In mid-October, NVIDIA announced that Game Ready drivers would only be available through GeForce Experience with a registered email address, which we covered. Users are able to opt-out of NVIDIA's mailing list, though. They said that this would provide early access to new features, chances to win free hardware, and the ability to participate in the driver development process.
Today's announcement follows up on the “win free hardware” part. The company will be giving away $100,000 worth of prizes, including graphics cards up to the GeForce GTX 980 Ti, game keys, and SHIELD Android TV boxes. To be eligible, users need to register with GeForce Experience and use it to download the latest Game Ready driver.
Speaking of Game Ready drivers, the main purpose of this blog post is to share the list of November/December games that are in this program. NVIDIA pledges to have optimized drivers for these titles on or before their release date:
- Assassin's Creed: Syndicate
- Call of Duty Black Ops III
- Civilization Online
- Fallout 4
- Just Cause 3
- Monster Hunter Online
- Overwatch
- RollerCoaster Tycoon World
- StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void
- Star Wars Battlefront
- Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege
- War Thunder
As is the case recently, NVIDIA also plans to get every Game Ready driver certified by Microsoft, through Microsoft's WHQL driver certification program.
It’s an unfortunate state of
It’s an unfortunate state of affairs when we are being promised things that should already be a given.
And to think, AMD is off
And to think, AMD is off showing you how they made their UI prettier and gave it a new name. Zero mention of game support.
The trap is set…
The trap is set…
War
War Thunder?
http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/war-thunder-firestorm-update-adds-game-changing-nvidia-gameworks-effects
Wowzers.
Render me impressed.
Render me impressed.
It’s sad that WHQL is now
It’s sad that WHQL is now useless except as a marketing bullet point.
“It’s an unfortunate state of affairs when we are being promised things that should already be a given.”
The trap is set indeed.
I don’t understand the hate
I don’t understand the hate for the GeForce Experience software. I have a GTX 970 and i5-3570K on Windows 8.1 and have GeForce Experience software installed. I probably input my email address when I first installed it. The literally only time I interact with the software is when it gives a popup in the system tray letting me know a new driver is available. I never receive emails from Nvidia (opt out has been a thing for years now). The CPU, GPU, and IO load from GFE is negligible for anyone posting on this site. The risk of new graphics drivers breaking other games and programs is very low today.
When I’m using my PC for gaming, I don’t want to worry about downloading and installing drivers. Clicking either “yes install” or “no don’t install” when GFE prompts that a new driver is available seems much better than manually downloading drivers. For the last few months I’ve been skipping the new drivers as I haven’t installed new games.
Can someone explain where the indignation over GFE is coming from? I don’t get it.
Is really simple, people who
Is really simple, people who have no need/wish to use GFE don’t wan’t it to be the only way to get up to date drivers. “negligible” is still more than nothing.
Honestly, I’ve stopped using
Honestly, I've stopped using GeForce Experience to update my drivers after I had, if I remember correctly, three in a row (around when GeForce Experience was launched) that failed to install. I'll give it a try again, since I apparently need to, but I'd still be more comfortable using the standalone installer because of that bad experience.
Same here too.
Not only
Same here too.
Not only that, when it failed, it didn’t explain why until I seek out the manual installer which said that my GPU doesn’t support the GFE features and other component of the driver itself. And due to other issues, has been disables on client’s machines.
The giveaway is a sad way of attracting people, especially when I need a newer GPU to participate. And that GPU will probably be a 980Ti… why win another one if you already have the components that you want? Besides, the odds of winning are very poor. $100K in prizes covers only a small portion of PCPER fans, not even close to nVidia users in the world.
$1G in prizes is more reasonable, if I’m able to join 😛
You obviously haven’t visited
You obviously haven’t visited the GeForce Forums. Its littered with GeForce Experience breaking stuff. Not to mention Nvidia acknowledges it breaks Overclocking on Windows 10.
I guess I’ve been lucky to
I guess I’ve been lucky to avoid the issues others have had.
I think the power users that are rightfully upset by this move are just getting caught in the crossfire of a non-power user targeting change. By locking game ready drivers behind GFE they will increase the number of users using GFE. This will increase the number of users with automated driver installation and automated game settings. On average this will make their users base have a better overall gaming experience.
It also pushes users towards Nvidia’s other software features like shadowplay and game streaming. The benefit for Nvidia would be a mix of vendor lock in and customers that are happier because they actually like the software.
Wont 3rd party sites start aggregating and linking the Nvidia game ready driver releases soon after this change takes effect? I know it’s not quite as easy as going to Nvidia’s site to get them, but effectively it’s still the same correct.
Ideally, Nvidia would just have GFE be an opt-out feature to catch the non-power users while leaving it optional for everyone else. I don’t think their move deserves the indignation it has provoked.
So treating customer who
So treating customer who don’t hand over their e-mail or use a GFE as second class is okay?
Needing to give them an email
Needing to give them an email address is completely not the issue. Use one of the countless disposable email services if you’re concerned. Otherwise, use your main email and unsubscribe immediately.
Why does anyone have to go
Why does anyone have to go through that inconvenience just to get up to date drivers ?
Nvidia is taking that option away and is forcing the inconvenience onto people.
For what ? A better way to monitor their software usability ?
People who payed the same for their cards and don’t use any of the features GFE offers or don’t want them idling in the background which have been causing issues like performance drops and overclocking (Nvidia admits to these issues in their release notes) are forced to wait quarterly for non-GFE drivers.
Pretty stupid to take that option which is currently available away…