Nvidia Releases WHQL-Certified 295.73 GeForce Drivers
Nvidia Releases WHQL-Certified 295.73 GeForce Drivers
Posted 02/21/2012 at 11:47am
| by Brad Chacos
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Good news if you're the proud owner of a Nvidia GeForce graphics card: after a flood of beta drivers, the first WHQL-certified drivers from the Release 295 family are ready to roll. Nvidia promises that the 295.73 WHQL drivers pack in all the upgrades found in the recent beta drivers, "plus a few other treats." Every GeForce card ever released looks to be supported.
The 295.73 drivers increase performance and offer a slew of compatibility upgrades for all kinds of Nvidia technology, including 3D Vision, PhysX and SLI support. Numerous titles earned new bells and whistles. Nvidia even threw in SLI support for the Mass Effect 3 demo, and Skyrim, Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3 all see significant tweaks. Graphics aren't the only beneficiary of these drivers, by the way: HD Audio and Nvidia Surround received updates and additional mobo support.
Normally, we'd list games that received 3D Vision or SLI improvements, but the 295.73 drivers include a lot of changes. For specific info about improvements for Skyrim and ME3, check out the blog post announcing the release, or just head over to the GeForce drivers page, enter your PC's info, and see the complete list of improvements for yourself. Heck, why not download the drivers while you're there?
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Mombasa69
February 23, 2012 at 12:54pm
Just tested my AMD Phenom II x6 1100t x3 570 sli in ultra all maxed out with all HD texture mods with AO at x16 with old beta drivers against my new i7 2630QM 540m laptop on high settings-with new drivers and was totally shocked at the difference between high and ultra, and ofc my main PC crapped all over the i7 laptop.
Can't wait to test the new drivers on my main.
ace38
February 22, 2012 at 1:07pm
Getting page fault BSOD's with my Geforce 210 in addition to my 6600GT in my other computer crashing while running Windows Experience Index on this driver. Had to roll back to the previous one.
szore
February 22, 2012 at 10:11am
Why does NVidia want to install a HD Audio driver? What the hell does HD audio have to do with my video card?????
Seronac
February 22, 2012 at 11:31am
It wants to install HD audio drivers because some cards have HDMI output, which includes audio.
SPreston2001
February 22, 2012 at 6:53am
Ive seen noticable improvements to my aging GTX 295 with this driver update! Assassins Creed Revelations runs alot smoother now! Great job Nvidia!
methuselah
February 22, 2012 at 12:29pm
lol that isn't you in the pic is it?
You didn't really take a picture of yourself and make it your avatar did you?
Budman_NC
February 21, 2012 at 12:15pm
n00b question here, I was just wondering, should you update to newer drivers even if you have old cards like an 8600M or even an AGP 8600? Just wondering.
Scatter
February 21, 2012 at 4:53pm
There's a list of supported products here
http://www.nvidia.com/object/win7-winvista-64bit-295.73-whql-driver.html?nvidiaupdate=1
cmasupra
February 21, 2012 at 1:06pm
If you go to the Nvidia driver page and select your card, it'll tell you the latest driver for your card. There's no harm in checking if the latest driver (or a newer driver than the one you currently have) is available for your card. If it is, then I say you should download it.
anc51699
February 21, 2012 at 1:13pm
Agreed. If there's a newer driver out there, it's a good idea to update.
Budman_NC
February 21, 2012 at 1:27pm
Search results at Nvidia says 295.73 WHQL for my 8600M GT. DLing now.
Thanks so much for the info. Very much appreciated! :)
Jaeger_CDN
February 21, 2012 at 2:39pm
Just something to keep in mind, if the games you play work fine with a older driver (especially with laptop GFX which can't readily be switched out) it may not be to your advantage to upgrade your driver.
I haven't tried the new 295.xx drivers yet but all the previous versions caused nothing but grief for my desktop (560 Ti) and my wife's laptop (220M). We were basically stuck using the 275.33 version due to TDRs and hard crashes and lock ups.
The last version beta driver (295.51 beta) did have a nasty memory leak so hopefully this WHQL version would have fixed that. I'll wait a week before installing this version and see what shakes up in the nvidia forums before I commit to it.
JohnP
February 21, 2012 at 4:29pm
Huh, Jager. I have NEVER had a single issue with ANY NVidia driver for the past 4-5 years now. My GTX580 has been solid as a rock and I have seen noticeable improvements with the new releases. I never had any issues with the supposed "memory leak" with the beta (I am sure that it was "well documented" and complained about but if I did not notice any difference, it means squat to me).
I realize that some folks are just unlucky enough to have marginal graphics cards, broken ones, bad mobos, or screwed up software. That is the risk with buying any computer. However, to tell the world "never upgrade because me and some other users that I read about in forums have issues" is unjust to the vast majority that never have any issues. Its like all those one star reviews in Amazon and NewEgg that says "this POS was broken when I got it but the replacement works fine".
If you have problems and most others don't, not fair to blame the drivers. You need to start replacing hardware and reloading software until whatever is breaking your machine goes away. You have a lot more issues than just drivers if you cannot get a simple driver update to work properly.Work to fix it even if it costs money and time.
I don't mean to start a flame war here so I will not read this post again. I hope you understand that your problem (and the other 300 very vocal people complaining on the forum) is usually a very small percentage of the users and should have been noted as such.
Baer
February 22, 2012 at 11:48am
I agree, no problems with any NV driver for years here. As for memory leaks, just don't leave your computer on all the time. A reboot every few days takes care of memory leaks which can be caused by any poorly written apps no matter who the author is.
SkavenUk
February 21, 2012 at 5:18pm
John,
It's a shame that you will not read this as your post is quite misleading. Jaeger was mearly stating that it's not always in your best intrests to upgrade to the latest driver. Whilst it's great that you have not had any issues and obviously arn't concerned with getting the most out of your graphics card there are plenty of users that are and there are even forums and websites out for such a thing (guru3d is one that springs to mind).
On many occasion (and I work in tech support) a user has upgraded to a newer piece of software for something to then break.
Budman_NC
February 21, 2012 at 3:58pm
Jaeger_CDN, yes and this is the main reason I asked this question. I've read ... "if you want to play such or such game, you should be running the newest drivers" ... and then ... "well, if your stuff is working OK with what you do, then stick with them" ... so its kind of confusing. I was running 266.58 drivers and I installed the Mass Effect 3 demo yesterday, and what does it say during the install?? ... make sure you're using the latest drivers for your video card. So, I give up! LOL I know, small price to pay for using the BEST gaming platform, eh? :)
Jaeger_CDN
February 21, 2012 at 4:21pm
Back when BF3 was in it's open beta stage, it gave the "must use 285 beta drivers or else" pop-up as well everytime you started a MP match. I upgraded from the 275.33 to the 285 and basically had to rebuild my C drive because of the non-stop TDRs and other graphical errors that the 285 drivers introduced(and couldn't completely get rid of in the uninstall). Granted, I was one of many that had this problem but after I used the 275 version on a fresh C drive I went back to zero problems and was still able to play BF3.
This is why I'm going to hold off atleast a week to see how the 295.73 shake out. So far the Nvidia forums aren't screaming yet one way or another but it's still early.
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