Nvidia Releases Game Ready Driver For 'Rise Of The Tomb Raider' And 'The Division' Beta

There are several graphic enhancements in Lara Croft’s latest adventure, as shown by a developer video on the game’s improvements on PC. Horizon Based Ambient Occlusion Plus (HBAO+) creates realistic shading, anisotropic filtering increases textures from a distance when viewed at certain angles, and tessellation increases the detail on uneven surfaces. Foliage also moves according to strong winds as well as Lara’s movements as she moves through patches of bushes.

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For The Division, the new driver will optimize performance and also includes an SLI profile. Staying true to Ubisoft’s announcement last week on the game’s PC requirements, HBAO+ and Percentage Closer Soft Shadows (more realistic shadows) visual effects are also included in the beta version of the game. As the game isn’t finished yet, Nvidia will probably have another Game Ready driver for The Division when it comes out on March 8.
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Rexly Peñaflorida is a freelance writer for Tom's Hardware covering topics such as computer hardware, video games, and general technology news.

15 Comments Comment from the forums

toddybody

Not to hi-jack...but I've been pretty disappointed with nVidia's game works features as of late. Performance is hit or miss, and in the case of FO4 it was downright horrible.

nVidia needs to take a page from AMDs FOSS book. If your technology REALLY is leading a market space (and given your huge market share of dedicated GPUs) then be a leader through encouraging open standards.

-nVidia owner for the past 11 cards (GTX 460, SLI 670, SLI 780, SLI 970, SLI 980, GTX 980ti)
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clonazepam

Adds beta support for GPU acceleration through Thunderbolt 3. :D
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jasonelmore

nice to see them a few days early. I guess amd will release "beta" drivers soon
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rush21hit

nice to see them a few days early. I guess amd will release "beta" drivers soon

iirc both consoles that released these same games are already AMD's GCN based. I suppose it would only need few and minor, if any, driver updates for AMD's GPU. Just like it always been so far...
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ohim

nice to see them a few days early. I guess amd will release "beta" drivers soon
making few changes to a WHQL driver and calling it a "game ready" driver doesn`t make it anything but a beta driver. And i see their marketing scheme working, at least AMD has the guts to call a rushed driver for a game a "beta" while Nvidia avoids at all costs the "beta" name.
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billgatez

Not to hi-jack...but I've been pretty disappointed with nVidia's game works features as of late. Performance is hit or miss, and in the case of FO4 it was downright horrible.
FO4 performance problems aren't due to Game works. The game is just poorly optimised and suffer from problems on all GPUs and consoles.

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ohim

ignore this post ...
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billgatez

both consoles that released these same games are already AMD's GCN based. I suppose it would only need few and minor, if any, driver updates for AMD's GPU. Just like it always been so far...
Consoles and PC's use entirely different API's. It takes more then a driver update to move things over.
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ohim

17401141 said:
both consoles that released these same games are already AMD's GCN based. I suppose it would only need few and minor, if any, driver updates for AMD's GPU. Just like it always been so far...
Consoles and PC's use entirely different API's. It takes more then a driver update to move things over.

And if you add Nvidia`s gameworks crap on top of that, the very thing that blocks AMD from optimising code, you get even more crap. I mean look at Witcher ... runs without problems on consoles powered by AMD, was like crap at launch on PC due to Nvidia`s Crapworks. Lots of people (nvidia users also) condemn Nvidia with this practice that is not healthy for a good competition in the GPU market.
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Razvan_3

I personally think Nvidias driver superiority in Windows is a myth. They have as bad drivers as AMD (sometimes worse). They only have an edge sometimes because they work with the publishers to optimize the games but their drivers aren't as good as people think.
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