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Are The "Newer" NVIDIA GPU Driver Series Now Good Enough To Install (Bugs Fixed?)

C

CyberCT

Joined
Mar 20, 2010
Messages
251 (0.05/day)
I have 3 PCs:

14900K 4090 on Windows 11
11900K 3080ti on Windows 10
11900K 3080 12GB on Windows 10

All 3 PCs have 32GB System RAM

All 3 are upgraded to the latest version of their Windows updates. I never install GeForce Experience. All are running the last version of Nvidia drivers (old fashioned white GUI and options that have been around forever): Driver version 566.14.
There was lots of negative feedback on their newer GPU drivers with the new architecture. I stayed away from them since launch. Now that it's been numerous months ... did NVIDIA fix all the bugs and issues? Or should I still stay away? Looks like the newest version is 576.52.

I really would like to try the new DLSS model, which is apparently only possible using the newer NVIDIA drivers.
 
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I mean, just install the latest build on a single machine. Reverting to a previous version takes all of a minute and half if expectations fail to be met.

More exactly, three major components to this. OS build is pretty much system wide. The other two are GPU and games you play.
One of these major components was left out of your OP.
 
CyberCT said:
I have 3 PCs:

14900K 4090 on Windows 11
11900K 3080ti on Windows 10
11900K 3080 12GB on Windows 10

All 3 are upgraded to the latest version of their Windows updates. I never install GeForce Experience. All are running the last version of Nvidia drivers (old fashioned white GUI and options that have been around forever): Driver version 566.14.
There was lots of negative feedback on their newer GPU drivers with the new architecture. I stayed away from them since launch. Now that it's been numerous months ... did NVIDIA fix all the bugs and issues? Or should I still stay away? Looks like the newest version is 576.52.

I really would like to try the new DLSS model, which is apparently only possible using the newer NVIDIA drivers.
Click to expand...
Yes, all of the recent bugs have been fixed.
 
I play a wide variety of games. New games, games from the last decade, and even games before that.

Being on the sidelines, I've seen many comments from various people from various sources complaining about black screens, crashes, ALT TAB issues, bad performance, etc .... stemming from the NVIDIA's newer driver series.

So lexluthermiester, you're saying these bugs have been fixed?
 
I mean, from an outsider perspective the outcry against newer drivers has lessened, so while I can't claim to know for sure, that is probably a good sign.

Hard to say for certain here though as my only nvidia gpu atm is a kepler based thing in my server.
 
CyberCT said:
So @lexluthermiester, you're saying these bugs have been fixed?
Click to expand...

No.

The list of bugs is plenty long. You pick the driver that works best with game or games you are currently playing. Of the ones that have issues that is. Overwhelming majority of games work as expected.

Forza Horizon 5 is a prime example. Many many months of crashes and black screens now with 3rd-5th gen NV cards. Dev side is taken care of and now it is up to NV to fix their drivers. The opposite is true just as often.

W11 24H2 is the wildcard that is causing system wide program issues. HWiNFO and quite a few popular in-game overlays rely on something that would require basically rewriting their entire program and everything it plugs into would require similar to work with it.

Without playing to snark. The best solution is seeing what works on your system (another wildcard) and games. Driver makes things worse, revert immediately.
 
I'm the type that doesn't upgrade until something breaks... but I just upgraded from 556.12 to 576.52 for the transformer model and haven't encountered any issues yet. 4080 + Win10 22H2.

The only unpleasantness was the new nVidia App 'optimizing' all my games settings by default. There's a revert button but no mass-revert button so was fun doing them one-by-one. There's a setting to disable the auto-optimizer, but I'm not entirely sure how you start the app and turn it off before it does it's thing.

On a first-time load you can probably disable it before it finishes scanning for games, but that's only if you know beforehand /readingrainbow.gif

Only played the following so far:
Pathfinder:WotR
Clair Obscure: Expedition 33
Horizon Forbidden West - huge difference with DLSS/FG 310.2.1.0
 
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lexluthermiester said:
There's always a decent list. There is currently nothing in the way of gamebreaking, experience ruining problems.
Click to expand...

The example I listed is gamebreaking, experience ruining, and a problem. They were not incorrect to suggest it was a tiresome ordeal by this point.

Again, it is hard to know what will or will not work on their system. Research on a specific game helps determination if any driver beyond xxx.xx is poison. Beyond that you try and see.
 
From my experience, and what I've read across the net, you would be unlikely to have any issues, especially serious system breaking ones.

Try one system at a time to be sure, but in your shoes I'd call it 110% worth it for Transformer.
 
i am still waiting new nvidia driver for optimize on oblivion remastered 2025, but so far, the latest nvidia driver still not have features like that, why ?

any way, the old nvidia driver is still looking good for few pc games.
 
nomdeplume said:
The example I listed is gamebreaking, experience ruining, and a problem. They were not incorrect to suggest it was a tiresome ordeal by this point.

Again, it is hard to know what will or will not work on their system. Research on a specific game helps determination if any driver beyond xxx.xx is poison. Beyond that you try and see.
Click to expand...
You seem to think I'm arguing with you, I'm not. There are no known major game-breaking problems with the current NVidia drivers. Unless you can prove otherwise, with citations, let it go.
 
Well I tried the latest drivers on one of my 11900K PCs.

After installation, I Google'd and found how to force the transformer model and forced it with Oblivion. All the Oblivion settings reset. On exit, the PC blue screened. Reloaded the PC. Oblivion wouldn't load from Steam. It would launch from the NVIDIA App though. Played some Oblivion and quit. Now, it launches fine from Steam. Loading in Oblivion initially took a long time. Then seemed to load normally.
Then I tried the transformer model in Forza Motorsport.

I made sure the NVIDIA app didn't automatically optimize any of my games.

I am blown away by how much better the transformer model looks! I'm running 4k at Ultra Performance (the 3080 12 GB struggles on these games).
It's super annoying how NVIDIA locked out frame gen on their 3000 series. I've been using the Lossless Scaling program, which works great minus some graphic abnormalities. Strangely, the transformer model seems to exacerbate its graphic abnormalities. Tried both in only Oblivion so far.
 
CyberCT said:
Oblivion wouldn't load from Steam. It would launch from the NVIDIA App though. Played some Oblivion and quit. Now, it launches fine from Steam. Loading in Oblivion initially took a long time. Then seemed to load normally.
Then I tried the transformer model in Forza Motorsport.
Click to expand...
That might have been the shader cache doing it's caching thing.
 
I was using the drivers that everyone was complaining about with no problem. I didn't know there was a problem until I looked at the threads :D
 
freeagent said:
I was using the drivers that everyone was complaining about with no problem. I didn't know there was a problem until I looked at the threads :D
Click to expand...
That is because(as it always is) the problems are very situational. Most people never see or even know problems exist because their system configs do not trigger the problem.
 
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lexluthermiester said:
That is because(as it always is) the problems are very situation. Most people never see or even know problems exist because their system configs do not trigger the problem.
Click to expand...
Imagine how many people are running bad overclocks without knowing it just by running bad CO settings for instance..
 
Most of my games I'm playing with my RTX 5080 are crashing after a couple of minutes of playing, using the latest drivers. No such issue with the ones from last year December.
Amazing how incompetent and callous nVidia can be not to be able to even fix their own god damn drivers.
 
Prima.Vera said:
Most of my games I'm playing with my RTX 5080 are crashing after a couple of minutes of playing, using the latest drivers. No such issue with the ones from last year December.
Amazing how incompetent and callous nVidia can be not to be able to even fix their own god damn drivers.
Click to expand...
IF that is what's going on with your system, you have a problem other than drivers.
 
No they aren't. Latest driver caused black screen issues with my buddy's 5090 FE to the point where it wouldn't boot until he put in the 4090 he had previously and reverted the driver to the older one.
 
I'm still very happy with my 4090. Got it at MSRP 5 months after launch and it runs anything I play at high frame rates. The 3080 12GB and 3080ti are showing their age. Wish I bought the 4070 ti Super when they were discounted late last year, to replace them. My brother picked one up. I'm staying away from the 5000 series. And why did they dump PhysX. Dumb.
 
CyberCT said:
Well I tried the latest drivers on one of my 11900K PCs.

After installation, I Google'd and found how to force the transformer model and forced it with Oblivion. All the Oblivion settings reset. On exit, the PC blue screened. Reloaded the PC. Oblivion wouldn't load from Steam. It would launch from the NVIDIA App though. Played some Oblivion and quit. Now, it launches fine from Steam. Loading in Oblivion initially took a long time. Then seemed to load normally.
Then I tried the transformer model in Forza Motorsport.

I made sure the NVIDIA app didn't automatically optimize any of my games.

I am blown away by how much better the transformer model looks! I'm running 4k at Ultra Performance (the 3080 12 GB struggles on these games).
It's super annoying how NVIDIA locked out frame gen on their 3000 series. I've been using the Lossless Scaling program, which works great minus some graphic abnormalities. Strangely, the transformer model seems to exacerbate its graphic abnormalities. Tried both in only Oblivion so far.
Click to expand...

Oblivion remastered won't run at 120fps above dlss performance on my 5090, either. But yeah, 310.2 DLL + preset K is heaven.

I haven't found any BSODs with the 5090 with 572.56, or on my 3050M tho
 
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