Drivers are ever more important to video games. They are a software link between what your video game has to say and what the graphics card has to do accordingly to provide you with the most optimal gaming experience. Also, specific Game Ready Drivers excel at listening to your game closely. They can provide the most suitable instructions to your hardware so that a specific game runs best on your system.
All graphics card manufacturers, including the big players like Nvidia and AMD, release Game Ready Drivers. The timing usually coincides with the release of every sponsored or major AAA title or any titles that need further optimization to achieve a specific performance mark.
Previous reports have shown that upgrading to the Game Ready Drivers for a specific game increases performance significantly, reduces system usage, and even provides better visual quality. Thus, updating to the latest Game Ready Drivers is critical for playing the latest games at the best possible visual quality and performance metrics.
Recently, Nvidia announced a new driver update for the latest games on the market, GTFO and Horizon Zero Dawn’s latest DLSS patch. Apart from adding optimizations for these two titles, these Game Ready Drivers also implement GeForce Experience Optimal Playable Settings profiles to ten games. These games have been listed below:
- Chorus
- EVE Online
- Grand Theft Auto Trilogy: The Definitive Edition
- Grand Theft Auto III
- Grand Theft Auto Vice City
- Grand Theft Auto San Andreas
- Horizon Zero Dawn: Complete Edition
- The Elder Scrolls Online
- Thunder Tier One
- Wartales
- World of Warcraft: Shadowlands
These ten titles join the ever-expanding list of almost over 1000 games that support Nvidia’s cutting-edge one-click optimization technology. Horizon Zero Dawn: The Complete Edition also joined the list of over 140 games that support DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) upscaling technology. Alongside Horizon, three other games landed a spot on the list. These include Chorus, ICARUS, and Lemnis Gate.
Besides all this, the greatest news is that this new driver update squeezes maximum performance out of the hardware. This has been beautifully tested and shown by YouTuber FroznHood in his video comparing an RTX 3080 in the penultimate update, 497.09, and the latest 497.29 updates. The metrics show a 1-3 FPS gain across all major titles.
Performance gain on some lower-end and older hardware is a bit off the mark. The GTX 1660 Ti was tested by YouTuber Wuxing. Although the performance gain of 1-3 FPS is consistent in all titles, performance in Call of Duty: Warzone falls significantly with this driver update. Even though we don’t have a confirmation whether this was caused by any other anomaly, it is a bit concerning. Check out Wuxing’s video below.
The latest update has rolled out already. Nvidia users can download the upgrade through Nvidia’s GeForce Experience software. Alternatively, for people who avoid GeForce Experience for its weird name or the fact it is useless bloat for their systems, they can download Nvidia 497.29 driver update from the official website.
However, this update is not rolling out on every Nvidia graphics card ever released. It will be available on select supported hardware. We will list them below.
| Series | Supported Card Names |
|---|---|
| Nvidia Titan Series | Nvidia Titan RTX Nvidia Titan V Nvidia Titan Xp Nvidia Titan X (Pascal) GeForce GTX Titan X |
| GeForce RTX 30 Series | GeForce RTX 3090 GeForce RTX 3080 Ti GeForce RTX 3080 GeForce RTX 3070 Ti GeForce RTX 3070 GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GeForce RTX 3060 |
| GeForce RTX 20 Series | GeForce RTX 2080 Ti GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER GeForce RTX 2080 GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER GeForce RTX 2070 GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER GeForce RTX 2060 |
| GeForce 16 Series | GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER GeForce GTX 1660 Ti GeForce GTX 1660 GeForce GTX 1650 |
| GeForce 10 Series | GeForce GTX 1080 Ti GeForce GTX 1080 GeForce GTX 1070 Ti GeForce GTX 1070 GeForce GTX 1060 GeForce GTX 1050 Ti GeForce GTX 1050 GeForce GTX 1030 GeForce GTX 1010 |
| GeForce 900 Series | GeForce GTX 980 Ti GeForce GTX 980 GeForce GTX 970 GeForce GTX 960 GeForce GTX 950 |
| GeForce 700 Series | GeForce GTX 750 Ti GeForce GTX 750 GeForce GTX 745 |
This new update is worth getting to keep your graphics card up and running at the maximum efficiency possible.