NVIDIA 1.0-9XXX / 2.0-XXXX Details

If at the next BarCamp you are betting on changes for the next NVIDIA driver series, it should be fairly safe to place your wages on a new installer, additional GeForce 8 series support, enhanced SLI, and likely a smorgasbord of miscellaneous bug fixes and minor changes. We do have an understanding that major developments in the 1.0-9XXX series has wrapped up, but we do not know if a maintenance release will be pushed out before this next series is introduced. NVIDIA may also introduce this new series (likely 2.0-XXXX) in the form of a beta driver at nZone. Whether it be a beta driver or final, there should be a new release out by the end of March (if not definitely by the GeForce 8900GTX introduction). The next display driver series will also likely discontinue support for up to and including the GeForce 4 series (though still leaving the legacy display driver for these users). Keep in mind that these details in regards to NVIDIA's "2.0-XXXX" display driver has not been officially confirmed in public by NVIDIA, but upon receiving any additional information or clarifications we will pass it on here and in the Phoronix Forums.

Getting back on track in regards to the 1.0-9XXX performance, it's no surprise to us that there isn't much of a performance increase seeing as the Linux display driver has been on par with the Windows ForceWare performance for some time. We did spot some minor performance changes but nothing of real significance. With AMD seemingly working on rapidly improving the quality of the fglrx display driver, and the Nouveau driver starting to take shape, this will without a doubt be the toughest year yet for NVIDIA Corporation.

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