Microsoft Certifies GeForce Driver - Article

Santa Clara, California-based NVIDIA has announced today that it has received the Windows Hardware Qualification Lab (WHQL) certification for a driver that has been designed to support the DirectCompute technology and Windows 7 operating system. The announcement represents another milestone for the company, which has been actively promoting the performance capabilities of its GPUs in general-purpose computing-enabled applications. The certification will enable users to see increased performance for a number of apps that take advantage of the company's GeForce GPUs in the Windows 7 OS environments.

“Windows 7 combined with applications that take advantage of the new DirectCompute technology have the potential to transform the personal computing experience for millions of customers using GPUs to turbo-charge scenarios in digital media applications,” said Mike Ybarra, general manager for Windows Product Management at Microsoft Corp. “We've already seen some applications come to market that take advantage of the GPU, Windows 7 and DirectCompute will make it even easier for developers to write applications and deliver these benefits to millions of additional customers.”

The chip maker has announced that the new driver will be made available through its website later this week, enabling the DirectCompute technology to work on systems running on GeForce GPUs and Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system. Applications that are optimized for DirectCompute are to deliver smoother and an overall better quality in NVIDIA GPU-enabled systems.

In addition to the DirectCompute feature, which will be part of the upcoming DirectX 11 API, Windows 7 will also provide users with an increase in performance for gaming applications. According to NVIDIA, using its SLI technology and the new OS, users should see a 14% increase in performance across top gaming titles, compared to previous generations of GPUs. Windows 7 is also expected to bring H.264 high-definition video playback to Windows Media player, which will also take advantage of the performance delivered by the system's graphics processing unit.