The nVidia video driver situation appears to be finally getting 'beta' with this latest release. I ran Age of Empires III last night, and while I did not notice more detail necessarily, the game ran smoother than it has done since making the transition from XP to Vista.

I still only get a 3.5 game performance rating from my GeForce 6600, but it is good enough for me presently. I may even reload CFS 3 if only to see if it too runs better. My flying ability is not governed by video performance, I can assure you. I am no natural flyer and, aided and abetted by a cheap joystick, I never last too long 'up there' even with the game set for invincible. There should be a part where the FAA/CAA come in to investigate the crashes, but whether I could take the insults from the investigators is open to conjecture.

I get a 5.9 performance rating for Aero, so I know at least that my video card is not the bottle neck when the machine as a whole stutters and hops along as if it was injured.

This beta driver also has 3D overrides, so when a listed game is run, the video settings are optimized for it. Even Adobe Reader 8 has a setting. Unfortinately, I don't run Adobe Reader 8, preferring the much trimmer and infinitely faster 'Foxit'.

For a while now, nVidia drivers have been able to cope with 'Dual view', but there is still no ability to have a different background on each screen. I cheated and used the 30 day trial version of Ultramon. Presently uninstalled, I will only use it again if I decide to change the backgrounds for something else. Sorry Ultramon, but Vista has native support for moving windows from one screen to another. All I want is basic control, and the ability to have two different backgrounds.

Anyway, I have noticed nothing untoward having installed the drivers which keeps me on the happy side.