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Nvidia notebook drivers now available directly

Published on 18th December 2008 by Tim Smalley

Owners of notebooks featuring Nvidia GPUs will be able to make use of CUDA-accelerated applications like Badaboom.

Nvidia has made a surprise revelation this afternoon, announcing that it now offers upgradeable notebook graphics drivers for download directly from the company's website.

This will enable owners of notebooks with Nvidia GeForce 8M, 9M and Quadro NVS mobile GPUs to take advantage of new features and performance optimisations as they become available.

The first notebook specific driver release will extend the Nvidia CUDA architecture to notebook GPUs, "enabling the growing number of consumers moving to a notebook-only lifestyle to immediately experience the wide range of CUDA-based applications," according to a statement from Nvidia.

Nvidia has released a beta driver, which is available for Windows Vista x86, Windows Vista x64, Windows XP and Windows XP x64, but the company warns that they don't work with Dell Vostro, Lenovo ThinkPad and Sony Vaio notebooks, along with notebooks that utilize Hybrid SLI technology. These should all be supported in a forthcoming release expected in early 2009.

We think this is great news for notebook owners and it's something we've been pushing Nvidia and ATI to do for a long while. A gaming notebook where you can't update the drivers to the latest version just isn't a gaming notebook, in our opinion – now all we've got to do is keep pushing ATI to do the same.

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10 Comments

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Cupboard 18th December 2008, 18:42

Good, when I had a laptop with an AMD graphics card, I can remember all kinds of issue with Acer never releasing drivers.

Tyrmot 18th December 2008, 20:08

Good for them

leexgx 18th December 2008, 20:17

about time i think it was the OEM company's that did not want drivers to install from the driver makers in the first place whats lame realy as some games will not work on nvidia m GPUs if it was not updated and laptop makers Never update there video drivers

being an owner of an ATI Mobility Radeon or an Nvidia M chip can realy suck (all we need now is ATI to do it)

dylAndroid 18th December 2008, 20:24

That's great to hear. I'm stuck with Dell not releasing notebook drivers for my ATI Mobility Radeon.

I hope that this strategic thinking about the shift towards laptop-only use will lead to the creation of a new species of laptop - one that can fit full strength desktop graphics cards, and run at full power, sacrificing the battery power and casual mobility in trade. There is a market for it, and I'm in it.

reflux 18th December 2008, 21:53

No need for www.laptopvideo2go.com anymore, nice one Nvidia!

kenco_uk 18th December 2008, 22:11

Why don't they currently work with Vostro's I wonder? Any specific reason?

HellRazor 19th December 2008, 04:37

Yet, I still can't get updated drivers for my GO 7600.... maybe they'll add it in sometime.

willyolio 19th December 2008, 04:45

about time. i've never had trouble finding ATI drivers. nVidia, on the other hand...

it's a no-brainer they should have had from the beginning. now, about that "card-renaming" scam that you keep trying to pull, nvidia...

WildTangent 19th December 2008, 10:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by HellRazor
Yet, I still can't get updated drivers for my GO 7600.... maybe they'll add it in sometime.

Yup, looks like I'm left out in the cold too. Oh well, time to upgrade this POS anyway, it's getting long in the tooth.

Gazbaby 19th December 2008, 12:33

Hmm, got an HP (Compaq) 8510w with a QuadroFX 570M which should be coverered but HP kindly tell you its not supported when you try to install. Nice one NVidia! You could have let us know you don't support HP as well when checking for supported manufacturers!