NVIDIA has released its next set of GeForce 257.21 WHQL Certified drivers which unifies the previous method of having two separate sets of driver packages.

With the 257 series and onwards, NVIDIA will be releasing just a single driver package that supports the GTX 400 series, as well as the GeForce 6 through GTX 300 and NVIDIA ION platform.

Along with this, there are numerous game specific improvements, technology updates and big fixes. The 257.21 drivers are a recommend major update.

Here is a shortlist of the major release notes:

New in Version 257.21

• Adds support for Blu-ray 3D with NVIDIA 3D Vision technology. Learn more about the hardware and software requirements here .
• Increases performance for GeForce GTX 400 Series GPUs in several PC games. The following are examples of some of the most significant improvements measured with GeForce GTX 480. Results will vary depending on your GPU and system configuration:

• • Up to 14% in Aliens vs. Predator (1920×1200 noAA/AF – Tessellation on)
  • Up to 4% in Batman: Arkham Asylum (1920×1200 4xAA/16xAF PhysX=High)
  • Up to 5% in BattleForge (1920×1200 4xAA/16xAF – Very High settings)
  • Up to 5% in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (1920×1200 4xAA/16xAF)
  • Up to 4% in Crysis: Warhead (1920×1200 4xAA/16xAF – Enthusiast setting)
  • Up to 24% in Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (1920×1200 no AA/AF)
  • Up to 9% in Far Cry 2 (2560×1600 8xAA/16xAF)
  • Up to 25% in Just Cause 2 (2560×1600 no AA/AF – Concrete Jungle)
  • Up to 7% in Metro 2033 (1920×1200 no AA/16xAF – Tessellation on)
  • Up to 40% in Metro 2033 with SLI ((1920×1200 4xAA/16xAF – Tessellation on)
  • Up to 8% in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat (1920×1200 no AA/AF – Day)
  • Up to 110% in Stone Giant with SLI (2650×1600 – Tessellation on, DoF on)
  • Up to 6% in The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Athena (2560×1600 no AA/AF)
  • Up to 9% in Unigine: Tropics (2560×1600 no AA/AF – OpenGL)
  • Up to 5% in 3DMark Vantage (Performance and Extreme Presets)
  • Up to 19% with Transparency AA (1920×1200 4xTrSS – measured in Crysis)

• Upgrades PhysX System Software to version 9.10.0223.
• Adds support for OpenGL 4.0 for GeForce GTX 400 Series GPUs.
• Adds support for CUDA Toolkit 3.1 which includes significant performance increases for double precision math operations. See CUDA Zone for more details.
• Adds support for new extreme Antialiasing modes for 3-way SLI PCs, including up to SLI48x AA for GeForce 200 series GPUs and up to SLI96x AA for GeForce GTX 400 series GPUs.
• Adds support for a new ‘Quality’ mode for NVIDIA’s Ambient Occlusion control panel feature.
• Adds a new NVIDIA Control Panel setup page for SLI and PhysX for ultimate control over multi-gpu configurations.
• Adds a new NVIDIA Control Panel feature for ultimate control over CUDA GPUs, allowing the user to effectively choose which GPU will power each CUDA application.

You can download the drivers for your specific system through the NVIDIA Website

Text Link: http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index5.aspx?lang=en-us