After AMD released its Catalyst beta drivers for Windows 8 Consumer Preview, we didn’t have to wait on NVIDIA for too long: the company added Windows 8 to its regular driver update portfolio.
Windows 8 Consumer Preview is turning to be the most popular beta program yet, with over a million downloads in the first 24 hours. It will be interesting to see can Microsoft reach 10-15 million downloads in the first month, but in order for that to happen - the companies need to offer new drivers.
AMD was the first company out the door to offer a beta version of its Catalyst drivers for Windows 8 Consumer Preview, but NVIDIA came out with a very interesting release today; as of today, the company added Windows 8 to its driver stack. This means that every new release of drivers for GeForce and Quadro boards will be simultaneously launched for both the actual Windows 7/Vista and the Windows 8 Consumer Preview.
The first drivers out the door are
296.17 for both GeForce and Quadro, while the WHQL version for Windows 7/Vista carries the version 296.10.
According to Bryan Del Rizzo, NV PR, the drivers are just a quick update to 295.73 drivers, adding support for Blacklight: Retribution. You can read more about it on
the official GeForce page.