NVIDIA Makes Laptop Graphics Drivers Available Online ... Finally

[Jerry Jackson]

NVIDIA decided to give notebook users an early Christmas present today. It's a present notebook owners have kept on their wish lists since NVIDIA first started making graphics processing units (GPUs) for notebooks ... downloadable drivers on the NVIDIA website.

For years now the only way laptop owners could find notebook graphics drivers for NVIDIA GPUs was if the notebook manufacturer was kind enough to make the drivers available or to download unofficial "hacked" drivers from various websites (drivers that were often hacked together based on desktop GPU drivers). Consumers need these drivers in order to be able to take full advantage of the latest visual computing applications and games as well as to be able to restore GPU functions after a fresh install of Windows.

NVIDIA is now offering notebook users the option of downloading graphics driver updates and upgrades direct from NVIDIA.com for the first time. The driver update from NVIDIA will offer new features, improved application compatibility, and performance optimizations.   The first web driver update from NVIDIA will extend NVIDIA "CUDA" technology to notebook GPUs. According to the official press release, "CUDA technology also moves physics processing to the GPU for new levels of realism in games and virtual worlds based on the market leading PhysX API."

Notebook manufacturers have historically only allowed graphics drivers to be offered directly from them. This was due to the fact that the drivers had to be customized in order to maintain the functionality of dedicated hotkeys, power management, and smooth suspend/resume in notebooks. NVIDIA claims to have worked diligently over the past year to "modularize its driver architecture" and "develop a unified driver install package" that not only works with laptops from all manufacturers but also maintains those specific model hotkeys and suspend and resume functionality.

The availability of "official" notebook drivers on the NVIDIA website couldn't come soon enough for many of our forum regulars, as our discussion forum members have posted literally hundreds of links to hacked drivers over the years. Let's hope these newly available drivers prove as helpful as they sound. 

[mD-]

great news, hoping to see continued improvements in performance from these

[Callidor]

Fantastic! I'm gonna check them out right now.

[Thund3rball]

Nice! What is that second screenshot of, with the ipod in it?

[Chris Redfield]

Excellent, use official drivers for your lapy and avoid laptopvideo2go hacked drivers then xD.

Great news

[Jerry Jackson]

Nice! What is that second screenshot of, with the ipod in it?

That's BadaBoom, one of the many new applications that takes advantage of your computer's GPU to speed up the performance of the application ... if you have the new drivers that support it. Adobe Photoshop CS4 also uses GPU acceleration.

Our office staff thinks it's the new trend of productivity applications that use GPU acceleration that are making NVIDIA do this. Gaming enthusiasts have complained about the lack of standardized notebook drivers for years, but it wasn't until these new applications hit the market that notebook GPU manufacturers started to pay attention.

Software developers need a standardized driver architecture if they're going to create software that can take advantage of the GPU in order to boost the performance of the application.

[RangerXML]

It was a blessing to discover how to install desktop drivers as WHQL on a notebook, and now this.

Merry Christmas and thank you nVidia!

[Thund3rball]

That's BadaBoom, one of the many new applications that takes advantage of your computer's GPU to speed up the performance of the application ... if you have the new drivers that support it. Adobe Photoshop CS4 also uses GPU acceleration.

Our office staff thinks it's the new trend of productivity applications that use GPU acceleration that are making NVIDIA do this. Gaming enthusiasts have complained about the lack of standardized notebook drivers for years, but it wasn't until these new applications hit the market that notebook GPU manufacturers started to pay attention.

Software developers need a standardized driver architecture if they're going to create software that can take advantage of the GPU in order to boost the performance of the application.

Thanks Jerry, I am looking into it now. I am aware of CS4s GPU harnessing but did not realize other apps such as this are already out there too. Now my interest is peaked. Cheers

[Wishmaker]

Finally proper drivers from NVIDIA. No more mods. Updating now .

[Rakkzz]

Do you install these the same way you install the LaptopVideo2Go drivers (i.e Driver Sweeper in Safe mode, reboot and install)? Or do you just update them over your current drivers?

Either way, this is good news!