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NVIDIA ships out beta OpenGL 3.0 drivers in record speed


While boasting a fraction of DirectX usage in the gaming market, OpenGL hasn't been sitting around while Microsoft eats its lunch. Long favored as a foundation for cross platform games like World of Warcraft, and historically used by id Software to famous effect, the API just hit the 3.0 in a major reworking of the library. NVIDIA has had a hand in the API, and has wasted no time in releasing graphics drivers for the newly minted standard. The beta code supports GeForce 8000 series cards or higher on the desktop and laptop sides, and implements all of OpenGL 3.0 and the GLSL 1.30 shading language with just a few exceptions. Naturally, users won't be getting much out of this right off the bat, the beta drivers are mainly meant for developers looking to build software that takes advantage of 3.0, but it's nice to see a GPU builder hand-in-hand with a next gen graphics API and supporting it out of the gate on existing cards. And would you look at those screenshots!