TechPowerUp today released the latest version of NVCleanstall, our popular utility that gives you much greater control over the installation of your GeForce software installation, letting you filter out several components you probably don't need, such as Telemetry. Version 1.11.0 introduces support for Windows 11. The utility will now recommend an upgrade from non-DCH to DCH drivers, because NVIDIA stopped releasing non-DCH drivers recently. A new tweak has been added, which when enabled, shows DLSS status and library version through an in-game overlay. Fixes and improvements include a notice when selecting the "Disable NVIDIA Container" option (that it will break NVIDIA Control Panel); bugs related to several third-party driver packages due to a case-sensitivity issue, etc.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp NVCleanstall 1.12.0Update Nov 11th: We just released NVCleanstall v1.12.0 to fix a bug that got introduced in v1.11.0: On systems with a language that doesn't use "." as decimal separator, an error "Input string is not in a correct format" would pop up.

The change-log follows.

NVIDIA has today launched its 496.13 game-ready WHQL GeForce graphics driver with many improvements and changes. Starting with the naming, the company has jumped from the 472.12 WHQL version released on September 20th to the 496.xx naming released today. Such a significant increase in version naming is uncommon, and makes us wonder why the company decided to do it, probably in preparation for the Windows 11 branch of their drivers, which uses version 500.

Starting from release 496.13, NVIDIA has also removed support for Windows 8.1, Windows 8 and Windows 7. The last driver to support these operating systems is 472.12. This makes some sense, since between this release and today, Microsoft has launched their Windows 11 operating system. NVIDIA also trimmed more fat by removing support for the Kepler architecture, which was launched in 2012 and included models like GeForce GTX 780 Ti, GTX 780, GTX 770, GTX 760, GT 740, GT 730, GTX 690, GTX 680, GTX 670, GTX 660 Ti, GTX 660, GTX 650 Ti and GTX 630.

Update 15:57 UTC: Added confirmation from NVIDIADownload NVIDIA GeForce Graphics Drivers 496.13 WHQL.

Microsoft released a fairly detailed run-down of the under-the-hood changes it made to Windows 11 over its predecessor. The operating system is optimized for a zero-trust work environment. This explains making a hardware TPM 2.0 device a minimum system requirement. The company may even penalize PCs running unsupported hardware with no access to security updates. The company also described fine-grained application performance prioritization, which automatically prevents "trivial" apps from taking up too many system resources.

Apps running in the foreground also automatically get a higher app priority. This is particularly useful when your CPU is bogged down with a heavy workload, and you're trying to open a new app. The OS automatically rations resources to ensure the app you just launched is prioritized, making the experience snappy. This technology carries forward even to the Edge web-browser, where the tab that's active has more priority, and tabs that haven't been accessed in a while are put to "sleep" (i.e. their memory is completely paged, and they're given least system resources). Microsoft calls this "Sleeping Tabs." Microsoft claims that the feature can reduce memory savings by around 30%, which could be handy for your foreground tasks. With the feature enabled, the OS (or Edge) handle prioritization automatically.

NVIDIA Wednesday released a Hotfix update to its GeForce software. Version 461.33 Hotfix addresses a few glaring bugs with the software that need to be immediately put out than waiting for the next WHQL update to take shape. For starters, the update fixes an Adobe Premiere Pro crash observed when using Mercury Playback Engine with CUDA GPU acceleration.

An application hang with NVIDIA Broadcast camera filters seen after GeForce 461.09 drivers has been fixed. Certain stuttering and lagging issues observed with Steam VR have been fixed. Random crashes with "Detroit: Become Human" have been fixed. Incorrect colors on Zoom video calls when using NVENC have been fixed. "Assassin's Creed Valhalla" crashing after extended gameplay has been fixed. "X4: Foundations" game crashes on GeForce RTX 30-series GPUs, and a broken HUD in Vulkan API mode, has been fixed. Grab the drivers from the links below.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce Hotfix 461.33 Standard | NVIDIA GeForce Hotfix 461.33 DCH

Intel updated its Graphics Command Center app to feature game video capture and broadcasting features rivaling AMD ReLive and NVIDIA GeForce Experience Share. The feature lets you record your screen or gameplay and either save the recording to disk or stream to various game streaming sites and social networks. You get control over the resolution, format, bit-rate, etc. The Graphics Command Center is unbundled from Intel's Graphics drivers that have switched to the new DCH driver model. It is currently distributed through Microsoft Store as a beta.

DOWNLOAD: Intel Graphics Command Center (beta)

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of NVCleanstall, our handy utility that lets you have far greater control over your NVIDIA GeForce software installation. Today's release of version 1.4.0 is hot on the heels of Monday's 1.3.0 release, because we discovered a handful additional things that needed fixing or polish. To begin with, we improved the MSI (enable message signaled interrupts) toggle to work correctly in all cases. We also fixed a bug that caused the "New Version" popup to always show v1.1.0 as the latest available. We also polished the advanced tweaks panel, removing empty spaces when a non-DCH driver is used. Grab NVCleanstall 1.4.0 from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp NVCleanstall 1.4.0The change-log follows.

For those doing a fresh install of Microsoft's latest Windows 10 operating system (version 1809 October 2018 Update), you may encounter an issue with NVIDIA graphics drivers. Namely, a message may pop up when you install the graphics driver, telling you "The standard NVIDIA graphics driver is not compatible with this version of Windows". The issue is caused by the operating system automatically installing the GeForce 398.36 DCH graphics driver through Windows Update, immediately after first log-on. DCH drivers are also known as "Universal Windows Driver", "UWD", "DCHU", and "Declarative, Componentized, Hardware Support App", and leverage the Windows UWP platform for driver control panels while promising simpler updates and maintainability.

If networking is available during the Windows 10 installation, the operating system will automatically look for a graphics driver on Windows Update, which is a good thing, as it simplifies the setup process for the majority of users. At this point, everything will appear to be fine, however, once you attempt to update from that driver to the newest version from NVIDIA's driver download page, the error will appear. This is highly frustrating for some users, who have been reporting the issue on several online forums, including NVIDIA's own, with little attention paid thus far from their developers. We encountered the problem ourselves today, during the setup of our 2019 SSD review benchmarking install and got motivated to investigate this further.