NVIDIA has released a new driver that marks the change to version 270 (270.61 actual release). They are making lots of great claims for the driver. Like a 13% speed improvement for single video card systems.
You can get more details and benchmarks at NVIDIA Driver Improves Performance.
If you are going to get Portal 2, this update is important. It has enhancements to the CUDA features and Portal 2 uses CUDA. The CUDA thing takes advantage of the GPU and multi-core CPU’s available in your computer. The idea is to provide the best balance of graphics and physics processing by using GPU power for physics when possible or idle CPU to get the most performance from the available hardware.
I did a search at the NVIDA site for the latest driver for my 8800 GTS and the 270.61 is listed. The download is 103mb (according to Chrome).
The list of supported cards for this update looks to be all the NIVIDA cards… big list. The 9800, 8800, and 6800 cards are included, as are most others.
After installing the driver update I don’t see a noticeable difference. In S21(7) before the change I was getting 28 FPS. After the update I get 28 FPS. A 10% boost would have been 2 FPS. I suppose the 200, 400, and 500 series cards are the ones targeted. Someday I’ll upgrade.