NVIDIA Releases 352.84 Drivers - First WHQL Win10 Driver Set
At the tail-end of last week NVIDIA released driver version 352.84 for Windows 10, which for the most part is analogous to today’s 352.86 release for Win7/8. 352.84 in turn marks an important stage in the development of Windows 10 display drivers, as it’s the first stand-alone WHQL driver release from NVIDIA. NVIDIA’s only previous stand-alone release was 352.63 Beta (also from the same R352 branch), which came out a couple of weeks ago.
The fact that NVIDIA was proclaiming this as their first WHQL release threw me for a loop at first, but after reaching out I’ve finally been able to piece together a near-complete picture. Throughout the release cycle of WDDM 2.0 drivers for Windows 10, the drivers being distributed through Windows Update were flagged as WHQL certified, including drivers like NVIDIA’s 349.90 release from March. The fact that Windows 10 was already claiming to have WHQL certified drivers made NVIDIA’s announcement very odd, since it would mean that Windows Update has been sending out WHQL’d NVIDIA drivers for months now.
However as it turns out, WHQL flagging on those earlier releases has been for distribution purposes (I suspect Windows isn’t setup to distribute and silently install non-WHQL drivers), and not for certification purposes. From a certification perspective, Microsoft only started accepting drivers for WHQL certification last Friday. So the release of 352.84 really is the first and proper WHQL display driver release for Windows 10, with the WHQL flags on earlier Windows Update releases having essentially been false.
Given the state of Windows 10 development, this makes a great deal more sense, as Microsoft traditionally doesn’t start certifying drivers until close to the OS’s release. And with WHQL certification opened up, this also indicates that Microsoft is looking to release the OS to manufacturing within the next few months, as has been rumored for some time now. But with that said, at this point Windows 10 is still under active development – just go install build 10074 and see for yourself – so while we have our first WHQL display drivers, I wouldn’t pop the cork just yet as there are clearly still some issues in the OS to work out, and I expect the GPU vendors will be chasing obscure WDDM 2.0 bugs for months to come. However for game developers working on the first wave of DirectX 12 games, this should be welcome news as it gives them a better platform to test against.
| WDDM 2.0 Support Status | |||
| Current Status | |||
| NVIDIA Maxwell 2 (900 Series) | WHQL | ||
| NVIDIA Maxwell 1 (750 Series) | WHQL | ||
| NVIDIA Kepler (600/700 Series) | WHQL | ||
| NVIDIA Fermi (400/500 Series) | In Development | ||
Meanwhile since this is the first stand-alone WHQL release from Microsoft, we attempted to give these drivers a run on a Fermi card only to find that there’s no Fermi support in these drivers. Since 2014, NVIDIA has run a two-tier development track where Fermi support is disabled in beta drivers, and then enabled in release/WHQL drivers. We had been expecting something similar on the Windows 10 front, however this is not the case, with the current driver set only supporting Kepler and Maxwell. After checking with NVIDIA on the status of Fermi, they’ve told us that Fermi support is still under development and that they are “working hard to bring DirectX 12 driver support to Fermi-based cards as soon as possible.” Given that Fermi is the oldest GPU architecture to support DirectX 12 it’s going to be an interesting test case for the new API, but at the same time I’m not surprised that NVIDIA has focused on Fermi last since Kepler replaced Fermi almost 3 years ago (before Windows 8 was even out). In any case, we should be seeing WDDM 2.0 support for Fermi a bit later this year.
Anyhow, as always you can grab the drivers for all current desktop and mobile NVIDIA GPUs over at NVIDIA’s driver download page.
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The ASUS ZenFone 2 Preview
ASUS is not new to the smartphone market. Since the days of Windows Mobile (not the new Windows Mobile) they've been selling smartphones. But when it comes to Android devices they've been primarily focused on tablets. ASUS worked with Google to design and manufacture both generations of the Nexus 7, which was beloved by Android enthusiasts. Their Padfone devices were an attempt to have a smartphone that attached to a tablet shell to make a sort of 2-in-1 smartphone and tablet. But only recently has the company started making a serious push into the Android smartphone space. Their ZenFone line of phones consists of several devices, with the newest being the ZenFone Zoom and the ZenFone 2, the latter being the device I'm looking at today. While the full review is yet to come, you can continue on to see my initial impressions of the new ASUS ZenFone 2.
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Braswell Motherboard Surfaces Online: Quad Core 14nm Airmont in ASUS N3150M-E
The N3150M-E is a micro-ATX motherboard with the Celeron N3150 processor built-in, and due to the 6W TDP being low enough, we also get a built in fanless heatsink. Braswell supports two DDR3L-1600 memory channels, and perhaps somewhat oddly we have them both here at right angles to each other. Online Intel lists the maximum memory compatibility for the CPU as 8GB, although the Beebox we reported on earlier is rated for 16GB so I would assume that the motherboard side of the equation should be able to do this too.
There is a full PCIe 2.0 x16 slot with x8 electrical (but might not offer more than x4 due to SoC limitations, and according to the spec sheet is only x1), allowing for those esoteric arrangements of Atom plus discrete graphics or just for an additional PCIe card, such as a RAID card for a storage platform. By default the N3150M-E gives two SATA 6 Gbps ports, a COM header, a USB 2.0 header and a USB 3.0 header. There are also two USB 3.0 ports on the rear, along with a Realtek network port and Realtek ALC887 audio. The audio solution is an upgraded one, with at least PCB separation between the audio channels and a couple of filter caps. Onboard video outputs are via a VGA and a HDMI connector, and we also get an LPT port for good measure.
The Celeron N3150 is a 14nm Airmont based quad core solution, featuring a 1.6 GHz base clock and a 2.08 GHz turbo. Onboard graphics are via Intel’s Gen8, with 12 EUs having a boost frequency of 600 MHz. Technically Brett has already had a quick review of Airmont cores in the Surface 3's Cherry Trail SoC, though it would be interesting to get a desktop variant in to see how the performance compares to previous desktop Atom units.
Source: ASUS, SH SOTN.
Update: It seems within a minute or two, ASUS has also posted the N3050M-E variant online as well. This uses the Celeron N3050, a dual core version with a 1.6 GHz base frequency but a turbo of 2.16 GHz.
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NVIDIA Releases 352.86 Game Ready WHQL Drivers For The Witcher 3
As is typical for a Game Ready driver, the focus on this driver is enabling SLI and GeForce Experience support for The Witcher 3, which along with its high profile nature is also one of the games in NVIDIA’s latest game bundle. Along with The Witcher, this driver also includes profile updates and bug fixes for a handful of other games, including Civilization: Beyond Earth and Magicka 2.
Perhaps more interesting is the fact that this marks the first Windows 7/8 (WDDM 1.x) release of a R352 branch driver. NVIDIA’s previous release for Grand Theft Auto V was from the R349 branch, and in fact this new branch comes barely a month after the introduction of the R349 branch. Unfortunately at this time beyond the handful of bug fixes and new profiles we don’t know whether R352 includes any major updates, as NVIDIA's release notes don't mention much else for this release. New branches typically contain more significant feature and performance enhancements, so there may be a surprise or two in here. At any rate what we do know is that NVIDIA has yet to merge their Win7/8 and Win10 drivers at this time, so this release only contains support for Microsoft’s current OSes, while the in-development Windows 10 continues to receive its own driver updates.
As usual, you can grab the drivers for all current desktop and mobile NVIDIA GPUs over at NVIDIA’s driver download page.
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Oculus Rift Confirms "Pause" in OS X, Linux Development, Some Devs are Mad
"Youu've just shot yourself in the foot by abandoning OS X, I've decided to abandon Rift." --Taylor Marks, game dev.
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In-Depth: Apple's ~$1B Court Victory Over Samsung to be Cut up to a Third
The ruling text found below shows this is a mixed victory at best for Samsung, albeit in a case of waning importance
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President Obama Posts His First "Personal" Tweet to Twitter Via an iPhone
President Obama is in the Cupertino camp when it comes to the iOS vs. Android debate
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Cool Science Video: Glowing Millipede Prowls the Nevada Desert
Relative uses glowing protein to remove reactive compounds produced by desert heat; evolution repurposed it to ward off predateion
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