try it on my dual 8800gtx cards tonight when i get home

[strang @ Aug 12th 2008 12:27PM]

The only game that I would even want to play with this is UT3. None of the other current generation game engines supports it. Granted a lot of games are now being developed with the newest Unreal Engine but it's not a overwhelming amount that entices an upgrade.

I'm rocking a 9800 GTX and will be updating to this set of Forceware today but got no software to really run and take advantage of it.

[computer.dude.28 @ Aug 12th 2008 12:30PM]

Ah, I remember when I had a GeForce2, then GeForce4.. now I'm up to a XXX edition factory overclocked 8600GT. Can't wait to get home to try this stuff out!

[dziban303 @ Aug 12th 2008 6:51PM]

Any flavor of 8600 card is at the extreme low end of the performance spectrum. Don't expect much out of this.

[solidus @ Aug 13th 2008 1:36PM]

I have an 8600 GTS and after installing the driver, I noticed a HUGE increase in FPS.

It's not that bad of a card.

[DoomGaZer @ Aug 12th 2008 12:48PM]

Now that this is completed the clock is ticking for the group adding the same type of support to ATI cards. From what I read on various web sites they've recently been getting support directly from Nvidia so it shouldn't be too long now.

[maz @ Aug 12th 2008 1:38PM]

would this update be effective to the imac 8800gs desktop?

[ether @ Aug 12th 2008 2:46PM]

It only gives you the option for Windows XP and Vista both 32 and 64 bit editions for driver options.

[MastrCake @ Aug 12th 2008 3:03PM]

Lovely.

Nvidia leaves the responsibility of laptop drivers to the manufacturer. I have a Dell Inspiron 1520, which has an Nvidia 8600M GT (it was affected by that one recall that makes my laptop overheat, thus making it a desk-only-top). Dell hasn't updated the drivers yet, so I am STILL stuck to playing UT3 without PhysX. I hate Dell sometimes...

[a ham sandwich @ Aug 12th 2008 3:14PM]

no mac support :( tear.

[helloUser @ Aug 12th 2008 7:11PM]

LOL!

Wow...how ignorant........you really actually try to play games in OS X rather than booting into windows?

[a ham sandwich @ Aug 12th 2008 9:33PM]

yeah man! photoshop is WICKED!

[mackid105 @ Aug 12th 2008 4:12PM]

can someone give me a link for a crack of this update? its not on laptopvideo2go yet and the regular update wont work on MacBook Pros so i need a crack for this. you're help would be appreciated i'm sure i'm not the only one in this troublesome spot

[dreamcode @ Aug 12th 2008 5:16PM]

this is the address where I got it from
http://www.nvidia.com/content/forcewithin/us/download.asp

[Darkstone @ Aug 12th 2008 5:16PM]

I can't get HW support to work on my 8600GTS :(

[dziban303 @ Aug 12th 2008 6:50PM]

By the way, on my system this driver makes COD4 crash within 30 seconds of loading a map, Silent Hunter IV crashes immediately, and I get weird artifacts and poor framerate on Company of Heroes. I didn't bother trying any other games. I'm running Vista with an 8800GTS.

Had similar problems with the other beta drivers, 177.79.

Screw it, I'm going back to 175.19 drivers, since those work fine.

None of the games I use have physx support anyway.

Not impressed.

[Guy @ Aug 12th 2008 7:52PM]

NVidia need to seriously address this issue of driver for laptops. I have a 9500m GS 512MB card in my Asus G51Sn laptop and are stuck on 116.62 which is a driver released 7 months ago.

By leaving it up to the laptop manufacturers users get screwed over for updates by lazy manufacturer's who are only interested in selling their new laptop models, which seem to come out every month...

Give us Forceware support for laptop chipsets PLEASE.

[Ayle @ Aug 12th 2008 8:28PM]

Get your drivers on laptopvideo2go. I'm rocking the 175.19 and they work great ^^

[Dean @ Aug 12th 2008 8:45PM]

drivers were causing all kinds of crashes, and UT3 was a real dog in the physx maps. honestly didn't expect too much from my 8800gts 320.

Im really a fan of the folding at home with cuda though, too bad the drivers keep crashing.... im sure something more solid will be out soon

[Kris Quigley @ Aug 12th 2008 10:10PM]

What about linux support?

[Linux Blowz @ Aug 13th 2008 1:09AM]

@Kris,

The day that for-profit companies like Nvidia pay attention to Linux is the day that banks start handing out free money just because you hung around long enough inside. When will Linux people get it through their heads that there's no return on investment for companies to dedicated resources to support for an operating system that .01% of *desktop* PC's worldwide run (no doubt servers are a different story). It's a "LOSE LOSE" proposition for a company like Nvidia - they don't really feel like exposing their intellectual property with open source drivers, and there aren't enough end users for a dedicated driver development team to matter to, *relative* to the Windows installed base.

Is it "fair?" Maybe not, but it's reality. Linux is a charity case, and shareholders of large corporations don't do charity.

[Mike @ Aug 13th 2008 2:11AM]

They don't need to release open-source drivers for Linux, it's not like it won't work.
Your reason why linux blowz is the same silly reason that's been propagated over and over, what's original about the post you just made?

[theartdude @ Aug 14th 2008 1:41PM]

No you're wrong. CUDA is fully supported on Linux. http://www.nvidia.com/object/cuda_get.html
There are large percentage of CUDA developers getting their research done righ under Linux. Maybe it's not at a personal desktop level, but for at a commercial and university level.