According to a blog post by Nvidia, the company has finally achieved full WHQL certification for its graphics cards in preparation for the fast-approaching release of Windows 10. This means that Microsoft has independently tested the green team’s drivers, and has found them to be compatible and stable under Windows 10 with a range of hardware.
All models from the Geforce 600 series and up will carry the badge of being Windows Hardware Qualification Lab certified, an award that AMD still has yet to snag for itself. It’s likely the competing card manufacturer is just struggling to keep pace with its better-funded rival, and will be on track to announce its own set of drivers a month or two before Windows 10 is on sale to the public.
Both companies have been on a tear lately hyping up their individual upgrades and upcoming products in anticipation for the release of Windows 10. These include everything from the implementation of DirectX 12 to the creation of what’s known as “Game Ready” drivers; individual drivers that are custom written for the biggest AAA-titles in the business.
“We’ve had a GeForce Game Ready WHQL-certified driver for each and every title [in 2015],” Nvidia said in a blog post on Friday. “Go back a year earlier and the same is true: Every major game launch of 2014 was accompanied by a WHQL-certified Game Ready driver.”
Nvidia continued to brag further, stating that Nvidia cards are the exclusive choice for Microsoft representatives who had been demoing different builds of DirectX 12 over the past year.
“GeForce has been the GPU of choice for key DX12 demos from Microsoft since the API was announced. Combining the world’s fastest GPU hardware with a high-quality graphics driver made for the perfect showcase for the next-generation features of Windows 10 and DirectX 12.”
This isn’t to say that AMD cards will be worse than anything offered by Nvidia on DirectX 12, just that Nvidia is able to claim first place in the race to be fully certified and ready to go by the time the new OS drops sometime this summer.