Thursday, September 17th 2020

NVIDIA GeForce 456.38 WHQL Released: Ampere Support, SLI Finally Dead

by
btarunr
 Discuss (91 Comments)
NVIDIA today released the latest version of GeForce Game Ready software. Version 456.38 WHQL comes with support for the new GeForce RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 "Ampere" graphics cards. The mammoth software release also adds optimization for "Fortnite" with RTX and DLSS on all GeForce RTX GPUs. The new NVIDIA Reflex technology is formally launched, with support for "Fortnite" and "Valorant." Reflex is supported on all NVIDIA GPUs going back to the GTX 900 series "Maxwell." Optimizations are also added for "Halo 3: OSDT" and "Mafia: Definitive Edition." Also introduced are the NVIDIA Broadcast app, and a host of new GeForce Experience features, including in-game performance/overlay, one-click performance tuning, HDR ShadowPlay Capture, AV1 decoding, support for new G-SYNC compatible displays.

Buried in the bowels of the driver change-log is a big disclosure, that the RTX 30-series "Ampere" GPUs don't support SLI (as in implicit multi-GPU), only explicit multi-GPU through modern APIs such as DirectX 12 and Vulkan (if supported by the game). NVIDIA has already restricted the NVLink interface needed for SLI only to its topmost RTX 3090 SKU, so the lack of implicit multi-GPU effectively marks the end of SLI for future GPUs. That said, the technology itself is very much present on all GPUs that support it, provided games do. NVIDIA announced the GeForce RTX 30 series "Watch Dogs: Legion" + GeForce NOW bundle. Buying a new GeForce RTX 30-series graphics card now comes with a year's membership of the GeForce NOW cloud gaming service, plus you get the next chapter in the Watch Dogs franchise, which supports a ton of NVIDIA RTX features, possibly including DLSS 8K.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 456.38 Game Ready Drivers
The change-log follows.

Game Ready
  • Fortnite RTX: This new Game Ready Driver provides support for Fortnite's dramatic new update which adds raytraced effects, NVIDIA DLSS, NVIDIA Reflex, and a custom RTX map.
  • Halo 3: ODST: Mafia: The Definitive Edition.
Gaming Technology
  • Includes support for GeForce RTX 3080 and 3090 GPUs
  • GeForce Experience Automatic Performance Tuning for GeForce RTX 30-series and RTX 20-series
  • GeForce Experience in-game performance monitoring for GeForce GTX 600 series and above
  • ShadowPlay gameplay recording now supports HDR on GTX 900-series and above (RTX 3090 can capture 8K 30fps HDR)
  • NVIDIA Broadcast app with AI-powered noise removal and virtual background
  • 5 New G-SYNC Compatible Monitors
New Features
Supports CUDA 11.1

SLI Profiles
  • Baldur's Gate 3
  • Comanche (NVIDIA Turing GPUs and later)
  • Crusader Kings III
  • Disintegration (NVIDIA Turing GPUs and later)
  • Population Zero
  • RIDE 4 (NVIDIA Turing GPUs and later)
  • Rocket Arena (NVIDIA Turing GPUs and later)
  • The Blackout Club (NVIDIA Turing GPUs and later)
SLI
  • Implicit SLI Disabled on NVIDIA Ampere GPUs
  • Implicit SLI, where the driver makes assumptions with application profiles to achieve GPU scaling, is disabled on NVIDIA Ampere GPUs. Explicit SLI is still supported, where the application knows the SLI state and uses extensions (such as DirectX 12 linked nodes, Vulkan device groups, or OpenGL multicast extensions) to issue commands to each device in the SLI group.
Fixed Issues
  • [Batman Arkham Knight]: Enabling Hardware-accelerated GPU Scheduling on PhysX games results in lower frame rate.[2988376]
  • [Call of Duty: Modern Warfare]: The game may intermittently see a drop in frame rate when ray tracing is enabled. [3050468]
  • [Detroit: Become Human]: The game may crash. [3037846]
  • [Forza Horizon 4]: Stuttering occurs in the game after racing a few laps. [3101001]
  • [Horizon Zero Dawn The Complete Edition]: Flickering and texture corruption occurs in game after setting Anisotropic Filtering to 16x from the NVIDIA Control Panel. [200638389]
  • [madVR][MPC-HC]: Various HDR issues occur when using the madVR renderer with MPC-HC. [3038381]
  • [Minecraft Java Edition;]: The game may crash when launched with XSplit Broadcaster running in the background. [3052464]
  • [World of Warcraft]: Objects randomly flicker. [3101638]
  • Video playback on the secondary display lags/freezes while playing a game on the primary display if Hardware-accelerated GPU Scheduling is enabled [200586262]
  • [Notebook]: Display is not detected when connected to Thunderbolt 3 port on HP Spectre x360-15t-df100 Notebook. [3087076]
  • [Notebook][NVIDIA Control Panel]: With Clone mode set, only the Developer pages are visible in the NVIDIA Control Panel after hot-plugging a DisplayPort/HDMI Freesync display. [200637570]
  • [Notebook]: When a game is played on the primary display and a YouTube video is played on the extended display, viudeo playback is sluggish and stutters. [200586262]
  • [Pascal GPU][Marvel's Avengers]: The game may crash when switching windows [Alt+Tab] while the game is running. [3101682]
Windows 7 Issues
  • [Notebook][H-Clone]: With the integrated graphics processor as the clone source, display settings cannot be changed from the NVIDIA Control Panel. [200594188]
Windows 10 Issues
  • [SLI][G-SYNC][Red Dead Redemption 2 Vulkan]: With SLI + G-SYNC enabled, the games display corruption and a blank screen.[200645671]
  • [World of Warcraft Shadowlands]: When run at frame rates greater than 60 FPS with high display settings, moving characters display minute twitching/stuttering. [200647563]
  • [Sunset Overdrive]: The game may display random green corruption if Depth of Field is enabled from in-game settings. [2750770]
  • [V]}: HDCP errors occur with Valve Index VR. [2967616]
  • [Call of Duty - Warzone]: Freestyle does not work. (200593020)
  • [Forza Motorsport 7]: The curb may display a black strip during a race on certain tracks. [2781776]
  • [Fortnite]: Blue-screen crash occurs pointing to nvlddmkm.sys when playing the game at 4K resolution. [200645328]
  • To work around, set the resolution to lower than 4k.
  • [Zombie Army: Dead War 4][Ansel/Freestyle]: The Ansel & Freestyle tabs are unselectable. [2810884]
  • You may encounter issues installing the NVIDIA Control Panel from the Windows Store.
  • [Omniverse 2020.2.4496]: Corruption occurs after switching from RTX Real-Time to RTX Path-Traced renderer. [200649160]
  • [Notebook][H-Clone]: With the integrated graphics processor as the clone source, display settings cannot be changed from the NVIDIA Control Panel. [200594188]
  • [Notebook]: Some Pascal-based notebooks w/ high refresh rate displays may randomly drop to 60Hz during gameplay. [3009452]
  • [Notebook]: Performance Power Mode cannot be set from the NVIDIA Control Panel. [200657525]

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91 Comments on NVIDIA GeForce 456.38 WHQL Released: Ampere Support, SLI Finally Dead

#76
HisDivineOrder
lexluthermiesterBecause there is no need to change what works and works very well. We otherwise might end up with some garbage nonsense along the lines of what happened with the transition from Windows 7 -> Windows 8 -> Windows 8.1 -> Windows 10.
At the very least, nvidia needs to fix the scaling issue. Saying, "They might make it worse," isn't really the right answer. The right answer is to fix what's wrong and not make what works worse. If they did that, then... they need to fix that, too.

One shouldn't be afraid of change because of what might go wrong. Just make it better. There's clearly a lot of room for improvement.
Posted on Reply
#77
lexluthermiester
TheLostSwedeNope, disabled G-Sync, hit apply, it was still enabled, so yeah, it doesn't always work. Had to enable it, hit apply, disable it and hit apply again to disable it.
Then you're having OS problems. I can change any setting and it takes affect as soon as I click apply.
HisDivineOrderAt the very least, nvidia needs to fix the scaling issue.
I'd agree with that. I have excellent vision so the small size in 4k doesn't bother me, but not everyone has great vision(no insult to anyone intended).
HisDivineOrderOne shouldn't be afraid of change because of what might go wrong.
Windows 8/8.1/10 anyone? Yeah, there is reason to be weary.
HisDivineOrderThere's clearly a lot of room for improvement.
Example? Beyond the scaling, some would say the control panel is excellent and needs no changes.

Beyond the one complaint above, everytime a new feature arrives, it's easy to set/configure and it's easy to understand what it does(hovering the mouse pointer over the setting shows in reasonable detail what the setting is for).
Posted on Reply
#78
TheLostSwede
News Editor
lexluthermiesterThen you're having OS problems. I can change any setting and it takes affect as soon as I click apply.
Seriously? This is what you're going to come up with? :roll:
Nvidia never have driver bugs :rolleyes:

Yeah, super easy to enable things that you need to read through their documentation to figure out, only to realise they didn't include the promised feature for that one game you play that was supposed to support it... Nvidia Reflex is by no means easy to figure out.
Posted on Reply
#79
lexluthermiester
TheLostSwedeSeriously? This is what you're going to come up with? :roll:
Nvidia never have driver bugs :rolleyes:
I'm not trying to insult you. What I'm saying is that the problems you are having are not being experienced by everyone. Likely not even most people.
Posted on Reply
#80
EarthDog
It works... I think we'd all just like to move past the windows xp themed appearance. Something newer, but well short of AMDs dashboard.
Posted on Reply
#81
moproblems99
EarthDogIt works... I think we'd all just like to move past the windows xp themed appearance. Something newer, but well short of AMDs dashboard.
Ya, AMDs is a little too much.
Posted on Reply
#82
TheLostSwede
News Editor
EarthDogIt works... I think we'd all just like to move past the windows xp themed appearance. Something newer, but well short of AMDs dashboard.
That's it, just something a bit modern where the text fits properly without scrolling and something that scales with resolution. Everything is super tiny on 4K screens for no sensible reason. It's really am outdated UI. I mean, GPU-Z hardly has a fancy UI, but it's still 100x better than Nvidia's control panel.
Posted on Reply
#83
Mussels
Freshwater Moderator
Hell, just give us the same settings in GFE with a newer look and let people choose what one they use.
Posted on Reply
#84
kiriakost
When NVIDIA stops brainwashing the gamers that they need 150FPS all times, this will be their big moment of honesty within 2020.
3000 series cannot deliver such level of performance at 4K, and they baptized 60FPS as good as floating within a game.
I think that they are shooting their own legs.

SLI was the sport of the poor, which they could combine old hardware instead buying a new and further expensive.
Posted on Reply
#85
lexluthermiester
kiriakostWhen NVIDIA stops brainwashing the gamers that they need 150FPS all times
120 is good for me. And really, brainwashing? LOL! Rubbish. Smooth framerates in gaming is the desire of gamers everywhere. NVidia doesn't need to brainwash...
kiriakostSLI was the sport of the poor, which they could combine old hardware instead buying a new and further expensive.
Oh so wrong. SLI was the sport of the rich. Combining two high-end cards to get maximum performance was the goal of many a gaming elitist.
Posted on Reply
#86
rtwjunkie
PC Gaming Enthusiast
lexluthermiesterOh so wrong. SLI was the sport of the rich. Combining two high-end cards to get maximum performance was the goal of many a gaming elitist.
Not really. It found its fame in being able to put two mid-sized cards together and equal or exceed the flagship performance for still less money. It allowed people with not as much money to have performance of the rich.

The high time for SLI would most certainly IMHO be the GTX 460.

In practice it was so hit and miss both in scaling and in games not covered that it was destined to die eventually.
Posted on Reply
#87
lexluthermiester
rtwjunkieNot really. It found its fame in being able to put two mid-sized cards together and equal or exceed the flagship performance for still less money. It allowed people with not as much money to have performance of the rich.

The high time for SLI would most certainly IMHO be the GTX 460.

In practice it was so hit and miss both in scaling and in games not covered that it was destined to die eventually.
In my experience, more people had me built top-tier GPU based SLI setups than anything else. Every now and then I'd upgrade someone who had an average setup with a second card, but that was less frequent.
Posted on Reply
#88
kapone32
moproblems99Ya, AMDs is a little too much.
But oh so much.
Posted on Reply
#89
moproblems99
rtwjunkieNot really. It found its fame in being able to put two mid-sized cards together and equal or exceed the flagship performance for still less money. It allowed people with not as much money to have performance of the rich.

The high time for SLI would most certainly IMHO be the GTX 460.

In practice it was so hit and miss both in scaling and in games not covered that it was destined to die eventually.
Yep multigpu allowed mid range card buyers to skip at least one generation, if not two. I had 6850s in CF until 2015/16 or so.
Posted on Reply
#90
hat
Enthusiast
KrzychI don't get it. I understand that SLI is not going to be supported in future games, nobody expects that at this point, but to disable all support for existing ones?
I don't think it would really matter. Going forward, a single 3080 should handle anything that you used to play with SLI by itself. SLI was always plagued by problems anyway. Maybe the way they do it now is going to be better...
Posted on Reply
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