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Overall Impressions & Conclusions

Nvidia has chosen an interesting path with the desktop enhancements. With the projected semi long term stay of DirectX 9.xx and major feature changes not really expected for a while, Nvidia seems to be focusing a lot of their energy into usability and compatibility rather than trying to straight out improve performance in 3D gaming. This may also have to do with the fact that a new architecture is just around the corner. Nvidia has improved the interface and accessibility for a lot of their functions in this driver release. Gamers will be sure to appreciate the application specific profiles for graphics settings, HTPC buffs will like the 1 button TV Out, and the boss at work will like gridlines, pop up blocking and the other enhancements to nView. The drivers themselves are not completely flawless - some of the nView shell integrated options have a tendency to disappear during the few days that I have been playing with the driver, notable the nView option from the corner of an application.

The biggest problem with both Gridlines, Pop up blocking and a lot of the other advanced functionality is that it takes time to explore the features and end users may not be aware of these new features. Something that would be useful in the future would be a menu or configuration utility that pops up after the driver install to help explain to the end user what these features do and give them the ability to turn the features on and off. This is somewhat alleviated by better mouse over help menus that attempt to explain what a lot of options do but for the casual user that is not as computer savvy, there is a lot of exploration that they are not likely to partake in because the amount of features can be somewhat overwhelming. Other than that, the functionality is pretty well polished and works quite well.

Hopefully the improvements to the functionality of the Nvidia drivers will not divert attention from cutting edge 3D performance that Nvidia built its reputation on. The nView options are no doubt geared at the enterprise segment and even those with older Nvidia based cards like the TNT and NForce 2 boards with integrated video can also take advantage of all the enhancements in the new driver set which makes both low end Nvidia cards and their integrated solutions a lot more attractive in the office environment than their competing counterparts. With the performance and gaming segment, the Application Specific profiles for each game will surely please discerning gamers who have preferential image quality settings for each game. Look for these drivers to be available off the Nvidia site in a couple weeks- a bug with UT2k4 has delayed the release although the drivers are WHQL certified and is being shipping with new cards and is also available to OEMs and system integrators.