NVIDIA Releases 350.12 Game Ready WHQL Drivers
by Ryan Smith on April 13, 2015 4:15 PM EST
Hot on the heels of their first R349 branch driver release earlier this month with the release of the 350.05 hotfix drivers, NVIDIA is back again with another R349 release. This time NVIDIA is releasing 350.12, which happens to be both a Game Ready release and their first R349 WHQL release.
On the Game Ready front, NVIDIA is releasing these drivers ahead of this evening's release of the PC version of Grand Theft Auto V, and as is customary for a Game Ready release it contains all of the latest optimizations and profiles necessary for the game. This includes profiles to enable both SLI and 3D Vision support. Meanwhile from a technical standpoint GTA V will be a GameWorks-enabled title, with developer Rockstar using NVIDIA’s Percentage-Closer Soft Shadows (PCSS) and TXAA technologies in the game.
Otherwise as this is also the first R349 WHQL driver we have a bit more detail on what NVIDIA has been working on under the hood for this branch, thanks to a proper set of release notes. Of particular note, NVIDIA has improved the interaction between high resolution (4K+) displays, SLI, and their frame buffer capture technology (used in GameStream/Shadowplay) to reduce the performance hit from using all of these technologies together. Similarly, the NVIDIA control panel is now finally HiDPI aware, capable of supporting 250 DPI.
With this driver release NVIDIA has also posted a bit more information on their OpenCL 1.2 driver. The driver has not yet passed OpenCL conformance testing over at Khronos, but it is expected to do so. OpenCL 1.2 functionality will only be available on Kepler and Maxwell GPUs, with Fermi getting left behind.
Finally, for Windows 10 users, it looks like you'll want to stick to the Windows Update drivers if you want WDDM 2.0 support. A quick check of the 350.12 INF file shows that it doesn't have entries for Windows 10, indicating that this driver is not WDDM 2.0 enabled.
As usual, you can grab the drivers for all current desktop and mobile NVIDIA GPUs over at NVIDIA’s driver download page.
Source: NVIDIA (via SH SOTN)
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HighTech4US - Monday, April 13, 2015 - link
Quote: OpenCL 1.2 functionality will only be available on Kepler and Maxwell GPUs, with Fermi getting left behind.This is incorrect, OpenCL 1.2 works on Fermi:
Quote: IT IS on Fermi as well. I'm seeing a 63 to 77% improvement in LuxMark with my GTX 560. And yes, LuxMark detects 1.2.
http://techreport.com/news/28102/geforce-350-12-dr...
See Ninjitsu's post
dragonsqrrl - Monday, April 13, 2015 - link
I doubt it. A random post by someone claiming performance boosts in LuxMark does not necessarily mean Fermi supports OpenCL 1.2. That's a bit of a stretch in my mind. If true, it's more likely just be driver optimizations by Nvidia. If OpenCL 1.2 is supported by Fermi, it's curious why Nvidia would only confirm support for Maxwell and Kepler in their release notes.MrSpadge - Tuesday, April 14, 2015 - link
They may not want to invest any time in evaluating and supporting it. Or Fermi might just support a subset of OpenCL 1.2, which works for Luxmark but is not enough for official compatibility. In thie case whatever worked now, according to that post, may be removed later on.HighTech4US - Tuesday, April 14, 2015 - link
May, might, mayI see you are really really certain about your guesses.
HighTech4US - Tuesday, April 14, 2015 - link
This is the first official NVIDIA driver supporting OpenCL 1.2 for old devices.Geforce 560 GTX (clinfo):
Platform Profile: FULL_PROFILE
Platform Version: OpenCL 1.2 CUDA 7.0.0
Platform Name: NVIDIA CUDA
Platform Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Platform Extensions: cl_khr_byte_addressable_store cl_khr_icd cl_khr_gl_sharing cl_nv_compiler_options cl_nv_device_attribute_query cl_nv_pragma_unroll cl_nv_d3d9_sharing cl_nv_d3d10_sharing cl_khr_d3d10_sharing cl_nv_d3d11_sharing cl_nv_copy_opts
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/graphics/37519-nvidia...