Here is an update which gamers and high end video card users will find useful. nVIDIA have released version 178.13 of their ForceWare unified drivers package with a slew of improvements and added support for newer graphics hardware such as the 9500GT and 9400GT. ForceWare v178.13 includes support for nVIDIA PhysX acceleration on selected GPUs and installs NVIDIA PhysX System Software v8.09.04. All of the drivers are Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL) certified.

Developer Description

nVIDIA ForceWare software unleashes the full power and features in nVIDIA's desktop, gaming, platform, workstation, laptop, multimedia, and mobile products. Delivering a proven record of compatibility, reliability, and stability with the widest range of games and applications, ForceWare software ensures the best experience with your nVIDIA hardware.

ForceWare v178.13 Release Highlights

• WHQL-certified driver for GeForce 6-series, 7-series, 8-series, 9-series, and 200-series GPUs, including the newly released GeForce 9800 GTX+, 9800 GT, 9500 GT and 9400 GT GPUs.
• Adds support for NVIDIA PhysX acceleration on all GeForce 8-series, 9-series and 200-series GPUs with a minimum of 256MB dedicated graphics memory (this driver package installs NVIDIA PhysX System Software v8.09.04).
• Experience GPU PhysX acceleration in several full games and demos today by downloading the GeForce Power Pack.
• Adds support for 2-way and 3-way NVIDIA SLI technology with GeForce GTX 200-series GPUs on Intel® D5400XS motherboards.
• Supports single GPU and NVIDIA SLI™ technology on DirectX 9, DirectX 10, and OpenGL, including 3-way and Quad SLI technology.
• Supports CUDA™.
• Supports NVIDIA GeForce 3D Stereo Technology.
• Supports Folding@home distributing computing application. Download the high performance client for NVIDIA GPUs here and join the NVIDIA team: #131015.
• Supports GPU overclocking and temperature monitoring by installing NVIDIA System Tools software.
• Includes several 3D application performance improvements. The following are examples of improvements measured with v178.13 WHQL versus v175.19 WHQL driver:
  • Single GPU increases up to 11% in 3DMark Vantage (performance preset)
  • Single GPU increases up to 11% in Assassin's Creed DX10
  • Single GPU increases up to 15% in Bioshock DX10
  • Single GPU increases up to 15% in Call of Duty 4
  • Single GPU increases up to 8% in Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
  • 2-way SLI increases up to 7% in Bioshock DX10
  • 2-way SLI increases up to 10% in Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts DX10
  • 2-way SLI increases up to 12% in Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
  • 2-way SLI increases up to 10% in World in Conflict DX10
• Includes numerous 3D application compatibility fixes. Please read the release notes for more information on product support, features, driver fixes and known compatibility issues.
• Users without US English operating systems can select their language and download the International driver here.

Download

Use the links given below to download the v178.13 drivers directly from nVIDIA official servers. Choose any one of the links below that is compatible with your operating system.

• [Click Here] to download nVIDIA ForceWare 178.13 WHQL For Windows XP 32-Bit
• [Click Here] to download nVIDIA ForceWare 178.13 WHQL For Windows XP 64-Bit
• [Click Here] to download nVIDIA ForceWare 178.13 WHQL For Windows Vista 32-Bit
• [Click Here] to download nVIDIA ForceWare 178.13 WHQL For Windows Vista 64-Bit

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If your CD/DVD burner is LightScribe enabled, you might want to check this out. LightScribe is an optical disc recording technology that utilizes specially coated recordable CD and DVD media to produce laser-etched labels. Keep burning beautiful LightScribe discs by regularly updating your LightScribe System Software. It ties your labeling application software to your optical drive hardware. New LightScribe System Software updates are needed to support new hardware or recently introduced LightScribe CDs and DVDs, and will ensure optimal and reliable operation of your LightScribe Labeling system.

Download

[Click Here] to download LightScribe System Software v1.14.25.1 directly from lightscribe.com

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Driver Magician offers a professional solution for device drivers backup, restoration, update and removal in Windows operating system. It identifies all the hardware in the system, extracts their associated drivers from the hard disk and backs them up to a location of your choice. Then when you format and reinstall/upgrade your operating system, you can restore all the "saved" drivers just as if you had the original driver diskettes in your hands. After one system reboot, your PC will be loaded and running with the required hardware drivers.

What's more, Driver Magician has a built in database of the latest drivers with the ability to go to the Internet to receive the driver updates. It saves lots of time to find the correct drivers and mature drivers will obviously increase the performance of hardware. If there are unknown devices in your PC, Driver Magician helps you detect them easily and quickly with its built in hardware identifier database.

 

Key features

• Back up device drivers of your computer in four modes.
• Restore device drivers from backup in one mouse click.
• Update device drivers of your PC to improve system performance and stability.
• Uninstall device drivers
• Live Update device identifier database and driver update database.
• Detect unknown devices.
• Back up more items such as My Documents and Registry.
• Restore more items from backup.
• Get detailed information of the hardware drivers.
• Clone all drivers to an auto-setup package (.EXE), so you can restore drivers without installing Driver Magician.

Read comments for more information.

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Warning: The drivers referred to in this article are still in beta test stage. Use at your own risk

It has only been 6 days since nVIDIA released ForceWare 177.83 with PhysX support. They've released 177.89 beta drivers which again feature a significant update; OpenGL 3.0 support.  The release notes state "This driver is aimed at developers to start coding to the new OpenGL 3.0 and GLSL 1.30 features." I tried playing several games (Devil May Cry 4, Flatout: Ultimate Carnage and Assassins Creed DX10) without any issues although there was no noticeable difference in gaming performance over v177.83.

You can download v177.89 from nVIDIA Developer Zone and official driver download section will not feature this as it is still in beta. Note that the PsyX engine is not bundled with these drivers so you will need to download that separately if you did not install v177.83.

[Click Here] to download ForceWare v177.89 OpenGL 3.0 enabled drivers from nVIDIA developer zone.

[Click Here] to download NVIDIA PhysX System driver 8.08.01from Guru3D.

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