NVIDIA Posts Newer Windows 7 Graphics Card Drivers Online
Previous to March, NVIDIA directed Windows 7 beta testers to Microsoft’s Windows Update service for graphics driver updates. This frustrated users who were most likely to test Windows 7, as Microsoft’s version of NVIDIA drivers lacked many features; CUDA, PhysX, and other NVIDIA technologies.
Last week, NVIDIA corrected this, by posting Beta Windows 7 drivers as direct downloads from nvidia.com. Unlike the Windows Update drivers, these ForceWare drivers are from the newer, 181 series, and also include all current NVIDIA technologies, as well as full SLI support.
NVIDIA does caution that, like the Windows 7 Public Beta, these new ForceWare drivers are also in beta, and may contain new and undiscovered bugs.
For some reason, these beta drivers do not have the full range of mobile driver support that other 180-series ForceWare drivers feature. It could be that this is temporary, but I hope that NVIDIA does not fall back on their recent commitment to expand ForceWare drivers for notebooks.
For example, my MacBook Pro (Early 2008) with a GeForce 8600M is not supported by the latest Windows 7 drivers from NVIDIA. However, in Vista, there is a mobile driver branch of the same driver version available for Vista and XP. Those work fine on the same MacBook Pro, sans any modifications.