For those NVIDIA users, who enviously read the annoucement of the recent monthly release of ATI’s 9.6 drivers, we have a treat for you!

This morning NVIDIA has released the WHQL Certified 186.18 Drivers for your downloading pleasure. The release covers a full line of products, from the ancient 6XXX series, up to the bleeding edge GT200 based cards, as well as Ion platform support.

Here’s the short n’ sweet of it all:

New in Release 186.18

• Numerous bug fixes. More information can be found in the release documentation.
• Installs the new PhysX System Software version 9.09.0428.

New in Release 185/186 drivers:

• Adds support for Ambient Occlusion – the newest NVIDIA Control Panel feature to offer enhanced 3D gaming realism exclusively to GeForce GPUs.
• Adds support for CUDA 2.2 for improved performance in GPU Computing applications. See CUDAfor more details.
• Expands GPU hardware acceleration for the NVIDIA Video Encoding library to GPUs with less than 32 cores. Applications using this library include CyberLink PowerDirector 7, Nero Move it 1.5, Loilo SuperLoiloScope MARS, and CyberLink MediaShow Espresso.
• Accelerates performance in several 3D applications. The following are examples of improvements measured with Release 185/186 drivers vs. Release 181 drivers (results will vary depending on your GPU, system configuration, and game settings):
  • Up to 25% performance increase in The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena
  • Up to 22% performance increase in Crysis: Warhead with antialiasing enabled
  • Up to 11% performance increase in Fallout 3 with antialiasing enabled
  • Up to 14% performance increase in Far Cry 2
  • Up to 30% performance increase in Half-Life 2 engine games with 3-way and 4-way SLI
  • Up to 45% performance increase in Mirror’s Edge with antialiasing enabled
• Supports GeForce Plus Power Pack #3. Download these FREE PhysX and CUDA applications now!

Existing Support:

• Supports single GPU and NVIDIA SLI technology on DirectX 9, DirectX 10, and OpenGL, including 3-way SLI, Quad SLI, and SLI support on SLI-certified Intel X58-based motherboards.
• Includes full support for OpenGL 3.0.
• Supports NVIDIA PhysX acceleration on a dedicated GeForce graphics card. Use one card for graphics and dedicate a different card for PhysX processing for game-changing physical effects. Learn more here.
• Supports GPU overclocking and temperature monitoring by installing NVIDIA System Tools software.

Download:  

Release Notes

NVIDIA Manual Download by Product

Direct Download Links:

Windows 7/Vista 64-bit  (111MB)

Windows 7/Vista 32-bit (93.5MB)

Windows XP 64-bit (84.5MB)

Windows XP 32-bit (72.8MB)