NVIDIA Introduces ForceWare Release 50 Graphics Driver

NVIDIA Introduces ForceWare Release 50 Graphics Driver
Performance, Image Quality, Compatibility, and Stability Define this New Unified Driver Architecture

SANTA CLARA, CA—OCTOBER 23, 2003—NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA), the worldwide leader in visual processing solutions, today introduced its new NVIDIA® ForceWare™ release 50 graphics driver, a new Unified Driver Architecture (UDA) engineered to provide unmatched performance and image quality on both Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0 and OpenGL® applications. In addition to its unmatched DirectX 9.0 application performance, this new graphics driver also delivers world-renowned compatibility, stability, and reliability across all NVIDIA GPUs.

The NVIDIA ForceWare release 50 graphics driver, complete with Microsoft DirectX 9.0 WHQL certification, is free of charge and available on www.nvidia.com immediately.

“Over the last five years, NVIDIA has been on the forefront of software innovation with its Unified Driver Architecture,” said Dwight Diercks, vice president of software engineering at NVIDIA. “With the ForceWare release 50 graphics driver, NVIDIA continues to bring to market groundbreaking software technologies, such as our unified compiler technology, designed with one goal in mind—to enhance the end-user experience.”

The ForceWare release 50 graphics drivers include the NVIDIA unified compiler technology that translates shader programs so that they are optimized for the NVIDIA GPU architecture, substantially improving the performance of next-generation DirectX 9.0 titles such as HalfLife™ 2, XIII, and more. Performance in the DirectX 9.0 application HaloPC™ improves by up to 58% and DirectX 9.0-based Microsoft Flight Simulator™ 9 improves by 33% .

Other features of the NVIDIA ForceWare release 50 graphics drivers include:
· Enhanced image quality for both anisotropic filtering and antialiasing
· A new NVIDIA nView™ 3.0 multi-display setup wizard for easy configuration of your multi-display settings
· nView gridlines to section off the display to help organize your various windows
· Customized user profiles to save display settings and image quality settings on a per application/game basis
· A new user-friendly interface
· Microsoft DirectX and OpenGL support