Thursday, October 15th 2015
NVIDIA Prepares a Controversial Change to its Driver Update Distribution
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.
Source:
AnandTech
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.
173 Comments on NVIDIA Prepares a Controversial Change to its Driver Update Distribution
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.
I wouldn't believe that 90%.
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
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.
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.