The Release 158 driver has a new left navigation menu making it straightforward to quickly bring up the needed functionality.

Series 158 Control Panel - WinXP

The following snapshot is from the navigation menu under Windows XP with the 158.16 driver.

New Navigation Menu

Fewer applets appear under Windows Vista at this time as NVIDIA continues to work on delivering functionality under Microsoft's latest operating system.

Game performance under Windows Vista was generally behind Windows XP by 10-15% as well.

Series 158 Control Panel - Vista

NVIDIA has corrected over 200 bugs under Windows Vista since releasing the 100.65 driver, but the latest 158.18 driver release notes indicate that much work remains.

Bugs have been reported by fellow gamers and end-users courtesy of NVIDIA's Report a Vista Graphics Driver Bug page.

Hardware and Operating Systems

• Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 - 2.66GHz Conroe Core - 4MB L2 Cache
• EVGA nForce 680i SLI Motherboard
• 4GB Corsair CM2X1024-8500C5 XMS PC8500 DDR2 SDRAM 5-5-5-18-2T @ 400MHz
• Western Digital Raptor 74GB HDD, 10000RPM, 4.5ms Avg Seek, 8MB Buffer, SATA
• Western Digital Raptor X 150GB HDD, 10000RPM, 4.5ms Avg Seek, 8MB Buffer, SATA 2
• Seagate Barracuda 300GB HDD, 7200RPM, 8ms Avg Seek, 8MB Buffer, SATA 2
• Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB HDD, 7200RPM, 8.9ms Avg Seek, 16MB Buffer, SATA 2
• Western Digital Caviar SE16 160GB HDD, 7200RPM, 8.9ms Avg Seek, 8MB Buffer, SATA 2
• Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZX
• PC Power and Cooling Turbo-Cool 1KW-SR Power Supply
• Dell 3007WFP LCD Monitor
• 32-Bit Color / Vsync Disabled / 60Hz Refresh Rate
• Windows XP Professional 32-Bit with Service Pack 2 / DirectX 9.0c
• Windows Vista Ultimate 32-Bit / DirectX 10

Graphics Cards, Drivers, and Settings

• EVGA e-GeForce 8800 GTS Superclocked - 721MHhz Core / 2100MHz Memory (Effective)
• MSI - NX8600GTS OC Edition - 700MHhz Core / 2100MHz Memory (Effective)
• ForceWare 158.14 under Windows Vista for the GeForce 8600 GTS
• ForceWare 158.16 under Windows XP for the GeForce 8600 GTS
• ForceWare 93.71 under Windows XP for the GeForce 7900 GS
• Quality Texture Filtering, Gamma Correct Antialiasing, Transparency Antialiasing Off

Test Applications

• Doom 3
• Quake 4
• F.E.A.R.
• Dark Messiah

Notes

• Antialiasing was set to "application-controlled" unless otherwise noted.
• Anisotropic filtering was set to "application-controlled" unless otherwise noted.

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