RTX 4090 has Issues with Need for Speed Unbound that can Only be Fixed with a VBIOS Update

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Nice title

Or was it off this movie

 

[bonehead123]

IMO, this is just ANUTHA reason to boycott these over-hyped, uber-expensive, rushed-to-market, beta-test bait cards (AND their melting cables !)

 

[Andrea deluxe]

No no no no.... is not the first time.
Back in 2004, i upgraded the vbios of my GTX 6800 Ultra for play Doom 3.

 

[nguyen]

Just started playing NFS Unbound for 20mins, it run smooth like butter, 0 shaders compilation shutter

 

[Psychoholic]

Someone would need to buy a 4080 for starters in order to test.

If i ever find a founders edition in stock, I'll test this and let everyone know

 

[the54thvoid]

If i ever find a founders edition in stock, I'll test this and let everyone know

No. You're clearly a seal and I don't trust your flippers. Send me the 4080FE when you find it. I'll test it for you.

 

[OneMoar]

Froggy, did you read the article?



It's not a mere BIOS flash, it's quite literally modifying the existing BIOS in-place. Unless the digital signature only applies to a portion of the BIOS (which doesn't appear to be the case from what we know), then this tool appears to be accomplishing the holy grail of BIOS modding that NVIDIA users have been searching for since Pascal.

Would NVIDIA be dumb enough to release something like this? Who knows, they've done stupid shit in the past, and maybe with the current negativity towards the RTX 4000 series (prices + 4090 melting adapter saga) they decided that pissing off AIBs and customers by requiring a BIOS update so early in the product cycle, would be more of a problem than dropping a quick-and-easy updater.

Let's see what the reverse engineers are able to glean from this.


A game that literally did not exist at the time that the RTX 4090 was released, and triggers a firmware bug in the 4090, means that the 4090 is beta quality.

Or to put it more simply, because NVIDIA lacks the possibility to travel forward in time to test games that don't yet exist against their new hardware, they make beta-quality products.

I just... wow. The logic is just astounding. In the worst way possible.

a game requring a firmware update for a gpu
is UNHEARD OF
It doesn't happen this is literally the reason we have drivers and apis

what isn't unheard of is binary/diff patching also the 4090 isn't bios its efi eXtensible, firmware Interface

 

[sephiroth117]

Tbh, this is an important vbios update that was released last month (at least on gainward GPUs). Since it's a bug on the UEFI + 4090 level, it had to be a vbios fix of course.

I recently purchased a 4090, after the melting issue was ironed out by Nvidia (Since they announced that it was user errors not seating the connector correctly, we aren't seeing new melting issues appear on Reddit or Facebook, hopefully it stays that way)

First thing I did, upgrade my motherboard bios because they all have issues with RTX 4000 otherwise
...and upgrade my gainward 4090 to the October 20th vbios to resolve black screen booting issues I had, it was really frustrating otherwise.

So if you have a 4090 with weird black screen on booting (like you don't see the motherboard screen with F2/DEL to boot in bios etc.), this update will help a lot. Fixed all my issues.

 

[zlobby]

That's the nvidia premuim that you get for the price. Plus all the other bonuses.

 

[Vayra86]

That's the nvidia premuim that you get for the price. Plus all the other bonuses.

Well I mean, free software updates, free tool, yeah, I definitely feel enthusiasm now to buy a 4090 after all! The green love is stronk!

I mean, they even still deliver driver updates ON TOP of all this! And they even have time to rename almost half their product stack alongside all of that... I totally understand they charge >1K tbh.

 

[mechtech]

I’m almost surprised modern gpus don’t get the same amount of bios updates as motherboards.

 

[Solaris17]

If it is indeed invalidating the signature and then resigning the binary somehow, it is very interesting indeed.

I think its not that complicated. Nvidia has the master keys, all BIOS development is done online by AIBs and the versions are signed by mothership before download by said AIBs. It stands to reason since nvidia holds the root keys they can come in and do w/e they want.

 

[zlobby]

Well I mean, free software updates, free tool, yeah, I definitely feel enthusiasm now to buy a 4090 after all! The green love is stronk!

I mean, they even still deliver driver updates ON TOP of all this! And they even have time to rename almost half their product stack alongside all of that... I totally understand they charge >1K tbh.

Mhm. And I guess you read in advance how to properly push in your brand new proprietary power connector, so that you don't get arson charges? Because users obviously can push a simple connector wrongly.

I mean, that's stellar engineering in my book. But then again, what do I know?

 

[Vayra86]

Mhm. And I guess you read in advance how to properly push in your brand new proprietary power connector, so that you don't get arson charges? Because users obviously can push a simple connector wrongly.

I mean, that's stellar engineering in my book. But then again, what do I know?

No, you see I'm going to buy a new PSU with my new GPU now, that's how hyped I am!

surely the /s has to land sometime

 

[zlobby]

No, you see I'm going to buy a new PSU with my new GPU now, that's how hyped I am!

surely the /s has to land sometime

I always assume the /s is implied but I'm never 100% sure.

 

[ZoneDymo]

Weird stuff.

 

[chrcoluk]

Its either the BIOS is modular so just updating one module, or just patching the bios.

 

[ZoneDymo]

Just started playing NFS Unbound for 20mins, it run smooth like butter, 0 shaders compilation shutter

stutter and yeah, its Frostbite, Unreal is the one with the shader compilation problems.
also did you buy this generic racing game just to test if big N screwed up?

 

[evernessince]

Can anyone explain why this requires a VBIOS update to fix an issue in a specific game but only for the 4090 (maybe 4080 as well?)?

 

[Assimilator]

a game requring a firmware update for a gpu
is UNHEARD OF
It doesn't happen this is literally the reason we have drivers and apis

what isn't unheard of is binary/diff patching also the 4090 isn't bios its efi eXtensible, firmware Interface

I know the difference between BIOS and UEFI, thanks. I also know that your pedantry isn't contributing to this thread.

Mhm. And I guess you read in advance how to properly push in your brand new proprietary power connector, so that you don't get arson charges? Because users obviously can push a simple connector wrongly.

I mean, that's stellar engineering in my book. But then again, what do I know?

Such stellar engineering that apparently only 50 of the over 130,000 of RTX 4090 owners were stupid enough to fail to plug it in correctly, which I'd wager is lower than the average RMA rate of any other GPU.

Of course, that reality doesn't stop equally stupid forumgoers from constantly bringing this topic up in a pathetic attempt to blame NVIDIA for end user failures. Said forumgoers also choose to ignore that "evil" NVIDIA could easily have left those idiot users to deal with the consequences of their inability to perform basic PC assembly, but didn't.

 

[zlobby]

I know the difference between BIOS and UEFI, thanks. I also know that your pedantry isn't contributing to this thread.


Such stellar engineering that apparently only 50 of the over 130,000 of RTX 4090 owners were stupid enough to fail to plug it in correctly, which I'd wager is lower than the average RMA rate of any other GPU.

Of course, that reality doesn't stop equally stupid forumgoers from constantly bringing this topic up in a pathetic attempt to blame NVIDIA for end user failures. Said forumgoers also choose to ignore that "evil" NVIDIA could easily have left those idiot users to deal with the consequences of their inability to perform basic PC assembly, but didn't.

'50 out of 130,000'? That's quite the selection bias, or rather unconfirmed numbers.

Also, I wonder why no 3090/3080/6900/etc. users ever had had such issues? Did the guys who had problems with 4090 were installing a GPU for the first time in their lives? If so, why weren't there instructions on proper connector mating procedures?
Or maybe their older GPU didn't have such issues to begin with?

 

[RogueSix]

This news might need an update. If you follow the link in the news what it's saying now is...

Flashing/Blinking Display - High End PCs

We've seen reports of Flashing/Blinking Display issues with folks on high-end PCs (Nvidia RTX 40-series). After testing, we've found a solution is to upgrade the motherboard BIOS. Please refer to your motherboard manufacturer’s support page to obtain the latest system BIOS.

If you continue to experience this issue - please report this via the Bug Reports section with details about your system (CPU, make/model of your graphics card, driver dates, video card bios/firmware.

Previously, the fix was incorrectly listed as a graphics card VBIOS update.

^ Note the bold part highlighted by me and the final line where EA Support admits to a mistake.
I think we can tune down the nVidia hate a little bit as well as dial down on the omgtehscandalous "unheard of" part .

 

[OneMoar]

surprise surprise EA being absolutely worthless

 

[eidairaman1]

Calling NFS a race sim game is an insult to other race sim games. Not really the topic of the article but, yeah.

Ffs gran tourismo never handled realistically, stiff as hell steering, that is not how true vehicles behave.

Gt is not a sim but a sham

 

[OneMoar]

I refuse to touch NFS so long as its built on frostbite by criterion
they have turned every single installment into a burnout clone because they are about as original as stink on shit