Nvidia has released new beta drivers offering GeForce 400, 500 and 600 series owners up to 18% more performance depending on the title and settings. In a blog post, Nvidia published some of its own tests in which the GTX 680 saw a 17.6% boost over last month's 301.42 WHQL release in Batman: Arkham City, 12.4% in Dragon Age 2, 9.8% in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat and 4% in Lost Planet 2 when running the games on high or max settings. A 5.8% to 15% bump was recorded with a second GTX 680 in SLI.
As a second example, Nvidia shared the GTX 560's results when shifting to the beta drivers, including 14% more performance in Arkham City, 6.7% in Lost Plane 2 and 5.5% in Dragon Age 2. When paired with another GTX 560, the combo delivers 11.9% more frames in Arkham City, 5.2% in Battlefield 3, 6.1% in Dragon Age 2, 4% in Lost Planet 2, 5.3% in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat and 7.9% in The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. Nvidia's article provides more information about how each game was configured.
The beta release also fixes a bug in Shogun 2: Total War that reduced frame rates by up to 60%, another that caused intermittent vsync stuttering with GTX 600 series cards as well as a bug that prevented some overclocked cards from running at their higher clocks. Nvidia has also added or improved a handful of new SLI and 3D Vision profiles for games including Torchlight II, Tribes: Ascend, F1 2011, Planetside 2, Borderlands 2, Mass Effect 3, Max Payne 3, Street Fighter X Tekken, and The Walking Dead.
Download GeForce 304.48 Beta (release notes -- read the download pages, no PDF available)
Desktop: Windows Vista/7 32-bit | Windows Vista/7 64-bit
Mobile: Windows Vista/7 32-bit | Windows Vista/7 64-bit
Download GeForce 302.80 WHQL (release notes)
Desktop: Windows 8 32-bit | Windows 8 64-bit
Mobile: Windows 8 32-bit | Windows 8 64-bit
Download GeForce 301.42 WHQL (release notes)
Desktop: Windows XP 32-bit | Windows XP 64-bit | Windows Vista/7 32-bit | Windows Vista/7 64-bit
Mobile: Windows Vista/7 32-bit | Windows Vista/7 64-bit
Meanwhile, Diablo III, L.A. Noire, Rayman Origins, and The Secret World have gained antialiasing support in the Nvidia Control Panel, and Star Wars: The Old Republic's ambient occlusion can be set in the Nvidia Control Panel. FXAA, Nvidia's antialiasing solution, has been disabled in Windows programs like Media Player and Movie Maker. Although FXAA has been well-received, its effects were being applied to Windows applications when set to run globally, making text difficult or impossible to read.
