Nvidia Releases Windows 8 WHQL Driver for Desktop GPUs

[Guest]

Nvidia confirmed that it has the first set of WHQL-certified Windows 8 drivers for its desktop graphics cards available.

Nvidia Releases Windows 8 WHQL Driver for Desktop GPUs : Read more

 

[A Bad Day]

So, anyone wants to use their Windows 7 computer as a guinea pig to see what would happen if the WHQL driver is installed?

I'll install the next non-Windows 7 driver in the future. Promise.

 

[s3anister]

Somewhat insignificant. All this means is that some testing was done by Microsoft to ensure compatibility. Doesn't sound like the driver is anywhere near stable.

 

[mayankleoboy1]

WHQL driver for a BETA software ?

does this mean its certified to crash once per day?

 

[blazorthon]

I thought that Nvidia usually only puts at least reasonably stable drivers out as WHQL releases. They'll probably fix at least most problems in the next release, but this one should not a a WHQL release if it truly has severe stability problems. At least it's for a more or less unfinished platform, so it's somewhat excusable.

 

[nebun]

nVidia is taking the initiative to make sure that the drivers are stable before win8 is ready to ship....that's what i call pro-active...good work on their part...unlike AMD

 

[SteelCity1981]

[citation][nom]nebun[/nom]nVidia is taking the initiative to make sure that the drivers are stable before win8 is ready to ship....that's what i call pro-active...good work on their part...unlike AMD[/citation]

Because AMD knows Windows 8 is going to suck so they aren't in a hurry. LOL

 

[prophylaxis]

Windows 8 isn't in beta. It's about a month out from RTM.

And as far as crash protection, with WDDM 1.2, it handles crashes on a per application basis. This is in contrast to Win 7 where it would reset the entire adapter in the event of a program behaving poorly.

Regardless of your personal opinion of the UI, the underlying technology is improved over 7 as 7 was over vista.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]nebun[/nom]nVidia is taking the initiative to make sure that the drivers are stable before win8 is ready to ship....that's what i call pro-active...good work on their part...unlike AMD[/citation]

AMD already has working Windows 8 drivers. If Nvidia is being proactive, then AMD was preemptively proactive in comparison.

 

[nebun]

[citation][nom]blazorthon[/nom]AMD already has working Windows 8 drivers. If Nvidia is being proactive, then AMD was preemptively proactive in comparison.[/citation]
not really...i haven't seen any drivers from AMD

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]nebun[/nom]not really...i haven't seen any drivers from AMD[/citation]

When you go to download a driver for your specific operating system right on the main page of amd.com, Windows 8 x86 and Windows 8 x64 are the first two options from the top. If you didn't find any Windows 8 drivers from AMD, then that means that you didn't look with the intent of finding them. It took me less than a minute to do it. Considering that it's in a simple drop-down menu, I'm inclined to think that you haven't even looked. I'm also forced to consider the fact that you've so conveniently ignored the one or two articles here on Tom's that were dedicated to AMD's Windows 8 drivers. AMD has had Windows 8 drivers for weeks.

 

[amdfangirl]

200MB drivers... remember 200MB hard drives?

 

[nebun]

[citation][nom]blazorthon[/nom]When you go to download a driver for your specific operating system right on the main page of amd.com, Windows 8 x86 and Windows 8 x64 are the first two options from the top. If you didn't find any Windows 8 drivers from AMD, then that means that you didn't look with the intent of finding them. It took me less than a minute to do it. Considering that it's in a simple drop-down menu, I'm inclined to think that you haven't even looked. I'm also forced to consider the fact that you've so conveniently ignored the one or two articles here on Tom's that were dedicated to AMD's Windows 8 drivers. AMD has had Windows 8 drivers for weeks.[/citation]
i did look but i did not see anything...hmmm, i need to check my ad-block settings

 

[izajasz]

Too bad. NVIDIA looses money and time to develop windows 8 driver and kepler at windows 7 has still soem significant bugs.... BEtter they put this effort to fix windows 7 drivers as nobody will use windows 8 since its for facebook noobs.... Noob interface metro so You can boot up and click facebook ....

 

[demonhorde665]

[citation][nom]nebun[/nom]nVidia is taking the initiative to make sure that the drivers are stable before win8 is ready to ship....that's what i call pro-active...good work on their part...unlike AMD[/citation]
I call it a wast of nvidia's resources seeing as how windohs 8 will probably sale worse than vista did. the reasons why I believe this are


1. every one is hating win 8 already and it's not even out

2. win 8 is forcing drastic changes in options on "how we compute" onto consumers merely for the sake of making a moble OS the thing is NOT being designed for PC's

3. WWWAYYY to soon for a new OS, win vista was like 4-5 years after win XP , and people thought that was to soon and clung on to Xp till win 7 hit. win 7 is what 2 years old now at most ???? no one is looking to update OSes again not when they paid 200-300 buck just 2 years ago (or less in most cases) for win7



MS is really setting them selves up to go pop on this one. I seriously don't see win 8 selling even half the numbers that win 7 has pulled thus far. it might sell half those numbers if MS prices win 8 at no more than 150 but that is as likely to happen as pigs flying out of my a--. I'd believe win 8 might even break even with win 7 if they priced it at 50-100 dollars ... but well i think i have a better chance of Elvis and aliens landing on on my head while pigs also fly out of my a-- , than the chance of us seeing that price point.

 

[JamesSneed]

Windows 8 isn't in beta. It's about a month out from RTM.

And as far as crash protection, with WDDM 1.2, it handles crashes on a per application basis. This is in contrast to Win 7 where it would reset the entire adapter in the event of a program behaving poorly.

Regardless of your personal opinion of the UI, the underlying technology is improved over 7 as 7 was over vista.

So what do you call software that hasn't been released to manufacture(RTM)? Beta? Or if your Microsoft you call it a release candidate which is a beta version with potential to be a final product. None the less Windows 8 is still in Beta testing.

 

[fruitn]

No problems using the driver on my W7 Ultimate.
In fact it is more stable than 301.42 I used prior to installing it. It also allows me to play Civ5 in Dx 10&11, which crashed all the time on 301.42 for some reason.
I've also yet to experience 1 of the random 'graphics driver has stopped working' messages I got with 301.42. it popped up at least once a week, out of the blue no matter what I was doing on the computer.

 

[noblerabbit]

Drivers for Windows 8! wow, are these the ones that will be able to draw squares in various sizes and colors for my 2yr old newphew to play memory match with?

 

[waethorn]

[citation][nom]amdfangirl[/nom]200MB drivers... remember 200MB hard drives?[/citation]

My first computer with a hard drive was a Tandy 1000 SL with a 20MB "Hard Card" ARLL drive (a variant of RLL where interleaving was optimized to provide better performance). Most people I knew with a Tandy had bought a 1000 EX which was an PC-in-keyboard design and looked like a C-64 (but was far more powerful). You have to remember that these computers even predated high-density floppies, so you could only use "double-density" 360KB 5.25" and 720KB 3.5" disks. I remember when King's Quest 5 came out, and although I got the "EGA" (it had Tandy 1000 16-colour graphics too) version, it only shipped on high-density 5.25" disks and I only had the stock 360KB 5.25" drive installed. I had to buy a 720KB 3.5" drive for the computer and order the trade-up disk package from Sierra.

If my memory serves me, it cost around $3000 when new.

 

[JamesSneed]

My first had an upgraded 40MB hard drive. ^

 

[omnimodis78]

[citation][nom]mayankleoboy1[/nom]WHQL driver for a BETA software ?does this mean its certified to crash once per day?[/citation]
Why not? Microsoft isn't certifying that the product (driver/software/hardware) is a bulletproof feat of engineering, it's simply confirming that all tests done on the part of the third-party (in this care nvidia) is conforming to the testing and deployment standards needed to ensure Windows compatibility.

 

[waethorn]

[citation][nom]omnimodis78[/nom]Why not? Microsoft isn't certifying that the product (driver/software/hardware) is a bulletproof feat of engineering, it's simply confirming that all tests done on the part of the third-party (in this care nvidia) is conforming to the testing and deployment standards needed to ensure Windows compatibility.[/citation]

Just to put the record straight, this is a PRE-certified driver. It must still be certified on the final RTM Windows 8 codebase, and unless Microsoft has already released the RTM to major hardware OEM's (which I doubt, because they usually have big announcements of RTM even before MSDN gets the code - which is the first pseudo-public channel to get it), then NVIDIA still can't call this a truly "WHQL-certified" driver.

Hell, the testing tools aren't RTM yet either.

Oh, and FYI: there is no such thing as "WHQL" or "WinQual" anymore. It's just "Windows Dev Center - Hardware". Certification is just called "Windows Hardware Certification", and the tool for certifying is called the Windows Hardware Certification Kit (HCK). They don't even focus on the Windows logo anymore, as the old testing track was called the "Windows Logo Program". I would bet this has something to do with OEM's not wanting to use Windows logo stickers on newer, sleeker machines. It's also redundant with mobile systems, since both tablets and laptops already have Windows logos on their keyboard or their home button, and most computers sold now are in fact mobile devices.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]demonhorde665[/nom]I call it a wast of nvidia's resources seeing as how windohs 8 will probably sale worse than vista did. the reasons why I believe this are1. every one is hating win 8 already and it's not even out 2. win 8 is forcing drastic changes in options on "how we compute" onto consumers merely for the sake of making a moble OS the thing is NOT being designed for PC's3. WWWAYYY to soon for a new OS, win vista was like 4-5 years after win XP , and people thought that was to soon and clung on to Xp till win 7 hit. win 7 is what 2 years old now at most ???? no one is looking to update OSes again not when they paid 200-300 buck just 2 years ago (or less in most cases) for win7 MS is really setting them selves up to go pop on this one. I seriously don't see win 8 selling even half the numbers that win 7 has pulled thus far. it might sell half those numbers if MS prices win 8 at no more than 150 but that is as likely to happen as pigs flying out of my a--. I'd believe win 8 might even break even with win 7 if they priced it at 50-100 dollars ... but well i think i have a better chance of Elvis and aliens landing on on my head while pigs also fly out of my a-- , than the chance of us seeing that price point.[/citation]

The timeline difference between Vista and XP was a fluke. Prior to it, there were 2-3 year spreads between new Windows operating systems, at the most. Besides, it's not like MS did nothing between releasing XP and releasing Vista. There were the service packs, Windows XP MCE, Windows XP x64, etc. etc. Besides, Windows 8 isn't as bad as you make it out to be. Just install a free start menu program and it's pretty good. The underlying advantages that Windows 8 have make it almost worth it even without the start menu, but since the start menu is easy to get back, that's not a problem at all. I have no doubt that Windows 8 will outsell Vista, albeit maybe slowly at first.

 

[cscott_it]

Using it on my work PC and I haven't had any issues. Earlier releases had difficulty correctly detecting multiple monitors (would detect them as non-plug and play, despite them all being the exact same Dell model).

I haven't done much gaming in Windows 8 due to work bleeding over into my personal life, so I can't attest to the stability of the drivers in Win 8. I wouldn't mind doing some performance benches at home from my GTX 580 if there was any interest, though they are likely going to be the same if not edging a little more towards Win 8 because it is less resource intensive than 7.

 

[eddieroolz]

[citation][nom]prophylaxis[/nom]Windows 8 isn't in beta. It's about a month out from RTM.And as far as crash protection, with WDDM 1.2, it handles crashes on a per application basis. This is in contrast to Win 7 where it would reset the entire adapter in the event of a program behaving poorly.Regardless of your personal opinion of the UI, the underlying technology is improved over 7 as 7 was over vista.[/citation]

That's very good news and I was not aware of that. Maybe one more reason to upgrade to Windows 8.