Late this afternoon, Apple released a much anticipated set of updates to drivers and related system elements for nVIDIA graphics hardware. Originally targeted only at current-model Macbook, Macbook Air & Macbook Pros which have experienced significant bugs with cursors, crashes and rendering errors, the final version of the update also includes drivers for older nVIDIA GPUs in desktop Macs.

From http://support.apple.com/downloads/NVIDIA_Graphics_Update_2009:

About NVIDIA Graphics Update 2009

This update improves cursor movement when using the Apple Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI adapter with the Mini DisplayPort enabled MacBook Air, MacBook and MacBook Pro.

It also improves playback of HD video running on systems with NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT or GeForce 9600M graphics.

According to early reader reports via email (rumors@macosrumors.com), IM (AIM: MacOSRumors) and Twitter (@MacOSRumors), the performance benefits on all of the GPUs/Macs listed above — and interestingly enough, also some others — are significant.

In addition to the reported performance improvements, we have been able to confirm that the bug fixes listed in Apple’s release notes are working nicely for every owner of current-generation Macbook/Pros that we’ve had the opportunity to hear from/speak to so far.

For those with somewhat older Macs that use cards such as the 7300GT (2007 Mac Pro, primarily), the performance differences do not appear as consistent but in some cases, they may be even more dramatic; we are running some tests of our own to confirm the results we’ve been hearing about from reader reports and will post updates to the comments below as results come in!

All in all, this is a very solid update and we know that readers with current Apple laptops will be greatly relieved to have the achilles’ heel of these amazing portables resolved at long last.