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
People bitch about EVERYTHING these days. Fucking grow some thicker skin, take a deep breath, and relax.
Check the official nVidia forums and news if you don't believe it....
edit:
more reactions here:
forums.geforce.com/default/topic/885587/geforce-experience/forcing-us-to-use-geforce-experience-/
Again, why do I need this junk bloatware on my PC?
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.
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...
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.
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.
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?
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).
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.
NVIDIA = drivers for hardware
They don't and shouldn't mix.
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.
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.