# NVIDIA Prepares a Controversial Change to its Driver Update Distribution



## btarunr (Oct 15, 2015)

NVIDIA is preparing a major change to the way it distributes driver updates. You now get new versions of NVIDIA GeForce drivers by either downloading them from the company's websites (NVIDIA.com and GeForce.com), or use GeForce Experience to download and install (update) them for you. NVIDIA plans to change this such, that the latest driver updates will be only available through GeForce Experience, while standalone installers that are downloadable from the website will slow down to a quarterly update cadence.

NVIDIA is currently rolling out new drivers on a monthly basis, sometimes even twice a month, predating major AAA game releases, under its "Game Ready Driver" moniker. If you want the latest drivers to keep up with new game releases, then NVIDIA expects you to use GeForce Experience to update your drivers. Those without Internet connections or building offline (eg: system integrators, first-time installations), will have to use stale drivers from the website (which will be on a slower update cycle), and then update them to the latest using GeForce Experience. NVIDIA's justification for this move is that it finds that 90% of the driver updates are going through GeForce Experience. The part that's controversial about this is that it makes GeForce Experience an app gamers can't do without (and will probably stay loyal to the NVIDIA brand). This change will take effect this December.





*View at TechPowerUp Main Site*


----------



## GhostRyder (Oct 15, 2015)

Kinda weird, they are essentially forcing GeForce experience on you if you want game updates.  But I like it (Geforce experience) so its not a big deal to me on my laptop.


----------



## jigar2speed (Oct 15, 2015)

Is it that Nvidia is now feeling the heat of WHQL and wants the people to pay for drivers via adverts ???


----------



## the54thvoid (Oct 15, 2015)

My last driver update was done through GeForce Experience and it was hassle free. I don't use it for anything else mind you.  Storm in a tea cup.
As an aside W10 still forcing updates?


----------



## Zakin (Oct 15, 2015)

Wondering just how many hours it'll take for the community to make manual driver installers out of these still, probably not many. I don't hate Geforce Experience, I just don't see a reason to have it installed.


----------



## buildzoid (Oct 15, 2015)

This is what I get for getting a laptop with a GTX 950M. Fuck Nvidia I should have just gone with the acer running the FX8800P


----------



## ZeDestructor (Oct 15, 2015)

GhostRyder said:


> Kinda weird, they are essentially forcing GeForce experience on you if you want game updates.  But I like it (Geforce experience) so its not a big deal to me on my laptop.



Well, when 90% of your users use the lazy way, sure. I prefcer manual downloads, because I keep an archive of drivers I've downloaded over the years. Used to go back to the 6x.xx releases, then ZeDestructor's Great Partitioning Fail of 2011 hit and wiped it all.



jigar2speed said:


> Is it that Nvidia is now feeling the heat of WHQL and wants the people to pay for drivers via adverts ???



Err.. wat? GFE is just a neat little program that downloads recommended game settings (based on your GPU config) and lets you apply them, and a neat little GPU-powered game recorder and streaming utility. No ads whatsoever, unless you consider it's support for twitch/youtube streaming to be an ad for twitch/youtube....



the54thvoid said:


> As an aside W10 still forcing updates?



According to @rtwjunkie, no.



Zakin said:


> Wondering just how many hours it'll take for the community to make manual driver installers out of these still, probably not many. I don't hate Geforce Experience, I just don't see a reason to have it installed.



Couple of hours at most before they get it scripted, then it's a matter of minutes from the notification showing up, if the packager is available.. laptopvideo2go has been doing so for a long time now, and are exceedingly good at it (and patching the infs to support all the GPUs of a single blob).


----------



## iO (Oct 15, 2015)

Yay because everybody loves bloatware...


----------



## LAN_deRf_HA (Oct 15, 2015)

Geforce experience has never offered a feature I wanted so I never install it anyways. I guess it won't really effect me because the case where I need a new driver update right away is rare and I can probably grab it on guru3d if I need it fast.


----------



## mcraygsx (Oct 15, 2015)

Seems like NVidia wants a piece of a pie. Geforce Experience is pointless for average gamer. It is known to collect anonymouse information such as games installed, settings etc. Time to switch brands NVidia.


----------



## rooivalk (Oct 15, 2015)

Could TPU host some kind of 'offline installer' for that?


----------



## lZKoce (Oct 15, 2015)

I don't have GeForce Experience mainly because my video card doesn't support Shadow Play recording. Without this feature it's very hard for me to recommend having it to be fair.


----------



## shhnedo (Oct 15, 2015)

LAN_deRf_HA said:


> Geforce experience has never offered a feature I wanted so I never install it anyways. I guess it won't really effect me because the case where I need a new driver update right away is rare and I can probably grab it on guru3d if I need it fast.


This.


----------



## newtekie1 (Oct 15, 2015)

Never really liked Geforce Experience.  I didn't really feel it necessary to have an extra program running in the background that doesn't really provide any extra features.  Kind of sucks that I have to install it just to get the latest drivers.



LAN_deRf_HA said:


> I can probably grab it on guru3d if I need it fast.



I wouldn't count on that being possible after this.  The drivers available on other sites are sourced from the nVidia downloads.  If nVidia isn't offering them for download anymore, then the other sites won't have them either.


----------



## MxPhenom 216 (Oct 15, 2015)

the54thvoid said:


> My last driver update was done through GeForce Experience and it was hassle free. I don't use it for anything else mind you.  Storm in a tea cup.
> As an aside W10 still forcing updates?



I have not seen Windows 10 force any driver updates on me since I got it.


----------



## Shihab (Oct 15, 2015)

So, 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 :/



newtekie1 said:


> I wouldn't count on that being possible after this.  The drivers available on other sites are sourced from the nVidia downloads.  If nVidia isn't offering them for download anymore, then the other sites won't have them either.



The GFE update method probably uses a standard windows installation package (+silent install flags. Citation needed), so third party downloads won't necessarily disappear, though I doubt _trusted_ sites could legally host them in the future.


----------



## Disparia (Oct 15, 2015)

Cool... but only if it manages it's driver store better. I can see five versions have downloaded since the last time I cleaned it out when I really only want to save the one previous to the one updating.

An assumption from the text (_once/month, twice/month_) is that nVidia wants to make their updates lighter. Plenty of time only the core driver updates, but other items are still the same. No need for a full package if only a portion is new.


----------



## buffyvpsfan (Oct 15, 2015)

i'm done with nvidia.  i got a freesync monitor two months ago but postponed getting an amd gpu.  wasn't going to pay for nvidia propreity crap anymore, especially for g-sync.  this was the straw that broke the camel's back.  propreity bull crap again, but in a new ugly form.


----------



## RejZoR (Oct 15, 2015)

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


----------



## Recus (Oct 15, 2015)

jigar2speed said:


> Is it that Nvidia is now feeling the heat of WHQL and wants the people to pay for drivers via adverts ???



Still trying to draw Nvidia in bad light? Zero ads in GE.









iO said:


> Yay because everybody loves bloatware...








  Time to buy 64 GB RAM asap... Not.



mcraygsx said:


> Seems like NVidia wants a piece of a pie. Geforce Experience is pointless for average gamer. It is known to collect anonymouse information such as games installed, settings etc. Time to switch brands NVidia.



Like antivirus software, Steam, Origin, Uplay, Windows, smart phones, Facebook...?



shhnedo said:


> This.










*FAIL*



buffyvpsfan said:


> i'm done with nvidia.  i got a freesync monitor two months ago but postponed getting an amd gpu.  wasn't going to pay for nvidia propreity crap anymore, especially for g-sync.  this was the stray that broke the camel's back.  propreity bull crap again, but in a new ugly form.



When you gonna fight against Steam automatic updates? lol


----------



## john_ (Oct 15, 2015)

I never install Geforce experience or the application that is coming with AMD drivers, but Nvidia does invest too much on that application. It is one more way to differentiate their hardware over AMD's and if under DX12 they lose a huge advantage on performance, it is understandable that they try to replace that with extra features. So they are forcing the application on people, hoping that many will scream at first, but latter will like some features of that application and stick with their hardware.


----------



## Casecutter (Oct 15, 2015)

In other news Newegg unloading 970's for $250  *No rebate*.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/381433334938?rmvSB=true


----------



## Katanai (Oct 15, 2015)

This is total bullshit. Nvidia: most people don't mind having crap programs running in the background so now everybody has to. Fuck this shit. I don't have anything running in the background right now and I don't intend to. What's next? Are they gonna include a browser bar with their shit too? I guess I'll just have to install then uninstall that POS software every time I upgrade my driver now.


----------



## erixx (Oct 15, 2015)

See the other newswire for my opinion!  The unfortunate need to create "new stuff" is infecting the world....


----------



## john_ (Oct 15, 2015)

Casecutter said:


> In other news Newegg unloading 970's for $250  *No rebate*.
> http://www.ebay.com/itm/381433334938?rmvSB=true


Shipping:
 Does not ship to Greece

I really really REALLY thinking about it.


----------



## RejZoR (Oct 15, 2015)

I have 32GB RAM, I don't care how much stuff it runs there, but to be honest, NVIDIA Experience thingie is not the fastest thing on Earth. It takes forever to open and I have tons of RAM and hybrid SSD system and yet it still takes long to load.

I also don't see the app useful. I don't want it fiddling with my graphic settings of games. I run all of them at max possible settings, I don't want it "optimizing" stuff and making it worse. So, there is no real value from it for me.

EDIT:
I'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.


----------



## W1zzard (Oct 15, 2015)

rooivalk said:


> Could TPU host some kind of 'offline installer' for that?


I'll do my best


----------



## SKL_H (Oct 15, 2015)

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


----------



## nickbaldwin86 (Oct 15, 2015)

I unchecked GeForce Experience... I don't like it! nor do I need it. waste of system resources (even tho I have a ton). Just completely unneeded/unwanted.


----------



## MilkyWay (Oct 15, 2015)

Should just add incremental upgrade via the old nvidia control panel, also that AMD gaming evolved crap is optional i never install it.


----------



## Iceni (Oct 15, 2015)

This is a shame, The Geforce experience program messes about with my start bar in windows 7. 

With 3 monitors running as 1 screen, If I play a game at 5870x1080 and then QTD I can guarantee the start bar will be doing something new. The standard position been centre monitor top. It could end up on the sides of one of the wide monitors, The bottom of one of the screens, Across all 3 screens. 

I disabled it for a reason.


----------



## john_ (Oct 15, 2015)

SKL_H said:


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


In Greece when the government wants to rise the price of the tickets in public transportations in Athens, it comes out with reports that 40% of the passengers don't use a ticket. From my experience in multiple occasions, when inspectors get on the bus or a train that I am, they usually find only 1-3 passengers out of usually 30 or 40, without a ticket.

I wouldn't believe that 90%.


----------



## bgunner (Oct 15, 2015)

Simple, Do not force a program on me that I do not like or don't want to use. There are choices other than Nvidia and not be forced to choke down a performance/resource robbing program. Nope not for me. My next card was going to be another Nvidia but not this time or until they realize they made a boo boo.


----------



## Luka KLLP (Oct 15, 2015)

I used to have some problems with GE in the past, but lately I it has been working perfectly, and I already use it for my driver updates now anyway


----------



## Dieinafire (Oct 15, 2015)

This is a smart move by Nvidia


----------



## rtwjunkie (Oct 15, 2015)

Wow, I'm truly amazed!  I don't recall seeing this level of outrage when W10 was announced as forcing updates.  There was more of it, but I don't recall this much hostility.


----------



## chodaboy19 (Oct 15, 2015)

Nvidia does give you the option to wait for the larger quarterly updates that will be available as standalone packages you can download.


----------



## Fluffmeister (Oct 15, 2015)

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


----------



## Ikaruga (Oct 15, 2015)

Fluffmeister said:


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


I 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)


----------



## lilunxm12 (Oct 15, 2015)

ZeDestructor said:


> Well, when 90% of your users use the lazy way, sure. I prefcer manual downloads, because I keep an archive of drivers I've downloaded over the years. Used to go back to the 6x.xx releases, then ZeDestructor's Great Partitioning Fail of 2011 hit and wiped it all.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I don't think it's neat. The reason I uninstalled it was
1) I didn't really need its features
2) I found 3.3GB drive cache in its folder and there's no option in GFE to clear cache


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Oct 15, 2015)

I've never installed GeForce Experience (deliberately unchecking it) and I'm not about to.  Glad I avoid NVIDIA hardware like the plague.


----------



## Xzibit (Oct 15, 2015)

I guess no one read this part of their plan.



> *The change in driver distribution will be accompanied by a yet to be fully detailed registration system where NVIDIA will be asking users to register their email addresses with GeForce Experience*.



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


----------



## Fluffmeister (Oct 15, 2015)

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


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Oct 15, 2015)

I work on computers that have NVIDIA cards.  This is going to needlessly complicate installing drivers.

Additionally, what about corporate?  Tesla?  Quadro? IT is going to be pissed.

AMD CCC notifies of new drivers available but does little more than that--as it should be.  What is NVIDIA's motive for doing this?  It literally takes a few minutes to build a driver package.  They aren't saving much/anything by forcing everyone to use GeForce Experience.


----------



## AsRock (Oct 15, 2015)

bgunner said:


> Simple, Do not force a program on me that I do not like or don't want to use. There are choices other than Nvidia and not be forced to choke down a performance/resource robbing program. Nope not for me. My next card was going to be another Nvidia but not this time or until they realize they made a boo boo.



But it's the Ge*Force* way it meant to be played.



Fluffmeister said:


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



At least i don't have to install bloatware to install new drivers.  Which i bet is connecting to google and shit knows were else without you knowing.  Lets face it most don't know as they just use windows firewall at best.


----------



## Joss (Oct 15, 2015)

W1zzard said:


> I'll do my best


That's the spirit


----------



## lZKoce (Oct 15, 2015)

So much punching....on nVidia....this fan shall avenge. Channel the light of nVidia! Phase crystals charged! Speak quickly, executor!

Engage the slanted bastards! 

I don't get why people are getting so swept up about this. It's just a project in beta-phase. Nothing is final. The email subscription is optional as is with thousands other services. Not a word on their professional series on this. Quadro and tesla are not generally used for gaming. I seriously doubt this will affect them in some way.


----------



## Xzibit (Oct 15, 2015)

FordGT90Concept said:


> I work on computers that have NVIDIA cards.  This is going to needlessly complicate installing drivers.
> 
> Additionally, what about corporate?  Tesla?  Quadro? IT is going to be pissed.
> 
> AMD CCC notifies of new drivers available but does little more than that--as it should be.  What is NVIDIA's motive for doing this?  It literally takes a few minutes to build a driver package.  They aren't saving much/anything by forcing everyone to use GeForce Experience.



Yup.  Imagine if  the registration system they employ is user/email.  You'd have to log-in to GE every time.


----------



## rtwjunkie (Oct 15, 2015)

Recus said:


> Still trying to draw Nvidia in bad light? Zero ads in GE.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Thank you for laying it out in such a matter-of-fact way to show that it's not bloatware.


----------



## qubit (Oct 15, 2015)

This sucks. Nice one NVIDIA.


----------



## Fluffmeister (Oct 15, 2015)

lZKoce said:


> So much punching....on nVidia....this fan shall avenge. Channel the light of nVidia! Phase crystals charged! Speak quickly, executor!
> 
> Engage the slanted bastards!
> 
> I don't get why people are getting so swept up about this. It's just a project in beta-phase. Nothing is final. The email subscription is optional as is with thousands other services. Not a word on their professional series on this. Quadro and tesla are not generally used for gaming. I seriously doubt this will affect them in some way.



Stop talking sense and get your pitchfork out!


----------



## AsRock (Oct 15, 2015)

lZKoce said:


> So much punching....on nVidia....this fan shall avenge. Channel the light of nVidia! Phase crystals charged! Speak quickly, executor!
> 
> Engage the slanted bastards!
> 
> I don't get why people are getting so swept up about this. It's just a project in beta-phase. Nothing is final. The email subscription is optional as is with thousands other services. Not a word on their professional series on this. Quadro and tesla are not generally used for gaming. I seriously doubt this will affect them in some way.



I be even more pissed if AMD did it.



rtwjunkie said:


> Thank you for laying it out in such a matter-of-fact way to show that it's not bloatware.



How so ?, it's bloatware if you have to install it just to get your drivers.




Fluffmeister said:


> Stop talking sense and get your pitchfork out!



I think nVidia are supplying pitchforks.

But of course they can do no wrong how ever restricted their shit gets.


----------



## rtwjunkie (Oct 15, 2015)

@AsRock because as he showed, a few MB of RAM usage is not bloatware. It's nothing, and doesn't affect anything.  

Besides, the driver install process has always been smoother from within GeForce Experience, at least for me, than trying to do the install without it.


----------



## Fluffmeister (Oct 15, 2015)

AsRock said:


> I think nVidia are supplying pitchforks.
> 
> But of course they can do no wrong how ever restricted their shit gets.



No offence, but you sound like a bit of a drama queen.

I've already stated I use GE specifically for ShadowPlay, frankly if something like GE is capable of bringing a system down to it's knees I would suggest you need to address certain issues with that system.

Beyond that, we get it... you hate Nvidia, move along.


----------



## GorbazTheDragon (Oct 15, 2015)

ZeDestructor said:


> Err.. wat? GFE is just a neat little program that downloads recommended game settings (based on your GPU config) and lets you apply them, and a neat little GPU-powered game recorder and streaming utility. No ads whatsoever, unless you consider it's support for twitch/youtube streaming to be an ad for twitch/youtube....


Wow, 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?


RejZoR said:


> I have 32GB RAM, I don't care how much stuff it runs there, but to be honest, NVIDIA Experience thingie is not the fastest thing on Earth. It takes forever to open and I have tons of RAM and hybrid SSD system and yet it still takes long to load.
> 
> I also don't see the app useful. I don't want it fiddling with my graphic settings of games. I run all of them at max possible settings, I don't want it "optimizing" stuff and making it worse. So, there is no real value from it for me.


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...



RejZoR said:


> EDIT:
> I'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.


+1 for that, should be implemented in a lot of things, for example google play applications for android.



lilunxm12 said:


> I don't think it's neat. The reason I uninstalled it was
> 1) I didn't really need its features
> 2) I found 3.3GB drive cache in its folder and there's no option in GFE to clear cache


This "cache" is for all geforce drivers, when you open the installer it opens an un-zip (or whatever compression they use) thing which puts everything in a "cache" but doesn't get rid of it after installation.



FordGT90Concept said:


> I work on computers that have NVIDIA cards.  This is going to needlessly complicate installing drivers.
> 
> Additionally, what about corporate?  Tesla?  Quadro? IT is going to be pissed.
> 
> AMD CCC notifies of new drivers available but does little more than that--as it should be.  What is NVIDIA's motive for doing this?  It literally takes a few minutes to build a driver package.  They aren't saving much/anything by forcing everyone to use GeForce Experience.


Don'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.

What 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.



Fluffmeister said:


> I've already stated* I use GE specifically for ShadowPlay*, frankly if something like GE is capable of bringing a system down to it's knees I would suggest you need to address certain issues with that system.



*scoffs*
___________________________________________
I've never been one to bandwagon on these hate trains. I've never had my own AMD card to be fair, but I think NV really needs to back off with the BS, especially after the Samsung fiasco...


----------



## rtwjunkie (Oct 15, 2015)

GorbazTheDragon said:


> Wow, 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...
> 
> ...



  It has never applied automatic changes to any of my game settings.   There's a check box if you want it to do that.

No once has it auto-updated on me.  Again, a checkbox to have it do that, but mine is simply checked to notify me of either available driver updates or GFE updates.  So, none of those dire consequences you speak of is a reality, unless someone wants GFE to do that.

I repeat my earlier comment...such mass hysteria and anger going on, over basically nothing.


----------



## AsRock (Oct 15, 2015)

Fluffmeister said:


> No offence, but you sound like a bit of a drama queen.
> 
> I've already stated I use GE specifically for ShadowPlay, frankly if something like GE is capable of bringing a system down to it's knees I would suggest you need to address certain issues with that system.
> 
> Beyond that, we get it... you hate Nvidia, move along.



Don't hate the hardware in fact my next card could be a nVidia card due tot he fact that nVidia is better for Arma 3,  i just don't like having to install stuff i don't want is all.

If you use it thats cool but a lot just want the drivers, i would not want to install.... i don't want to install stuff that i don't want on my system.

Nothing at all to do with hate.


----------



## GorbazTheDragon (Oct 15, 2015)

rtwjunkie said:


> It has never applied automatic changes to any of my game settings.   There's a check box if you want it to do that.
> 
> No once has it auto-updated on me.  Again, a checkbox to have it do that, but mine is simply checked to notify me of either available driver updates or GFE updates.  So, none of those dire consequences you speak of is a reality, unless someone wants GFE to do that.
> 
> I repeat my earlier comment...such mass hysteria and anger going on, over basically nothing.


It's like forcing me to have a light in a room which I've already lit... It's there, I can turn it on, it doesn't take up much space, but I MUST have it...

WHY?


----------



## TheGuruStud (Oct 16, 2015)

Fuck Nvidia. This is like windows 10 shit show of you'll get what we tell you to get.


----------



## Fluffmeister (Oct 16, 2015)

TheGuruStud said:


> Fuck Nvidia. This is like windows 10 shit show of you'll get what we tell you to get.



It's AMD or Nvidia, choose your poison. For now, go AMD.... they need the money more.


----------



## HumanSmoke (Oct 16, 2015)

FordGT90Concept said:


> I work on computers that have NVIDIA cards.  This is going to needlessly complicate installing drivers.
> Additionally, what about corporate?  Tesla?  Quadro? IT is going to be pissed.


The article specifically states:


btarunr said:


> NVIDIA is preparing a major change to the way it distributes driver updates. You now get new versions of *NVIDIA GeForce drivers*...


...so why would anyone* try* to install a GeForce driver for a Tesla or Quadro card? If IT can't tell the difference between a GeForce card and Tesla/Quadro and ignores the fact that the driver won't install, I'm guessing that IT arrives at work on the short bus.


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Oct 16, 2015)

GeForce Experience downloads Quadro drivers too.  The only difference is other features in GeForce Experience are disabled when a GeForce card isn't detected.

NVIDIA, thusly, could adapt the same policy with Quadro and Tesla they have with GeForce (version on website is not current; GeForce Experience has to be used to get the latest version).


----------



## natr0n (Oct 16, 2015)

Imagine losing your mind over something so minuscule.


----------



## HumanSmoke (Oct 16, 2015)

FordGT90Concept said:


> GeForce Experience downloads Quadro drivers too.  The only difference is other features in GeForce Experience are disabled when a GeForce card isn't detected.


Why 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.


natr0n said:


> Imagine losing your mind over something so minuscule.


It's the end of days!


----------



## Xzibit (Oct 16, 2015)

TheGuruStud said:


> Fuck Nvidia. This is like windows 10 shit show of you'll get what we tell you to get.



The are dividing their user base.

1) If you don't want GFE you only get 4 updates a year.  Unclear if you have to submit your information for the downloads.

2) if you don't want GFE but you want updated drivers or beta you have to install and submit your information each time then delete or uninstall what you don't want.  Unclear if the uninstall will be tied to driver.  That would be something nefarious if it happens.  Gets annoying pretty quick if there is a bug and you have to revert back.

3) If you want GFE doesn't affect you, your already using it. Login with your email I suppose for the updates.



> Future *"Game Ready" drivers will no longer be made available through GeForce.com* and instead will *ONLY be delivered through GeForce Experience*. You'll also be *required to have a validated email address* to get the *downloads for beta drivers*



They seem to want to force you to use GeForce Experience and get some info or get treated as a second class customer.


----------



## HumanSmoke (Oct 16, 2015)

AsRock said:


> I be even more pissed if AMD did it.


Given AMD's follow the leader mentality regarding software, I'm guessing ~ 6 months from now you'll get another chance to vent, although if the GFE -> ->-> Raptr scenario repeats itself, AMD might not be the only one involved.


Practical example of making assumptions as outlined in #64


----------



## TheGuruStud (Oct 16, 2015)

Xzibit said:


> The are dividing their user base.
> 
> 1) If you don't want GFE you only get 4 updates a year.  Unclear if you have to submit your information for the downloads.
> 
> ...



Perhaps some brave soul will endure GFE, then upload the files for the dissenters.

This will happen. Hardcore gamers are going to be pissed when word gets around.


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Oct 16, 2015)

HumanSmoke said:


> 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.


That'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?


----------



## Fluffmeister (Oct 16, 2015)

FordGT90Concept said:


> 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?



Thing is, no one gives a shit where you come from, and there is nothing bloated about GE in the grand scheme of things. But it's a popular term here so I get where your coming from, so you go girl... fight the power!


----------



## lilunxm12 (Oct 16, 2015)

GorbazTheDragon said:


> This "cache" is for all geforce drivers, when you open the installer it opens an un-zip (or whatever compression they use) thing which puts everything in a "cache" but doesn't get rid of it after installation.



I'm not talking the NVIDIA folder at root of C disk. I'm referring to a folder within GFE folder.
I know what it is and I just don't want it to be there without my permission. I never asked GFE to download drivers but the 'cache' is there!


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Oct 16, 2015)

Fluffmeister said:


> Thing is, no one gives a shit where you come from, and there is nothing bloated about GE in the grand scheme of things. But it's a popular term here so I get where your coming from, so you go girl... fight the power!


Anything 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?


----------



## erocker (Oct 16, 2015)

Oh well, I'm sure there will be some tech sites that will offer the drivers for download anyways.


----------



## rtwjunkie (Oct 16, 2015)

If that's the price for getting Shadowplay, then it's worth it to me.

And really, all told GFE is using under 100MB of memory and hardly any CPU cycles.  If I had the system I had in say, 2005, with 4GB of RAM, then I might be upset. But it's not.


----------



## Xzibit (Oct 16, 2015)

rtwjunkie said:


> If that's the price for getting Shadowplay, then it's worth it to me.
> 
> And really, all told GFE is using under 100MB of memory and hardly any CPU cycles.  If I had the system I had in say, 2005, with 4GB of RAM, then I might be upset. But it's not.



That's about 50% of people on the Steam Survey that have 4GB or less.


----------



## Jeffredo (Oct 16, 2015)

I never install GeForce Experience (I would never blindly use their quality setting recommendations so why bother).  I always install my Nvidia drivers from their website.  So, no, not particularly happy about this.


----------



## Katanai (Oct 16, 2015)

rtwjunkie said:


> If that's the price for getting Shadowplay, then it's worth it to me.
> 
> And really, all told GFE is using under 100MB of memory and hardly any CPU cycles.  If I had the system I had in say, 2005, with 4GB of RAM, then I might be upset. But it's not.



Well I for one have no use for Shadowplay or anything else this POS software offers. So why is it forced on me? My thinking is: regardless of how much RAM it uses a program that runs in the background and doesn't do anything I really need can give me only one thing: a blue screen.


----------



## TheGuruStud (Oct 16, 2015)

erocker said:


> Oh well, I'm sure there will be some tech sites that will offer the drivers for download anyways.



Cease and Desists incoming... lol. Not joking, I predict this will happen eventually. Nvidia is beyond arrogant.

Nvidia are patent trolls (not for money, but unethical business), so clearly they like frivolous lawsuits.


----------



## Fluffmeister (Oct 16, 2015)

FordGT90Concept said:


> Anything 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?



Maybe you should send your CV off and show them how it's done. It's clear you're wasted here at TPU moaning about this and that.


----------



## rtwjunkie (Oct 16, 2015)

Katanai said:


> Well I for one have no use for Shadowplay or anything else this POS software offers. So why is it forced on me? My thinking is: regardless of how much RAM it uses a program that runs in the background and doesn't do anything I really need can give me only one thing: a blue screen.



Which blue screens has GFE caused?  Nvidia has had a run until lately of 6months of crappy drivers, but GFE has never caused any crashes or blue screens to me.  Nor have I ever read of any.

Also, why are so many AMD users so mad about this? There's a fair number in both these threada.


----------



## Katanai (Oct 16, 2015)

rtwjunkie said:


> Which blue screens has GFE caused?



You don't seem to understand plain english. Let me try to explain it again: a program, any program that runs, might at one point cause a blue screen. If a program is running non stop and doesn't do anything for me the only thing it could ever do to affect me is a blue screen. So why have it run?


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Oct 16, 2015)

rtwjunkie said:


> Also, why are so many AMD users so mad about this? There's a fair number in both these threada.


I wouldn't say I'm mad; I would say NVIDIA has given more than enough reasons not to even consider their hardware and 100% of those revolve around software (be it GFE or CUDA accelerated APIs like HairWorks and PhysX).


----------



## HumanSmoke (Oct 16, 2015)

Xzibit said:


> That's about 50% of people on the Steam Survey that have 4GB or less.


44.08% to be exact.
53.29% of users use Nvidia GPUs

That's a theoretical maximum of 23.6% affected before you factor out Nvidia cards on legacy support (DX9 and lower make up 2.5% of all GPUs on the survey), and making the assumption that system RAM doesn't scale with GPU market segment - which is pretty unlikely given that many popular cards featured in the survey ranging from low end 740M to mid-bracket GTX 860M usually come paired with laptops with 8GB, 12GB, or 16GB of RAM, and performance desktop cards are also unlikely to be residing in systems with 4GB (or less) of RAM.


----------



## rtwjunkie (Oct 16, 2015)

@Katanai I understand English fine, it's my specialty. You don't understand how illogical you sound.

By your logic, you should have only Windows running, nothing, and I mean nothing else.  

You're talking about what COULD happen.  You might get run over crossing the street too. Your answer is akin to staying home because it "might" happen.

Silly, isn't it?


----------



## Katanai (Oct 16, 2015)

rtwjunkie said:


> @Katanai
> By your logic, you should have only Windows running, nothing, and I mean nothing else.



Yes and that's what I have running every time I open my PC. If I want something else to run I open it.


----------



## rtwjunkie (Oct 16, 2015)

Katanai said:


> Yes and that's what I have running every time I open my PC. If I want something else to run I open it.



But why? It might bluescreen your PC!  Meanwhile, notice I said specifically Nothing Open. That means no protection of any kind.


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Oct 16, 2015)

rtwjunkie said:


> By your logic, you should have only Windows running, nothing, and I mean nothing else.


I 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.


----------



## HumanSmoke (Oct 16, 2015)

FordGT90Concept said:


> I wouldn't say I'm mad; I would say NVIDIA has given more than enough reasons not to even consider their hardware and 100% of those revolve around software (be it GFE or CUDA accelerated APIs like HairWorks and PhysX).


The only problem with that is the only other discrete GPU vendor also has it's fair share of software related issues. Someone else could possibly lay out a similar list to rule out their consideration. Are you suggesting a discrete card boycott ?


FordGT90Concept said:


> I 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.


Should be that aren't. Likewise another vendor attempts to slide Gaming Evolved past the unwary by making it the default option, and Raptr doesn't have a spotless security record either (funny how an actual security breach doesn't warrant anywhere close to the posting here ). To be effective, the opposition needs to be consistent and widespread


FordGT90Concept said:


> 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.


Undoubtedly, but I'm guessing you're preaching to the converted. The vast majority of users I'm guessing don't bother with custom downloads (if they download driver updates at all unless prompted), and the hard fact is that most computer users are pretty lazy*. I'd also venture that most people that do customize their install find a way to tailor it more to their satisfaction. I generally don't have too many problems circumventing the easy option - it just becomes a sliding scale of effort versus result on a case by case basis. Not much in the way of commercial software doesn't have a workaround, whether it be third-party software to unlock overclock limits, registry hacks, unpack/repack tools and the like. I'm not particularly enamored by having to take software I don't want, so if it becomes more invasive than beneficial (or at least benign) and I can't live with it or modify it, then I'll make other arrangements.

* People that can't be bothered doing basic crap like emptying (let alone resizing) the recycle bin, defragging, browser/file manager cache cleaning, not storing passwords on their machine etc etc. i.e. the stuff that leads to about 90% of the issues I end up having to rectify. Is it any wonder we have software and hardware vendors playing fast and loose with their customer base? As Joseph de Maistre said: "Every nation gets the government it deserves".


----------



## Mussels (Oct 16, 2015)

this makes me glad i'm with the red team.


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Oct 16, 2015)

HumanSmoke said:


> The only problem with that is the only other discrete GPU vendor also has it's fair share of software related issues. Someone else could possibly lay out a similar list to rule out their consideration. Are you suggesting a discrete card boycott ?


I'm a gamer so that's impossible.   Off the top of my head, I can't recall any "software related issues."

I see you cite Gaming Evolved after that as an example.  I've never used it, see no reason to use it, and never intend to use it.  If AMD pulled a stunt like GFE (requiring Gaming Evolved to get the latest drivers), I would say much the same about AMD that I'm saying now about NVIDIA.  In that context, boycott seems practical because the only two options out there want to ram bloatware down our throats.


----------



## Ikaruga (Oct 16, 2015)

FordGT90Concept said:


> GeForce Experience downloads Quadro drivers too.  The only difference is other features in GeForce Experience are disabled when a GeForce card isn't detected.
> 
> NVIDIA, thusly, could adapt the same policy with Quadro and Tesla they have with GeForce (version on website is not current; GeForce Experience has to be used to get the latest version).


Why on earth would anyone install GE in an enterprise environment, and who would install the latest drivers for professional use anyways?


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Oct 16, 2015)

Ikaruga said:


> Why on earth would anyone install GE in an enterprise *a consumer* environment, and who would *wouldn't* install the latest drivers for professional use anyways?


FTFY


----------



## Ikaruga (Oct 16, 2015)

FordGT90Concept said:


> FTFY


are you serious? I test a simple printer driver update for weeks on the focus machines before I forward it to the rest of users, let alone how long I test a new  video driver. Installing 0 day drivers are for enthusiast and gamers, you don't do such thing when you mean business.


----------



## HumanSmoke (Oct 16, 2015)

FordGT90Concept said:


> Off the top of my head, I can't recall any "software related issues."


[OT]
My Radeon use lately has been intermittent at best lately, but I distinctly remember having a number of frustrating issues ranging from the PowerPlay voltage (BIOS) issue ( I've owned five HD 5850's - not including 3 RMA's, plus HD 5770's, and a HD 5970 from the Evergreen series), laptop Enduro/hybrid crossfire, the on-again, off-again giant mouse cursor, memory leaks, TDR's, general Crossfire issues including clocks locking up/down, intermittent USB and sound over HDMI conflicts and the like. I've had (or had to deal with) many driver issues from both Nvidia and AMD - not to mention a host of sound card vendors, so I'd never say any are above reproach
[/OT]


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Oct 16, 2015)

Ikaruga said:


> are you serious? I test a simple printer driver update for weeks on the focus machines before I forward it to the rest of users, let alone how long I test a new  video driver. Installing 0 day drivers are for enthusiast and gamers, you don't do such thing when you mean business.


I 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.



HumanSmoke said:


> [OT]
> My Radeon use lately has been intermittent at best lately, but I distinctly remember having a number of frustrating issues ranging from the PowerPlay voltage (BIOS) issue ( I've owned five HD 5850's - not including 3 RMA's, plus HD 5770's, and a HD 5970 from the Evergreen series), laptop Enduro/hybrid crossfire, the on-again, off-again giant mouse cursor, memory leaks, TDR's, general Crossfire issues including clocks locking up/down, intermittent USB and sound over HDMI conflicts and the like. I've had (or had to deal with) many driver issues from both Nvidia and AMD - not to mention a host of sound card vendors, so I'd never say any are above reproach
> [/OT]


You must be one unlucky bastard.


----------



## jigar2speed (Oct 16, 2015)

jigar2speed said:


> Is it that Nvidia is now feeling the heat of WHQL and wants the people to pay for drivers via adverts ???





ZeDestructor said:


> Err.. wat? GFE is just a neat little program that downloads recommended game settings (based on your GPU config) and lets you apply them, and a neat little GPU-powered game recorder and streaming utility. No ads whatsoever, unless you consider it's support for twitch/youtube streaming to be an ad for twitch/youtube....





Recus said:


> Still trying to draw Nvidia in bad light? Zero ads in GE.



Where 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.


----------



## R-T-B (Oct 16, 2015)

newtekie1 said:


> I wouldn't count on that being possible after this.  The drivers available on other sites are sourced from the nVidia downloads.  If nVidia isn't offering them for download anymore, then the other sites won't have them either.



The Geforce experience still has to get the installers from SOMEWHERE.  They will be found, I'm betting.  It just won't be officially listed.

Still, count me pissed.  I don't want another piece of bloatware on my PC.  I don't use a single thing in it, so it's not going on.



rtwjunkie said:


> Wow, I'm truly amazed!  I don't recall seeing this level of outrage when W10 was announced as forcing updates.  There was more of it, but I don't recall this much hostility.



Were you sleeping?

I kid.  The reason for the hostility is almost certainly because it's easier to change an OS than a hardware item.


----------



## deemon (Oct 16, 2015)

I 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.)



FordGT90Concept said:


> 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
> ...



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!*


----------



## VulkanBros (Oct 16, 2015)

Like many others: I just use the drivers - all the other crap they can offer as an option. 
When they offer "GeForce Experience" why cant they also offer "Just The Driver"?

This "advertising funding" bloatware crap is driving me nuts .....


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Oct 16, 2015)

deemon said:


> 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!*


Agreed.  AMD is guilty of this too.

They should really transition to [executable name].profile files in a specific directory so that not only can they be updated with a tiny download but they can also be removed for benchmarking/debugging purposes.


----------



## xorbe (Oct 16, 2015)

deemon said:


> I 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.



This is due to the driver disabling, Windows resizes the desktop, and then the new driver is started.  There isn't anything nVidia can do about that one.  For single monitors, the trick is to set the resolution BEFORE the first driver install.  Then when nv unloads, the Windows default is the same as native, not 800x600 or whatever.


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Oct 16, 2015)

AMD drivers put everything back.


----------



## deemon (Oct 16, 2015)

Recus said:


>



This kind of proved the bloatware point.



Recus said:


> When you gonna fight against Steam automatic updates? lol



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


----------



## RejZoR (Oct 16, 2015)

deemon said:


> I 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.)
> ...



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.


----------



## ZeDestructor (Oct 16, 2015)

Shihabyooo said:


> So, 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.



RejZoR said:


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





deemon said:


> 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!*



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.



RejZoR said:


> I'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.



W1zzard said:


> I'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_H said:


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



Yup.



Fluffmeister said:


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





Ikaruga said:


> I 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.



Xzibit said:


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





jigar2speed said:


> Where 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.



GorbazTheDragon said:


> Wow, 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...
> 
> ...



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.



GorbazTheDragon said:


> Don'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.



GorbazTheDragon said:


> What 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.



HumanSmoke said:


> Why 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!



FordGT90Concept said:


> That'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.



FordGT90Concept said:


> Anything 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.



FordGT90Concept said:


> I 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.



Katanai said:


> Yep, 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.



FordGT90Concept said:


> I 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 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.


----------



## john_ (Oct 16, 2015)

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.


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Oct 16, 2015)

ZeDestructor said:


> Steam 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.



ZeDestructor said:


> As 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.



ZeDestructor said:


> 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.


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).



ZeDestructor said:


> 4, Still optional.


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


----------



## buggalugs (Oct 16, 2015)

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.


----------



## Xzibit (Oct 16, 2015)

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 said:
			
		

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


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Oct 16, 2015)

buggalugs said:


> 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.


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.


----------



## Parn (Oct 16, 2015)

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.


----------



## ZeDestructor (Oct 16, 2015)

FordGT90Concept said:


> These 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.



FordGT90Concept said:


> 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.



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.



FordGT90Concept said:


> 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).



We can keep dreaming for the foreseeable future.



FordGT90Concept said:


> For 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.


----------



## darkangel0504 (Oct 16, 2015)

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.


----------



## Shihab (Oct 16, 2015)

ZeDestructor said:


> 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.



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.


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Oct 16, 2015)

ZeDestructor said:


> 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.


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").



ZeDestructor said:


> 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.


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).



ZeDestructor said:


> 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.


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.


----------



## ZeDestructor (Oct 16, 2015)

FordGT90Concept said:


> 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).



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.



FordGT90Concept said:


> 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.



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


----------



## 64K (Oct 16, 2015)

buggalugs said:


> 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.



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.


----------



## rtwjunkie (Oct 16, 2015)

64K said:


> 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.


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.


----------



## mAark (Oct 16, 2015)

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.


----------



## Diverge (Oct 16, 2015)

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.


----------



## ZeDestructor (Oct 16, 2015)

mAark said:


> 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.



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


----------



## DeOdView (Oct 16, 2015)

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

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

*


----------



## GhostRyder (Oct 16, 2015)

Fluffmeister said:


> As 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.


RejZoR said:


> 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.


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.


----------



## RejZoR (Oct 16, 2015)

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...


----------



## raptori (Oct 16, 2015)

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 .


----------



## R-T-B (Oct 16, 2015)

Shihabyooo said:


> 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.



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.


----------



## symmetrical (Oct 16, 2015)

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


----------



## Drone (Oct 16, 2015)

I wonder why they force this bloatware? Not everyone who has nvidia card cares about streaming their gameplay


----------



## 64K (Oct 16, 2015)

R-T-B said:


> 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.



@R-T-B this is something you may not be aware of. The Sudanese government promotes slavery and ethnic cleansing within their borders.


----------



## Solaris17 (Oct 16, 2015)

Im 100% against this idea. I consider geforce experience the same garbage as AMDs gaming evolved bullshit. Which I also make sure to uncheck.


----------



## R-T-B (Oct 16, 2015)

64K said:


> @R-T-B this is something you may not be aware of. The Sudanese government promotes slavery and ethnic cleansing within their borders.



I am aware.  That's still no reason to limit graphics drivers to citizens, of all things.

And South Sudan is it's own country now.  Or am I behind on that?


----------



## 64K (Oct 16, 2015)

R-T-B said:


> I am aware.  That's still no reason to limit graphics drivers to citizens, of all things.
> 
> And South Sudan is it's own country now.  Or am I behind on that?


Did Shihabyooo identify where in Sudan he resides?

I take exception for you apologizing on behalf of our government and it's sanctions against Sudan. I know you said on behalf of our "often extremely stupid corporations" but they are just complying with our government's orders so it's the same as apologizing on our government's behalf.

You don't speak for the majority of Americans so don't apologize on our behalf please.


----------



## mastrdrver (Oct 17, 2015)

So what happens when you get a driver that causes a game to crash? I've played a lot of BF4 and there have been several times over the 2 years that I've heard people say that a certain nVidia driver caused the game to crash and they had to roll back.


----------



## Xzibit (Oct 17, 2015)

That didn't take long

*AMDs Twitter response
*


			
				AMD said:
			
		

> No email necessary for AMD Drivers...unless you want to sign up for our newsletter.


----------



## R-T-B (Oct 17, 2015)

64K said:


> Did Shihabyooo identify where in Sudan he resides?
> 
> I take exception for you apologizing on behalf of our government and it's sanctions against Sudan. I know you said on behalf of our "often extremely stupid corporations" but they are just complying with our government's orders so it's the same as apologizing on our government's behalf.
> 
> You don't speak for the majority of Americans so don't apologize on our behalf please.



I did not mean to offend.  I was only speaking on an embargo against harmless tech like graphics drivers.  I would assume most would not have an issue with that, but it seems I misjudged.

I don't speak for the majority of americans (I've known this for a while believe me) but I can speak for myself and I personally do apologize for what I view as a frivolous waste of resources embargoing basic tech items.

Perhaps I could have phrased it better.  However:



> they are just complying with our government's orders so it's the same as apologizing on our government's behalf.



No, the post I replied to indicated the sanctions are lifted, so they aren't.

I suggest we stop this here though.  I really didn't mean for it to upset anyone, and admit my phrasing of my opinion was very poor.


----------



## lilunxm12 (Oct 17, 2015)

64K said:


> 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.


from my past experience, GFE does download drivers without asking.


----------



## rtwjunkie (Oct 17, 2015)

lilunxm12 said:


> from my past experience, GFE does download drivers without asking.



Not saying it hasn't happened to you, but I've used it since release, and have always had the box unchecked for auto download.

I've gone months at a time without updating and it has always honored my wishes.


----------



## lilunxm12 (Oct 17, 2015)

rtwjunkie said:


> Not saying it hasn't happened to you, but I've used it since release, and have always had the box unchecked for auto download.
> 
> I've gone months at a time without updating and it has always honored my wishes.



Before I unstalled it, I did check the options carefully and did not find an option to disable auto download. This may not be accurate right now as it happened about a year ago. But at that time that's the main reason made me unhappy with GFE.


----------



## rtwjunkie (Oct 17, 2015)

lilunxm12 said:


> Before I unstalled it, I did check the options carefully and did not find an option to disable auto download. This may not be accurate right now as it happened about a year ago. But at that time that's the main reason made me unhappy with GFE.



Fair enough!  It's not highly visible, is furher down the Preferences page, and is not in high contrast to the program background, so it could be missed I'm sure.


----------



## shhnedo (Oct 17, 2015)

Recus said:


> *FAIL*
> 
> 
> When you gonna fight against Steam automatic updates? lol


You're looking at my assembled-back-in-2006 desktop. The GT610 was from a friend who just gave it to me when he upgraded. I used it for a while and sold it. Now that highlighted 7 x86 runs on the intel GMA 950 gpu from the motherboard and works just fine for browsing and skyping, stuff my mother uses it for when i'm out of town with my ivy-bridge based laptop. Now, i'm sorry if i haven't updated such critical info on my profile, just like i don't regularly install FORCED driver/os updates. I guess i'm about to die now...
The whole point is that people like me prefer downloading the up-to-date version manually and performing a clean install rather than updating the driver through a utility they never use. You can put your tin foil hat back on now. I'm done.

Forgot to mention, that old desktop had a GeForce 7300 LE up untill 2013 when it died(i kinda tortured it).


----------



## Eroticus (Oct 17, 2015)

shhnedo said:


> You're looking at my assembled-back-in-2006 desktop. The GT610 was from a friend who just gave it to me when he upgraded. I used it for a while and sold it. Now that highlighted 7 x86 runs on the intel GMA 950 gpu from the motherboard and works just fine for browsing and skyping, stuff my mother uses it for when i'm out of town with my ivy-bridge based laptop. Now, i'm sorry if i haven't updated such critical info on my profile, just like i don't regularly install FORCED driver/os updates. I guess i'm about to die now...
> The whole point is that people like me prefer downloading the up-to-date version manually and performing a clean install rather than updating the driver through a utility they never use. You can put your tin foil hat back on now. I'm done.



PC from 2006 and Profile from 2012.

Nice memory bro =] ...


----------



## chinmi (Oct 18, 2015)

Relax guys. Its nvidia. They know what gamers need. Nothing could go wrong. We love nvidia remember ? Or you guys rather use amd and their crappy gaming evolve raptr shitty kind of thing ? No right ?? So why the hate and the complains ??


----------



## Relayer (Oct 18, 2015)

Bow down before your regulator.


----------



## EarthDog (Oct 18, 2015)

newtekie1 said:


> I wouldn't count on that being possible after this.  The drivers available on other sites are sourced from the nVidia downloads.  If nVidia isn't offering them for download anymore, then the other sites won't have them either.


why wouldn't they? They would just have GFE installed, get the driver and put it up for DL, no?

It's likely however the driver will have a check for GFE being on your PC and an online element to prevent it. But I highly doubt they count get it.


----------



## Shihab (Oct 18, 2015)

R-T-B said:


> And South Sudan is it's own country now.  Or am I behind on that?


Aye, but this country has no shortage of -and I quote- "non Arab" ethnicities around here to alienate, starve then bomb to hell.



64K said:


> @R-T-B this is something you may not be aware of. The Sudanese government promotes slavery and ethnic cleansing within their borders.


Undeniably true, but irrelevant to why a citizen with absolutely no affiliation with the said government should be subjected to such policies.




Xzibit said:


> That didn't take long
> 
> *AMDs Twitter response*



Since when did GFE require an email to work?


----------



## Xzibit (Oct 18, 2015)

Shihabyooo said:


> Since when did GFE require an email to work?



Starting in December access to the latest drivers with-in GFE will. That's what all the fuzz is about.



			
				Nvidia said:
			
		

> New Features
> • Adds support for YouTube Live broadcasting that enables you to stream gameplay up to 1080p at 60 FPS.
> • Improves Twitch broadcasting capabilities to 1080p at 60 FPS.
> • Adds support for 4K GameStream
> ...


----------



## Soxism (Oct 19, 2015)

SO if i dont care about streaming or this software sitting on my computer, why should i install it still?

Oh right, drivers, because they want to screw everyone more.

Excellent work.

Guess you can do things like this when you own the market.


----------



## RejZoR (Oct 19, 2015)

Making registration mandatory just guarantees casual users will NEVER update their drivers, being stuck on ancient ones and bitching how games don't work well. I guess NVIDIA just has to learn it the hard way...

Because today, even these regular users update their drivers here and there because they see something in some news about performance boost or new features. Registration is just too much hassle, especially for non-English users. I know that from another program that also has mandatory registration with e-mail and it's already too complicated for a lot of users...


----------



## ZeDestructor (Oct 19, 2015)

RejZoR said:


> Making registration mandatory just guarantees casual users will NEVER update their drivers, being stuck on ancient ones and bitching how games don't work well. I guess NVIDIA just has to learn it the hard way...
> 
> Because today, even these regular users update their drivers here and there because they see something in some news about performance boost or new features. Registration is just too much hassle, especially for non-English users. I know that from another program that also has mandatory registration with e-mail and it's already too complicated for a lot of users...



Let us hope so...

Also, the regular users seem to have accepted GFE by and large, and thanks to that, it would seem most are now getting notifications for new driver releases as a result, which eventually turns into 90+% of users using GFE, because a large (I think it's large based on how I get informed of new releases - RSS feeds in my case) number of users now get informed that there are updated drivers at all.


----------



## RejZoR (Oct 19, 2015)

I had GFE and got info about new drivers through forums faster (NVIDIA and TPU).


----------



## CrAsHnBuRnXp (Oct 19, 2015)

so much butt hurt in this thread. It's quite sad.


----------



## R-T-B (Oct 19, 2015)

CrAsHnBuRnXp said:


> so much butt hurt in this thread. It's quite sad.



It's sad people have an opinion on this and want to express it?


----------



## ZeDestructor (Oct 19, 2015)

RejZoR said:


> I had GFE and got info about new drivers through forums faster (NVIDIA and TPU).



Yeah, but how many people hang around forums like TPU and nvidia's? Or have RSS feeds like myself?


----------



## CrAsHnBuRnXp (Oct 19, 2015)

R-T-B said:


> It's sad people have an opinion on this and want to express it?


It's such a minute issue though. Takes next to no system resources, kills the reboot requirement, and honestly, what is there to hate about Shadowplay? You do something epic and want to save it for personal use or just maybe make a Youtube channel and post stuff up occasionally, it's there. It also has an FPS counter. Goodbye Fraps.

People bitch about EVERYTHING these days. Fucking grow some thicker skin, take a deep breath, and relax.


----------



## ZeDestructor (Oct 20, 2015)

CrAsHnBuRnXp said:


> It's such a minute issue though. Takes next to no system resources, kills the reboot requirement, and honestly, what is there to hate about Shadowplay? You do something epic and want to save it for personal use or just maybe make a Youtube channel and post stuff up occasionally, it's there. It also has an FPS counter. Goodbye Fraps.
> 
> People bitch about EVERYTHING these days. Fucking grow some thicker skin, take a deep breath, and relax.



Technically, the no-reboot upgrade option came from Vista, for the rest, much agreed.


----------



## Relayer (Oct 20, 2015)

ZeDestructor said:


> Yeah, but how many people hang around forums like TPU and nvidia's? Or have RSS feeds like myself?



They all, like you, have the option though. Seems like that's going to go away.


----------



## R-T-B (Oct 20, 2015)

CrAsHnBuRnXp said:


> It's such a minute issue though. Takes next to no system resources, kills the reboot requirement, and honestly, what is there to hate about Shadowplay? You do something epic and want to save it for personal use or just maybe make a Youtube channel and post stuff up occasionally, it's there. It also has an FPS counter. Goodbye Fraps.
> 
> People bitch about EVERYTHING these days. Fucking grow some thicker skin, take a deep breath, and relax.


I treat this like bundled toolbars for my browser.  Even if they don't slow me down, I don't want them there, and shouldn't have them forced down my throat.  I know this will likely be a program I install just for updates and then promptly uninstall.  No, it's not a huge deal, but if we don't speak up, how is nvidia supposed to know our feelings on the matter?


----------



## Prima.Vera (Oct 20, 2015)

CrAsHnBuRnXp said:


> It's such a minute issue though. Takes next to no system resources, kills the reboot requirement, and honestly, what is there to hate about Shadowplay? You do something epic and want to save it for personal use or just maybe make a Youtube channel and post stuff up occasionally, it's there. It also has an FPS counter. Goodbye Fraps.
> 
> People bitch about EVERYTHING these days. Fucking grow some thicker skin, take a deep breath, and relax.



Shadowplay *DOES *cut your FPS in games by 5-10% which is a lot by my standards....

Check the official nVidia forums and news if you don't believe it....

edit:

more reactions here:

https://forums.geforce.com/default/...rience/forcing-us-to-use-geforce-experience-/

Again, why do I need this junk bloatware on my PC?


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Oct 20, 2015)

Because NVIDIA said so!


----------



## RejZoR (Oct 20, 2015)

I need just the updating part of it. Nothing else. I don't get it why NVIDIA uses tray icon and can't be bothered to add FXAA, FSAA and AF control into it like we had back in friggin year 2000. Instead I have to fiddle with profiles or wait ages for CP to open and load whole ist of all apps scattered over disk.


----------



## CrAsHnBuRnXp (Oct 21, 2015)

Prima.Vera said:


> Shadowplay *DOES *cut your FPS in games by 5-10% which is a lot by my standards....
> 
> Check the official nVidia forums and news if you don't believe it....
> 
> ...



I dont have it running 100% of the time im playing a game. I have it set to record the previous 5 minutes of game play the second I hit ALT+F10. Bam. Captured what I wanted to capture. No additional wasted HDD space.

I also have it save my Shadowplay captures onto my NAS instead of it's default location.

I also like the fact that everyone that has a problem with this, calls the software "crap" and "bloatware" Bloatware takes away system resources. And im talking large amounts. This, takes up maybe 200MB max? Yup, must be bloatware. Or the 90's with limited hdd capacities.


----------



## ZeDestructor (Oct 22, 2015)

CrAsHnBuRnXp said:


> I dont have it running 100% of the time im playing a game. I have it set to record the previous 5 minutes of game play the second I hit ALT+F10. Bam. Captured what I wanted to capture. No additional wasted HDD space.
> 
> I also have it save my Shadowplay captures onto my NAS instead of it's default location.
> 
> I also like the fact that everyone that has a problem with this, calls the software "crap" and "bloatware" Bloatware takes away system resources. And im talking large amounts. This, takes up maybe 200MB max? Yup, must be bloatware. Or the 90's with limited hdd capacities.



I capture to my local RAID0, with temp storage on one of the SSDs, because it's faster than the NAS... the 10Gbit upgrade on it's way should fix that quite nicely...

On the bloatware camp, I can see the argument for not having features you'd never use, but as someone who ran GFE since it's beta to get in on ShadowPlay, only Shield streaming is a feature I don't use, but I can make the same argument for, say, Wordpad, Windows Media Player, and Voice Recorder for example...


----------



## Techmaner (Oct 22, 2015)

Casecutter said:


> In other news Newegg unloading 970's for $250  *No rebate*.
> http://www.ebay.com/itm/381433334938?rmvSB=true


Ohhh my... I want that  Will get it at next pay.


----------



## xorbe (Oct 22, 2015)

Techmaner said:


> Ohhh my... I want that  Will get it at next pay.



It's $290 + $4 S/H now.


----------



## R-T-B (Oct 22, 2015)

CrAsHnBuRnXp said:


> I also like the fact that everyone that has a problem with this, calls the software "crap" and "bloatware" Bloatware takes away system resources. And im talking large amounts. This, takes up maybe 200MB max? Yup, must be bloatware. Or the 90's with limited hdd capacities.



No, bloatware does not have to take "large amounts" of memory or cpu cycles.  It simply has to take any for no particular purpose you will ever use.

And yes, this does make windows to a degree, bloatware.  But that's kinda been the case for a while unfortunately.  It doesn't make it right.


----------



## ZeDestructor (Oct 22, 2015)

R-T-B said:


> No, bloatware does not have to take "large amounts" of memory or cpu cycles.  It simply has to take any for no particular purpose you will ever use.
> 
> And yes, this does make windows to a degree, bloatware.  But that's kinda been the case for a while unfortunately.  It doesn't make it right.



It doesn't, but going back to the point I made much earlier, the majority find it useful/inoffensive, in much the same way as Windows ships with a massive library of in-built drivers and default services installed and often enabled (like the DHCP client, other ZeronConf network services, Print spooler, PDF/XPS printer, Windows Update, wireless scanning).

Sure, they could all be installable from the DVD, or installed but disabled by default, but having them installed and enabled by default makes life a lot easier. That's what nVidia is seeing from their data on GFE usage, and I can't fault them.

Now, if MS would get off their fucking asses and have a proper package manager and would force 3rd partied to integrate with it properly, we wouldn't even be talking about this at all.


----------



## R-T-B (Oct 24, 2015)

ZeDestructor said:


> Sure, they could all be installable from the DVD, or installed but disabled by default, but having them installed and enabled by default makes life a lot easier. That's what nVidia is seeing from their data on GFE usage, and I can't fault them.
> 
> Now, if MS would get off their fucking asses and have a proper package manager and would force 3rd partied to integrate with it properly, we wouldn't even be talking about this at all.



How does making geforce experience a forced install "make life easier" for anyone?  If you can provide me with a legitimate example, I may be swayed.


----------



## ZeDestructor (Oct 24, 2015)

R-T-B said:


> How does making geforce experience a forced install "make life easier" for anyone?  If you can provide me with a legitimate example, I may be swayed.



Just in terms of steps needed:

With GFE installed:

1. Click notification
2. Spam next/agree
3. ??? (wait for automatic download + install)
4. Profit!

Without GFE installed:

1. Subscribe to some form of notification for new drivers
2. Find drivers
3. Choose drivers (correct version, correct OS, correct GPU)
4. Download drivers
5. Extract drivers (using the self-extracting .exe or otherwise)
6. Launch installer
7. Spam next/agree
8. ??? (wait for install)
9. Profit

I don't know about you, but I've grown quite fond of the lazy approach. The only reason I still download the drivers manually is to maintain my driver library (as a companion copy to GFE's autoinstaller, and to make windows installs faster), for old times sake, really.. I mean, I haven't felt the need to downgrade drivers in what.. 9 years now?


----------



## 64K (Oct 24, 2015)

ZeDestructor said:


> Just in terms of steps needed:
> 
> With GFE installed:
> 
> ...



I guess we all have different perspectives when it comes to this. I see from your specs that you are running SLI GPUs so naturally you want the latest driver upgrades for SLI profiles on new games. For me the latest drivers are irrelevant. I don't run SLI and I don't buy games until they have been out for a few years. If Nvidia will continue to release quarterly standalone drivers then I'm not affected in any way from this.


----------



## ZeDestructor (Oct 24, 2015)

64K said:


> I guess we all have different perspectives when it comes to this. I see from your specs that you are running SLI GPUs so naturally you want the latest driver upgrades for SLI profiles on new games. For me the latest drivers are irrelevant. I don't run SLI and I don't buy games until they have been out for a few years. If Nvidia will continue to release quarterly standalone drivers then I'm not affected in any way from this.



Even for single-GPU setups there are benefits to be had... , as can be seen here (first set of results, with the 750Ti) for example. Yes, I know, first party results and all that, but the tests are repeatable enough and nobody came out with contradictory results (and you can be damn sure someone would have, and the "news" outlets would only obligingly spread it far and wide). Fun fact, in some cases the SLI system gets a much smaller improvement (Metro: Last Light for example).

Of course, if you're only buying games months to years later, then even with an SLI setup it's all mostly a moot point (some exceptions apply, like major refactoring of the driver causing a change in performance across all games, or updating game profiles).

On the subject of quarterly driver releases: I expect those to be available for a very long time, on account of the Quadro and Tesla users, both of whom usually get their updates by corporate rollouts using full installers re-packaged for remote deployment (partly to ensure version uniformity across the org, mostly to reduce support calls).


----------



## R-T-B (Oct 25, 2015)

ZeDestructor said:


> Just in terms of steps needed:
> 
> With GFE installed:
> 
> ...



I'd be swayed if there wasn't a missing step there.

Geforce Experience will soon require an account and email.

You may not know this from my presence here, but I pride myself on being a digital age recluse, with no facebook, myspace, or any digital presence really whatsoever.  My few accounts are on things I am interested in, nothing more.  As a side effect, I almost never get spam.


----------



## ZeDestructor (Oct 25, 2015)

R-T-B said:


> I'd be swayed if there wasn't a missing step there.
> 
> Geforce Experience will soon require an account and email.
> 
> You may not know this from my presence here, but I pride myself on being a digital age recluse, with no facebook, myspace, or any digital presence really whatsoever.  My few accounts are on things I am interested in, nothing more.  As a side effect, I almost never get spam.



Only on the first install though.. I mean, it's not like you don't sign into Steam (or sign up, if it's your first time) when you first install it to a fresh PC.


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Oct 25, 2015)

Steam = subscription service (you literally agree to "Steam Subscriber Agreement"); Steam wouldn't exist without it because it is DRM.
NVIDIA = drivers for hardware

They don't and shouldn't mix.


----------



## ZeDestructor (Oct 25, 2015)

FordGT90Concept said:


> Steam = subscription service (you literally agree to "Steam Subscriber Agreement"); Steam wouldn't exist without it because it is DRM.
> NVIDIA = drivers for hardware
> 
> They don't and shouldn't mix.



And how does this change the complexity argument or number of steps?I see you moving the goalposts from R-T-B's original argument that GFE didn't make driver maintenance easier, and I don't like that. I fully admit that I ignored the step in my rebuttal justifiably so, since the first use is very rarely representative of long-term usage. Bringing in Steam as an example was just to illustrate the first time experience vs the continuous use experience. No more, no less.

I can see the point of user accounts not being required from a purely technical/ideological perspective (and personally I'm somewhat... disspointed.. of the requirement), but in practice, you have to give up something in the name of convenience, and in this case nV wants users to sign up an account, and dissenters put on a slow quarterly schedule. Many (like myself) will sign up for the sake of convenience.

As an aside, all drivers have some form of license attached that the end user(s) agree to (including fully free, open-source ones that can be upstreamed directly into OS kernels like Linux and FreeBSD), and to the best of my knowledge everything on Windows that doesn't have terms that are equal or less onerous than MS' terms is simply not shipped with Windows, or will only get a basic class driver developed by MS (like USB drive drivers, for example). Arguing otherwise is simply ignoring pars of the situation.


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Oct 26, 2015)

GFE should be optional like Gaming Evolved.  The moment it stops being optional is the moment in crosses the proverbial "line."  NVIDIA should offer an update tool but it should not require any account with NVIDIA (having NVIDIA hardware should be the only prerequisite) and that should be part of NVIDIA's Control Panel (like Catalyst) with an option to disable it.  GFE should have never handled updates.  If they divorced updates from GFE, I see no reason why GFE couldn't require an account because it is optional software.

In relation to "just in terms of steps needed:" Catalyst automatically prompts on program start to install the latest WHQL drivers if your installed drivers are out of date.  It never prompts for any user information.


----------



## qubit (Dec 9, 2015)

Looks like NVIDIA hasn't implemented this GeForce Experience only change yet as I've just gone to www.geforce.com and was able to download the latest 359.06 driver. That's good, let's hope NVIDIA delay this change as long as possible. Perhaps there was too much backlash from users?


----------

