GeForce 310.70 Drivers: An Essential Upgrade For All GeForce GTX Gamers

[Lil' ½ Dead]

The new GeForce 310.70 drivers are now available to download. The culmination of our recent beta releases, these WHQL-candidate drivers improve performance by up to 37% in the year's most popular games, add TXAA support to Call of Duty: Black Ops II and Assassin's Creed III, make Sparse Grid Supersampling easier to use, get your system ready for the latest releases, including Far Cry 3, Hitman: Absolution and Planetside 2, and resolve key issues, like shadow flickering in Assassin's Creed III.

If you have any feedback about today's driver please leave a comment at the bottom of the article, and if you have a technical issue please report the problem via the NVIDIA Display Driver Feedback Form.
Performance Improvements

In October's GeForce 310.33 beta driver we improved performance by up to 15% in nine games, and this time we’re improving performance by up to 37% in twenty-one games. Leading the charge in 310.70 is a 37% boost for Far Cry 3, followed by a 26% boost for Call of Duty: Black Ops II, an 18% boost for The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, a 17% boost for Assassin’s Creed III, and a 12% boost for Battlefield 3.
Please note that performance improvements benefit all GeForce GTX graphics cards, though obviously to varying degrees. We would of course love to show how our optimizations benefit the entire range of GeForce GTX GPUs, but sadly this is unfeasible given the number of benchmarks required. For example, for each GPU and game you test include a before and after benchmark to show the level of improvement, then multiply the number of tests by the number of resolutions, three, and then again by the number of different detail levels and anti-aliasing modes tested. Then, finally, to verify the results, run everything again to ensure there were no anomalies. With so many GPUs in our lineup, even focusing exclusively on the most popular models would prove impossible in the time between a driver being finalized, and released.
Performance Improvement Benchmarks

In Far Cry 3, we maxed out the game's many graphics options, selected SSAO Ambient Occlusion (an excellent balance between performance and fidelity), set the game's version of Transparency Supersampling to "Standard", and enabled 8xMSAA to eliminate aliased edges.
With 310.70 installed, performance improved by up to 37.8%, helping the GTX 670 and GTX 680 achieve playable frame rates at this highly demanding detail level.
Below, we detail the two-dozen other optimizations packed into the 310.70 drivers, using the GeForce GTX 680 and GeForce GTX 660.
Results & Benchmark Settings:

• Aliens vs. Predator: Performance increased by 3.4% at 1920x1080 when using max settings, tessellation, and Advanced Shadows.
• Assassin’s Creed III (Pre-Release Build): Performance increased by 17.8% at 1920x1080 when using max settings and Normal Anti-Aliasing, by 7.1% at 2560x1600 using the same settings, and by 9.8% at 1920x1080 when using max settings and Very High Anti-Aliasing.
• Batman: Arkham City: Performance increased by 7.6% at 1920x1080 when using Very High detail settings, Tessellation High, PhysX High and FXAA High. At 2560x1600, using 4xMSAA, performance increased by 5.2%.
• Battlefield 3: Performance increased by 13% at 1920x1080 when using Ultra settings in a single-player Paris benchmark; at 2560x1600 an improvement of 7.9% was recorded. Using High settings, an improvement of 15.3% was registered at 1920x1080.
• Borderlands 2: Performance increased by 5.3% at 2560x1600 when using max settings and PhysX High. At 1920x1080 performance increased by 3.3%.
• Call of Duty: Black Ops II: Performance increased by 26% at 1920x1080 when using max settings and 8xMSAA. At 2560x1600 performance increased by 24.1%.
• Civilization V: Performance increased by 23.7% at 2560x1600 in a late-game benchmark using max DirectX 11 settings.
• DiRT 3: Performance increased by 4.3% at 1920x1080 when using Ultra DirectX 11 settings and 8xMSAA.
• Dragon Age 2: Performance increased by 8.5% at 2560x1600 when using max settings.
• Hard Reset: Performance increased by 3.6% at 1920x1080 when using Ultra settings and FXAA.
• Just Cause 2: Performance increased by 3.2% at 1920x1080 when using max DirectX 10 settings and 8xMSAA.
• Medal of Honor: Warfighter: Performance increased by 5.7% at 1920x1080 when using High settings.
• Metro 2033: Performance increased by 4.6% at 1680x1050 when using max DirectX 11 settings, Depth of Field, and Advanced PhysX.
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat: Performance increased by 4.7% at 2560x1600 when using Extreme settings. At 1920x1080 performance increased by 4.2%.
• Shogun 2: Total War: Performance increased by 3.5% at 2560x1600 when using max DirectX 11 settings, and by 3.3% at 1920x1080.
• Sniper Elite V2: Performance increased by 3.5% at 2560x1600 when using max settings, AA High, and 2.5x Supersampling. Without Supersampling, performance increased by 3.8%.
• StarCraft II: Performance increased by 6.2% at 1920x1080 when using Ultra settings.
• The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena: Performance increased by 18% at 2560x1600 when using max settings.
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: Performance increased by 5% at 2560x1600 when using Ultra settings in an indoor scenario, and by 4.7% at 1920x1080.
• The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings: Performance increased by 3% at 1680x1050 when using max settings and anti-aliasing. At 1920x1080 performance increased by 2.8%.
• Unigine Heaven 3.0: Performance increased by 3% at 1920x1080 when using max DirectX 11 settings and Extreme Tessellation. At lower settings and resolutions performance increased by up to 4%.

Results & Benchmark Settings:

• Assassin’s Creed III (Pre-Release Build): Performance increased by 5% at 1920x1080 when using max settings and Normal Anti-Aliasing.
• Batman: Arkham City: Performance increased by 3.9% at 1920x1080 when using Very High detail settings, Tessellation High, and 4xMSAA.
• Battlefield 3: Performance increased by 9.8% at 1920x1080 when using High settings in a single-player Paris benchmark; at 1680x1050 an improvement of 10.3% was recorded. Using Ultra settings, improvements of 8.1% and 7.7% were recorded at 1680x1050 and 1920x1080, respectively.
• Call of Duty: Black Ops II: Performance increased by 23.8% at 1920x1080 when using max settings and 8xMSAA. At 2560x1600 performance increased by 23.3%.
• DiRT 3: Performance increased by 3% at 1920x1080 when using Ultra DirectX 11 settings.
• Dragon Age 2: Performance increased by 4.7% at 1920x1080 when using max settings and 8xMSAA.
• Hard Reset: Performance increased by 4.5% at 1920x1080 when using Ultra settings.
• Medal of Honor: Warfighter: Performance increased by 4.3% at 1920x1080 when using High settings.
• The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena: Performance increased by 8.7% at 2560x1600 when using max settings.
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: Performance increased by 7.4% at 1920x1080 when using High settings in an outdoor scenario; at 2560x1600 an improvement of 7.3% was recorded. Using Ultra settings, improvements of 4.8% and 4.5% were recorded at 1920x1080 and 2560x1600, respectively.

Full Article and Download: Articles : GeForce 310.70 Drivers: An Essential Upgrade For All GeForce GTX Gamers | GeForce

[Doctor_Death]

Thanks Kevin

I'll let you know how they work with Far Cry 3, I'll game with the current drivers, then install the newest version

[criss_glitch666]

I should get rid of this 6970 I just got and get a 560 ti/660 since AMD sucks so bad with drivers.

[Doctor_Death]

Good choice, go with the GTX660 Ti, talk to Jake, he may have one hanging around

[aryan51]

thanks kev

[Adham]

thanks kev, i hope this help my toaster speed up, so i installed it, so i need to move the settings into the software or will it improve my system just by installing it

[PC_User]

I should get rid of this 6970 I just got and get a 560 ti/660 since AMD sucks so bad with drivers.

agree the very thing that drove me from AMD GPUs to Nvidia