NVIDIA Refreshes Its Generic Notebook Drivers

In mid-December NVIDIA (finally) released a set of notebook device drivers, that supported 8- and 9-series GPU, promising an update in Q1 2009 that would support all mobile GPUs. On Wednesday they delivered it.

The 179.48 drivers are still festooned with a big BETA label, but as I said, they support GeForce 7, 8, GeForce 9, and DirectX 10-class Quadro NVS branded notebooks.

Drivers can be downloaded here, for Windows Vista and Windows XP, both 32- and 64-bit versions.

Necessary caveats are that the following notebooks are not supported in this release:

1. BenQ Joybook S42 (will be supported in an upcoming release)
2. Dell Vostro notebooks (please contact the notebook OEM for driver support for these notebooks)
3. Fujitsu notebooks – (please contact the notebook OEM for driver support for these notebooks). Note: Fujitsu Siemens (FSC) notebooks are supported in this release
4. Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Xi 3650 (will be supported in an upcoming release)
5. Lenovo ThinkPad notebooks (please contact the notebook OEM for driver support for these notebooks)
6. Sony VAIO notebooks (please contact the notebook OEM for driver support for these notebooks)
7. Any notebook that is launched after the release date of this driver

When they first acknowledging tacitly what most already knew: that more consumers are eschewing desktop for notebooks, and that they want drivers now.

It was always painful to wait for the notebook OEM to provide updated drivers, as those were few and far between. It's still annoying to look at the list of "exceptions" above, however, and see Lenovo, Dell Vostro and Sony VAIO notebooks prominently listed.

Still, here are the release highlights:

• Beta driver for GeForce Go 7-series, GeForce 8M and GeForce 9M series notebook GPUs. Refer to the Products Supported tab for the list of supported GPUs and notebooks. Some notebooks are not supported by this release.
• Supports NVIDIA CUDA technology.
• Supports NVIDIA PhysX hardware acceleration on GeForce 8M and 9M GPUs with a minimum of 256MB dedicated graphics memory (this driver package installs NVIDIA PhysX System Software v9.09.0010).
• Experience CUDA and NVIDIA PhysX in several free applications and demos by downloading the GeForce Plus Pack.
• Supports single GPU and NVIDIA SLI™ technology on DirectX 9, DirectX 10, and OpenGL.
• Please read the release notes for more information on product support, features, and known compatibility issues.