What Are NVIDIA "Game Ready Drivers?"
Summary
TLDRThe video explains that while Nvidia labels most of their graphics card driver updates as 'game ready', implying big performance boosts for new games, these drivers rarely provide massive improvements. This myth originated with a famous 1990s driver. Now Nvidia works closely with game developers, so performance is already optimized by launch day. Instead of focusing just on framerate boosts, game ready drivers prioritize stability across hardware configurations. They disable problematic features and include game-specific code. So drivers are huge, sometimes still cause issues, and game developers now have more responsibility with DirectX 12.
Takeaways
- 😀 Game ready drivers are marketed to optimize performance for new games, but often don't provide big boosts
- 🤔 Optimization work between Nvidia and game devs happens before launch, so drivers are mainly for stability
- 🧠 Game ready drivers disable features that cause problems to maintain performance across hardware configs
- 😕 Resizable BAR and DLSS are examples of features toggled on/off to optimize stability
- 📉 Nvidia and AMD criticize each other over driver release cadence and stability
- 😯 DirectX 12 shifted responsibility for optimization from GPU vendors to game devs
- 😟 But devs sometimes incorrectly believe they follow the DX12 spec, causing issues
- 😀 Nvidia offers special Studio drivers focused solely on stability for content creators
- 😕 AMD's slower driver releases may increase stability but hotfixes are still needed
- 😉 Optimization responsibility is increasingly on game devs with DX12, but driver tweaks remain vital
Q & A
What was the Detonator driver released by Nvidia in 1998 famous for?
-The Detonator driver significantly boosted performance for Nvidia's TNT graphics cards due to optimizations for AMD CPUs in the driver. This set high expectations that new drivers could greatly improve performance.
Why don't modern graphics drivers boost performance as much as the old Detonator driver did?
-Nowadays Nvidia works closely with game developers while games are in development to optimize drivers ahead of release. So by the time a game launches, drivers are already well optimized for that game.
How does Nvidia test upcoming game drivers before release?
-Nvidia has a regular cadence of sending pre-release drivers to game developers on Mondays. Then Nvidia and the devs collaborate to ensure stability and optimize performance before launch. Nvidia tests drivers on over 4,500 hardware configurations dating back to 2012.
What types of optimizations does Nvidia focus on with game ready drivers?
-The focus is mainly on ensuring stability rather than maximizing every last FPS. For example, they may disable certain features known to cause crashes or performance issues on some hardware.
Why can game ready drivers still cause problems even after extensive testing?
-Modern GPUs have so many features and options that it's impossible to test every single hardware and software configuration. So issues can still slip through.
How is AMD's approach to drivers different from Nvidia's?
-AMD uses a slower release cadence for its WHQL certified Radeon drivers, rather than pushing out frequent game ready drivers like Nvidia. However, AMD drivers have also caused issues at times.
How has DirectX 12 changed things relating to game drivers?
-DirectX 12 shifts more responsibility to game developers for getting things right in their engines. But devs can still violate the spec, leading to the need for driver fixes.
Why are modern GPU drivers so large in size?
-New game ready drivers contain specific code to optimize each new game. So over time, the drivers accumulate code for all supported games and become huge - up to 1GB.
What are Nvidia Studio drivers designed for?
-Studio drivers prioritize stability over new optimizations, so they are geared towards content creators rather than gamers. They are updated less frequently than game ready drivers.
What are some ways Nvidia and AMD have criticized each other regarding drivers?
-Nvidia has criticized AMD's slower driver releases. AMD has pointed out issues caused by Nvidia's frequent game ready driver model. There are tradeoffs to each approach.
Outlines
😊 History of Nvidia's 'Game Ready' drivers
Nvidia's 'Game Ready' drivers originated from a notable performance boost with the Detonator driver for the Riva TNT graphics card in 1998. This set an expectation that new drivers bring major performance gains. However, modern games work closely with Nvidia during development, so big gains from new drivers are less common nowadays. The focus is more on stability than squeezing out extra frames per second.
😕 Potential downsides to frequent driver updates
Frequent 'Game Ready' driver updates from Nvidia sometimes cause issues, even after extensive testing. This is partly why Nvidia offers less frequent Studio drivers for content creators, prioritizing stability over new optimizations. AMD has criticized Nvidia's pace of updates and has slower driver releases, but AMD drivers also sometimes have problems. Ultimately developers have more control and responsibility with modern APIs like DirectX 12.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Nvidia
💡graphics driver
💡optimization
💡stability
💡resizable BAR
💡DirectX 12
💡hotfix
💡WHQL certification
💡release cadence
💡API
Highlights
Misconception about Nvidia driver performance boosts dates back to 1998 Detonator driver
Nowadays developers work closely with Nvidia, so big driver performance gains are rare
Nvidia has contacts at major game studios and sends pre-release drivers to developers
Game ready drivers focus on stability, e.g. disabling features that reduce performance
Tweaks often apply to entire product stacks, not individual GPU models
Modern GPU drivers are huge due to game-specific optimization code
Nvidia offers Studio drivers focused on stability for content creators
AMD has criticized Nvidia's frequent driver updates, touts benefits of slower cadence
Transition to DirectX 12 has shifted optimization burden more to game developers
DirectX 12 allows devs to violate spec when they think they're following it
Hotfix drivers targeting specific games are still needed despite DirectX 12
Slower driver cadence not a perfect solution either, AMD has had issues too
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Transcripts
if you've got an Nvidia graphics card
you may have noticed that the majority
of their driver updates are labeled as
game ready drivers with the idea being
that in addition to Bringing General
updates that benefit everyone these
drivers are optimized for a specific new
game and are released very near or even
on the game's launch day but guess what
with a few exceptions downloading the
latest driver for your graphics card
probably isn't going to give you a
massive performance boost even in that
new game huh so what are they they
actually do well we'll get to that but
first a quick history nugget it turns
out this misconception about performance
goes all the way back to the days of the
Reva TNT an Nvidia product from 1998
there was a famous driver for the Reva
TNT called Detonator that actually did
boost performance significantly due to
the inclusion of optimizations for AMD
CPUs that previous drivers lacked this
was great press for NVIDIA but
unfortunately it ended up setting
setting an expectation that drivers
would be some kind of Silver Bullet for
performance issues the issue with that
is they're usually not and a big part of
the reason it's rare to see big
performance jumps with new drivers these
days is that devs work closely with
Nvidia while the game is in development
this isn't to say you never see
significant performance increases with
new NVIDIA drivers but it's not as
common as you might think especially as
tweaks to the drivers are often made
with specific games in mind well before
launch meaning that if you've updated
your drivers with any regularity there's
a good chance your game will perform
just fine even if you're not yet using
the specific game ready driver for that
game Nvidia has over an 80% market share
in the discrete GPU market so it
probably isn't a surprise that they have
plenty of contacts at Major game studios
there's actually a regular Cadence where
Nvidia sends out pre-release drivers to
developers on Mondays and from there
there's back and forth between the game
developers and the Nvidia folks to get
things to play as nicely as possible
before launch day and while Nvidia can't
possibly test every single Hardware
configuration they do have over 4500
combinations they test that go all the
way back to 2012 as of the time this
video was shot in case you were
wondering this is how they figure out
what the optimal settings for your PC
are in GeForce experience but enough
context already what specifically about
these drivers do they tweak before
release we'll tell you right after we
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off rather than pushing drivers to
squeeze every possible frame per second
from an upcoming game the general
approach with game ready drivers is to
ensure stability for example Nvidia has
outright disabled resizable bar support
for certain games as it actually caused
performance degradation with certain
Hardware configurations something that
notably happened with Hitman world of
assassination where Nvidia turned off
the feature on systems with Intel CPUs
to prevent a performance hit but if you
had an AMD CPU in left resizable bar on
because it wasn't causing performance
issues that's not fair not only that
tweaks like this tend to be for an
entire product stack so for example if
there's a problem with an optional
feature that's being seen with a lot of
RTX 480s it's often switched off for the
entire love lace architecture instead of
creating a situation where that feature
has to get retested on a per card basis
for every subsequent driver release and
of course resizable bar is just one of a
huge number of levers Nvidia can pull
dlss other AI features and the actual
Cuda cores themselves all need to be
able to support a massive number of
games which is part of the reason modern
GPU drivers have gotten so huge your new
game ready driver has specific code
describing how to behave when you're
playing this specific new game Nvidia
has actually tried to strip out
unnecessary components to get driver
sizes down from around a gigabyte to
around 600 megabytes which is still
pretty gigantic and with all of those
variables game ready drivers still can
and sometimes do cause issues even after
extensive testing this is part of the
reason Nvidia also offers Studio drivers
geared toward even greater stability for
Content creators which aren't pushed out
as frequently as game ready drivers the
issues that game ready drivers sometimes
face are a possible point in favor of
amd's slower release Cadence for its
whql certified radon drivers and
something that the two companies have
publicly critici ized each other on of
course AMD has also had issues with its
drivers at times with their anti-ag plus
feature causing Gamers to run into
problems with anti-che software in late
2023 standing out as an example so
slower cadences aren't necessarily a
perfect solution either and the
industry's transition towards the
directx12 API has actually shifted more
of the onus for getting things right
towards the game developers and away
from GPU companies the intent behind
this is to give Developers more control
over their own game engines but an
unintended and common consequence has
been that devs can violate the directx12
spec when they actually believe they're
following it so I wouldn't expect those
hot fix drivers that Target a specific
problem to go away anytime soon it's not
exactly like trillion dollar companies
can't make mistakes hey thanks for
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