Intel today released the latest version of its Arc GPU Graphics Drivers. Version 101.4257 beta adds Game On (day-zero) optimization for "Crime Boss." This particular release does not pack any "Fixed Issues" load, as it releases barely 5 days from the 101.4255 WHQL drivers. The company did, however, identify a dozen new issues as part of its "Known Issues" lists for Arc discrete GPUs, Iris Xe MAX GPUs, Core processor iGPUs (since 11th Gen), and its Arc Control software interface.

DOWNLOAD: Intel Arc GPU Graphics Drivers 101.4257 beta

AMD has released its latest Adrenalin drivers for Radeon graphics cards. With support dating back to RX 400, the latest Adrenalin 23.3.1 WHQL drivers bring a lot of improvements to the table, as well as support for Halo Infinite Ray Tracing Update and Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty game. Most importantly, the new driver has a series of fixes, including intermittent driver timeout, system freeze, or BSOD, with the latest Radeon RX 7000 series. Problems in games such as Premium Gold Packs in EA SPORTS FIFA 23 and Dying Light 2 lighting effects corruption have been fixed. As far as Radeon RX 6000 series goes, this driver release manages to fix corruption in certain scenes with ray tracing enabled observed in the Returnal game. Check the list below for the entire set of changes.Download: AMD Radeon Graphics Drivers 23.3.1 WHQL here.

Intel Graphics today released the Arc Graphics GPU drivers 31.0.101.4146 WHQL. These work with Arc A-series discrete GPUs, Iris Xe MAX discrete GPU, and the Iris iGPUs found in Intel Core processors from the 11th Gen onward. For Arc A-series GPUs, the drivers add optimization for "Destiny 2: Lightfall" and "Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty," along with several performance improvements for "Halo Infinite" (DX12). Besides performance improvements, several color-corruption bugs with the game have been fixed for Arc A-series GPUs; and an application crash noticed with "Red Dead Redemption 2" in Vulkan API mode with fullscreen. Texture corruption issues with DiRT 5, and "Total War: Warhammer 40,000: Darktide," have been fixed.

DOWNLOAD: Intel Arc Graphics Drivers 31.0.101.4146 WHQL

Intel became the first of the three discrete GPU makers to release a day-0 graphics driver for "Hogwarts Legacy." The new Intel Arc GPU Graphics Drivers version 101.4123 beta comes with optimization for the hotly anticipated Harry Potter universe-based RPG, as well as the survival horror "Returnal," so gamers on Intel Arc "Alchemist" discrete GPUs can get gaming the moment the game goes live. The company didn't release any fixes for outstanding issues with this particular release, but identified a bunch of new issues with its driver and the Arc Control app.

DOWNLOAD: Intel Arc GPU Graphics Drivers 101.4123 betaUpdate 14:02 UTC: Today's release of NVIDIA GeForce software (version 528.49, lacks "Hogwarts Legacy" optimization.

Update 14:55 UTC: We asked NVIDIA whether a driver update with game-ready support is planned and if there's any estimate when it will come out. The company answered that it had no comment on these questions.

NVIDIA is using artificial intelligence to design and develop parts of its chip designs, as we have seen in the past, making optimization much more efficient. However, today we have a new rumor that NVIDIA will use AI to optimize its driver performance to reach grounds that the human workforce can not. According to CapFrameX, NVIDIA is allegedly preparing special drivers with optimizations done by AI algorithms. As the source claims, the average improvement will yield a 10% performance increase with up to 30% in best-case scenarios. Presumably, AI can do optimization on two fronts: shader compiles / game optimization side or for power management, which includes clocks, voltages, and boost frequency curves.

It still needs to be made clear which aspect will company's AI optimize and work on; however, it can be a combination of two, given the expected drastic improvement in performance. Special tuning of code for more efficient execution and a better power/frequency curve will bring the efficiency level one notch above current releases. We have already seen AI solve these problems last year with the PrefixML model that compacted circuit design by 25%. We need to find out which cards NVIDIA plans to target, and we can only assume that the latest-generation GeForce RTX 40 series will be the goal if the project is made public in Q1 of this year.

Intel Graphics, with its latest Graphics Drivers 31.0.101.3222, changed the coverage of its latest driver updates. The company would be providing game optimizations and regular driver updates only for its Gen12 (Iris Xe), and Arc "Alchemist" graphics products. Support for Gen9, Gen9.5, and Gen11 iGPUs integrated with 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th generations of Intel processors, namely "Skylake," "Kaby Lake," "Coffee Lake," "Ice Lake," and "Cascade Lake," will be relegated to a separate, quarterly driver update cycle, which only covers critical updates and security vulnerabilities, but not game optimizations.

Intel's regular Graphics Driver cycle that includes Day-0 optimizations timed with new game releases, will only cover the Gen12 Xe iGPUs found in 11th Gen "Tiger Lake," "Rocket Lake," and 12th Gen "Alder Lake" processors; besides the DG1 Iris Xe graphics card; and Arc "Alchemist" discrete GPUs. Version 31.0.101.3222 appears to be a transitioning point, and so it has drivers from both branches included within a 1.1 GB package (the main branch supporting game optimizations for new GPUs, and the legacy branch for the older iGPUs). You can grab this driver from here.

NVIDIA today released the latest version of GeForce software. Version 516.40 WHQL comes Game Ready for "Fall Guys: Free for All," NVIDIA Reflex support for "ICARUS," and RTX ray tracing support for "Jurassic Wold Evoluion 2," "Resident Evil 2," "Resident Evil 3," and "Resident Evil 7." Among the handful issues fixed with this release include shadows not rendering correctly in "Enscape," brightness settings are not getting applied correctly on certain Lenovo notebooks with Advanced Optimus enabled; and Club 3D CAC-1085 dongle being limited to 4K-60 Hz display-mode.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 516.40 WHQL

As part of their continued customer-focused approach, Westone Audio launches one of the industry's most technologically advanced universal fit earphones available on the market today. Developed by leveraging over 35 years of audio engineering and artist performance experience, the MACH Series is a one-of-a-kind product focused on delivering sound in its purest form.

"The MACH Series product combines over 35 years of engineering experience and tens of thousands of performance hours to capture this unique and true sound" said Jason Kidd, President & COO, Westone Audio "These sound signatures were previously offered exclusively in our professional custom in ear monitors, but now can be experienced by every listener." MACH is the latest in sound engineering that is bridging the gap between professional performance products and a product for the truest of music lovers. With its unique ergonomic fit, MACH is a product for everyday use and enjoyment.

Tin HiFi isn't bound to any introduction in the HiFi audio industry. Since its beginning, they have delivered high-performing In-Ear monitors in the industry. Among their successful IEMs, is their famous "P" series of Planar magnetic driver IEMs. The series has seen three models so far, the P1, the P1 Plus, and the P2. All three of these have received positive feedback from audio lovers all around the globe. Today, Tin HiFi has released another new Planar Magnetic IEM, the Tin HiFi P1 Max.

With years of experience in designing the Planar Magnetic Driver IEMs, Tin HiFi has designed the latest P1 Max with a new 14.2 mm planar magnetic driver that adopts an ultra-thin lightweight aluminium diaphragm. The P1 Max is said to be easier to drive in comparison to the P1 and P2 models that required high amounts of power to sound their best. The P1 Max features a unique acoustic structure that promises outstanding sound quality with a designer look. P1 Max is launched officially for $179, currently, it is available at a discounted pre-order price of $169, check out more details here.

NVIDIA has recently released their latest GeForce 512.15 Game Ready drivers adding optimizations for Ghostwire: Tokyo, and Shadow Warrior 3 in addition to bringing DLAA to three new titles and supporting 11 new G-SYNC Compatible Displays. This Game Ready Driver adds day-0 support for Ghostwire: Tokyo featuring ray-traced reflections and NVIDIA DLSS support for up to a 2x performance boost. The drivers also see the introduction of NVIDIA DLAA support for Chorus, Jurassic World Evolution 2, and No Man's Sky which can improve image quality at native resolution.

The list of G-SYNC Compatible Displays has been extended with the addition of 11 new models from Acer, ASUS, AOC, I-O DATA,MSI, Phillips, and ViewSonic. NVIDIA has also added GeForce Experience's Optimal Settings support to six new games including Elden Ring, Expeditions: Rome, Mortal Online 2, Shadow Warrior 3, Sifu, and Total War: Warhammer III. The complete changelog and driver download link can be found below.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 512.15 WHQL

If you're one of the lucky few that managed to pre-order a Steam Deck and have had it delivered, you might be interested in knowing that Steam has now released its promised Windows drives. For now, Windows 10 is supported, but Valve is promising support for Windows 11, as soon as the company has incorporated fTPM into the device UEFI. Dual-boot isn't supported at this point in time, but this is something that Valve is also working on and is promising to deliver in SteamOS 3. In addition to the Windows drivers, Valve also added instructions on how to do a system recovery to get SteamOS back on the device, if Windows isn't for you on the Steam Deck.

The driver release includes drivers for the GPU, WiFi and Bluetooth, but audio drivers are missing for now. Valve suggests that those wanting to use Windows on their Steam Deck either use Bluetooth for audio, or rely on USB-C until the company has finished the drivers. This means that no sound will come out of the speaker or 3.5 mm audio jack for the time being. Valve will not offer any kind of Windows support, so it's up to you to get it installed and working on the Steam Deck.

A few days ago, we found out that NVIDIA corporation has been hacked and that attackers managed to steal around 1 TB of sensitive data from the company. This includes various kinds of files like GPU driver and GPU firmware source codes and something a bit more interesting. The LAPSUS$ hacking group responsible for the attack is now threatening to "help mining and gaming community" by releasing a bypass solution for the Lite Hash Rate (LHR) GPU hash rate limiter. As the group notes, the full LHR V2 workaround for anything between GA102-GA104 is on sale and is ready for further spreading.

Additionally, the hacking group is making blackmailing claims that the company should remove the LHR from its software or share details of the "hw folder," presumably a hardware folder with various confidential schematics and hardware information. NVIDIA did not respond to these claims and had no official statement regarding the situation other than acknowledging that they are investigating an incident.Update 01:01 UTC: The hackers have released part of their files to the public. It's a 18.8 GB RAR file, which uncompresses to over 400,000 (!) files occupying 75 GB, it's mostly source code.

NVIDIA today released the latest version of GeForce Game-Ready drivers. Version 511.79 WHQL comes with optimization for "Elden Ring," "Destiny 2: The Witch Queen," "GRID Legends," "Martha is Dead" and "Total War: Warhammer III." Reflex support is added to iRacing. The drivers fix a display corruption with "Call of Duty: Vanguard" and "Assassins Creed Valhalla." Color flashing in "Battlefield 2042" has been fixed. An application-launch issue with Corel Paint Shop Pro X has been fixed. A bug affecting G-SYNC re-enabling on compatible monitors once disabled, has been fixed. Digital vibrance resets when the monitor goes to sleep.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 511.79 WHQL

Mesh shader is a relatively new concept of a programmable geometric shading pipeline, which promises to simplify the whole graphics rendering pipeline organization. NVIDIA introduced this concept with Turing back in 2018, and AMD joined with RDNA2. Today, thanks to the finds of Phoronix, we have gathered information that Intel's DG2 GPU will carry support for mesh shaders and bring it under Vulkan API. For starters, the difference between mesh/task and traditional graphics rendering pipeline is that the mesh edition is much simpler and offers higher scalability, bandwidth reduction, and greater flexibility in the design of mesh topology and graphics work. In Vulkan, the current mesh shader state is NVIDIA's contribution called the VK_NV_mesh_shader extension. The below docs explain it in greater detail:

Vulkan API documentationThis extension provides a new mechanism allowing applications to generate collections of geometric primitives via programmable mesh shading. It is an alternative to the existing programmable primitive shading pipeline, which relied on generating input primitives by a fixed function assembler as well as fixed function vertex fetch.

There are new programmable shader types—the task and mesh shader—to generate these collections to be processed by fixed-function primitive assembly and rasterization logic. When task and mesh shaders are dispatched, they replace the core pre-rasterization stages, including vertex array attribute fetching, vertex shader processing, tessellation, and geometry shader processing.

BIOSTAR today, introduces the SMART UPDATE utility tool for users to update their BIOS and essential motherboard drivers hassle-free. Initially supporting the 600 series and above motherboards, BIOSTAR's new SMART UPDATE tool makes updating BIOS and system drivers a breeze for even the less tech-savvy users. One-click update has never been a more appropriate description for any utility software, with a single click of the mouse, users can download and install official drivers, BIOS, and new driver updates from BIOSTAR's official website. The BIOSTAR Smart Utility tool along with complete installation instructions can be found at the link below.

NVIDIA has today decided to update the company's game-ready graphics drivers with the release of 471.68 WHQL. In the latest installment of the GeForce drivers, NVIDIA is bringing some much-needed support for the latest games. That includes the launch of Psychonauts 2, Naraka: Bladepoint, and Back 4 Blood Open Beta. These new games are now supported and are expected to be played on all GPUs from 3000 series to the older 500 series. As Naraka: Bladepoint game features NVIDIA's latest DLSS and Reflex technologies, this driver version is here to support it. Alongside game support, the new driver also adds support for seven new G-SYNC displays listed below. For a full list of changes, including bug fixes, please see the aforementioned list.Download NVIDIA GeForce 471.68 WHQL Graphics Drivers.

I know what you are thinking—this isn't the typical news content we see on TechPowerUp. Yes, we do cover audio products with plenty of reviews here, including Audeze planar magnetic headphones. When Audeze mentioned there's a whole different thing coming up, and that it involves carbon nanotubes (CNTs), I was quite intrigued. Some of you may have picked it up by now, but all the neat toys I have access to and used in several reviews come because I am a research scientist by profession, with a specialization in carbon nanomaterials including CNTs. So this news post is about my attempt to help explain why the Audeze technology is such a big deal. This is not a review of the actual devices and neither is it a sponsored post, or even solicited by Audeze. It is purely me geeking out about a fairly novel use of CNTs in the audio world, especially when there have been CNT coatings on a few dynamic drivers before but barely put to the potential capable until now.

See, the whole reason the Audeze CRBN (Carbon, get it?) even came about is because an indirect research colleague of mine, Prof. Mark Cohen from the University of California, Los Angeles as well as his startup company SMRT Image, saw a need for a more calming influence for patients undergoing fMRI imaging, as well as better means for the technicians to communicate with said patients while they are inside an operating MRI machine. If you have ever been inside one, you would know that thing gets real loud with magnetic coils rapidly going around and clacking noises galore. Audeze is also based in California, and multiple years of research led to the development of the Audeze CRBN—starting off for medical applications and then coming out also as a high-end retail headphones experience based on the knowledge and IP gained in the process. Read past the break for more on the science and tech, if this is of interest to you!

NVIDIA today released their latest GeForce drivers, which keep your GPU of choice ticking with the least amount of problems possible - in theory. Version 466.47 WHQL of the GeForce drivers are Game Ready for Days Gone, one of the latest PlayStation exclusives to make the jump towards your gaming PC. The release notes also indicate that this particular driver is the base one for correct operation for GeForce RTX 3080, RTX 3070, and RTX 3060 TI graphics cards with LHR (low-hash-rate), which ship starting late May, 2021. Read on after the break for the full list of fixed and known issues, and as always, follow the link below to download these drivers straight from our TPU host.Download: NVIDIA GeForce 466.47 WHQL Drivers

AMD today released the latest version of Radeon Software Adrenalin drivers. Version 21.2.3 beta adds optimization for "DIRT 5 Energy Content Pack." Among the handful of issued fixed with these drivers include HDMI audio device (such as home-theater receivers) failing to install on Radeon RX 400 series and RX 500 series "Polaris" graphics cards; hot-plugging TVs and displays in multi-monitor configurations causing a system hang; "Substance Painter" experiencing a crash with Radeon RX 6000 series; HP Reverb G2 VR HMD causing a system crash when plugging into RX 6900 XT, and the Radeon Software application sometimes failing to look up the latest version of the software. Grab it from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 21.2.3 betaThe change-log follows.

In the anticipation of the AMD Ryzen 5000 series of CPUs launch based on Zen 3 architecture, AMD has just released the updated drivers for its chipsets. Covering a wide selection ranging from B350, A320, X370, X399, B450, X470, X570, B550, and TRX40 Chipset, the updated chipset drivers include some bug fixes and new features. Now there is an updated power plan for AMD Ryzen CPUs that coordinate with chipsets, which means that AMD engineers have developed a new plan for Windows 10 OS which provides the best performance and power usage. You can check out the fixes listed below and you can go to the download link to install the new drivers.Download: AMD Ryzen Chipset Driver 2.10.13.408.

Discovering vulnerabilities in software is not an easy thing to do. There are many use cases and states that need to be tested to see a possible vulnerability. Still, security researchers know how to find those and they usually report it to the company that made the software. Today, AMD has disclosed that there is a vulnerability present in the company graphics driver powering the GPUs and making them work on systems. Called CreateAllocation (CVE-2020-12911), the vulnerability is marked with a score of 7.1 in the CVSSv3 test results, meaning that it is not a top priority, however, it still represents a big problem.

"A denial-of-service vulnerability exists in the D3DKMTCreateAllocation handler functionality of AMD ATIKMDAG.SYS 26.20.15029.27017. A specially crafted D3DKMTCreateAllocation API request can cause an out-of-bounds read and denial of service (BSOD). This vulnerability can be triggered from a guest account, " says the report about the vulnerability. AMD states that a temporary fix is implemented by simply restarting your computer if a BSOD happens. The company also declares that "confidential information and long-term system functionality are not impacted". AMD plans to release a fix for this software problem sometime in 2021 with the new driver release. You can read more about it here.

NVIDIA has today released the latest iteration of its Game Ready driver with the version number 456.55. Marked as a WHQL release, the driver is supposedly going to bring new advancements to the stability of the latest GeForce RTX 3000 series Ampere graphics cards. While the release notes don't officially mention anything on how it improves, it is already confirmed by a few Redditors that the new driver removes crashed experienced with the past version 456.38. In the latest revision, the support has been added for NVIDIA Reflex in Call of Duty: Warzone and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, as well as support for Star Wars: Squadrons game. Below is the link to the driver download page redirecting to NVIDIA's site, and in no time the TechPowerUp download page will be updated as well.DOWNLOAD:NVIDIA GeForce 456.55 WHQL Game Ready Drivers

The change-log follows:

AMD's latest Radeon Software Adrenalin release, version 20.5.1, has introduced a pretty nifty feature: user-based crash reports. The driver suite from AMD now has a "Bug Report Tool" under the "System" tab that's fully dedicated to users reporting on crashes and issues with their graphics rendition, as well as Ryzen Master, Chipset Drivers, and AMD Link. The users' system is automatically populated by the driver suite, and users need only select the specific applications through which their bugs appear before submitting the form.

Some would say this is a feature that has been long coming, and that AMD should have implemented this ages ago - especially when its most recent driver woes increased in severity post-Navi release. An integrated bug report tool is sure to bring AMD more timely reports on existing issues, with a relatively standardized information and debug set that allows the company to work much closer with users while in search for a solution. A worldwide net of QA assistants, if you will.

AMD released its first Dell G5 15 SE-specific OEM driver update, with a single package providing drivers for the APU (iGPU) and Radeon RX 5600M discrete GPU of the notebook. This would be AMD's first Radeon Software release in over a month, as the AAA game release cycle has cooled down, and AMD has its hands full with several new OEM designs to develop drivers for. The G5 15 SE comes with processor options that include the "Renoir" Ryzen 5 4600H and Ryzen 7 4700H; and Radeon RX 5600M discrete GPU option.DOWNLOAD: AMD Dell G5 15 SE iGPU+dGPU Combo Driver

NVIDIA rolled out the GeForce software 445.98 Hotfix drivers. The Hotfix was released to expeditiously correct glaring bugs with the GeForce software. The 445.98 Hotfix improves Overwatch stability, resolves F1 2019 crashes, fixes driver installation on the Colorful GeForce GTX 1650, improves HDR in some games, and includes various other bug fixes. The drivers are otherwise identical to GeForce 445.87 software released earlier this week. Grab the drivers from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 445.98 Hotfix