NVIDIA® Corporation yesterday released the world’s first WHQL-certified drivers for Microsoft DirectX 10, coinciding with the release of the first DirectX 10 test kit from Microsoft, which allows other hardware vendors to test their graphics processors using the DirectX 10 WHQL tests.

Microsoft DirectX 10 is included with Windows Vista and delivers unparalleled levels of graphics realism and film-quality effects for games, all rendered in real-time on NVIDIA GeForce 8-series GPUs. GeForce 8-series GPUs are the first and only Microsoft DirectX 10-capable GPUs currently available.

The new ForceWare 100.65 drivers support GeForce 6-, 7-, and 8-series NVIDIA GPUs. NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GPUs now meet the Vista Premium Device Logo requirements, in addition to GeForce 6- and 7-series GPUs which previously met the requirements.

The new drivers can be downloaded from:

http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp

NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GPUs are the reference GPUs of DirectX 10 application developers as they create and test groundbreaking next-generation content. Several of the most anticipated titles for 2007—including Crysis (published by Electronic Arts), Hellgate London (EA/Namco), World in Conflict (Sierra Entertainment), and Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures (Funcom)—are designed on NVIDIA hardware to exploit the new features of DirectX 10. Several other titles are being adapted to support DirectX10 features, including Company of Heroes, Eve Online, Lord of the Rings Online, and Microsoft Flight Simulator X.

NVIDIA GeForce 8-series GPUs include all required hardware functionality defined in the Microsoft Direct3D® 10 specifications, with full support for the DirectX 10 unified shader instruction set and Shader Model 4 capabilities. GeForce 8 Series GPUS include:

* GeForce 8800 GTX - $599-$649
* GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB - $399-$449
* GeForce 8880 GTS 320MB - $299-$349