Nvidia beta drivers boost Skyrim, Modern Warfare 3, Battlefield 3 and Batman: Arkham City

Batman in flight

Here's a quick heads up for anyone running an Nvidia card. New GeForce 290.36 Beta drivers have been released that add ambient occlusion support for Skyrim and Modern Warfare 3. Screen flickering and triangular artifacts in Battlefield 3 should also be fixed by the new drivers, and Nvidia recommend the update to Batman: Arkham City players. The update streamlines PhysX support, so players experiencing performance problems in Arkham City might want to give this a download.

The Skyrim and Modern Warfare 3 ambient occlusion settings can be turned on via the Nvidia control panel. You'll find instructions on how to enable the advanced shadowing effect on the Nvidia site where the new beta are now available to download. You'll find the full release notes below.

NVIDIA Ambient Occlusion

  • Adds NVIDIA Control Panel ambient occlusion support for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
  • Adds NVIDIA Control Panel ambient occlusion support for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.

NVIDIA PhysX

  • Updates PhysX System Software to version 9.11.1107 for the best PhysX experience in Batman: Arkham City.

NVIDIA Surround

  • Enables NVIDIA Surround support for Intel X79 SLI-certified motherboards.

NVIDIA SLI

  • Added or updated SLI profiles for Crysis 2, Heroes and Generals, Inversion, Stronghold 3, and Syndicate.

3D Vision

  • Adds support for 3D Vision over native DisplayPort 1.1 connection - available on BenQ XL2420T and BenQ XL2420TX monitors.
  • Added or updated the following 3D Vision game profiles:
    • Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 – Rated Good
    • Cang Sheng – Rated Good
    • Diablo 3 – Rated Good
    • Fei fei – Rated Good
    • Final Combat – Rated Good
    • L.A. Noire – Updated Rating To 3D Vision Ready
    • LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7 – Rated Fair
    • Qian Nv You Hun Online – Rated Good
    • QQ Xi You – Rated Good
    • Sonic Generations – Rated Good
    • Xian Tu – Rated Good
    • Yong Bing Tian Xia Online – Rated Good

HD Audio

  • Updates HD Audio driver to version 1.3.9.0.

Bug Fixes

  • Fixes random flickering as Windows boot logo is loading or fading away.
  • Fixes corruption in Crysis 2 with SLI and lower quality shadow settings.
  • Fixes ability to set Surround resolutions to 5760x1080 using custom resolutions.
  • Fixes some random instances of triangular artifacts when playing Battlefield 3.
  • Fixes corruption and flickering of some objects in Battlefield 3 in the New York single-player level when anti-aliasing is enabled.
  • Fixes corruption seen in Settlers 7 with the NVIDIA 275.33 drivers.
  • Fixes playback of videos or live TV using Window Media Center resulting in a black screen.
  • Fixes the issue where 1920x1080 @60Hz PC resolution mode switched down to @59Hz.
  • Fixes mouse cursor flickering and shaking in Crysis 2, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Deus Ex and Civilization V when SLI is enabled when using 3DTV Play.
Tom Senior

Part of the UK team, Tom was with PC Gamer at the very beginning of the website's launch—first as a news writer, and then as online editor until his departure in 2020. His specialties are strategy games, action RPGs, hack ‘n slash games, digital card games… basically anything that he can fit on a hard drive. His final boss form is Deckard Cain.