Nvidia 174.53 GeForce 9 ForceWare Drivers Released

A mere week after the launch of the newest top dawg in the graphics world, the GeForce 9800 GX2, Nvidia has released drivers for both the new dual-GPU graphics card and its more affordable (and in my personal opinion best price to performance nvidia card) GeForce 9600 GT.

This new 174.53 release is the first GeForce 9800 GX2-compatible driver set to have received Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL) certification from Microsoft, and it includes support for Quad SLI technology, new PureVideo HD features, and new Nvidia Control Panel functionality for Windows Vista.

The new control panel features include "Manage Custom Resolutions," "Adjust Television Color Settings," "Adjust Screen Size and Position," and "Move CRT Position." Users can also look forward to the following new PureVideo HD functionality:

• Dynamic Contrast Enhancement
• Dynamic Blue, Green & Skin Tone Enhancements
• Dual-Stream Decode Acceleration
• Microsoft Vista Aero display mode compatibility for Blu-ray & HD DVD playback

Of course Aero isn't available for Windows XP and Nvidia doesn't list Quad SLI support as a feature for the XP version of the new drivers, either. (Although who would want blow $1,200 on DirectX 10 graphics processors and then run Windows XP, which only supports DirectX 9.)

You can find the 174.53 drivers on Nvidia's website.