Along with every new generation of graphics cards, nVidia releases an update to their drives and the 7800 GTX is no exception. We see the release of Forceware Release 75 driver and the one we got to try out was v77.62. One of the key features for gamers with this new release is that nVidia will now allows you to chose the SLI rendering mode between Alternate frame rendering and split frame rendering. You will also find profiles for more games with this new release while the Merge App Profiles interface will allow you to merge your currently set profile to the new driver during update. An auto merge function is also present that does the job silently. While we’re on the subject of profiles, its interesting to not that nVidia has also added profiles for lots of applications such as AutoCAD and Cinema 4d meaning SLI is not restricted to games alone.

The new release will also benefit HDTV owners with a new de-interlacing algorithm and high definition 1080i de-interlacing along with Inverse 2:2 pulldown detection and correction. nVidia also provides improved HDTV support in the Display Wizard which will now automatically preview each HD mode that your display supports while HDTV Overscan configuration can be accessed straight from the desktop. HDTV full screen underscan supports new variable X and Y aspect underscan for HDTV outputs.

Mobile users will also benefit with the improved SmartDimmer solution and we’ll try this feature once soon. Supposedly, TurboCache performance is also improved in games with these new drivers while nVidia has also worked on Everquest2 and World of Warcraft stuttering. Lastly, we’re also informed that 64-bit drivers now perform as well as 32-bit drivers in GPU bound apps while CPU bound apps will take a maximum 2% impact. Lastly, nVidia has added Media Center Extensions in this release as well.

Testbed

Our Athlon64 3500+ isn’t cutting edge anymore and thus, this will be the last graphics test that we’ll be doing on this platform. From now on, we will hopefully be using the X2-4800 on a DFI motherboard. But coming back to the present, we’re using the Athlon64 3500+ on the Gigabyte nForce4 SLI motherboard with 2 x 512MB modules of Corsair DDR400 memory with 2.0-2-2-5 settings.

We’ve used the latest 77.62 nVidia drivers for benchmarking the GeForce 7800 GTX. Unfortuantely, due to lack of time, we have to use the scores from other graphics cards that were tested with slightly older drivers. On the nVidia side, we’ve used 71.84 to benchmark the 6800 Ultra and GT SLI setup whereas Catalyst 5.2 was used for the X850.