GraphicsDriver
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NVIDIA GeForce R302 drivers get Windows 8 certification, available for download soon
With the Windows 8 Release Preview unveiled and available for all to download as of yesterday, you can bet that other companies are hustling to make their products compatible -- and that doesn't just go for hardware. NVIDIA announced that its new R302 graphics drivers have received Windows 8 certification, and they will be available for download early next week from GeForce.com. The drivers support all the new Windows Display Driver Model's features along with NVIDIA 3D Vision and 3DTV Play products. Not only are the R302 drivers Windows 8-compatible, but they also only work with that generation of the OS. Other versions of Windows will continue to use NVIDIA's R300 drivers. Update: NVIDIA has decided to postpone the driver release to "pick up some additional fixes that we feel are necessary for a great Windows 8 experience." [Thanks, Tim Whitfield]
NVIDIA pulls 196.75 driver amid reports it's frying graphics cards
One of the discussions that arise anytime we bring up a new graphics card from ATI or NVIDIA is about which company has the better drivers. Well, this should help sway the argument a little bit. It would seem StarCraft II Beta players were among the first to notice low frame rates while using the latest drivers from NVIDIA, and further digging has uncovered that the automated fan-controlling part of said firmware was failing to act as intended. The result? Overheated chips, diminished performance, and in some extreme cases, death (of the GPU, we think the users will be okay). The totality of it is that you should avoid the 196.75 iteration like the plague, and NVIDIA has temporarily yanked the update while investigating the reported issues. Shame that the company hasn't got any warnings up on its site to tell those who've installed the update but haven't yet nuked their graphics card to roll back their drivers, but that's what you've got us for, right? [Thanks, Shockie] Update: Credit where it's due -- NVIDIA has dutifully put up an alert on its site advising users to roll back to the 196.21 driver while it investigates the root cause of the reported fan problems.
