NVIDIA To Unify Desktop and Notebook Drivers

by Marco Chiappetta — Monday, April 26, 2010, 09:00 AM EDT

Over the last few years, both ATI and NVIDIA have implemented plans to release mobile graphics driver updates at more regular intervals. Historically, notebook users have been at the mercy of the notebook OEM with regard to mobile graphics driver updates, and OEMs have typically lagged way behind the GPU manufacturers. This left many notebook users out in the cold, while desktop users were treated to performance enhancements, new features, and increased compatibility with the latest games.

NVIDIA, however, is making another move in the mobile GPU space, that takes things a step further, with the ultimate goal of unifying desktop and mobile GPU drivers. NVIDIA's Verde GPU drivers, as they are called, will bring the company's mobile GPU drivers up to feature parity with desktop GeForce drivers. This is particularly important as of late, because the GPU is being used for more than just gaming. Owners of notebooks with discrete NVIDIA GPUs that wanted to take advantage of the increasing number of CUDA-enabled applications, for example, can't do so if their notebook drivers didn't enable CUDA.

The Verde drivers aren't only about CUDA-support, however. With recent driver releases, NVIDIA has also implemented features like ambient occlusion and included compatibility updates and SLI profiles for many new games, in addition to 3D Vision support (with a compatible notebook). NVIDIA will also be releasing a feature called 3D TV Play, which will allow notebook users to connect their systems to 3D TVs, to exploit the benefits of 3D Vision and 3D multimedia content using the glasses included with the TV. And let's not forget about performance. NVIDIA's 197 series drivers also offer significantly increased performance in a number of games and applications, over the old 17x / 18x series drivers. And those performance increases can sometimes make a game that was previously unplayable on the mobile GPU, playable.

Things will really get interesting in a few months when NVIDIA releases their 256 series drivers. At that point, NVIDIA's plans are to completely unify their GPU drivers, so mobile and desktop users will be able to get the latest releases simultaneously. The drivers won't be released in a single package, but the download should be made available at the same time.

While NVIDIA's Verde drivers aim to unify mobile and desktop GPU drivers, they will not be universally compatible. Notebooks with discrete GPUs, hybrid solutions that feature NVIDIA IGPs, and Optimus enabled notebooks will be compatible. Notebooks with multi-vendor hybrid solutions, i.e. those with integrated Intel graphics and discrete NVIDIA graphics, will not be supported. That's somewhat of a letdown, when you consider how many really popular notebooks have been released in the last few years which feature multi-vendor hybrid graphics--the Alienware M11x comes to mind--but NVIDIA is still moving in the right direction and should be commended for making the effort to better support mobile users, when the OEMs won't.

Tags: Nvidia, Mobile, graphics, GPU, drivers, Verde

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com