Nvidia Game-Ready Drivers To Be Locked Behind GeForce Experience

Megalith

Megalith

24-bit/48kHz
Staff member
Joined
Aug 20, 2006
Messages
13,000
Nvidia has decided that enthusiasts who want the latest and greatest drivers are going to need GeForce Experience installed in order to get them.

Nvidia will still release new drivers through its website, but they'll be restricted to quarterly updates for things like bug fixes and major new features. The more frequent Game Ready Driver releases, which as we saw with Battlefront are sometimes non-optional, will only be available through GeForce Experience, to those who have a registered account with Nvidia.
 
Can anyone explain the reasoning behind this to me?

In any case hopefully they go back this decision. Otherwise I'll have to use my junk email, where only garbage goes.
 
Maybe they're going to place ads inside GeForce experience every time you open it. Maybe it will play video ads while it downloads and installs your driver. Maybe you'll have to complete surveys to download drivers? Who knows, only time will tell. They better fix the unable to connect to Nvidia errors for good though.
 
I don't understand the need for this. I don't use GeForce Experience as I prefer manually tweak stuff myself. Quarterly update is just too far apart.

Whoever thought this up needs to be fired.
 
There is only one reason this policy is in place, and that is because at some point in time Nvidia will make money from it. That is all. I am guessing at some point Nvidia will either spam you directly in the interface, or use GFE to collect your system info to sell to third parties that's as good as a finger print for you online. Maybe it's the first step to "free quarterly driver" but pay $x.xx a year for access to have year round access to the latest and greatest drivers even betas. Bottom line it's going to be bad news for enthusiasts one way or another IMHO.
 
lol welcome to the new age of buying 600 plus dollar nvidia gpu and then installing cracked drivers. Soon they wil make you pay 10 bucks a month for drivers.
 
I can see 3rd party sites offering these drivers as mentioned above (cracked). Now we'll have to make sure these 3rd party are trust worthy.

Kind of makes you wonder why the PC market is declining.
 
Deathroned said:
lol welcome to the new age of buying 600 plus dollar nvidia gpu and then installing cracked drivers. Soon they wil make you pay 10 bucks a month for drivers.
Click to expand...


I just want nVidia to justify this expense to me. If it means less broken drivers, 10$ a month is worth it. If it's the same damned garbage, then its not. I know it takes work making drivers but ffs, make it worthwhile!
 
time to put the green team with the rest of the toxic waste.
 
I just installed GFE to see how far along it has came since it was first released. Three things stand out still.

It is still slow. Everytime I click between a game, it loads. It should all be pre-loaded and delay free.

Also, you cannot have it "optimize" the games for you unless you have "Recommend optimal settings" checked. Underneath that, there is a lovely line that reads: "NVIDIA collects game usage and performance data to improve the user experience." It is pre-checked.

This last point is probably me and the rest of the minority here on [H]. All the "features" of GFE, I cannot use because I have a GTX 570. For Gamestream or Shadowplay, you need a GTX 600 or higher. For the LED Visualizer, you need a GPU with LED illumination.

I remember when I first install it a long time ago, it was slow, and all it did was keep the drivers up to date and recommend settings. So, they didn't improve it all that much. At least, not for me.
 
viscountalpha said:
10$ a month is worth it.
Click to expand...

No, it's not. $120 per year is significant portion of the cost of a new video card. I upgrade about every 3 years, so $360 can be the entire cost of the card and then some. I will not pay for drivers. I will not surrender my personal information for drivers.
 
rudedog said:
I can see 3rd party sites offering these drivers as mentioned above (cracked). Now we'll have to make sure these 3rd party are trust worthy.

Kind of makes you wonder why the PC market is declining.
Click to expand...

wouldn't they issue take down notices then blacklist the sites.
 
" If it means less broken drivers, 10$ a month is worth it."

ITs sad that you think that this is ok. I shouldnt have to pay for updates to hardware i paid for.
 
By making folks register, it allows Nvida to check the box marked "Established Business Relationship", which then allows them to bypass many of the "do not call and do not spam" limitations. Plus I am sure that buried on page xx of their privacy policy and TOS of using their website are clauses allowing them to collect all sorts of info from "Established Customers"
 
If AMD doesn't get its shit together, or we don't see a new player in video cards, this insanity is only going to get worse.

The whole: 'This card is not broken, it's a feature you filthy, budget buying pieces of shit. Shut up and buy one of our better cards if you want one that works as advertised.' Should have been a clue to all of us that somebody might be drunk with power.
 
Ya I'm just gonna use quarterly updates then cause there's no way I'm installing GFE.

Hopefully the community finds a way to release the game ready drivers independent of GFE.
 
They can do whatever they like and majority of nvidia card owners will swallow it with no issues. Who doesn't want a fix for a game they paid for to be playable/better optimised on the hardware they paid for? I just can't get the picture of the CEO laughing demonically out of my head. ;)
 
Why are they doing this? They want to send you marketing emails, that's why.
 
Vyedmic said:
They can do whatever they like and majority of nvidia card owners will swallow it with no issues. Who doesn't want a fix for a game they paid for to be playable/better optimised on the hardware they paid for? I just can't get the picture of the CEO laughing demonically out of my head. ;)
Click to expand...

pretty much this... and this doesn't surprise me 1 bit. it is nvidia we are talking about here and why we can't have AMD die.
 
If you are some kind of dumbass who doesn't know what a driver is, or how to install one, or how to tweak a game to make it play to your specs.....ok, I sort of get it.

But most folks that buy discrete hardware are at least able to use dedicated software and install it.

I do not want this fucking bloatware on my computer.

I hope Guru3D or somebody else will post the drivers for us.

NVidia has lost their mind on this one.
 
Spire3660 said:
" If it means less broken drivers, 10$ a month is worth it."

ITs sad that you think that this is ok. I shouldnt have to pay for updates to hardware i paid for.
Click to expand...

You did pay for hardware. But it costs time and money to maintain drivers for that hardware. Expecting it to be free forever is the real sad part.
 
This is good news... for AMD.

Oh wait, with quarterly releases, they'll still be coming out faster than AMD driver updates.
 
As it stands. No. it's not worth it to have bloatware installed on a computer for better drivers.
 
It looks like Nvidia is trying to use GFE to force a console-like social layer on top of PC gaming. Sadly, it might work given Nvidia's dominance in mid to high end PC gaming.
 
I have no intention of ever installing GeForce Experience. I don't install shit I don't need that does stuff in the background that I'm unaware of (except perhaps Windows, but I'm still on 7 and I disable unneeded services, so maybe I'm still ok).

There's no added value with this change. Only lessened value. Nvidia tomorrow is worse than Nvidia today. That's the lesson here.
 
viscountalpha said:
You did pay for hardware. But it costs time and money to maintain drivers for that hardware. Expecting it to be free forever is the real sad part.
Click to expand...

Wrong. You buy the hardware AND the drivers when you buy the card. That's one of the reasons you pay the premium for their Quadro cards.
 
I just don't like this decision at all. I won't install or use the Geforce Experience and don't plan to. I do not want another interface between me and my games. Fuck you Nvidia.
 
Hornet said:
I don't understand the need for this. I don't use GeForce Experience as I prefer manually tweak stuff myself. Quarterly update is just too far apart.

Whoever thought this up needs to be fired.
Click to expand...

Agreed. Wasn't considering AMD for my next GPU purchase but I will now.
 
So... now were at the point where we have to install some spyware/bloatware or pay for/pirate hacked drivers for our video cards to play the latest games, wtf nvidia?
 
Meh, 90%+ (according to PCPER) of NVidia drivers are downloaded through GFE. It still won't be a requirement to get updated drivers. They will be released quarterly and through Windows Update.

Frankly, I actually use and like GFE. The shadow play stuff is useful to me. It's much ado about nothing. Tons of hardware and software vendors require accounts to download patches and drivers. If they were to start charging, then I can see an uproar, but they aren't. This is a prime example of a "first world problem."
 
PeaKr said:
or pay for/pirate hacked drivers for our video cards to play the latest games, wtf nvidia?
Click to expand...
No. Funny how an off-hand speculation above about paying a $10 subscription for video drivers, which isn't even a thing suggested in the article, became real to some people. Also, there's no need for a "crack" because it's not that the drivers are locked in any way. According to the article (relying on PC World as the original source), it's reported that Nvidia will be turning off one distribution channel.

The idea of upgrading the "game ready" driver through GFE only* is bad enough without a crazy conspiracy on top of it.

* since I read the article and the one it's based on, Nvidia said that 90% of its users already upgrade drivers through GFE. Most people won't complain about the change if that's true. However, there's no reason to cut off other download channels since it would be a pointless exercise; people will just get the same drivers from other file hosts.
 
Ya, only a few people are bitching about it on the geforce forums, most of which are in the "I don't give a fuck what I put on my puter" category.
 
I'm not a big fan of this, as I've had issues with GFE on both my laptop and desktop. Program sometimes gets hung up or won't open when accessing from the system tray. Annoying when I keep getting a message from the program in the tray saying there are new drivers yet won't let me open to install them.
 
I can't get GFE to install on my desktop. Get an error message that says, "Could not start GeForce Experience. Check to see if your anti-virus or firewall software is preventing local connections."

Version 2.5.15.54.

I tried temporarily disabling AVG anti-virus during the install and got the same errror message.

I have tried to get tech support from my PC builder but they can't fix it.

Should I contact Nvidia tech support next? Any other suggested solutions?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top