Nvidia Support Site For GeForce Products Debuts

GeForce.com includes a hardware section with focus features on GeForce products, several optimization guides, and a page where users download beta and legacy drivers for GeForce cards. The site also includes a "What's new" section with the GTX 580, which will compete with AMD's forthcoming Cayman GPUs in the high-end graphics space.

All of these features are already up and running even though the site is officially in "beta," according to the Website's heading.

"We launched the site in Beta because it's a pretty complex Website. It took about a year or two to build," James Wang, product manager for GeForce, said in an interview with CRN. "We've wanted to build this site for gamers for a long time."

To that end, Nvidia conducted three usability studies while designing its Website. In the first, Nvidia asked different gamers several questions regarding the GeForce user experience. In subsequent studies, users offered feedback for a prototype Nvidia developed based on the first study.

"So far the feedback for the site has been really good," Wang told CRN. "We've received about four hundred suggestions."

Among the site's most important features, Wang said the Optimal Playable Settings page on the GeForce allows control over the intensity level of the graphics. The page includes a dropdown bar with the various GeForce models for users to select from in order to determine the optimal settings for each model. "Getting the settings right is pretty important from a users' perspective," Wang said. "A lot of users buy pre-built systems without knowing which graphics card is inside."

Wang also highlighted another feature of the GeForce site aimed at helping gamers use the hardware at their disposal.

"The Automatic Driver Detection feature allows users to understand exactly the right GPU for the right driver," Wang said.