New Nvidia drivers improve Arkham City, BF3 performance

Nvidia's GeForce 290.36 Beta drivers have just been released, adding some gorgeous ambient occlusion tweaks for Skyrim, which appear to make a hell of a difference. Screen flickering and artefact fixes have been implemented for Battlefield 3 as well, while Nvidia also recommends the driver update for owners of Batman: Arkham City on the PC.

Here's are the release notes:

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.

Click here to download the GeForce 290.36 beta drivers.