After releasing GT200+ R177 drivers, Nvidia is all set to launch its latest ForceWare driver -- codenamed Big Bang II, come September. Formally known as the ForceWare Release 180 or R180, Big Bang II will bring OpenGL 3.0 support and SLI with multiple monitors.
Chile Hardware was the first to report, based on a blurry slide, that this upcoming release will bring in new features. Mainly, the driver will offer multi-monitor support on SLI systems, which would allow multiple video cards to be used with multiple monitors. The driver will also offer support for OpenGL 3.0 APIs -- this will bring hardware support for Geometry Shaders, Texture arrays and other DirectX 10 hardware oriented features. Other features include 10-bit DisplayPort support, and PhysX support for 8-series and 9-series video cards
The Quadro cards will also benefit from a set of performance optimizations; the new Quadro lineup is expected to arrive soon.
Nvidia also promises to debut a new codec library which will allow for 10X faster encoding using a GPU, than a quad-core CPU currently offers. Billed as 'the next big thing', video transcoding will be improved even on low-config systems with Celeron CPUs.
DisplayPort support on the GeForce lineup has been there since the beginning of this year. Coupled with Windows Vista, the 10-bit DisplayPort will raise the color levels to match with that of HDMI's 1.3 version.
Nvidia follows a quarterly development of drivers and has shared their roadmap with us. The R180 drive release is due in September, R185 will be released in December-February time-frame, the R190 will be rolled out between March and May, the R195 is due between Jun-August, and finally -- the R200, codenamed "Big Bang III", will support DirectX 11.
The roadmap appears less spectacular since Nvidia's SLI-support on Intel chipsets is still missing.
Source: http://www.techtree.com/India/News/N...91858-580.html
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