NVIDIA ForceWare 185 WHQL

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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.

New in Release 185:

Adds support for the new GeForce GTX 275 GPU.
Adds support for Ambient Occlusion - 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 Mirror'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: NVIDIA Forceware 185 WHQL

#1 +DARKFiB3R on 10 May 2009 - 09:50

Thanks for the heads up

#2 raider360 on 10 May 2009 - 10:44

Downloading

#3 waldenasta on 10 May 2009 - 12:57

Nice!!! Going to get it right now.

(5 replies) #4 sorlag on 10 May 2009 - 13:42

My next card will definitively be a nvidia...
ATI is just dieing with AMD.

#4.1 Harbinger on 10 May 2009 - 15:07

sorlag said,

Care to elaborate? ATI right now is massively competitive and 48xx sell like cookies.

#4.2 technobeaver on 10 May 2009 - 15:51

Harbinger said,

Except that the cards are unreliable, run hot temps, and have crappy drivers?

#4.3 nonick on 11 May 2009 - 12:44

technobeaver said,

Unreliable? Say what? Fanboy alert.
Hot in reference design, pick a good design and they won't run as hot.
Crappy drivers? Sorry, we're way past the crappy driver era. Their drivers are rock solid now. nvidia on the other hand had loads of issues of their own.

And oh, its dying, not dieing. (note for the original poster)

#4.4 justmike on 11 May 2009 - 13:19

Video drivers.. I have built computers for some time now. I was a 3dFX Voodoo 1 and 2 user, and from the time ATI came into the 3d market their drivers have had problems. All of the extra garbage that they had tried to pack in with their drivers was one thing. The problem was that the good games had already signed with Nvidia Geforce3 and up. This went along till the ATI 9700/9800, with all the different flavors of driver problems across many types of systems. Those cards had many driver fixes, and ATI went through many driver writers at that time. 3dFX had been acquired by Nvidia, and the anti aliasing from 3dFX was implemented in a new and faster way. This all was going on while Nvidia had gobbled up many of the big name games that would be coming out for the next two years. That bought Nvidia enough time to make faster cards and drivers. ATI had to spend time making drivers to make Nvidia type games run faster, and had to work heavily with AMD in doing so.

I am not a fanboy of anything. I simply look to see what Microsoft is beta testing FIRST and that is what I usually buy. In my opinion it is more important that things just work and have less overhead on the system, than a few FPS. Nvidia has had its share of problems also, such as the Intel IRQ mess. Overall though, the Nvidia driver writers win hands down.

Last edited by justmike on 11 May 2009 - 13:27

#4.5 +dead.cell on 12 May 2009 - 14:16

After the whole issue of ATI not supporting their AGP cards (2600HD was one I had), I'd given up on ATI. Running around following Omega Drivers looking for third party fixes was just a hassle. I've had numerous other problems with ATI in the past too, so from that experience, I would assume someone could easily see how I jumped aboard with nVidia this time around.

Maybe one day when they pull far ahead or nVidia starts screwing up really bad, I may look back. Until then...

#5 Premgenius on 10 May 2009 - 14:13

thanks

#6 Star_Hunter on 10 May 2009 - 19:19

Temps run hot because the fan is running at like 20% since they want it to be lose noise if you want lower temps you just need to up the fan speed. Cards are reliable and have decent drivers, and I am currently running a 8800gt.

#7 Glen on 10 May 2009 - 21:40

Installed this new driver and lost 2 points on my Aero score in Vista 64, ASUS N80vm laptop w/ 9600M GS. Don't do much gaming so I probably won't benefit from the other updates this driver has to offer. Rolling back now.

#8 cropcircles on 10 May 2009 - 22:33

The 185.50 didn't install properly on my system. Went through all the proper uninstall procedures of previous driver. When booting back up after install I get a black screen and sometimes just my desktop wallpaper and the colors are distorted. I tried installing several times/safemode and all that. Had to revert back to 182.50. I read someone else had an issue with this driver and the 8800 GTS?

#9 lflashl on 11 May 2009 - 01:39

im have problems with this driver on Windows7 7000 and CS4 Photoshop... it will stop the the driver and then ill have to restart...

#10 XeonBuilder on 11 May 2009 - 02:44

I upgraded from the 182.50 drivers and picked up over 1000 on 3dmark 06. Im using Vista 64 and it is a nice upgrade for sure.

#11 Anaron on 11 May 2009 - 05:50

Wow, those are some impressive improvements.

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