For those who have been holding out for a WHQL (stable) release of NVIDIA’s GeForce 270 driver, the wait is over. The company earlier this week released version 270.61, which features a couple of new features and many performance enhancements. We covered a of this in an article at the end of last month, but it seems NVIDIA has made even more improvements since then.
In addition to games receiving a performance boost, 3D Vision has also got a loving update, with a slew of new games supported (Duke Nukem Forever, Dirt 3, Portal 2, Rift and Total War: SHOGUN 2 in particular). In addition, this is also the driver that introduces NVIDIA Update, so whenever a new driver is available, you can choose to be notified.
Here’s a quick sampling of the performance updates:
GeForce GTX 580
- Up to 516% in Dragon Age 2 (SLI 2560×1600 8xAA/16xAF Very High, SSAO on)
- Up to 326% in Dragon Age 2 (1920×1200 8xAA/16xAF Very High, SSAO on)
- Up to 11% in Just Cause 2 (1920×1200 8xAA/16xAF, Concrete Jungle)
- Up to 11% in Just Cause 2 (SLI 2560×1600 8xAA/16xAF, Concrete Jungle)
- Up to 7% in Civilization V (1920×1200 4xAA/16xAF, Max settings)
- Up to 6% in Far Cry 2 (SLI 2560×1600 8xAA/16xAF, Max settings)
- Up to 5% in Civilization V (SLI 1920×1200 8xAA/16xAF, Max settings)
- Up to 5% in Left 4 Dead 2 (1920×1200 noAA/AF, Outdoor)
- Up to 5% in Left 4 Dead 2 (SLI 2560×1600 4xAA/16xAF, Outdoor)
- Up to 4% in H.A.W.X. 2 (SLI 1920×1200 8xAA/16xAF, Max settings)
- Up to 4% in Mafia 2 (SLI 2560×1600 AA on/16xAF, PhysX = High)
You can grab the driver and read through the lengthy release notes at the URL below.