NVIDIA Releases Drivers With Full Microsoft DirectX 12 Ultimate Support

NVIDIA’s First Public Drivers for DX12 Ultimate and Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling

New DX12 Ultimate Game Ready and Studio drivers are now available to the general public (preview drivers were previously available to those with a developer account), and these enable full feature support that makes NVIDIA GPUs the “first and only with hardware and software support for full Microsoft DirectX 12 Ultimate feature stack and hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling” according to the company.

“Today NVIDIA released Game Ready Driver and Studio Drivers that deliver full support for the Microsoft DirectX 12 Ultimate feature stack, including: DirectX RayTracing (DXR), variable rate shading (VRS), mesh shaders and sampler feedback. The updated drivers make NVIDIA RTX GPUs the first and only with support for DX12 Ultimate in hardware, plus the software required to take advantage of it. With this update NVIDIA also becomes the first and only GPU manufacturer to support hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling with a public driver.”

“DirectX 12 Ultimate codifies GeForce RTX’s many innovative technologies as the standard for multi-platform, next-generation games. It is defined as a set of DirectX 12 features that represents a new graphics standard shared between PC and console and includes: DirectX Raytracing (DXR) tier 1.1, Variable Rate Shading (VRS) tier 2, Mesh Shaders, and Sampler Feedback.”

These drivers also offer support for hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling, an API-independent feature introduced by the Windows 10 May 2020 update that allows the GPU to directly manage VRAM. Microsoft says this feature reduces latency, and can provide significant improvement to both minimum and average FPS numbers.

All GeForce, TITAN, and Quadro RTX GPUs are gaining support, with the Game Ready Driver release notes for this new version 451.48 listing supported graphics cards going back to the GeForce 600 Series.

In addition to the Game Ready driver a new Studio driver has also been released.

“The Studio Driver also brings improved performance and reliability to a number of recently updated creative apps. Over the past few weeks, apps to receive RTX-accelerated features or speedups include: Adobe Premiere Pro 14.2, Adobe Substance Alchemist, Blender 2.83, Chaos V-Ray 5 for Autodesk 3ds Max and Corel Painter 2021.”

GeForce Experience One-Click Optimal Settings

Finally, NVIDIA’s one-click optimal settings (OPS) in GeForce Experience, which “enable you to instantly configure game options for your system’s hardware, giving you smooth, optimized gameplay”, has added support for a dozen additional games:

• Age of Empires III: Complete Collection
• Command & Conquer Remastered Collection
• Deadside
• Gears Tactics
• Mafia II: Definitive Edition
• Monster Train
• ONE PIECE: PIRATE WARRIORS 4
• Outer Wilds
• Roblox
• Shop Titans
• Streets of Rage 4
• Total Tank Simulator

New G-SYNC Compatible Displays

NVIDIA has added nine monitors to their G-SYNC Compatible program as well, bringing the total up to 98. The newly-validated displays are listed below:

• AOC AG273F1G8R3
• ASUS VG27AQL1A
• Dell S2421HGF
• Lenovo G24-10
• LG 27GN950
• LG 32GN50T/32GN500
• Samsung 2020 Odyssey G9
• Samsung 2020 Odyssey G7 27″
• Samsung 2020 Odyssey G7 32″

The new drivers can be obtained directly from NVIDIA’s Driver Downloads page.