News - NVIDIA releases 260-series beta drivers

[HEXUS]

Big performance-boost for GTX 400-series owners and better 3D Blu-ray support.

Read more.

[d3fiant]

Along with all of the various performance-tweaks, this release will also bring a few new features for HTPCs. Graphics-cards - including the GTX 460 and above - will now be able to output 24-bit multi-channel audio at up to 192KHz over HDMI, as well as lossless DTS-HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD bitstreaming when playing Blu-ray 3D films. While these features are still fairly niche, there are certainly some people out there who will greatly appreciate the inclusion.

Why only 460 or above, most who use these features wouldnt want a full fat fermi in their HTPC...or would they

[Funkstar]

Yeah, that seems pretty stupid. No way I would want something like that in a HTPC. It's not like enabling that kind of output requires the horsepower of a 460, it might increase the load on the card a little bit, but if it's only bitstreaming off a disk, even the most basic of cards should be able to handle that.

[BullDogg]

Yeah, that seems pretty stupid. No way I would want something like that in a HTPC. It's not like enabling that kind of output requires the horsepower of a 460, it might increase the load on the card a little bit, but if it's only bitstreaming off a disk, even the most basic of cards should be able to handle that.

Remember that's specifically for 3D Blu-ray, so maybe it does need the horsepower. Maybe not though, I'm not sure.

To be honest, does anyone really need bitstreaming for 3D blu-ray? Does anyone actually have a 3D BDROM drive hooked up to a high end receiver? I didn't even know there were any 3D BR films out yet.

Having said, I am still a philistine, what with my mere two dimensions.

[Funkstar]

I didn't realise that was just for the 3D part, I assumed that a 460 was required for bitstreaming audio full stop.

[d3fiant]

I still dont understand why it only specifies the audio formats with BR 3D, the audio doesnt change between BR and BR 3D does it? Oh what do I know

[kingpotnoodle]

Why only 460 or above, most who use these features wouldnt want a full fat fermi in their HTPC...or would they

Graphics-cards - including the GTX 460 and above

So the lower end ones will also be able to do this I imagine.

[Hicks12]

Im just as lost as you guys but lets focus on potentially tangible changes, performance! These drivers seem to add a lot of performance and im curious if this is actually true.... id assume its possible since the 400 series hasnt had long to mature compared to amd's 5000 series.

Will be testing starcraft 2 and any other games i have to see performance difference with these drivers.

[Tattysnuc]

Wonder what the folding performance will be like, and whether it'll still enable folding without a dummy plug on a GTX 295?

[dangel]

Much nicer driver packaging with this release, and no reboot required. Much better.

[Mark@SCAN]

So the lower end ones will also be able to do this I imagine.

The bitstreaming of lossless audio Dolby TrueHD and DTS-MA is only supported on the GTX460 and newer i.e. GTS450 etc rather than being supported on the higher end cards i.e. GTX465/470/480

[Mark@SCAN]

The bitstreaming of lossless audio Dolby TrueHD and DTS-MA is only supported on the GTX460 and newer i.e. GTS450 etc rather than being supported on the higher end cards i.e. GTX465/470/480

From the release notes:

http://www.nvidia.co.uk/object/win7-...driver-uk.html

HD Audio

Adds lossless DTS-HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD audio bitstreaming support for compatible Blu-ray movies with GeForce GTX 460 GPUs*.
Adds high definition 24-bit, 96 and 192 KHz multi-channel audio sampling rate support for compatible Blu-ray movies with GeForce GTX 400 Series ,GT 240, GT 220 and 210 GPUs*.
Upgrades HD Audio driver to version 1.1.9.0.