  Gravitational corrections in N=1 and N=2 supersymmetric gauge theories are
obtained from topological string amplitudes. We show how they are recovered in
matrix model computations. This provides a test of the proposal by Dijkgraaf
and Vafa beyond the planar limit. Both, matrix model and topological string
theory, are used to check a conjecture of Nekrasov concerning these
gravitational couplings in Seiberg-Witten theory. Our analysis is performed for
those gauge theories which are related to the cubic matrix model, i.e. pure
SU(2) Seiberg-Witten theory and N=2 U(N) SYM broken to N=1 via a cubic
superpotential. We outline the computation of the topological amplitudes for
the local Calabi-Yau manifolds which are relevant for these two cases.
