NVIDIA's v580 Driver Branch Ends Support for Maxwell, Pascal, and Volta GPUs

[AleksandarK]

NVIDIA has confirmed that its upcoming 580 driver series will be the final release to offer official updates for three of its older GPU architectures. In a recent update to its UNIX graphics deprecation schedule, the company noted that once version 580 ships, Maxwell-, Pascal-, and Volta-based products will no longer receive new drivers or patches. Although this announcement originates from NVIDIA's UNIX documentation, the unified driver codebase means Windows users will face the same cutoff. Owners of Maxwell-era GeForce GTX 700 and GTX 900 cards, Pascal's GeForce GTX 10 lineup, and the consumer-focused Volta TITAN V can expect their last set of performance optimizations and security fixes in the 580 branch.

NVIDIA further explains that ending support for these legacy chips allows its engineering teams to focus on newer hardware platforms. For example, Turing-based GeForce GTX 16 series cards will continue to receive updates beyond driver v580, ensuring gamers can benefit from the latest optimizations and stability improvements even on older platforms. First introduced between 2014 and 2017, Maxwell, Pascal, and Volta GPUs will have enjoyed eight to eleven years of official maintenance, among the longest support windows in the industry. While existing driver installations will remain operational, NVIDIA recommends that users who depend on these older cards begin planning upgrades to maintain full compatibility and access new features. At the time of this announcement, the public driver sits at version 576.80, and NVIDIA has not yet set a firm release date for the 580 series, leaving affected users a window of several months before support officially ends.



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[matar]

I have RTX 3080 Ti and i still use older drivers was on 546.29 for a year now on 566.14 i always use older drivers and i choice the best once that work for me so IF YOUR still on older GPUs even 10series is NOT OLD AND still super FAST i still have 10s and 9s and even 5s and still my kids and there friends play latest games no issues SO YOU WONT MISS out Nvidia is pushing us to buy newer GPUs

 

[Devastator0]

The last drivers that were stable for me on my 4080 were the 566.36 ones. I've not updated to any subsequent ones as each one I've tried has been garbage and introduced issues.

 

[dgianstefani]

End of an era, but had to happen at some point. Similar age Polaris/Vega game driver support ended 2023, still get occasional security updates, but that's it.

 

[Hyderz]

2025.. ending of support for certain versions of windows 10, now soon gtx 700 n 900 series..
my i7 6700k with 1070ti... perfectly fine... but not getting updates after this year... wonder if I should sell the 1070ti to get some monies out of it or keep using until nvidia fully stops the updates for 10 series

 

[SirB]

The last drivers that were stable for me on my 4080 were the 566.36 ones. I've not updated to any subsequent ones as each one I've tried has been garbage and introduced issues.

That's all on you pal. New drivers work fine for those that know how to manage a PC.
Maybe if you just run DDU a few more times? lmao

 

[dgianstefani]

I have RTX 3080 Ti and i still use older drivers was on 546.29 for a year now on 566.14 i always use older drivers and i choice the best once that work for me so IF YOUR still on older GPUs even 10series is NOT OLD AND still super FAST i still have 10s and 9s and even 5s and still my kids and there friends play latest games no issues SO YOU WONT MISS out Nvidia is pushing us to buy newer GPUs

I have same GPU, 3080 Ti FE, not had any issues with latest branch besides a brief issue with alt-tabbing that was resolved in next patch.

That's all on you pal. New drivers work fine for those that know how to manage a PC.
Maybe if you just run DDU a few more times? lmao

Some people have legit issues that are the fault of the driver. Every setup is different.

 

[Onasi]

Expected, this was a long run of support in any case. Probably will grab something new this year to replace my ancient 1070, I got the maximum out of it in any case. I fully believe in keeping hardware as long as possible if you don’t particularly NEED an update and almost a decade is a great run, really.

 

[_roman_]

Wow that was very long support. o.o

I had a second hand ASUS G75-VW laptop with a mobile 660m GTX. I had to use outdated binary nvidia drivers for a long time. I assume the proper support for the 600 series should have ended ~8 years or longer ago.

I'm really surprised the 700 cards got such long support.

The 960 gtx which i bought and sold in 2023 had limited use. The windows 10 pro driver quality was poor in the first months of 2023.
nvidia 960 gtx could not even run subnautica or encased properly from the epic game store with windows 10. I had sold at that point my radeon 6600xt. I was testing the nvidia driver quality and how much gpu performance I really need in 2023.

Owners of Maxwell-era GeForce GTX 700 and GTX 900 cards, Pascal's GeForce GTX 10 lineup, and the consumer-focused Volta TITAN V can expect their last set of performance optimizations and security fixes in the 580 branch.

my i7 6700k with 1070ti... perfectly fine... but not getting updates after this year... wonder if I should sell the 1070ti to get some monies out of it or keep using until nvidia fully stops the updates for 10 series

legacy driver will work with the gnu userspace and the linux kernel or with windows 10.

Personally I would keep that combo as retro gaming box.

 

[shhnedo]

That's all on you pal. New drivers work fine for those that know how to manage a PC.
Maybe if you just run DDU a few more times? lmao

You mean a brand new 5070 TI, paired with an X670E / 9800X3D / 32GB DDR5-6000 setup, is black screening because I don't know how to "manage" it? So I somehow know how to "manage" a 3070 TI, but not a 5070 TI? An entire world is wringing nvidia's neck for their atrocious drivers, all because they don't "knows how to manage a PC"... Homie... Outside. Grass. Touch it.

 

[maxli86]

To me is not a bad issue since at a point certain driver version is more stable than others.
Once driver support ended for these cards, users just have to rely on the version that is stable.
Which is why is not a bad thing especially everyone knows.

Whenever Nvidia release a new driver, it may break the game you are playing.
GTX 700, GTX 900 and GTX 1000 series has been supported for the past 10 years.
Which is not too bad for Nvidia.

I just hope Nvidia will continue to support RTX 2000 series, GTX 1650/1660 series in the future.
Cards like RTX 2080 Ti is still kicking and able to handle modern games.

 

[dgianstefani]

To me is not a bad issue since at a point certain driver version is more stable than others.
Once driver support ended for these cards, users just have to rely on the version that is stable.
Which is why is not a bad thing especially everyone knows.

Whenever Nvidia release a new driver, it may break the game you are playing.
GTX 700, GTX 900 and GTX 1000 series has been supported for the past 10 years.
Which is not too bad for Nvidia.

I just hope Nvidia will continue to support RTX 2000 series, GTX 1650/1660 series in the future.
Cards like RTX 2080 Ti is still kicking and able to handle modern games.

Yes, the second thing is, besides security patches (you can't run 10-20 year old hardware forever connected to internet and expect perpetual security patches), the only thing new drivers bring for these cards is game release stuff (architecture specific optimizations ended years ago lol), so unless you're genuinely expecting to play 2025 AAA games on 10 year old GPUs, without DLSS (i've got bad news for you), there isn't much lost here. You can still play the older games, plus newer, non demanding releases.

 

[Dr. Dro]

The last drivers that were stable for me on my 4080 were the 566.36 ones. I've not updated to any subsequent ones as each one I've tried has been garbage and introduced issues.

Have you tested 576.80? Have been solid on my desktop 5090 and 3050 laptop GPUs. No issues to report on the very old 940MX either - mom's old ideapad. Have not heard my brother complain, he's still on the RTX 3070, maybe give that a shot? Hope your issues are resolved soon.

 

[flynnfittz]

You mean a brand new 5070 TI, paired with an X670E / 9800X3D / 32GB DDR5-6000 setup, is black screening because I don't know how to "manage" it? So I somehow know how to "manage" a 3070 TI, but not a 5070 TI? An entire world is wringing nvidia's neck for their atrocious drivers, all because they don't "knows how to manage a PC"... Homie... Outside. Grass. Touch it.

Might be a "bad" cable, my 5070 ti was also giving me black screens on my TV from time to time, I changed the cable and it's been fine. The old cable was good, and it worked fine on my 4070 ti, but maybe it degraded over time and the 50 series requires better cables to properly work. Anyway, not a single black screen since.

 

[Grimling]

so far, the 576.80 driver seems to run fine, i had no problems on my 4080s using these.
so if you are running older drivers because of all the problems with the newer drivers, i think it is worth trying the 576.80.
we can only hope that the new 580 driver do not repeat the past bug-nighmare, but improves stability and performance even more.

 

[Daven]

That's all on you pal. New drivers work fine for those that know how to manage a PC.
Maybe if you just run DDU a few more times? lmao

It’s widely reported that certain versions of Nvidia drivers are more stable with less issues than others. Nvidia drivers over the last year especially have seen an uptick in problems. Obviously not everyone is affected the same given the huge variance in usage scenarios. Many recommend staying on a version without problems and only upgrade to a later version if you absolutely need to.

 

[rodneyhchef]

Still got some PCs in the family using these older GPUs, including a 980 Ti which was my main GPU for over 7 years; it's a good job they kept support for them for this long as the last 5 years haven't exactly been easy times to upgrade.

Looking at the recent branch history, the branches seem to be around for 12 - 18 months, so v580 might mean support isn't dropped until late 2026 earliest?

I too had issues with nvidia drivers on my 4080 recently. Hard crash starting cyberpunk with RT enabled. It's been widely reported, gamersnexus did a video about it

 

[freeagent]

They had a damn good run. Enjoy your sleep sweet hardware.

 

[Ruru]

The last drivers that were stable for me on my 4080 were the 566.36 ones. I've not updated to any subsequent ones as each one I've tried has been garbage and introduced issues.

Still using them with my 3080. As I don't have any newer titles which would need newer ones, I haven't seen a reason to update.

I'm really surprised the 700 cards got such long support.

Only the Maxwell based (GTX 745 OEM, GTX 750, GTX 750 Ti). The others are Fermi and Kepler based and they've been out of driver support for long.

 

[Daven]

Might be a "bad" cable, my 5070 ti was also giving me black screens on my TV from time to time, I changed the cable and it's been fine. The old cable was good, and it worked fine on my 4070 ti, but maybe it degraded over time and the 50 series requires better cables to properly work. Anyway, not a single black screen since.

I don’t think Nvidia acknowledged then patched the black screen issues because of bad cables.

NVIDIA confirms fix for GeForce RTX black screen issues: VBIOS and new driver coming this week - VideoCardz.com

NVIDIA GeForce RTX Black Screen Fix already available for some, others will get it this week It may be a BIOS update or a simple driver fix. This is one of the most frequently asked questions we receive: when and how will NVIDIA fix the black screen issues that some gamers are experiencing? It...

videocardz.com

 

[Tomorrow]

Wheres the outrage about Nvidia ending driver support?

When it's Nvidia ending support after 11 years (Maxwell), 9 years (Pascal) or 7 years (Volta) then it's crickets.
But god forbid AMD dares moving Vega and Polaris to maintenance branch and it's the end of the world and AMD is such a bad company for only supporting their cards for up to 8 years. Double standards much?

End of an era, but had to happen at some point. Similar age Polaris/Vega game driver support ended 2023, still get occasional security updates, but that's it.

And yet somehow, AMD is supposedly worse...

Expected, this was a long run of support in any case.

It's only 1-2 years more than AMD.

Wow that was very long support. o.o

Nvidia: ~10 years. AMD: ~8 years.

 

[Onasi]

@Tomorrow
Brother, you are tilting at windmills. Literally nobody even mentioned any direct comparisons with Radeon in the thread (except in passing by @dgianstefani). Pretty much the only time AMD really fucked people was with Radeon VII that got dropped after, what, 4 years? Which was hilarious for what they touted as an ostensibly prosumer card. Otherwise, their support is fine, it’s solid. No need for playing the victim on their part.

 

[Tomorrow]

@Tomorrow
Brother, you are tilting at windmills. Literally nobody even mentioned any direct comparisons with Radeon in the thread (except in passing by @dgianstefani). Pretty much the only time AMD really fucked people was with Radeon VII that got dropped after, what, 4 years? Which was hilarious for what they touted as an ostensibly prosumer card. Otherwise, their support is fine, it’s solid. No need for playing the victim on their part.

Look at other forums. People complaining about "AMD abandoning driver support" etc. Meanwhile these same people cant be bothered to visit AMD site and see that the latest Polaris/Vega maintenance release is only a few months old at this point. And they argue that Maxwell/Pascal receive game optimizations on a deep level.

Trust me, i've see the same here in this forum. People who just parrot what they've read on the Internet without any critical thinking or fact checking.

Yes i agree that both of their support is fine and solid. Ultimately 8 vs 10 years is not much of difference. 8 years is four separate GPU generations assuming standard 2 year cadence.

Im just calling out the double standard. You really believe that if this was news about AMD ending driver support, then the comments would not be much harsher?

 

[R-T-B]

Pretty much the only time AMD really fucked people was with Radeon VII that got dropped after, what, 4 years?

Yeah on average AMD drops cards sooner if he really wants to go there. But at least their drivers are OSS on linux so I give them mostly a pass there... and the cards are likewise nearly irrelevant and/or working well when they drop support anyways so no complaints.

Not sure what imaginary bias he is looking for here.

 

[evernessince]

That's all on you pal. New drivers work fine for those that know how to manage a PC.
Maybe if you just run DDU a few more times? lmao

Updating to the newer drivers cost me dozens of hours diagnosing components (MemTest, resetting BIOS to default / updating BIOS, the works) only for errors in the event log eventually revealing that it was in fact GPU driver components.

It's definitely not just a him issue, other people are still reporting drivers issues. Crazy that the defense for bad drivers here is that those people experiencing issues don't know how to manage a PC. It's the "you're holding it wrong" Apple defense, which is especially funny given both Apple and Nvidia are sold on their products just working. Although we know it isn't just "user error", these issues occur whether or not DDU was used prior to driver install.