NVIDIA Geforce drivers 185.81 BETA for Windows 7

Advertisement (Why?)

This is a beta driver supporting GeForce 6, 7, 8, 9, 100, and 200-series desktop GPUs. This driver package installs WDDM v1.1 for GeForce 8, 9, and 200-series (DirectX 10) GPUs and WDDM v1.0 for GeForce 6 and 7-series (DirectX 9) GPUs.

This driver supports all of the new Windows 7 GPU-accelerated DirectX APIs: DirectX Compute, Direct2D, DirectWrite, and DXVA-HD

New in Release 185.81:

Adds support for the new GeForce GTX 275 GPU.
Adds support for Ambient Occlusion â€" the newest NVIDIA Control Panel feature to offer enhanced 3D gaming realism exclusively to GeForce GPUs.
Adds support for CUDA 2.2 for improved performance in GPU Computing applications. See CUDA for more details.
Expands GPU hardware acceleration for the NVIDIA Video Encoding library to GPUs with less than 32 cores. Applications using this library include CyberLink PowerDirector 7, Nero Move it 1.5, Loilo SuperLoiloScope MARS, and CyberLink MediaShow Espresso.
Accelerates performance in several 3D applications. The following are examples of improvements measured with Release 185 drivers vs. Release 181 drivers (results will vary depending on your GPU, system configuration, and game settings):
- Up to 25% performance increase in The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena
- Up to 22% performance increase in Crysis: Warhead with antialiasing enabled
- Up to 11% performance increase in Fallout 3 with antialiasing enabled
- Up to 14% performance increase in Far Cry 2
- Up to 30% performance increase in Half-Life 2 engine games with 3-way and 4-way SLI
- Up to 45% performance increase in Mirrorâ€™s Edge with antialiasing enabled
Automatically installs the new PhysX System Software version 9.09.0408.
Supports GeForce Plus Power Pack #3. Download these FREE PhysX and CUDA applications now!
Numerous bug fixes. Refer to the release documentation notes.
Users without US English operating systems can select their language and download the International driver here.

Existing Support:

Supports single GPU and NVIDIA SLI technology on DirectX 9, DirectX 10, and OpenGL, including 3-way SLI, Quad SLI, and SLI support on SLI-certified Intel X58-based motherboards.
Includes full support for OpenGL 3.0.
Supports NVIDIA PhysX acceleration on a dedicated GeForce graphics card. Use one card for graphics and dedicate a different card for PhysX processing for game-changing physical effects. Learn more here. Note: GPU PhysX is supported on all GeForce 8-series, 9-series and 200-series GPUs with a minimum of 256MB dedicated graphics memory.
Supports GPU overclocking and temperature monitoring by installing NVIDIA System Tools software.

Download: Windows 7 32-bit

Download: Windows 7 64-bit

This is BETA software!, please use caution when installing it on your system

#1 s1k3sT on 01 May 2009 - 12:27

I'm always ready for video driver updates

(6 replies) #2 +Chris123NT on 01 May 2009 - 12:40

These drivers suck. They cause perf issues with dual screens, same as the last 7 beta drivers. Use Vista drivers and the issue goes away.

#2.1 -Hiroshi- on 01 May 2009 - 14:56

Chris123NT said,

QFT, listen to this guy, he knows what he's talking about. For nvidia based cards, install the Vista drivers, not the 7 drivers.

#2.2 ViperAFK on 01 May 2009 - 15:32

I don't have dual screens and these drivers work flawlessly for me so I'm not going to "listen to this guy"

#2.3 neo7 on 01 May 2009 - 17:13

ViperAFK said,

They are not WHQL, so no Blu-ray and no good (181.71 is WHQL).

#2.4 MightyJordan on 02 May 2009 - 09:13

neo7 said,

Wrong. 182.50 is WHQL.

#2.5 neo7 on 02 May 2009 - 09:27

MightyJordan said,

185.81 is not WHQL, and I am talking about Windows 7 version; the newest Win7 WHQL driver is 181.71 for mobile netbooks. 182.50 is not a Win7 driver.

#2.6 Slugsie on 05 May 2009 - 10:11

Well they're working just fine for me and my 3 screens. That plus these drivers don't crash constantly whilst playing Fallout 3.

So, no idea what you're talking about.

#3 ZeroHour on 01 May 2009 - 14:19

I just hope AoC DX10 mode works in them as you need vista drivers to do it currently

(1 reply) #4 IntelliMoo on 01 May 2009 - 20:35

nvidia will get 7 right in about 2 years.

#4.1 GP007 on 01 May 2009 - 20:55

Sad but true I guess.

#5 daftperception on 03 May 2009 - 00:09

It works fine for me and I am an avid user of dual monitors.

#6 Luis Mazza on 03 May 2009 - 19:08

Great drivers. But I hope they get even better. I could leave Crysis Wars running while using the desktop and I was amazed at how better it is handling multitasking graphics at heavy load. But after an explosion when the screen blurs, it was still blurry in the game one time.

#7 Deihmos on 04 May 2009 - 14:23

These drivers completely screwed up Dawn of War 2. Did a roll back and din't have any problems. I have also heard that it messes up emipire total war. I wouldn't recommend anyone downloading it.

(1 reply) #8 vvtunes on 04 May 2009 - 17:47

Is anyone having stuttering problems with 182.xx/185.xx ?
( e.g. fraps showing 40+ fps and animation not feeling smooth with noticeable frame skipping)

Perceived when vsync is either on or off. Not all titles seem to be affected, though.

I also read somewhere that 181.22 were less problematic.

#8.1 Mando on 07 May 2009 - 18:18

yup i am

9800GTX+, 6gb ddr2 1066 and q6600, back to vista 64drivers for me. (dual monitor setup also)

lotro dies at ultra, very high and high on these but ran 60fps+ all day long on latest Vista 64s @ultra setting on Windows 7

#9 GeXeH on 05 May 2009 - 14:48

I highly recommend sticking with 181.71, after installing 185.81 I was unable to run Counter-Strike: Source.

I had to disable my dual monitor setup just to get Counter-Strike: Source to run, to then find that the game was flickering during gameplay.

I've rolled back to 181.71 and have no issues.

(1 reply) #10 +xiphi on 05 May 2009 - 15:16

Does anyone have any issues in Crysis Warhead with these drivers? Seems that objects (trees, guns, etc) appear invisible.

#10.1 +xiphi on 05 May 2009 - 17:21

Fixed it. Apparently "Single display mode" has issues.

#11 +S/R on 06 May 2009 - 16:45

run this drivers just fine on my macbook with 7 in bootcamp, and an external 17in lcd.

#12 iZoom on 10 May 2009 - 00:26

GeXeH, I've been having issues with CS

as well. I will get garbled models, distorted or missing textures, etc with the latest drivers. So far, the 182.50 ones have been flawless for me.

Commenting has either been disabled on this article or you are not logged in. Click here to login or register, its free!

Note: Anonymous commenting is disabled in order to keep the quality of responses to a high standard.

Neowin.net