14 DAY TRIAL // It's been quite a while (well, a few weeks, actually) since NVIDIA released its latest drivers, but now, the GPU manufacturer ushered in a completely new software series, and although we're talking about a beta release, not a WHQL, the new 265 family of drivers does manage to bring some interesting enhancements for GeForce graphics cards.
The driver update applies to GeForce 6, 7, 8, 9, 100, 200, 300, 400, and 500-series desktop GPUs as well as ION desktop GPUs and the newly released GeForce GTX 580 and GeForce GTX 570 GPUs.
So, if you're the owner of such a GPU, you can get the new drivers right here on Softpedia, whether your machine is running Windows XP (download here), Windows XP x64 (download here) or Windows Vista/7 (download here) or Windows Vista/7 x64 (download here).
The new drivers increase performance for GeForce 400 Series and 500 Series GPUs in several PC games vs. the latest Release 260 drivers, while also adding ambient occlusion support for one of the most popular games of the year: Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty.
Furthermore, the release adds support for 3DVisionLive.com Beta 2, for 3D photo sharing and viewing, adds new 3D video clips to the website and includes several bug fixes.
Release 265 also adds support for 3D Vision gaming in a desktop window, which allows DirectX 9 games to be played in a window while still having access to email, web, and chat applications.
With version 266.35 drivers, this feature works with many popular games that support window mode such as World of Warcraft, EverQuest 2, and Aion.
The driver update also brings along several improvements for NVIDIA 3D Surround and SLI, while also adding 3D profiles for some of the latest games to arrive on the market.
Other notable updates include the installation of HD Audio driver version 1.1.13.1, PhysX System software to version 9.10.0514, plus the support for playing back Blu-ray 3D discs when connecting your GPU to an HDMI 1.4 3D TV.
These are only a few of the novelties brought about by the new drivers, but if you want to find out more on the other enhancements brought about by these beta drivers, check out the download links provided above.