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NVIDIA – We are aware that some customers have reported fan speed issues with the latest 196.75 WHQL drivers on NVIDIA.com. Until we can verify and root cause this issue, we recommend that customers stay with, or return to 196.21 WHQL drivers.

Release 196.75 drivers have been temporarily removed from our website. Thanks, and stay tuned for updates.

Tweet from nVidia

Apologies for the confusion around our most recent GF100 update. To clarify, launch date for GeForce GTX 480 and GTX 470 is March 26, 2010.

While traditionally the purview of computer enthusiasts and gamers, graphics are becoming increasingly important as everyday computer users start watching movies and playing games on PCs.

Optimus works by automatically shutting off the graphics card in a computer when it isn’t in use. For instance, if a computer user is surfing the Web or checking e-mail, Optimus will turn the card off, letting the chipset attached to the computer’s main processor deal with these simpler tasks.

When a user decides to watch a movie, Optimus flips the chip on to deal with the larger data load. By shutting off the graphics card, Optimus could potentially increase battery life five-fold.

Previously, users would have to manually turn off the graphics chip, interrupting whatever programs had been running.

Optimus is expected to be included with an upcoming line of notebooks from Asustek Computer Inc later this year.

Full Story ~ The Wall Street Journal

If games and Vista Aero didn’t pursuade you to buy a graphics card for your PC, perhaps DirectCompute will.

That’s a new technology in Windows 7 that lets applications tap the power of graphics processors to accelerate performance, giving the system processor a boost. It sounds really promising, but so did ReadyBoost for Vista and it never seemed to take off.

Nvidia today announced that it’s the first manufacturer of graphics processing units to get Microsoft’s DirectCompute driver certification. People running Windows 7 with a GeForce GPU can download the driver (Version 190.62) from Nvidia later today.

Full Story

Nvidia ForceWare for XP 32-Bit 169.09 Beta

* Beta driver for GeForce 6, 7, and 8 series GPUs.
* Recommended driver for Crysis.
* Several game and application compatibility fixes. Please read the release notes for more information on product support, features, driver fixes and known compatibility issues.
* Users without English US operating systems can select their language and download the International driver here.

Release Notes – 169.09
Control Panel User’s Guide

Download Nvidia ForceWare for XP 32-Bit 169.09 Beta

Nvidia ForceWare for Vista 64-Bit 169.09 Beta

* Beta driver for GeForce 6, 7, and 8 series GPUs.
* Recommended driver for Crysis.
* Several game and application compatibility fixes. Please read the release notes for more information on product support, features, driver fixes and known compatibility issues.
* Users without English US operating systems can select their language and download the International driver here.

Release Notes – 169.09
Control Panel User’s Guide

Download Nvidia ForceWare for Vista 64-Bit 169.09 Beta

Nvidia ForceWare for Vista 32-Bit 169.09 Beta

* Beta driver for GeForce 6, 7, and 8 series GPUs.
* Recommended driver for Crysis.
* Several game and application compatibility fixes. Please read the release notes for more information on product support, features, driver fixes and known compatibility issues.
* Users without English US operating systems can select their language and download the International driver here.

Release Notes – 169.09
Control Panel User’s Guide

Download Nvidia ForceWare for Vista 32-Bit 169.09 Beta

NVIDIA has posted brand new 97.94 ForceWare drivers for Windows XP, Windows XP Media Center, Windows XP x64 and Windows Server 2003 x64. Grab them if you need them.

Supports GeForce 8800 GTX and GeForce 8800 GTS GPUs. Game and application compatibility fixes. For more information on this driver, please view the Release Notes. New PureVideo technology features allows GeForce 8800 GTX/GTS to achieve a score of 128 in the HQV video quality benchmark: Improved inverse telecine algorithms (2:2 & 3:2 Pull-down Correction) for standard and high definition content. Improved spatial-temporal de-interlacing algorithm (for standard and high definition content).

Source

I recently bought an Nvidia 8800 GTX card, but had just a bit of trouble getting it to compile, install, and run under Linux.
I’ve written this tutorial to make it a piece of cake for whoever else may try.

Here are the steps:
1. Download the driver that supports your card.
2. Update your kernel
3. Install the kernel-devel package corresponding to your kernel
4. Install the pkgconfig and xorg-x11-server-sdk packages
5. Prepare your system for trouble
6. Install the driver
7. Setup your X server configuration.
8. Troubleshooting

Note for almost all of these instructions, you will need to be logged in as root. Whenever I tell you to run a command, I mean to open a terminal window, type it in, and press enter.
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