It doesn't matter if you seek solace in Creationism or prescribe to the theory of evolution, everyone should be equally stoked about what Nvidia's calling "Big Bang II." No, the graphics chip maker isn't gearing up to end the debate on man's existence, but even better, the company will improve man's quality of life with a new driver package that looks poised to earn its codename by bringing gamers at least one big, overdue improvement.

Bang Part I

The biggest news associated with Nvidia's ForceWare Release 180 (R180) is the introduction of SLI multi-monitor support. Ever since Nvidia introduced SLI, the inability to run a second monitor while gaming has been a major complaint, and even more so as LCD displays have fallen in price. That finally looks to no longer be the case with the new driver release, and gamers will be able to frag opponents while simultaneously keeping an eye on their email inbox, incoming IMs, and everything else that would previously be blacked out on a second monitor.

Bang Part 2, 3, and so on

• Display Port support
• OpenGL 3.0
• Hardware Video transcoding
• GPU PhysX support
• Performance optimizations

By comparison, the new release's additional bangs are more of a pop, though it is interesting to note that after nearly a year of delays, OpenGL 3.0 will finally make its debut. The updated API brings a slew of hardware support enhancements to the table, and unlike DirectX 10, it should work under Windows XP.

Does Nvidia's new driver live up to its codename?

Image Credit: Nvidia

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windows, Software, graphics, videocard, video, nvidia, gpu, sli, driver, build a pc, Forceware, multi-monitor, big bang ii

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