Expands graphics card support but also discontinues some features

Oct 19, 2011 07:54 GMT  ·  By

People are probably still waiting for a driver that can make all those rage-inducing Rage problems go away, but NVIDIA released something else instead, specifically a new package for Quadro and Tesla cards.

They may not be found in many, if any, consumer personal computers, but the Tesla and Quadro cards do have their own buyers.

For professionals who want their graphics cards and accelerators working as well as possible, NVIDIA provided the Quadro/Tesla Display Driver 285.58 WHQL.

The new package adds a few new features, discontinues older ones and deals with some limitations, though not all.

For one, OpenGl 4.2 support was implemented, as were some driver performance improvements, like workstation compatibility fixes.

Furthermore, owners of the NVIDIA Tesla M2075 add-in-board have their card recognized now as well.

What Quadro or Tesla owner's won't see anymore is, for one, the NVIDIA AutoCAD performance driver.

Granted, the company is still providing standalone versions and updates, but not as part of the driver package itself.

Furthermore, the Santa Clara, California-based company removed some elements from the NVIDIA Control Panel, like the ability to select between the Standard and Advanced Views for controls. The profiles menu is also absent.

Another things is that the Graph tab on the Adjust Desktop Color Setting page in NVIDIA Control Panel (display category) is not available.

Finally, the driver recognizes only up to 4 GB of video memory on Quadro cards (for OpenGL, DirectX and CUDA applications) in Windows 7 and Vista 32-bit (in 64-bit, it sees it all in Direct3D and OpenGL).

Go below to download the version of the driver appropriate to your operating system.

NVIDIA Quadro/Tesla Display Driver 285.58 WHQL for XP

NVIDIA Quadro/Tesla Display Driver 285.58 WHQL for XP64

NVIDIA Quadro/Tesla Display Driver 285.58 WHQL for Vista/Windows 7

NVIDIA Quadro/Tesla Display Driver 285.58 WHQL for Vista64/Windows 7 x64