WHQL-certified GeForce 190.38 Drivers Out

Nvidia has released its final build of the WHQL GeForce 190.38 drivers for all recent Windows platforms, including Windows 7.

Download now for:

• Windows Vista or Windows 7 32-bit
• Windows Vista or 7 64-bit
• Windows XP
• Windows XP x64

The big new feature in this driver release is power management features. As Nvidia describes in its release notes:

Many NVIDIA graphics cards support multiple performance levels so that the PC can save power when full graphics performance is not required. To provide more control over these power management capabilities, NVIDIA has added the Power Management Mode control. The control consists of two settings–Adaptive and Prefer Maximum Performance.

Adaptive: This is the default setting in which the graphics card monitors GPU usage and seamlessly switches between modes based on the performance demands of the application. This allows the GPU to always use the minimum amount of power required to run a given application, and can allow even older 3D games to run in lower power modes if the game does not require full 3D performance. NVIDIA recommends this setting for best overall balance of power and performance.

Prefer Maximum Performance: This setting lets you maintain the card at its maximum performance level when 3D applications are running regardless of GPU usage. This option can be set Globally (for all 3D applications), or an application profile can be created under Program Settings to set the preference for a particular 3D application.

Other new additions include expanded CUDA support, 64-bit video encoding, OpenGL 3.1 and a few more. Check out the full list of fixes and open issues for the appropriate release notes: Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP.