Latest forceware: ForceWare Release 169 169.21

NVIDIA Forceware (Windows 7/8 64-bit) Download (2023 Latest)

Nvidia GeForce Game Ready Driver for Windows 7/8 64-bit driver software unleashes the full power and features in NVIDIA’s desktop, gaming, platform, workstation, laptop, multimedia, and mobile products, all being installed on your PC in a single package that can cater the needs of both ordinary users who are demanding good multimedia support, heavy gamers who are seeking rendering performance and professionals who value tolls and stability. Delivering a proven record of compatibility, reliability, and greater performance and stability with the widest range of games and applications, ForceWare software ensures the best experience with your NVIDIA hardware.

By installing the latest certified version of NVIDIA ForceWare drivers on your PC you will enable your Windows OS and all of its applications to take full advantage of all your GPU capabilities, which are often heavily leaning on the powerful and streamlined APIs that are part of a DirectX. Its modules cover everything from 2D and 3D graphics, to things like networking, sound, and even controller data inputs. Also, the main control dashboard of nVIDIA GeForce Game Ready Driver is a perfect place where users of all knowledge levels can optimize the way their GPU is used in everyday work, from tweaking color reproductions to managing 3D entertainment compatibility, rotating displays and having full control over GPU overclocking, temperatures and fan speeds.

NVIDIA GeForce Game Ready Driver Supported Products:

GeForce MX100 Series:
GeForce MX150.

GeForce 10 Series:
GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, GeForce GTX 1080, GeForce GTX 1070, GeForce GTX 1060, GeForce GTX 1050 Ti, GeForce GTX 1050.

GeForce 900M Series:
GeForce GTX 980, GeForce GTX 980M, GeForce GTX 970M, GeForce GTX 965M, GeForce GTX 960M, GeForce GTX 950M, GeForce 945M, GeForce 940MX, GeForce 930MX, GeForce 920MX, GeForce 940M, GeForce 930M, GeForce 920M, GeForce 910M.

GeForce 800M Series:
GeForce GTX 880M, GeForce GTX 870M, GeForce GTX 860M, GeForce GTX 850M, GeForce 845M, GeForce 840M, GeForce 830M, GeForce 825M, GeForce 820M, GeForce 810M, GeForce 800M.

GeForce 700M Series:
GeForce GTX 780M, GeForce GTX 770M, GeForce GTX 765M, GeForce GTX 760M, GeForce GT 755M, GeForce GT 750M, GeForce GT 745M, GeForce GT 740M, GeForce GT 735M, GeForce GT 730M, GeForce GT 720M, GeForce GT 710M, GeForce 710M, GeForce 705M.

GeForce 600M Series:
GeForce GTX 680MX, GeForce GTX 680M, GeForce GTX 675MX, GeForce GTX 675M, GeForce GTX 670MX, GeForce GTX 670M, GeForce GTX 660M, GeForce GT 650M, GeForce GT 645M, GeForce GT 640M, GeForce GT 640M LE, GeForce GT 635M, GeForce GT 630M, GeForce GT 625M, GeForce GT 620M, GeForce 610M.

GeForce 500M Series:
GeForce GTX 580M, GeForce GTX 570M, GeForce GTX 560M, GeForce GT 555M, GeForce GT 550M, GeForce GT 540M, GeForce GT 525M, GeForce GT 520M, GeForce GT 520MX.

GeForce 400M Series:
GeForce GTX 485M, GeForce GTX 480M, GeForce GTX 470M, GeForce GTX 460M, GeForce GT 445M, GeForce GT 435M, GeForce GT 425M, GeForce GT 420M, GeForce GT 415M, GeForce 410M.

Currently, NVIDIA is supporting a large majority of modern gamers with up-to-date releases of both Windows XP driver package and driver package that is intended for Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 10. Many other operating systems are also supported (Linux, macOS), but with a smaller feature set and fewer updates per year.

Also Available: NVIDIA Forceware (Windows 7/8 32-bit)

Download NVIDIA Forceware (Windows 7/8 64-bit) Latest Version

Nvidia releases ForceWare 182.50 drivers

It’s always a treat to be able to whack up the anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering sliders on older games that need smoothing out, and now Nvidia has added another feature to its ForceWare drivers that could add some more eye candy to older games. The new feature is Ambient Occlusion, which is already enabled by default in some games, including Crysis, but isn’t in others, such as Half-Life 2.

Ambient Occlusion is now available as a switchable function in the control panel of Nvidia’s latest ForceWare 182.50 WHQL drivers, which were released today. The idea is that it makes the lighting in a scene much more realistic, revealing soft shadows and finer detail that may have been previously invisible.

Nvidia’s senior product manager, Jason Paul, explained to us that «if you look at the room that you’re sitting in, and you look up in the corner of the room, you may notice that the light is slightly less intense than it is along other portions of the wall. One of the physical properties of light is that when there are objects that are blocking or occluding nearby objects, even if it’s not casting a direct shadow, it blocks out some of the global or ambient light in the environment.”

By enabling Ambient Occlusion, you replicate the effect of light occlusion, creating soft shadows where a wall meets a ceiling, and around objects that are attached to walls. You can see the effect in the screenshots below. Take the Half-Life 2 screenshots, for example. With Ambient Occlusion enabled you can see a soft shadow around the phone on the wall, and in the corners of the walls.

Ambient Occlusion can also reveal finer detail around objects that would usually occlude lots of light. Nvidia gives the example of grassy terrain, where the blades of grass are much more clearly defined when their occluding properties are revealed. You can see this demonstrated in the screenshots from World of Conflict below.

Of course, no visual eye candy comes free, and Nvidia admits that Ambient Occlusion will cost you in terms of frame rates. “Ambient Occlusion is not a free activity,” says Paul, adding that “generally, we’re seeing [a frame rate hit] in the range of 20 to 40 percent to enable this feature.” However, he points out that if you’re playing Half-Life 2 on a decent graphics card, then you’ll already have plenty of frames in the bank that you could use to enable the feature and still have “a seamless gaming experience. ”

Nvidia notes a number of games that can be enhanced by enabling Ambient Occlusion in the control panel, which include Company of Heroes, World in Conflict, Half-Life 2, World of Warcraft and Mirror’s Edge.

As well as this, the ForceWare 182.50 driver also features a number of bug fixes and performance improvements, which are detailed in the release notes.

Is Ambient Occlusion a worthwhile feature to enable on games that don’t natively support it, or would you rather have a faster frame rate than a few extra soft shadows? Let us know your thoughts in the forums.

Update: As some of you have pointed out in the forums, Ambient Occlusion is included in the ForceWare 185.65 BETA control panel and not, in fact, in the WHQL 182.50 control panel. You can download Nvidia’s BETA drivers from here.

Half-Life 2 — Ambient Occlusion is disabled on the left and enabled on the right

World in Conflict — Ambient Occlusion is disabled on the left and enabled on the right

Mirror’s Edge — Ambient Occlusion is disabled on the left and enabled on the right

Download software updates — Configuration Manager

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Article
04/04/2023

Applies to Configuration Manager (current branch)

There are several ways to download software updates in Configuration Manager. When you create an automatic deployment rule (ADR) or manually deploy software updates, the software updates are downloaded to the content library on the site server. The software updates are then copied to the content library on the distribution points associated with the configured deployment package. If you want to download software updates before deploying them, you can use the Update Download Wizard. This will ensure that software updates are available on distribution points before deploying software updates to client computers.

Note.

Beginning March 28, 2023, on-premises Windows 11 devices version 22h3 will receive quality updates through the Unified Update Platform (UUP). Local update management using the Unified Update Platform (UUP) requires an additional 10 GB of space per version of Windows and processor architecture per version. See UUP Best Practices for more information.
For information about content status monitoring, see Content Status Monitoring.

Use the following procedure to download software updates using the Software Updates Download Wizard.

Download software updates

In the Configuration Manager console, go to workspace Software Library and select node Software Updates .
Select the software update to download using one of the following methods:
- Select one or more software update groups under node Software update groups . Then click the Download button on the ribbon.
- Select one or more software updates under node All Software Updates . Then click the Download button on the ribbon.
  
  Note.
  
  In node All Software Update Configuration Manager only displays software updates classified «Critical » and «Security » released in the last 30 days.
  
  Tip
  
  Click Add Criteria to filter the software updates displayed under the All Software Updates node. Save your frequently used search terms and then manage your saved searches in tab Search .
On page Deployment Package of the Update Software Download Wizard, configure the following settings:
- Deployment package selection . Select this option to select an existing deployment package for software updates that are in the deployment.
  
  Note.
  
  Software updates that the site has already downloaded in the selected deployment package will no longer be downloaded.
- Creating a deployment package . Select this option to create a new deployment package for the software updates in the deployment. Configure the settings below.
  - Name : Specifies the name of the deployment package. The package must have a unique name that briefly describes the contents of the package. It is limited to 50 characters.
  - Description . Provide a description that contains information about the deployment package. The optional description is limited to 127 characters.
  - Package source . Specifies the location of the software update source files. Enter the network path for the source location, such as \\server\sharename\path or click the Browse button to find the network location. Before moving on to the next page, create a shared folder for the deployment package source files.
    - You cannot use the specified location as the source for another software deployment package.
    - You can change the package source location in the deployment package properties after Configuration Manager has created the deployment package. In this case, first copy the content from the original package source to the new package source location.
    - The SMS Provider computer account and the user that runs the Software Updates Download Wizard must have permissions to write to the download location. Restrict access to the download location. This limitation reduces the risk that attackers can modify the source files for software updates.
  - Enable binary delta replication . Enable this setting to minimize network traffic between sites. Binary delta replication (BDR) updates only the content changed in the package, not the entire content of the package. For more information, see Binary Differential Replication.
On the Distribution Points page , specify the distribution points or distribution point groups to host the software update files. For more information about distribution points, see Distribution Point Configurations. This page is available only when creating a software update deployment package.
Page Distribution Options is only available when creating a software update deployment package. Specify the following parameters:
- Distribution priority . Use this option to specify the distribution priority for the deployment package. The distribution priority is applied when the deployment package is sent to distribution points at child sites. Deployment packages are sent in order of priority: high, medium, or low. Packets with the same priority are sent in the order in which they were created. If there is no backlog, the batch is processed immediately, regardless of its priority. By default, the site sends packets from middle priority.
- Enable distribution on request . Use this setting to enable on-demand content distribution to distribution points configured for this feature and to the current tenant boundary group. If this setting is enabled, the management point creates a trigger for the distribution manager to distribute content to all such distribution points when a client requests content for a package and the content is not available. For more information, see On-demand content distribution.
- Prestaged distribution point settings . Use this setting to specify how content is distributed to prestaged distribution points. Choose one of the options below.
  - Automatic download of content when packages are assigned to distribution points . Use this option to ignore the prestage settings and distribute the content to the distribution point.
  - Download only content changes to distribution point . Use this option to preconfigure the initial content to the distribution point and then propagate the content changes to the distribution point.
  - Manually copy the content in this package to the distribution point . Use this option to provision content on a distribution point all the time. This setting is used by default.
  For more information about prestaged content for distribution points, see Using prestaged content.
On page Download Location , specify the location that Configuration Manager uses to download the software update source files. Use one of the following options:
- Download software updates from the Internet . Select this option to download software updates from a web location. This setting is used by default.
- Download software updates from a network location . Select this option to download software updates from a local directory or shared folder. This option is useful if the computer running the wizard does not have Internet access. Any computer with Internet access can pre-download software updates. Then save them to a local network accessible from the computer running the wizard.
On page Select Language , select the languages for which the site downloads the selected software updates. The site only downloads these updates if they are available in the selected languages. Language-independent software updates are always downloaded. By default, the wizard selects the languages configured in the software update point properties. You must select at least one language before proceeding to the next page. If you select only languages that the software update does not support, the update download fails.
On page Summary , review the options selected in the wizard and click Next to download the software updates.
On page Completion , verify that the software updates have downloaded successfully, and then click the Close button .

When is the best time to update the software?

Software update

Our last software update was probably last night or this morning when we turned on our computer. I suppose this is the last update of our antivirus used to be. This update is almost silent, but not for all software updates. Some software updates take longer and have a greater impact than others. What updates are there and what should be considered? When is the best time to update?

Why are software updates important?

It’s easy to skip a software update. They often take up only a few minutes of our time, and besides, they don’t always seem so important. However, skipping a system or software update can be a costly mistake. These are the 3 main reasons why we need to update our software.

1. Computer security

According to Microsoft, about 50% of adult online users have been victims of cybercrime, and one in five small and medium businesses have been targeted.

When we store most of our digital lives, it makes sense to take extra steps to protect our system. safe. Some viruses and malware can hold our computer for ransom or destroy our system. Apart from a good antivirus/malware application, updating our software is a good way to strengthen our digital security.

By updating our software, we also fix any vulnerabilities en vulnerabilities that hackers can use for malicious attacks.

2. Improved compatibility with other software.

If our software is outdated or we keep missing these «annoying» warnings, chances are our programs will simply stop working at some point.

The applications with which our software is linked are constantly updated to keep up with technology. The same applies to our own software.

When something is corrected somewhere in the programming chain, communication with other applications is broken so that the connection is no longer possible. Then the functionality can be imperceptibly affected. So we need to make sure we do the proper research for the version we want. Therefore, it is recommended to update the software. We then ensure that our software continues to function correctly and does not run into compatibility issues.

3. New Features

The software update not only contains performance improvements and fixes, but new features may also have been added.

SaaS developers are constantly thinking about ways to add new features that will greatly improve the user experience. We may not need this new feature at all, but we will still decide to update the software to keep up. Thus, such a software update is not profitable for the business.

Types of software, impact, urgency and other aspects

If we take a closer look at the application of different software solutions, we can classify different programs. We distinguish between software features, update urgency, and impact on business operations.

Program function	Urgent update	Business impact	preparation
Operating System	Medium	High	Medium
Driver	Related	low	Medium
Security software	High	low	several
Office software	low	High	Above average
Business software	Medium	High	Lot
Custom software	Related	High	Lot
Saas application	Related	Above average	Lot

explanation

It is clear that software updates should not be underestimated. There are all sorts of dependencies between software. These dependencies are often large and can have a huge impact. So we should always do research beforehand for dependencies.

For example, if we update the operating system (OS), this may affect business software. Does it work on the new OS? What is the experience of other clients?
What about peripherals? Are the supplied drivers compatible with the new OS?
When we buy a new printer, we need a different driver, but how does it work in our OS and can our office software handle it?

Research and preparation is always needed, and it often turns out that a simple update can affect the entire structure, so that the impact is suddenly much greater than what is shown in the table. When we update software, it is usually important to make sure that our hardware is properly prepared for this update, otherwise our system may freeze. It is wise to make a list of the current software during preparation, as well as what we will need later.

The relevance of an update is almost always associated with external factors. Consider changes in laws and regulations that require us to adapt software. Or a security patch that we need to get into immediately.

Other aspects of the software update

Data : do we still have data from the old system required? If so, how will this data be migrated to the new new system? This aspect can range from software to simple documents. It’s a good idea to install the update on the new node rather than overwriting the old one. Then we have a clean starting point and the old data is still available. If necessary, we should test more complex applications in the existing environment to see how the update goes.
Tijd : How long will it take to update our software? The update execution time does not depend on the previously performed software test. After all, we’re talking about a production environment here. The upgrade may be extensive and the hardware may be outdated. This part is also part of the preliminary investigation and will be included in the update plan.
Costs : Cost may be relevant during upgrade. The update is likely to involve new licenses. In addition, overtime hours and training are provided for users. After all, they have a new interface and new functionality. Moreover, they are unproductive during training. If our budget does not allow, we may have to postpone the update until next year.
Work from Home : If employees work with potentially sensitive information from home, regular software updates can help keep that information secure. In some cases, hackers have managed to break into corporate systems and steal personal information about customers. Even hackers are at risk and should never let their software expire permanently. Let’s make sure this doesn’t happen to us by regularly updating employee laptops and phones.

Best time to update software

When is the best time to update software? You can expect a variety of answers to this question. Answers depending on the circumstances. In general, it is important to allocate time in advance to create a backup. In the unlikely event that a (hard) upgrade fails, we can always go back to the situation before the upgrade. The rollback script must be ready for every update.

It is very important that we involve the business in setting the right time. After all, businesses also have a plan. Maybe they need the same overtime weekends, or they just wanted to start the campaign when the update starts.

We must also always provide technical support. During preparation, it should be clear who is needed and who should be on standby. Regardless of the run time, we need to know who and what system to call if something goes wrong.

Software updates are inevitable and we will have to implement them at some point due to advances in software and technology. Below are some of the factors that come into play if we choose our own timing.

Software update time

Emergency update. We will immediately turn off the system and perform an update. Sometimes this is due to a serious security situation, but more often it is due to a bug in the system that causes data to be handled incorrectly.
Regular update. Many updates and releases concern a limited number of software modules, which have also been extensively tested. Such updates often take place during business hours and cannot affect processing.
Update outside business hours. It may happen that a normal update will only happen after the (distributed) database has been modified. This is only possible when the system is not in use. Some users also stay to check if the update is being processed correctly.
Software update on a (long) weekend. Sometimes we can take days off for major updates, which include changes to the OS, DBMS, drivers, and applications. In this case, the entire command is present to execute, test, and verify checksums. Also, a week after the update, a team may be present to help the user and immediately fix any problems.

So don’t take updates lightly. Mistakes, such as updating a SaaS application just before the weekend and then discovering a bug when the helpdesk is only available again on Monday at 9 am, cause harm.

Automatic updates

Manual updates can be annoying and time consuming. Many people today cannot afford to waste time on such minor but necessary things.

Whether the updates are regular software updates or a full OS update, it’s usually best to let our computers update automatically. And it usually works well for smaller devices like PCs, laptops, and smartphones.

The only cases where we want to prevent our computer from automatically updating are:

If our peripherals are not immediately supported by the latest updates.
A security error report appears during installation.
If our current computer has a limitation, for example, if the parts are outdated and cannot support new software.

These updates also have a danger: it happened to me several times in the morning that I came across an update on ITpedia that seriously damaged the site. Luckily, we still have a rollback feature.

SaaS Upgrades

SaaS (Software as a Service) is a technical solution in which standard software of all shapes and sizes is distributed over the Internet. When it comes to business software, there is a good chance that we have an application tailored to our wishes. In this case, we can schedule an upgrade after consulting with the supplier.

Many COTS software however is not customizable, and then we are at the mercy of the supplier’s whims. If we’re lucky, it will report a software update and we can take action.

DevOps Continuous Delivery

DevOps development method to continuously build, test, and deliver software† Typically a large cloud service provider based on a PaaS platform. There are companies that release software releases several times a day.

Since the update flow is almost continuous, it is difficult to agree on a time. The DevOps environment tools are of course designed to be easy to upgrade.