NVIDIA now offering laptop drivers directly through website

NVIDIA has announced that it'll now offer laptop GPU drivers directly via its website -- long overdue, if you ask us. These drivers have traditionally been offered through the computer manufacturers since most mobile GPUs are customized to be compatible with the devices' specific hotkeys and suspend / resume functionality -- NVIDIA said it has found a way around with a new modular architecture. First on the menu are beta drivers for GeForce 8M and 9M series as well as Quadro NVS-series laptops that add CUDA and PhysX support, with Windows-certified drivers for all GeForce 7, 8 and 9 series and Quadro NVS series are due out early next year. Now, if only we could download hugs...

[Via Notebook Review]

[Giga @ Dec 19th 2008 5:16PM]

LONG overdue.

[hazard @ Dec 22nd 2008 7:16AM]

This has been available for quite a while .. just looked back through my download history and I pulled a notebook driver from NVidia on the 20th May. Same interface Type (GeForce), Series (Go 7), Product (7900 GS) etc ..

[ElevatorHappyFun @ Dec 19th 2008 5:17PM]

Thank You Nvidia,

You get a C+ for doing your job, nothing special.

[Technex @ Dec 19th 2008 5:17PM]

Woooo! Great news, Dell SUCKED! :)

[Ari @ Dec 19th 2008 5:45PM]

Dell Latitude's are not supported :(

[Technex @ Dec 19th 2008 8:17PM]

Why the low ranks? You ever tried downloading the outdated drivers from them? :(

Don't get me wrong, they make great laptops, just the drivers let 'em down sometimes. It would be nice not to have to use Laptopvideo2go every time.

[Matthew C @ Dec 19th 2008 10:43PM]

WAIT... Latitudes arent suppported?

so this driver im downloading wont work- that sucks. It fells even worse now because i thought, just for a second, that i was going to be able to get the up-to date driver and photoshop would stop crashing. this sucks.

[Matthew C @ Dec 19th 2008 10:52PM]

AND, now i can confirm that. Couldn't update on my latitude D820 - Quadro NVS 120m. This was both the most excited and most disappointed ive been all day. WOO fail.

[Shinigami @ Dec 19th 2008 5:20PM]

Oh wow great news. I was already going to modify and install those drivers and Nvidia just did half of my work!

[e @ Dec 19th 2008 5:23PM]

It would be cool if they wrote a little utility that identified your card. How many times do you have to open your pc to identify your card when rebuilding the os.

[iofthestorm @ Dec 19th 2008 6:43PM]

Seriously? Try GPU-Z, http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/ . That's a specialized tool for identifying GPUs, but there are plenty of general purpose tools like Everest and Sandra that identify everything in your computer.

[gonintendo @ Dec 19th 2008 6:59PM]

or he could run dxdiag which is built into windows.

[Cory @ Dec 20th 2008 2:15PM]

GoNintendo, that only works if you have correct drivers installed.

[funkyp56 @ Dec 19th 2008 5:26PM]

64 bit vista on mac via bootcamp?

[kal326 @ Dec 19th 2008 6:10PM]

Nope, 32bit is all you get with bootcamp. Thats because of Apple, not Nvidia.

[Emblazon @ Dec 19th 2008 6:36PM]

@kal326:

That's funny, maybe you should tell that to my new MacBook Pro that I've been playing Fallout 3 on in Vista 64-bit via bootcamp. The 64-bit drivers were released around a year ago.

[funkyp56 @ Dec 19th 2008 10:52PM]

Actually the driver worked!!!!!!!!!!!!

[kal326 @ Dec 20th 2008 3:58PM]

@emblazen
Its not listed as so by the almighty apple:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/bootcamp.html

However after looking around it appears to have been available on the Pro's since Feb.

[sam @ Dec 19th 2008 5:27PM]

e: just install gpu-z, will tell you what card you have and lots more details.

Great news about these drivers, hope they add ones for geforce 6 go cards soon as my geforce 6150 could do with an update, compaq stopped updating drivers for my laptop 1.5yrs ago, they supported it for around 10 months, will never buy a laptop from them again!

[iofthestorm @ Dec 19th 2008 6:44PM]

Laptopvideo2go.com is your friend. By the way though, the drivers for the 6150 probably haven't changed, usually it's only the newer cards that actually get updates.

[suprxtragrav @ Dec 19th 2008 5:29PM]

FINALLY.

I've always been forced to use the laptopvideo2go drivers, which are sort of a pain in the ass to work with

[lpppppl @ Dec 19th 2008 5:44PM]

Old news

I was there two weeks ago and they had that same page as the screenshot. I downloaded my 8400M GS drivers from there with no problems.

[fastman @ Dec 19th 2008 5:48PM]

Doesnt seem to work on my Dell E6400 with NVS-160M on WinXP 32bit. Says in cant find any supported hardware.

[SurferSeth @ Dec 19th 2008 6:02PM]

Wonder if this will allow Hybrid SLI on the new MacBookPro... or fix the "Black Screen of Death" issue when gaming with in Bootcamp

[kal326 @ Dec 19th 2008 6:14PM]

Frik'n sweet. I got 3 Nvidia laptops. An 8600, NVS140, and a 7xxx integrated. The 8600 is the only one I have bothered to go find updated drivers for myself.

[Date @ Dec 19th 2008 6:15PM]

lol the drivers on laptopvideo2go are better if you choose the right release and maybe get a modded inf for your video card.
The shortest path is not always the best lol.

[Evangelion @ Dec 19th 2008 6:15PM]

Nice. =]

[img eL @ Dec 19th 2008 6:24PM]

Booo! To good to be true, no Geforce Go 7600 GT

[img eL @ Dec 19th 2008 6:34PM]

& yes its a Vaio, whats up Sony

[James @ Dec 19th 2008 8:07PM]

Maybe they don't want to offer drivers to people that have appalling grammar.

[img eL @ Dec 19th 2008 8:19PM]

Yep thahts problee it

[HemanC @ Dec 19th 2008 6:28PM]

ATI, I hope this is on your ToDo list. I am using Omega drivers. Which works fine but I want official drivers.

[Tom Reinke @ Dec 19th 2008 6:36PM]

My god, I really hope ATi does something like this VERY soon. I haven't had drivers for my Mobility Radeon 9000 since... 2004?

[DarkLight @ Dec 19th 2008 7:35PM]

Funny, in the little experience I have with winblows, Omega drivers work much better than official ATi ones

But then agian, it's limited experience (FreeBSD user here)

[Chris @ Dec 20th 2008 1:47PM]

My drivers haven't received an update since I bought the damn laptop. I know I can pull more FPS out of my HD2600 mobile graphics.

[balls @ Dec 19th 2008 7:31PM]

You can also check laptopvideo2go

[Shinigami @ Dec 19th 2008 8:31PM]

Obsolete resource. Nvidia's drivers are official drivers, laptop2go drivers are official drivers modified by users. I know, I use them myself :)

[Loonie @ Dec 19th 2008 7:32PM]

You can download the latest ATI Catalyst Mobility drivers directly from ATI, but you need to know the direct link.

...which would be this one: http://ati.amd.com/online/mobilecatalyst/index.html

But yes, if you try to go in via the support site, it just makes you run some stupid piece of software that decides whether or not (usually not) to let you download the drivers. Which is really incredibly stupid and could do with changing.

[Loonie @ Dec 19th 2008 7:33PM]

...sorry, was supposed to be a reply to HermanC's post just above. Man, what the hell is it with me and replies these days...

[Shinigami @ Dec 19th 2008 8:32PM]

Looks like you, too, have been affected by the lack of "edit" button...

[Chris @ Dec 20th 2008 1:54PM]

My laptop had an HD2600, yet the link you provided after I run the installer says I don't have a compatible video card. Guess I'm screwed.

[Loonie @ Dec 23rd 2008 12:20PM]

Chris - from what I can tell, the mobile catalyst drivers only recognizes 9000 and X series chipsets.

Try downloading the official catalyst drivers from ATI's site (not the mobility ones), then use this program...

http://www.driverheaven.net/modtool.php

...to modify the drivers .infs. Once this ios done, you should be able to install the modified drivers on your HD2600 laptop.

[Ryan Walters @ Dec 19th 2008 7:53PM]

If I am correct, this has been avaible for a while now. I remember using this site a couple months ago for my laptop display driver.

[El Taco @ Dec 19th 2008 8:13PM]

*sigh*

im gonna miss laptopvideo2go.com

[El Taco @ Dec 19th 2008 8:16PM]

never mind, I think laptopvideo2go.com has more recent drivers. Yay, an excuse!

[Mike @ Dec 19th 2008 8:14PM]

You know what, if you have seen the drivers on the site yesterday or last month. That's good for you, you want a cookie? Don't waste everyones time posting that you already knew this, because lord knows, you know everything, so I have to waste my time being ticked off because I have to keep reading "this has been out for a wile now" Guess what?

I didn't know it was out. Thank you Engadget for telling me, it's too bad I'm such a frikin n00b that I couldn't have been on top of every single frikin page on the internet.

[Conan @ Dec 19th 2008 8:42PM]

It's about time

[roach @ Dec 19th 2008 9:34PM]

No Gefore4 420 for Vista... me sad.

[Whimsy Collective @ Dec 19th 2008 10:21PM]

Finally!

[pete @ Dec 19th 2008 10:30PM]

WHAT ABOUT F*CKING ATI?

I am so sick of their driver bullsh*t, but many manufacturers (*ahem* HP) still seem to use their craptastic chipsets in their laptops!

ARGHHHH