NVIDIA releases first Windows 7 drivers

NVIDIA just announced it has begun support for Windows 7, launching the first series of GeForce graphics drivers compatible with the OS' beta, currently being enjoyed by well over 2.5 million people. 7, 8, 9 and 100-200 series' cards are supported, as are 32 and 64-bit based systems.

The corporation says today's availability "represents the start of regular NVIDIA driver updates for the forthcoming operating system from Microsoft", touting it as "the first Windows operating system to fully integrate and take advantage of the GPU for both graphics and parallel computing."

“Since its release last month, the Windows 7 Beta has been eagerly tested by hundreds of thousands of NVIDIA GeForce owners, who are excited about the many graphical improvements Microsoft has added into the upcoming operating system,” said Ujesh Desai, vice president of GeForce desktop business at NVIDIA.

The drivers released are numbered 181.71, and support the new Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) v1.1; WDDM is intended to "provide an optimal visual experience in Windows 7", offering increased performance and reliability in 2D and 3D apps, not discounting the 3D Windows Aero desktop. According to benchmarking by PC Pro last month, 7 beats out XP and Vista in boot and shut down time, working with files and document loading, however many office activities and video editing are identical as to Vista and perform slower than on XP.

“We expect that all of our hard work teaming with Microsoft over the past two years will pay off for GeForce GPU owners when Windows 7 officially launches,” said Dwight Diercks, vice president of software engineering at NVIDIA. “Our customers are demanding an experience that is faster and more visual, and with the addition of many new GPU-accelerated features, including DirectX Compute, we believe Windows 7 will be well positioned to meet those needs.”

Get your hands on the new drivers below.