Recus

This kind of proved the bloatware point.

RecusWhen you gonna fight against Steam automatic updates? lol

They can be turned off. SADLY game-by-game basis only and no global/default setting :(

deemonI sincerely hate every NVIDIA driver update, as it always stacks all my orderly distributed shortcuts and file icons on my desktop on my 3 monitors to one pile on single monitor. Also I hate the experience bloatware, because it installs several services and shield shit to my computer that actually makes your computer slower.
So less updates for me. Great News!

(However... what was wrong with option to download game ready drivers from NVIDIA homepage? Like we can download beta drivers from there now? I see no reason to remove that option.)



The first should include only core drivers and NOT ANY FRIGGING GAME/APP/.EXE SPECIFIC PROFILES FFS! So the concept of "game ready drivers", that only update the .exe specific profiles, is so utter bullexcrement, because those profiles SHOULD NOT EXISTS AT ALL INSIDE DRIVER PACKAGE IN THE FIRST PLACE!
NVIDIA SHOULD IMPLEMENT ANOTHER MECHANIC TO UPDATE THOSE PROFILES WITHOUT UPGRADING DRIVERS THAT DON'T NEED UPGRADE!

I agree. Millions of users downloading 300MB driver packages just so they update a SLi profile that's less than 1MB in size is just the most ridiculous waste of time and bandwidth when SLi profiles could be delivered the same way antiviruses receive updates. Automatically and incrimentally. This way all users would get these updates the moment games are released. And they can fix broken stuff in moments and not hours before they update allt he huge ass driver installers.

ShihabyoooSo, NV's basically telling me to "f*** off". They block their my country from accessing their website, and now they make more difficult to acquire the drivers from third party sources :/

You can thank the USA for that, since they have an active full embargo on Sudan right now. Sadly, nV is not it's own country, and has to abide by US law.

RejZoRWould be nice if they'd use incrimental updating and not bloody 300MB packages each time...

deemonThe first should include only core drivers and NOT ANY FRIGGING GAME/APP/.EXE SPECIFIC PROFILES FFS! So the concept of "game ready drivers", that only update the .exe specific profiles, is so utter bullexcrement, because those profiles SHOULD NOT EXISTS AT ALL INSIDE DRIVER PACKAGE IN THE FIRST PLACE!
NVIDIA SHOULD IMPLEMENT ANOTHER MECHANIC TO UPDATE THOSE PROFILES WITHOUT UPGRADING DRIVERS THAT DON'T NEED UPGRADE!

The way their current driver architecture is setup, It seems to be near-impossible, since the core of the driver and all game profiles (I say game profiles.. some of them are much more intensive and include dynamic patching of game GPU calls into better ones better suited for their architecture. AMD does the same as well) are built into (obfuscated) binary blobs. Eventually they may split it out, but that seems highly unlikely due to competitive advantages they hold over AMD from their drivers.

RejZoRI'd love to see incrimental driver updating like antiviruses are doing for decades (small updates of only file sthat actually changed) with simple control panel to rollback to old driver or even option to rollback to any other previous version. That would be so cool.

This way they could save tons of bandwidth, deliver updates to users in matter of minutes and give them instant option to rollback to old version if something doesn't work ok. It's how driver updating and game profiles should be done in freaking 2015.

I suspect this is exactly why they're doing this, and why geforce.com drivers are being shifted to quarterlies instead.

W1zzardI'll do my best :)

Check out the guys from laptopvideo2go.com . They've been ripping drivers out of the darkest corners (including stuff like windows updates) for well over 10 years now, and patching the infs to give full support for all GPUs for every package.

SKL_HIt really makes sense if 90% are using NVIDIA Experience and whats nice is that NVIDIA Experience is very neat.

Yup.

FluffmeisterI have it installed for ShadowPlay anyway, so ultimately a non issue for me.

IkarugaI have to agree. I'm one of those guys who usually installs nothing. I have ROG and other software bundle heavy mainboards and I did not install any of those software, same with my soundcards, etc.... but I installed GE because of ShadowPlay and I did not regret it at all. It sits there and does zero bad for me, + the costless recording with my maxwell2 is really nice. (I do not use any of the other features tho, didn't even scan for my games yet)

Love Shadowplay, especially the last 5 minutes cache I can dump to disk when something awesome or really confusing happens.

XzibitYou want drivers give us all your details so we can at the very least spam your e-mail box.

jigar2speedWhere did i say that the adverts would be in the apps or apps only ?? They are asking you for your email address, they can spam you about new products, games and new marketing tie-ups - that move alone can generate money for them. Also, i am pretty sure they have something more in mind, here's hoping we all find out soon. :)

I've given them my email address, I receive nothing that I haven't explicitly agreed to.

GorbazTheDragonWow, so now I have a program to automatically put settings to what it thinks is best... It doesn't even make changes on the actually big out-of-menu options that many games have. Not to mention the game recorder and streaming utility are pretty pathetic compared to something like OBS, which can also use NVenc (thanks nvidia for that one :) )

Not saying that I'd use any AMD equivalent either...

These programs are just pathetic excuses for them not to fix the horribly out of date driver config menu.

Not to mention how much I loathe auto updates...

In the middle of a tournament match? AUTO UPDATE

In the middle of an interesting video or stream? AUTO UPDATE

In the middle of some important work? YOUR UPDATE HAS BEEN INSTALLED: RESTART NOW

There are many programs guilty for this, and GFE is one of them. What about if I just don't want to update every WHQL cycle?

Exactly, if I need to optimize stuff for any reason I can do it far better myself than any program can. Same goes for these auto OC things, especially with intel pushing past 4GHz stock on many of their CPUs...

There is nothing silent about nvidia updates or game setting application, and no reboot needed for GPU updates since Vista, so please, can the FUD. Personally, I let nvidia set the settings, and tweak from there, the defaults are hand-chosen by nV employees for each GPU, then pushed out.

GorbazTheDragonDon't see why corporate would want this, other than for applying updates over a large array of workstations. But I doubt GFE uses any kind of caching system for P2P so it reduces network load...

There are probably programs to remote install this kind of thing across multiple machines anyway.

If you're in corporate IT, you're not generally getting updates from the mainstream channels - you either stick to OEM/vendor sites because of certification reqs, or you're big enough to have direct access to nVidia.

GorbazTheDragonWhat pisses me off is that they are FORCING GFE. I've tried using GFE, but it is a really clunky program to be fair and I have no use for it... So I download and install manually on my own update schedule.

No forcing, just that not using GFE means drivers every 3 months instead of every major game release.

HumanSmokeWhy would Nvidia require GFE with Quadro and Tesla when the boards don't support GFE?

Last time I saw someone try to install GFE on a workstation ( to play around with ShadowPlay) last year, all it did was act as download manager. The driver was all that was installed. If Nvidia state that the GFE bundling is for GeForce drivers, you either take it as such, or just make a whole load of assumptions based on no actual information. Personally, I'd rather spend time on facts rather than trying to induce a panic attack. Why the hell GFE would be mandatory for a Tesla math co-processor escapes me.

Quite annoying I agree. Where does nV get off thinking Quadro users will never play games?I want my game profiles on my Quadro laptop (it was second-hand, cheap and powerful) damnit!

FordGT90ConceptThat's what I said, didn't I? I don't care about GFE; it's the fact they only want to provide the most recent drivers through GFE that's causing the controversy and, as noted, GFE is already capable of taking that role over on Quadro too.

For the record, I always uncheck Gaming Evolved too. Where I come from, software like these are considered bloatware. Since when did bloatware become acceptable?

It became acceptable when people put a value on convenience, and GFE is really convenient if you set it up right (enable background downloads). And ShadowPlay. And game streaming (which is built on shadowplay) for those with a Shield. I think gamestreaming to other PCs is almost done as well, but not sure.

FordGT90ConceptAnything that's not required to make the device function is bloatware. GeForce Experience and Gaming Evolved both check that box. Arguable, CCC and the NVIDIA Control Panel also do but you'd have to go back over a decade to find drivers that didn't use them (they embedded advanced display options under Display Properties -> Advanced, coincidentally, where they belong). Graphics drivers, by themselves, are no more than 50 MiB. Both AMD and NVIDIA driver packages now have north of 200 MiB worth of bloat and they seem quick to add even more. Are these things users even requested in the first place?

Still not required. you can uncheck the box, and deal with quarterly updates instead. For the rest of us, we'll take convenience and shadowplay.

FordGT90ConceptI generally agree with that statement. If it is not something you need right now, it shouldn't be running. Case in point: I never liked the idea of having to run Steam to run a Steam title. Someone posted a picture of all of the services and applications NVIDIA drivers install these days (without opting out). The list is lengthy and several of them pose potentially pretty big security threats because they leave network ports open. Steam is doing more and more of that lately as well. These are nothing I'm in favor of. These are things that should be disabled by default. These are things that users should have more control over. Microsoft is guilty of much the same with Windows 10. Instead of security getting tighter it seems to be systemically getting weaker.

Steam has an in-game UI, and DRM enforcement. As for network security issues, use a goddamn firewall if you're worried about instrusions.

KatanaiYep, get that in your small head, at this moment the only program running on my PC is Mozilla Firefox. Nothing else. And I have nothing else to tell you.

Uh-huh. Yes, really.

How about audiodg.exe for your audio? or the firefox update checker? Or the UI shell (taskbar, folders, shortcuts, desktop, explorer)? or the external plugins like Flash and Java? Or the Font host? or the other 120-odd extra windows services all hidden behind svchost.exe? I'm calling bullshit.

FordGT90ConceptI tend to agree. Drivers, of all kinds, should be left to the user to decide. If a professional (not a domain controlled environment, mind you) wants to update to the latest drivers then he/she should be able to. If he/she does not, then he/she ought to be able to opt out.

In my opinion, we should be talking about fourseparate things:
1) the graphics driver (inf, sys, etc.)
2) an automatic driver updater (could be a light weight application that delays start to check for new updates)
3) AMD CCC & NVIDIA Control Panel
4) AMD Gaming Evolved & NVIDIA GeForce Experience.

The first is required and is reasonable for Windows Update to fetch this when it using Microsoft's standard VGA driver, the second should be opt-out because most people will want to keep drivers current, the third should be opt-in because most of the important features can be handled by the operating system itself (e.g. multi-monitor support), and the fourth should be a complete separate installer (not unlike PhysX) so only people that want it will get it.

2 is merged into 3 or 4: GFE takes over the update interface, because it's the thing with all the extra features. When you don't have GFE, it shows up under the CPL

3, the control panels were split off from the windows tabs because of a combination of deprecation, being a massive PITA to find, and restrictive in terms of sanely adding in more options. It also means that if I have a borked nv/AMD CPL, I don't also have a broked basic windows control panel, so recovery is much saner.

4, Still optional.

Comment under the PCPerspective article. I find it funny, Nvidia fans will probably disagree

Welcome to the G-Forced-Experience, now open wide on both ends and Get ready for some G-forcing, lubrication not provided!

Anyway, as I said in my first post, this looks like a way for Nvidia to force their customers to check GeForce Experience and what it offers. I think they could just force the installation of the application the way Microsoft was forcing the installation of "Internet Explorer". "It is a core object of the OS and blah bah blah". They choose not to.
Compared with the "If you have hardware from another vendor in your PC we disable all the extra features that our cards support and you already payed for them", I think this new customer obligation for getting the Game Ready drivers, is minor.

ZeDestructorSteam has an in-game UI, and DRM enforcement.

These are in steamclient.dll which is included with all Steam titles. The problem is that steamclient.dll invokes Steam. They should be divorced.

ZeDestructorAs for network security issues, use a goddamn firewall if you're worried about instrusions.

Your usual firewall won't stop outgoing traffic, only incoming. You'd have to make special rules to block outgoing. That is a lot of effort, especially when services are involved.

ZeDestructor3, the control panels were split off from the windows tabs because of a combination of deprecation, being a massive PITA to find, and restrictive in terms of sanely adding in more options. It also means that if I have a borked nv/AMD CPL, I don't also have a broked basic windows control panel, so recovery is much saner.

I'd argue they both should get with the 21st century and use Microsoft Management Console (MMC). It is slim but still feature rich and Windows can pull it up where appropriate (like Computer Management and even through domain controllers).

ZeDestructor4, Still optional.

For now. That's the crux of the discussion.

I installed the latest game ready driver but it wasnt ready for my game?? Sigh

Anyhow I dont see a big problem with this. If you really dont want to run Geforce experience just install it, update your drivers once a month, then uninstall it again. It only takes a few seconds to install, update your drivers then uninstall it until next month.

I too was a guy who didnt like a lot of shit running in the background, I still disable what I can but its not as necessary these days if you have a good computer. In the old days I could notice a big difference in speed by limiting background programs, but not so much these days.

I can see why Nvidia is doing it though, I have a feeling updates will be automatic and silent soon, like windows 10. They all seems to be moving that way.

I'm just wondering if reviewers next year will be benchmarking with GeForce Experience active since stream service has been know to cause issues. Slow downs and the latest is overclocking troubles.

Nvidia• Issue where user is unable to overclock GPU memory (Windows 10)

buggalugsI can see why Nvidia is doing it though, I have a feeling updates will be automatic and silent soon, like windows 10. They all seems to be moving that way.

There's nothing stopping them from doing exactly that through Windows Update which again raises the question of why GeForce Experience even messes with drivers. Hell, I just clean installed Windows 10 today and Windows Update grabbed and installed 15.7.1 drivers before I even bothered running the 15.7.1 driver installer sitting on my desktop. It should be noted that what Windows Update fetched did not install Gaming Evolved.

I've been using NV cards for my last three graphics upgrade cycles. Never ever installed Geforce Experience and have always used the manual installer downloaded from nvidia.com.

I do not like to install programs which I deem to be non essential for my work/gaming. And I always try out new software in VMs first. These help to avoid bloating the system with rubbish software. If NV is dead set on changing the way it publishes driver update, so be it. I will just stick to the quarterly updated drivers.

FordGT90ConceptThese are in steamclient.dll which is included with all Steam titles. The problem is that steamclient.dll invokes Steam. They should be divorced.

All Steam games do that because inherently they rely on Steam as DRM. A small number don't use said DRM, like FTL: Faster than Light and they don't auto-launch Steam on start if you hit the exe directly, since Steam-generated shortcuts are URL shortcuts pointing to steam://<steamgameid> , not application shortcuts.

FordGT90ConceptYour usual firewall won't stop outgoing traffic, only incoming. You'd have to make special rules to block outgoing. That is a lot of effort, especially when services are involved.

Convenience vs potential securty/privacy.

As for the "open ports" as you call them, those are all listening incoming ports, not outgoing ports, =so they're firewalled by default on any sane LAN.

FordGT90ConceptI'd argue they both should get with the 21st century and use Microsoft Management Console (MMC). It is slim but still feature rich and Windows can pull it up where appropriate (like Computer Management and even through domain controllers).

We can keep dreaming for the foreseeable future.

FordGT90ConceptFor now. That's the crux of the discussion.

And nothing in their announcement says otherwise. From their announcement, GFE will be the quickly updated branch, and geforce.com/nvidia.com packages will be the quarterly updated branch, as opposed to the current setup of both being on the fast branch.

ok, and we can see one day the GTX 950 will be stronger than GTX 780 as they did with the lastest driver now LOL. They are going to cripple older GPU especially Kepler :(

And what is going next ?
Boom.

ZeDestructorYou can thank the USA for that, since they have an active full embargo on Sudan right now. Sadly, nV is not it's own country, and has to abide by US law.

Not quite full, actually. About 6 months ago, the US govt generously [/s] amended their sanctions policy to allow exportation of software "necessary for the operation of such hardware". Yet to see anyone -other than Google- care to update their IP filters though.

ZeDestructorAll Steam games do that because inherently they rely on Steam as DRM. A small number don't use said DRM, like FTL: Faster than Light and they don't auto-launch Steam on start if you hit the exe directly, since Steam-generated shortcuts are URL shortcuts pointing to steam://<steamgameid> , not application shortcuts.

It's very easy to make a program convert steam:// links to application links. I'll spare you the details but it involves one registry key ("installpath") and one file ("#.acf").

ZeDestructorAs for the "open ports" as you call them, those are all listening incoming ports, not outgoing ports, =so they're firewalled by default on any sane LAN.

It's UPNP. Basically you have a sever which is pre-exposed to the network that is contacted by a client behind a firewall, the connection is then kept open so that the two can communicate as needed. It is started with an outgoing connection but that certainly doesn't mean what that server does is remotely safe nor what is sent to the server is information that shouldn't be kept private. It's a means to defeat firewalls unless the firewall explicitly forbids it (e.g. this program is forbidden to create outgoing communications).

ZeDestructorAnd nothing in their announcement says otherwise. From their announcement, GFE will be the quickly updated branch, and geforce.com/nvidia.com packages will be the quarterly updated branch, as opposed to the current setup of both being on the fast branch.

The "fast branch" now is the same file GFE grabs. Why keep the status quo with GFE and nerf the standalone installers? I have yet to see an explanation why they need to change this at all.

FordGT90ConceptIt's UPNP. Basically you have a sever which is pre-exposed to the network that is contacted by a client behind a firewall, the connection is then kept open so that the two can communicate as needed. It is started with an outgoing connection but that certainly doesn't mean what that server does is remotely safe nor what is sent to the server is information that shouldn't be kept private. It's a means to defeat firewalls unless the firewall explicitly forbids it (e.g. this program is forbidden to create outgoing communications).

Deactivate UPnP then. All the routers I've owned so far (a string of Netgears from the WNDR3700, pfSense, OPNsense) with UPnP support have allowed me to do so. As I recall, the default was off even on the Netgears.

FordGT90ConceptThe "fast branch" now is the same file GFE grabs. Why keep the status quo with GFE and nerf the standalone installers? I have yet to see an explanation why they need to change this at all.

Hopefully changes converting to partial binary patching. For now, just cutting some (trivially minor, I agree) QA effort by the looks of it.

buggalugsI can see why Nvidia is doing it though, I have a feeling updates will be automatic and silent soon, like windows 10. They all seems to be moving that way.

That's one of the potential problems I see with GFE. Nvidia does release a borked driver from time to time. We can avoid that driver right now but if GFE forces it on us then we can't. Yes, I understand that they will be releasing quarterly stand alone drivers for now that we can revert to but then GFE would just download the new shit driver the first chance it got.

I'm not saying GFE will automatically download the newest driver without permission because I don't know but I am suspicious at this point.

64KThat's one of the potential problems I see with GFE. Nvidia does release a borked driver from time to time. We can avoid that driver right now but if GFE forces it on us then we can't. Yes, I understand that they will be releasing quarterly stand alone drivers for now that we can revert to but then GFE would just download the new shit driver the first chance it got.

I'm not saying GFE will automatically download the newest driver without permission because I don't know but I am suspicious at this point.

No, they are just requiring GFE. That's all. GFE has options for everything, so it basically does nothing unless the user wants it to, including waiting months to update the driver.

oOO sh.t im f.ck because i live in cuba and i dont have internet conexion in my home, so what i supose i do? i disable GeForce Experience because i cant use it.. . . . . . . My god !! my poor GTX 960 will be suffer this.

It wouldn't be a big deal to me if Geforce Experience wasn't so bloated. It leaves packed and unpacked drivers all over the place taking up too much storage IMO.

mAarkoOO sh.t im f.ck because i live in cuba and i dont have internet conexion in my home, so what i supose i do? i disable GeForce Experience because i cant use it.. . . . . . . My god !! my poor GTX 960 will be suffer this.

You'll be sitting on the quarterly web release then, or sourcing them from places like LV2go.

Screw the 10 percent! It only 10%, who cared!?

Urghh.... and I'm that ---> 10 Percent! Why, thank you! :banghead:

FluffmeisterAs always it seems it's the AMD users that get most upset, you're not affected guys... relax!

Well maybe you should do what you preach. If you want people to stop commenting where they aren't effected, I suggest you do the same...
Before you say anything about me, I own both a laptop and a portable desktop with NVidia inside so it does effect me.

RejZoRI agree. Millions of users downloading 300MB driver packages just so they update a SLi profile that's less than 1MB in size is just the most ridiculous waste of time and bandwidth when SLi profiles could be delivered the same way antiviruses receive updates. Automatically and incrimentally. This way all users would get these updates the moment games are released. And they can fix broken stuff in moments and not hours before they update allt he huge ass driver installers.

I agree, it is a bit ridiculous from both sides. I would not mind having updates all the time if they were quick 10mb updates when its just 1-2 SLI profiles (Even though those do not effect me).

I still say its not a big deal for the drivers/SLI profiles to come through GeForce experience, but I can also see why people just want the option. I think this is so they can get more feedback through GeForce experience on machines, what's going on with them, etc to help prevent problems.

I mean, I have a 10Mbit line (1+ MB/s) so even 300MB is kinda fast, but still unnecessary wasting of time and bandwidth if you know it could be done with just 10MB...

I didn't ever used GFE to update drivers and I'm used to go back for certain drivers because latest isn't always greatest I used to keep many old drivers , forcing us to do it this way is awkward .

ShihabyoooNot quite full, actually. About 6 months ago, the US govt generously [/s] amended their sanctions policy to allow exportation of software "necessary for the operation of such hardware". Yet to see anyone -other than Google- care to update their IP filters though.

As a US citizen, please allow me to apologize on behalf of our often extremely stupid corporations.

I know it doesn't do much, but embargoing GRAPHICS DRIVERS is some serious BS to have ever happened.

Fortunately it's pretty easy to use Geforce Experience to update anyway. But I can see a vocal minority not happy with the decision.