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Ahead of schedule, Nvidia released 257.21 WHQL today! Here are the links:
Nvidia 257.21 Win 7-Vista 64bit 257.21 WQHL Driver
Nvidia 257.21 Win 7 & Vista 32bit WQHL Driver
Most suprising is that that they only support desktops and not desktop/laptop as Nvidia indicated this 256.xx family of driver would. Mayhaps there are a lot more problems with the all inclusive driver than they had anticipated. Here is more infomation on this driver:
This is the first driver release from the Release 256 family of drivers (versions 256.xx to 259.xx). This driver package supports GeForce 6, 7, 8, 9, 100, 200, 300, and 400-series desktop GPUs as well as ION desktop GPUs. Learn more about Release 256 drivers here .
New in Version 257.21
- Adds support for Blu-ray 3D with NVIDIA 3D Vision technology. Learn more about the hardware and software requirements here .
- Increases performance for GeForce GTX 400 Series GPUs in several PC games. The following are examples of some of the most significant improvements measured with GeForce GTX 480. Results will vary depending on your GPU and system configuration:
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- Up to 14% in Aliens vs. Predator (1920x1200 noAA/AF – Tessellation on)
- Up to 4% in Batman: Arkham Asylum (1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF PhysX=High)
- Up to 5% in BattleForge (1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF – Very High settings)
- Up to 5% in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF)
- Up to 4% in Crysis: Warhead (1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF – Enthusiast setting)
- Up to 24% in Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (1920x1200 no AA/AF)
- Up to 9% in Far Cry 2 (2560x1600 8xAA/16xAF)
- Up to 25% in Just Cause 2 (2560x1600 no AA/AF - Concrete Jungle)
- Up to 7% in Metro 2033 (1920x1200 no AA/16xAF – Tessellation on)
- Up to 40% in Metro 2033 with SLI ((1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF – Tessellation on)
- Up to 8% in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat (1920x1200 no AA/AF – Day)
- Up to 110% in Stone Giant with SLI (2650x1600 – Tessellation on, DoF on)
- Up to 6% in The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Athena (2560x1600 no AA/AF)
- Up to 9% in Unigine: Tropics (2560x1600 no AA/AF – OpenGL)
- Up to 5% in 3DMark Vantage (Performance and Extreme Presets)
- Up to 19% with Transparency AA (1920x1200 4xTrSS – measured in Crysis)
- Upgrades PhysX System Software to version 9.10.0223.
- Adds support for OpenGL 4.0 for GeForce GTX 400 Series GPUs.
- Adds support for CUDA Toolkit 3.1 which includes significant performance increases for double precision math operations. See CUDA Zone for more details.
- Adds support for new extreme Antialiasing modes for 3-way SLI PCs, including up to SLI48x AA for GeForce 200 series GPUs and up to SLI96x AA for GeForce GTX 400 series GPUs.
- Adds support for a new ‘Quality’ mode for NVIDIA’s Ambient Occlusion control panel feature.
- Adds a new NVIDIA Control Panel setup page for SLI and PhysX for ultimate control over multi-gpu configurations.
- Adds a new NVIDIA Control Panel feature for ultimate control over CUDA GPUs, allowing the user to effectively choose which GPU will power each CUDA application.
- 3D Vision customers can download the v257.21 3D Vision drivers here.
- Includes numerous bug fixes. Refer to the release notes on the documentation tab for information about the key bug fixes in this release.
- Users without US English operating systems can select their language and download the International driver here.
Additional Information:
- Installs HD Audio driver version 1.0.9.1 (for supported GPUs).
- Supports the new GPU-accelerated features in Adobe CS5.
- Supports GPU-acceleration for smoother online HD videos with Adobe Flash 10.1. Learn more here.
- Supports the new version of MotionDSP's video enhancement software, vReveal, which adds support for HD output. NVIDIA customers can download a free version of vReveal that supports up to SD output here.
- Supports DirectCompute with Windows 7 and GeForce 8-series and later GPUs.
- Supports OpenCL 1.0 (Open Computing Language) for all GeForce 8-series and later GPUs.
- Supports OpenGL 3.3 for GeForce 8-series and later GPUs.
- Supports single GPU and NVIDIA SLI technology on DirectX 9, DirectX 10, DirectX 11, and OpenGL, including 3-way SLI, Quad SLI, and SLI support on SLI-certified Intel X58-based motherboards.
- Supports GPU overclocking and temperature monitoring by installing NVIDIA System Tools software.
If you have installed it, post and let us know your results... like WEI Aereo and 3D scores.
Thanks.
I just installed the 257.21 driver on my FB 802 and I have to say... Fannn-Frigginggg-Tassticcc! 
For the first time since 190.38 I have been able to get a video driver to install and it not drop my WEI score for Aereo and 3D graphics. I have tried playing: AoC (10%-20% increase in FPS), Fallout 3 (same increase), TFC2, UT3, Mass Effect 2, Bioshock 2, Alien v Predator (2010), CoD MW & CoD MW2 and every game is running at or better than it did with the 190.38!
IF you own a Firebird 802 I would strongly suggest that you upgrade your video driver to 257.21, it is the best driver I have ever used on my FB. Also, they have added a lot of new features to the Control Panel (that I didn't have in 190.38) which allows you to control SLI and PhysX by card.
I was really hoping that this family of driver would work for our Firebirds, and Nvidia has delivered. "Kudos" Nvidia!
